o' cider, for I'm fair sweaten' leaken'."

Mother and son passed through the archway into the courtyard, and
Ishmael, who had been silently buckling on his belt, took hold of the
rope head-stall and led the horse towards the pasture. As he went his
childish mind indulged in a sort of gambling with fate.

"I wonder if my right foot or my left will step into the lane first. If
it's my right I'll have it to mean that I shall be saved...." Here he
paused for a moment, aghast; it was such a tremendous risk to take, such
a staking of his soul. He went forward, measuring the distance with his
eye, and trying to calculate which foot would take that fateful step
from the cobbles on to the lane. He was there, and for one awful moment
it seemed as though it would be his left, but an extra long stride just
met the case.

"It didn't come quite natural that way," he thought, anxiously, "but
p'raps it means I'll be saved by something I do myself. I wish I could
be quite sure. Shall I have it that if I see a crow in the field I shall
be saved?"

The reflection that for a dozen times on entering the pasture he saw no
crow for once that he did made him change to, "Suppose I say if I don't
see a crow I shall be saved?" But that too had its drawback, as if,
after laying a wager in which the odds were so tremendously in his
favour, he did see a crow, there would then be no smoothing away the
fact, as often before, with "Perhaps that doesn't count"--it would be
too obviously a sign from Heaven. He finally changed the wager to, "If I
see birds in the field I'll see Phoebe to-day:" to such considerations
does a man turn after contemplation of his soul. On seeing a couple of