reet to say so, and heartily thanked the
parson. The good man lived in a time when teetotalism had not ruined the
clergy's nerves, and sanctity was not considered incompatible with a
good digestion and common humanity....

V

Amyntas spent the evening bidding tender farewells to a round dozen of
village beauties, whose susceptible hearts had not been proof against
the brown eyes and the dimples of the youth. There was indeed woe when
he spread the news of his departure; and all those maiden eyes ran
streams of salt tears as he bade them one by one good-bye; and though he
squeezed their hands and kissed their lips, vowing them one and all the
most unalterable fidelity, they were perfectly inconsolable. It is an
interesting fact to notice that the instincts of the true hero are
invariably polygamic....

It was lucky for Amyntas that the parson had given him money, for his
father, though he gave him a copy of the _Ethics of Aristotle_ and his
blessing, forgot the guinea; and Amyntas was too fearful of another
reproach to remind him of it.

Amyntas was up with the lark, and having eaten as largely as he could in
his uncertainty of the future, made ready to start. The schoolmaster had
retired to his study to conceal his agitation; he was sitting like
Agamemnon with a dishcloth over his head, because he felt his face
unable to express his emotion. But the boy's mother stood at the cottage
door, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron, surrounded by her
weeping children. She threw her arms about her son's neck, giving him a
loud kiss on either cheek, and Amyntas went the round of his brothers
and sisters, kissing them and bidding them not forget him. To console
them, he promised to bring back green parrots and golden bracelets, and
embroidered satins from Japan. As he passed down the village street he
shook hands with the good folk standing at their doors to bid him
good-bye, and slowly made his way into the open country.

VI

The way of the hero is often very hard, and Amyntas felt as if he would
choke as he walked slowly along. He looked back at every step, wondering
when he would see the old home again. He loitered through the lanes,
taking a last farewell of the nooks and corners where he had sat on
summer evenings with some fair female friend, and he heartily wished
that his name were James or John, and that he were an ordinary farmer's
son who could earn his living without going out for it into the wide,