range pang at the cheerlessness of my hearth,
and an angry and unreasoning impatience at the lack of welcoming face or
voice. In God's name, who was there to welcome me? None but my hounds,
and the flying squirrel I had caught and tamed. Groping my way to the
corner, I took from my store two torches, lit them, and stuck them into
the holes pierced in the mantel shelf; then stood beneath the clear
flame, and looked with a sudden sick distaste upon the disorder which
the light betrayed. The fire was dead, and ashes and embers were
scattered upon the hearth; fragments of my last meal littered the table,
and upon the unwashed floor lay the bones I had thrown my dogs. Dirt
and confusion reigned; only upon my armor, my sword and gun, my hunting
knife and dagger, there was no spot or stain. I turned to gaze upon
them where they hung against the wall, and in my soul I 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.

CHAPTER II IN WHICH I MEET MASTER JEREMY SPARROW

MINE are not dicers' oaths