MINOR MUD AND WATER FOLK. 119 



lived in these days, lie might come here for flies, 

 though they have never bitten me. Perhaps I 

 have never given them the opportunity that he 

 gave such creatures in those marshes of Scete 

 which contained multitudes of huge flies " whose 

 stings pierce even wild boars." For the legend 

 goes that feeling a gnat bite him one day, he, like 

 any ordinary mortal, killed the creature. But, 

 immediately, so they tell us, his saintly mind was 

 overcome with remorse at having lost so good an 

 opportunity of mortifying the flesh. With zeal- 

 ous haste he rushed from his cell to the marshes, 

 and there, amid the flies, abode half a year, and 

 when at last he returned to his friends he was so 

 disfigured a man that he was to be known by his 

 voice only. 



In view of such self-mortification as this, it is 

 reassuring to ordinary mortals to remember the 

 other legend of St. Bernard, who is said to have 

 become one day so annoyed by a blue-bottle fly 

 that buzzed about his ears that he said, peevishly, 

 " Be thou excommunicated," and lo ! the flies of 

 the whole district dropped dead. 



These big flies are not extremely interesting 

 objects. Nothing about a fly is, to my mind. He 

 is associated with too many unpleasant recollec- 

 tions for me to rejoice in his children or in any 

 of his relations. He is an insect known to all 

 people. 



On a fence that walks up a hill I once found 



