'No, no. It is not so.'
'But read these words I leave with you.' He said no more but went on his way with his dog, going by the side of the river and singing the old hanging tune, 'Fortune my foe, why dost thou frown on me?' I watched him until he was quite out of sight, and then with a sigh turned back to the house and went up again into my library.
*
Shall I tell you of my dreams? In my first dream I had a vision and show of many books, newly printed and of very strange argument; among them was one great volume, thick and in large quarto, which had on its first page my house as its title in great letters. In my second dream I was walking between Aldgate and the posterns on Tower Hill when a great tempest of mighty wind followed me, at which I said out loud to several great personages around me, 'I must ride to Clerkenwell; someone is writing upon a theme concerning me and my books.' In my third dream I knew that I was dead, and after my bowels were taken out I talked with diverse people of a future time. In my fourth dream I dreamed that my wife, Mistress Katherine Dee, had an abortion; I helped to find the dead birth within, one hour after I had caused her to be given myrrh in warmed wine, and the dead thing was a volume with a black cover which stuck to my fingers. In my fifth dream I found myself within an excellent little library room, which seemed in times past to have been the chamber of some student skilful in the holy stone; a name was in various places noted in letters of gold and silver, 'Petrus Baccalaureus Londoniensis', and among other manifold things written very fairly in this study were hieroglyphical notes on the houses, streets and churches of our city. Certain verses were inscribed over the door, viz.
Immortale Decus par gloriaque illi debentur
Cujus ab ingenio est discolor hic paries.
I look down at myself, and find myself with letters and words all upon me, and I know that I have been turned into a book…
There was a cry somewhere and I awoke. I must have poured out my eyes in this place, for I had closed them in a state between slumbering and waking without thinking to steal a nap. But I returned to myself in a moment. It was eleven before noon, and I had been called to dinner by Mrs Dee. I was hungry for my meat and was brisk in coming down the stairs into the hall where, to my delight, the table was already covered. I had long since dismissed any sullen drabs out of the kitchen, and now I have only good and clean servants to aid my wife. She sat opposite to me at the long table, and bowed her head meekly enough as I prayed for grace. Then I began to carve the veal and with great silence and gravity we began to eat our boiled meats, our conies, our pies and our tarts. There are but two courses with us for, as I have told Katherine Dee, too much bread and meat induce melancholy; hares are thought particularly to cause it, so they are banished from our table. Melancholy is cold and dry, and so melancholy men must refrain from fried meat or meat which has too much salt; they must also eat boiled meat rather than roasted. For the same reasons I abstain from the drinking of hot wines and, to preserve myself from distempered heaviness, I abjure cow milk, almond milk and the yolks of eggs. Katherine Dee knows the disposition of her husband and has full keeping of the foodstuffs: I give her money for the month and, having been trained by me in the secret virtues and seeds of all foods, she goes to the market with her maid and buys only good butter, cheese, capons, hogs and bacon.
'Did you see the maypole set up in Cow Lane?' she asked me as I drank my white wine opposite to her.
'I came back another way.' I had already determined to keep silent concerning the canting outcast in the garden, because I knew that it would disturb her.
'It is for the wedding. Did you know? The daughter of Grosseteste, the merchant, is to be married today.'
'So what of it?'
My wife was well tucked up in a russet petticoat, with a bare hem and no fringe, as I like her to be dressed with plainness; yet she had a red lace apron upon her, and she plucked at it with her hand as she spoke to me. 'Nothing, sir. Nothing at all. Some say she is fair, but I have always found her ill dressed. Who would have guessed it with the money in that quarter? No doubt many a man will envy her husband.' She continued plucking at her apron. 'And the maypole is very sumptuous, Doctor Dee. I have seen nothing like. Shall we go to see it? If you will?'
'Wife, can we go to the dinner which is set before us? Will you always be chattering and never quiet?'
'As it will please you, sir.' She was silent for a while as we set upon our meat. 'Husband,' she said soon afterwards, 'I pray you pull a piece of that capon. You eat nothing. You have not yet even tasted of these cabbages.'
I put my finger into the bowl and licked it. 'I cannot taste of them. They are so much peppered and salted.' I saw that I had put her in an ill humour, and it pleased me to provoke her a little. 'And what meat is this? It is the cut I love best, but it is marred. As Londoners say, God sends us the meat and the Devil cooks it.' I had scored a notable hit. 'It is stuffed with garlic to hide the rottenness: if I touch it now, I will smell for three days after. You learn nothing. It is a great shame.'
'If it pleases you to speak so, Doctor Dee, then I can say nothing. But I have tried to do everything to the best.'
'Well, well, there has been talk enough. Now eat. You may talk after dinner.'
It is an excellent room to sit in for meat, having great oaken chests and chairs curiously carved in the old style; the walls are hung with painted cloths where several histories, as well as herbs and beasts, are stained. Here are the sorrows of Job, the opening of the seventh seal, and the building of Jerusalem, all of these a perpetual allegory by which we train our souls even as we eat upon our joint-stools. There is a fine chair in one corner, trimmed with crimson velvet and embroidered with gold, yet it is seldom used except for high company. When I was a boy we lay upon straw pallets with a log beneath as a bolster but now we lay our heads upon pillows, and we dine off pewter where once clay was fine enough. We have Turkey work, brass, soft linen, cupboards garnished with plate, and the chambers of our houses are so decorated with inlaid tables and carefully worked glass that they dazzle the eye on first entering. Well, well, the world turns; but there must also be a light within us to reflect the meaning of such changes.
I had been eating and thinking all the while, when my wife suddenly checked me with a laugh. 'What, sir, you love mustard so? It will make you a red nose and crimson face, without the help of any wine. But lord, how you drink it!'
I stared at her for a moment, yet I could not break her look of defiance. 'If the wine is bad, mistress, then naturally it inflames the passion.'
'The fault is not in the wine but in him who drinks it.' I said nothing, and I believe she repented. 'I will bring you cake-bread then, sir, which will draw the liquor like a sponge.'
When dinner was almost at an end, and these last dishes had been removed from the table, I washed my fingers in the bowl and then called for my book.
'What book?' said Katherine Dee pertly enough.
'Where I read yesterday after dinner. Did you not see it? Are you purblind?'
'Oh, do you mean your book of old fables which you enjoy by the fireside?'
'Not fables, madam. The acts of the ancient kings of England.'
'I put it away,' she replied. 'Away from the fumes of the meat you find so bad.'
She had a sharp tongue upon her still. 'Go to, gossip. Fetch me the book.' She did not budge from her seat. 'Have I not power to command in my own house?'