He sprang up at my touch
and felt for his sword.

"Past three o'clock and fine clear mornin'!" sang I, mimicking the
Oxford watch, and with my foot the tap of his staff as he had used to
pass along Holy well.

"Hey! now the day dawis,
The jolly cock crawis--"

"The wind will head us in the upper reach: but beyond it blows fair
for Corsica!"

He leapt to his feet and laughed, blithe as the larks now chorussing
outside the window. But my head was heavy, and somehow my heart too,
as we walked down to the shore.

My Uncle Gervase stood on the grass-grown quay; my father on the
deck. They had already said their goodbyes. With his right hand my
uncle took mine, at the same time laying his left on my shoulder; and
said he--

"Farewell, lad. The rivers in Corsica be short and eager, as I hear;
and slight fishing in them near the coast, the banks being overgrown.
But it seems there are good trout, and in the mountain pools.

"Whether they be the same as our British trout I cannot discover.
I desire you to make certain. Also if the sardines of those parts be
the same as our Cornish pilchards, but smaller. Belike they start
from the Mediterranean Sea and reach their full size on our coasts.

"The migrations of fishes are even less understood than those of the
birds. Yet both (being annual) will teach you, if you consider them,
to think little of this parting. God knows, lad, how sorely I spare
you.

"Do justice, observe mercy, and walk humbly before thy God. This if
they should happen to make you king, as your father promises.

"They have an animal very like a sheep, but wilder and fiercer.
If you have the luck to shoot one, I shall be glad of his skin.

"'Twill be a job here, making two ends meet. But as our Lord said,
Sufficient for the day is its evil. I have put a bottle of tar-water
in your berth.

"I have often wished to set eyes on the Mediterranean Sea.
A sea without tides must be but half a sea--speaking with all respect
to the Almighty, who made it.

"You will pick up the wind in the lower reach.

"There was a trick or two of fence I taught you aforetime.
I had meant to remind you of 'em. But enough, lad. Shake hands.
. . . The Lord have you in His keeping!"

Good man! For a long while after we had thrust off from the quay,
the two seamen in the cock-boat towing us, he stood there and waved
farewells; but turned before we reached the river bend, and went his
way up through