me and insisting upon my coming in with him for a morning cup.

'The best glass of mead in the countryside, and brewed under my own
roof,' said he proudly, as he poured it into the flagon. 'Why, bless
you, master Micah, a man with a frame like yours wants store o' good
malt to keep it up wi'.'

'And malt like this is worthy of a good frame to contain it,' quoth
Reuben, who was at work among the flasks.

'What think ye, Micah?' said the landlord. 'There was the Squire o'
Milton over here yester morning wi' Johnny Ferneley o' the Bank side,
and they will have it that there's a man in Fareham who could wrestle
you, the best of three, and find your own grip, for a good round stake.'

'Tut! tut!' I answered; 'you would have me like a prize mastiff, showing
my teeth to the whole countryside. What matter if the man can throw me,
or I him?'

'What matter? Why, the honour of Havant,' quoth he. 'Is that no matter?
But you are right,' he continued, draining off his horn. 'What is all
this village life with its small successes to such as you? You are as
much out of your place as a vintage wine at a harvest supper. The whole
of broad England, and not the streets of Havant, is the fit stage for
a man of your kidney. What have you to do with the beating of skins and
the tanning of leather?'

'My father would have you go forth as a knight-errant, Micah,' said
Reuben, laughing. 'You might chance to get your own skin beaten and your
own leather tanned.'

'Who ever knew so long a tongue in so short a body?' cried the
innkeeper. 'But in good sooth, Master Micah, I am in sober earnest when
I say that you are indeed wasting the years of your youth, when life is
sparkling and clear, and that you will regret it when you have come to
the flat and flavourless dregs of old age.'

'There spoke the brewer,' said Reuben; 'but indeed, Micah, my father is
right, for all that he hath such a hops-and-water manner of putting it.'

'I will think over it,' I answered, and with a nod to the kindly couple
proceeded on my way.

Zachariah Palmer was planing a plank as I passed. Looking up he bade me
good-morrow.

'I have a book for you, lad,' he said.

'I have but now finished the "Comus,"' I answered, for he had lent me
John Milton's poem. 'But what is this new book, daddy?'

'It is by the learned Locke, and treateth of states and statecraft. It
is but a small thing, but if wisdom could show in the scales it would
weigh down many a library. Y