ve had another turn along the gold coasts, will you now?"

Amyas laughed, and nodded; and the bargain was concluded.

So out went Yeo to eat, and Amyas having received his despatches, got
ready for his journey home.

"Go the short way over the moors, lad; and send back Cary's gray when
you can. You must not lose an hour, but be ready to sail the moment the
wind goes about."

So they started: but as Amyas was getting into the saddle, he saw that
there was some stir among the servants, who seemed to keep carefully out
of Yeo's way, whispering and nodding mysteriously; and just as his foot
was in the stirrup, Anthony, the old butler, plucked him back.

"Dear father alive, Mr. Amyas!" whispered he: "and you ben't going by
the moor road all alone with that chap?"

"Why not, then? I'm too big for him to eat, I reckon."

"Oh, Mr. Amyas! he's not right, I tell you; not company for a
Christian--to go forth with creatures as has flames of fire in their
inwards; 'tis temptation of Providence, indeed, then, it is."

"Tale of a tub."

"Tale of a Christian, sir. There was two boys pig-minding, seed him at
it down the hill, beside a maiden that was taken mazed (and no wonder,
poor soul!) and lying in screeching asterisks now down to the mill--you
ask as you go by--and saw the flames come out of the mouth of mun, and
the smoke out of mun's nose like a vire-drake, and the roaring of mun
like the roaring of ten thousand bulls. Oh, sir! and to go with he after
dark over moor! 'Tis the devil's devices, sir, against you, because
you'm going against his sarvants the Pope of Room and the Spaniard; and
you'll be Pixy-led, sure as life, and locked into a bog, you will, and
see mun vanish away to fire and brimstone, like a jack-o'-lantern. Oh,
have a care, then, have a care!"

And the old man wrung his hands, while Amyas, bursting with laughter,
rode off down the park, with the unconscious Yeo at his stirrup,
chatting away about the Indies, and delighting Amyas more and more by
his shrewdness, high spirit, and rough eloquence.

They had gone ten miles or more; the day began to draw in, and the
western wind to sweep more cold and cheerless every moment, when Amyas,
knowing that there was not an inn hard by around for many a mile ahead,
took a pull at a certain bottle which Lady Grenville had put into his
holster, and then offered Yeo a pull also.

He declined; he had meat and drink too about him, Heaven be praised!

"Meat and drink