hated the piping times of peace, and longed for the camp fire and
the call to arms.

With an impatient sigh, I swept the litter from the table, and,
taking from the shelf that held my meagre library a bundle of
Master Shakespeare's plays (gathered for me by Rolfe when he was
last in London), I began to read; but my thoughts wandered, and
the tale seemed dull and oft told. I tossed it aside, and, taking dice
from my pocket, began to throw. As I cast the bits of bone, idly,
and scarce caring to observe what numbers came uppermost, I had
a vision of the forester's hut at home, where, when I was a boy, in
the days before I ran away to the wars in the Low Countries, I had
spent many a happy hour. Again I saw the bright light of the fire
reflected in each well-scrubbed crock and pannikin; again I heard
the cheerful hum of the wheel; again the face of the forester's
daughter smiled upon me. The old gray manor house, where my
mother, a stately dame, sat ever at her tapestry, and an imperious
elder brother strode to and fro among his hounds, seemed less of
home to me than did that tiny, friendly hut. To-morrow would be
my thirty-sixth birthday. All the numbers that I cast were high. "If I
throw ambs-ace," I said, with a smile for my own caprice, "curse
me if I do not take Rolfe's advice!"

I shook the box and clapped it down upon the table, then lifted it,
and stared with a lengthening face at what it had hidden; which
done, I diced no more, but put out my lights and went soberly to
bed.