d change your mind, seek me here
'twixt this and dawn, if to-morrow ye shall hear o' Godby at the Fox at
Spelmonden. So luck go wi' ye, my bien cull."

"And you," says I, "should you be minded to sail with me, go to the
Peck-o'-Malt at Bedgbury Cross--the word is 'The Faithful Friend,' and
ask for Adam Penfeather."

So I presently stepped forth of the little tavern where I had found
such kindliness and, turning from the narrow lane, struck off across
the fields.

It was a sweet, warm night, the moon not up as yet, thus as I went I
lifted my gaze to the heavens where stars made a glory. And beholding
these wondrous fires I needs must recall the little peddler's saying
and ponder his "good times"--his "times of stars and birds, of noon and
eventide, of welcomes sweet and eyes of love."

And now I was of a sudden filled with a great yearning and passionate
desire that I too might know such times. But, as I climbed a stile, my
hand by chance came upon the knife at my girdle, and sitting on the
stile I drew it forth and fell to handling its broad blade, and, doing
so, knew in my heart that such times were not for me, nor ever could
be. And sitting there, knife in hand, desire and yearning were lost
and 'whelmed in fierce and black despair.

CHAPTER IX

HOW I HAD WORD WITH THE LADY JOAN BRANDON FOR THE THIRD TIME

The moon was well up when, striking out from the gloom of the woods, I
reached a wall very high and strong, whereon moss and lichens grew;
skirting this, I presently espied that I sought--a place where the
coping was gone with sundry of the bricks, making here a gap very apt
to escalade; and here, years agone, I had been wont to climb this wall
to the furtherance of some boyish prank on many a night such as this.
Awhile stood I staring up at this gap, then, seizing hold of massy
brickwork, I drew myself up and dropped into a walled garden. Here
were beds of herbs well tended and orderly, and, as I went, I breathed
an air sweet with the smell of thyme and lavender and a thousand other
scents, an air fraught with memories of sunny days and joyous youth,
insomuch that I clenched my hands and hasted from the place. Past
sombre trees, mighty of girth and branch, I hurried; past still pools,
full of a moony radiance, where lilies floated; past marble fauns and
dryads that peeped ghost-like from leafy solitudes; past sundial and
carven bench, by clipped yew-hedges and winding walks until, screened
in shado