discredit--as that I shall die sooner or later, a thing that goes
against my stomach; or that at the best I shall grow old, which runs
counter to my will. He's that uncomfortable, too, you can't please
him. Take him hopeful, and you're counting your chickens; take him
doleful, and foreboding is worse than witchcraft. There was a
Mevagissey man I sailed with as a boy--and your father's tale just
now put me in mind of him--paid half a crown to a conjurer, one time,
to have his fortune told; which was, that he would marry the ugliest
maid in the parish. Whereby it preyed on his mind till he hanged
hisself. Whereby along comes the woman in the nick o' time, cuts him
down, an' marries him out o' pity while he's too weak to resist.
That's your Future; and, as I say, I keeps en at arm's length."

With this philosophy of Billy I had to be content and find my own
guesses at the mystery. But as the afternoon wore on I kept no hold
on any speculation for more than a few minutes. I was saddle-weary,
drowsed with sunburn and the moving landscape over which the sun,
when I turned, swam in a haze of dust. The villages crowded closer,
and at the entry of each I thought London was come; but anon the
houses thinned and dwindled and we were between hedgerows again.
So it lasted, village after village, until with the shut of night,
when the long shadows of our horses before us melted into dusk, a
faint glow opened on the sky ahead and grew and brightened.
I knew it: but even as I saluted it my chin dropped forward and I
dozed. In a dream I rode through the lighted streets, and at the
door of our lodgings my father lifted me down from the saddle.



CHAPTER III.