It was more eloquent than speech.
And harder to get over, too, in a country where there were really
no doctors that were worth a damaged nickel.
You should have seen those acres of people throw themselves down
in that water and kiss it; kiss it, and pet it, and fondle it, and
talk to it as if it were alive, and welcome it back with the dear
names they gave their darlings, just as if it had been a friend who
was long gone away and lost, and was come home again. Yes, it was
pretty to see, and made me think more of them than I had done before.
I sent Merlin home on a shutter. He had caved in and gone down
like a landslide when I pronounced that fearful name, and had
never come to since. He never had heard that name before,--neither
had I--but to him it was the right one. Any jumble would have
been the right one. He admitted, afterward, that that spirit's own
mother could not have pronounced that name better than I did.
He never could understand how I survived it, and I didn't tell
him. It is only young magicians that give away a secret like that.
Merlin spent three months working enchantments to try to find out
the deep trick of how to pronounce that name and outlive it.
But he didn't arrive.
When I started to the chapel, the populace uncovered and fell back
reverently to make a wide way for me, as if I had been some kind
of a superior being--and I was.
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