is a strange matter, for a man
to be bidden to sell his house, and not told wherefore.'--`You shall see
stranger things than that,' he answered, `ere your head be hoarier by
twain s'ennight from now.'--`Well! say on,' quoth I.--`Have you,'
pursueth he, `any money lent unto any friend, or set out at usury? You
were best to call it in, if you would see it at all.'--`Friend,' said I,
`my money floweth not in so fast that my back lacketh it not so soon as
it entereth my purse.'--`The better,' quo' he.--`Good lack!' said I, `I
alway thought it the worse.'--`The worse afore, the better now,' he
answered. `But once more--have you any friend you would save from
peril?'--And I,--`Why, I would save any from peril that I saw like to
fall therein.'--`Then,' quoth he, `give them privily the counsel that I
now give you. If the sun find you at Bodmin,--yea, any whither in
Cornwall or Devon--twain s'ennights hence, he shall not set on you
alive. Speak not another word. Mount your horse, and go.'--I strave,
however, to say another word unto him, but not one more would he
hearken. `Go!' he crieth again, so resolute and determinedly that I did
go. Now, I fear greatly that this man did tell me but truth, and that
some fearful rising of the commons is a-brewing. I shall surely take
his counsel, and go hence. What say you, Jack? Shall we go together?"

There was dead silence for a minute. Isoult's head was in a whirl.

At last her husband said slowly, "What sayest thou, Isoult?"

"Jack," she replied, "whither thou art will I be."

"And that shall be--whither?" asked Dr Thorpe. "It must be no whither
within Cornwall or Devon."

"But we have not enclosed," objected Avery, answering rather his
thoughts than his words.

"I doubt," he answered, "whether they shall wait to ask that."

"For me," Avery resumed, "I have friends in London, and Isoult likewise;
and if I thought it should be long ere we may turn again, thither should
I look to go rather than otherwhere. But an' it be for a few weeks, it
should be unworth so long a journey."

"Weeks!" cried Dr Thorpe. "Say months, Jack, or years. For my part, I
look not to see Bodmin again. But there be thirty years betwixt thee
and me."

"In that case," said he, "and methinks you have the right--I say,
London, if Isoult agree therewith. There should be room in that great
city, I account, for both you and me to ply our several callings."

"Whither thou wilt, be it, Jack," said