He trudged away across the dewy park and was soon lost in the darkness.  In the dim haze under the moon, having packed Mr. Badcock and Mr. Fett in a hand-cart, we trundled them down to the shore and lifted them aboard.  They resisted not, nor stirred.

By three o’clock our dispositions were made and Captain Pomery professed himself ready to cast off.  I returned to the house for the last time, to awake and fetch Nat Fiennes.  As I crossed the wet sward the day broke and a lark sprang from the bracken and soared above me singing.  But I went hanging my head, heavy with lack of sleep.

I tried five rooms and found them empty.  In the sixth Nat lay stretched upon a tattered silk coverlet.  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!”