cry out at the creature's bite.' 'Ye shan't cry out,' Harold said then, 'for I shall kiss ye.'
"And straightway he embraced me and kissed my mouth tight shut, and, while we were a-kissing, suddenly I felt the great torn leech his fearful bite, and I was maiden no more! At first I wept, not alone from the pain he'd warned of, but from alarm at what I'd learned o' the leech's nature. But e'en as Harold promised, the pain soon flew, and his great torn leech took bite after bite till near sunup, by which time, though I was by no means weary o' the leeching, my Harold had no more leech to leech with, but only a poor cockroach or simple pismire, not fit for the work, which scurried away at the first light. 'Twas then I learned the queer virtue o' this animal: for just as a fleabite, the more ye scratch it, wants scratching the more, so, once this creature had bit me, I longed for further bites and was forever after poor Harold and his leech, like an opium eater his phial. And though since then I've suffered the bite of every sort and size -- none more fearsome or ravenous than my good John's -- yet the craving plagues me still, till I shiver at the thought o' the great torn leech!"
"Stop, I beg thee!" Ebenezer pleaded. "I cannot hear more! What, 'Dear Uncle,' you call him, and 'Poor Harold'! Ah, the knave, the scoundrel, to deceive you so, who loved and trusted him! 'Twas no leechery he put thee to, but lechery, and laid thy maiden body forever in the bed of harlotry! I curse him, and his ilk!"
"Ye say't with relish," smiled Joan, "as one who'd do the like with fire in his eye and sweat on his arse, could he find himself a child fond as I. Nay, Ebenezer, rail not at poor dear Harold, who is these several years under the sod from an ague got swiving ardently in cold chambers. Says I, 'tis but the nature o' the leech to bite and of the leeched to want biting, and 'tis a mystery and astonishment to me, since so many crave leeching and the best leech is so lightly surfeited, how yours hath gone starved, as ye declare, these thirty years! What, are ye a mere arrant sluggard, sir? Or are ye haply o' that queer sort who lust for none but their own sex? 'Tis a thing past grasping!"
"Nor the one nor the other," replied Ebenezer. "I am man in spirit as well as body, and my innocence is not wholly my own choosing. I have ere now been ready enough, but to grind love's grain wants mortar as well as pestle; no man dances the morris dance alone, and till this night no woman e'er looked on me with favor."
"Marry!" laughed Joan. "Doth the ewe chase the ram, or the hen the cock? Doth the field come to the plow for furrowing, or the scabbard to the sword for sheathing? 'Tis all arsy-turvy ye look at the world!"
"That I grant," sighed Ebenezer, "but I know naught of the art of seduction, nor have the patience for't."
"Foeh! There's no great labor to the bedding of women! For the most, all a man need do, I swear, is ask plainly and politely, did he but know it."
"How is that?" exclaimed Ebenezer in astonishment. "Are women then so lecherous?"
"Nay." said Joan. "Think not we crave a swiving pure and simple at any time as do men always -- 'tis oft a pleasure with us. but rarely a passion. Howbeit, what with men forever panting at us like so many hounds at a salt-bitch, and begging us out by our virtue and give 'em a tumble, and withal despising us for whores and slatterns if we do; or bidding us be faithful to our husbands and yet losing no chance to cuckold their truest friends; or charging us to guard our chastity and yet assaulting it from all quarters in every alleyway, carriage, or sitting room; or being soon bored with us if we show no fire in swiving and yet sermoning us for sinners if we do; inventing morals on the one hand and rape on the other; and in general preaching us to virtue whilst they lure us on to vice -- what with the pull and haul of all this, I say, we women are forever at sixes and sevens, all fussed and rattled and torn
"And straightway he embraced me and kissed my mouth tight shut, and, while we were a-kissing, suddenly I felt the great torn leech his fearful bite, and I was maiden no more! At first I wept, not alone from the pain he'd warned of, but from alarm at what I'd learned o' the leech's nature. But e'en as Harold promised, the pain soon flew, and his great torn leech took bite after bite till near sunup, by which time, though I was by no means weary o' the leeching, my Harold had no more leech to leech with, but only a poor cockroach or simple pismire, not fit for the work, which scurried away at the first light. 'Twas then I learned the queer virtue o' this animal: for just as a fleabite, the more ye scratch it, wants scratching the more, so, once this creature had bit me, I longed for further bites and was forever after poor Harold and his leech, like an opium eater his phial. And though since then I've suffered the bite of every sort and size -- none more fearsome or ravenous than my good John's -- yet the craving plagues me still, till I shiver at the thought o' the great torn leech!"
"Stop, I beg thee!" Ebenezer pleaded. "I cannot hear more! What, 'Dear Uncle,' you call him, and 'Poor Harold'! Ah, the knave, the scoundrel, to deceive you so, who loved and trusted him! 'Twas no leechery he put thee to, but lechery, and laid thy maiden body forever in the bed of harlotry! I curse him, and his ilk!"
"Ye say't with relish," smiled Joan, "as one who'd do the like with fire in his eye and sweat on his arse, could he find himself a child fond as I. Nay, Ebenezer, rail not at poor dear Harold, who is these several years under the sod from an ague got swiving ardently in cold chambers. Says I, 'tis but the nature o' the leech to bite and of the leeched to want biting, and 'tis a mystery and astonishment to me, since so many crave leeching and the best leech is so lightly surfeited, how yours hath gone starved, as ye declare, these thirty years! What, are ye a mere arrant sluggard, sir? Or are ye haply o' that queer sort who lust for none but their own sex? 'Tis a thing past grasping!"
"Nor the one nor the other," replied Ebenezer. "I am man in spirit as well as body, and my innocence is not wholly my own choosing. I have ere now been ready enough, but to grind love's grain wants mortar as well as pestle; no man dances the morris dance alone, and till this night no woman e'er looked on me with favor."
"Marry!" laughed Joan. "Doth the ewe chase the ram, or the hen the cock? Doth the field come to the plow for furrowing, or the scabbard to the sword for sheathing? 'Tis all arsy-turvy ye look at the world!"
"That I grant," sighed Ebenezer, "but I know naught of the art of seduction, nor have the patience for't."
"Foeh! There's no great labor to the bedding of women! For the most, all a man need do, I swear, is ask plainly and politely, did he but know it."
"How is that?" exclaimed Ebenezer in astonishment. "Are women then so lecherous?"
"Nay." said Joan. "Think not we crave a swiving pure and simple at any time as do men always -- 'tis oft a pleasure with us. but rarely a passion. Howbeit, what with men forever panting at us like so many hounds at a salt-bitch, and begging us out by our virtue and give 'em a tumble, and withal despising us for whores and slatterns if we do; or bidding us be faithful to our husbands and yet losing no chance to cuckold their truest friends; or charging us to guard our chastity and yet assaulting it from all quarters in every alleyway, carriage, or sitting room; or being soon bored with us if we show no fire in swiving and yet sermoning us for sinners if we do; inventing morals on the one hand and rape on the other; and in general preaching us to virtue whilst they lure us on to vice -- what with the pull and haul of all this, I say, we women are forever at sixes and sevens, all fussed and rattled and torn
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