“Well —­ I thought —­” said his companion, looking at him again —­ “Be you a dominie?”

“No.”

“Going to be? —­ Hum! —­ Get ap! —­” said the driver touching up one of his horses.

“What makes you think so?” said Winthrop.

“Can’t tell —­ took a notion.  I can mostly tell folks, whether they are one thing or another.”

“But you are wrong about me,” said Winthrop; “I am neither one thing nor the other.”

“I’ll be shot if you aint, then,” said his friend after taking another look at him.  “Ben’t you? —­ You’re either a dominie or a lawyer —­ one of the six.”

“I should like to know what you judge from.  Are clergymen and lawyers so much alike?”

“I guess I aint fur wrong,” said the man, with again a glance, a very benign one, of curiosity.  “I should say, your eye was a lawyer and your mouth a clergyman.”

“You can’t tell what a man is when he is as wet as I am,” said Winthrop.

“Can’t tell what he’s goin’ to be, nother.  Well, if the rain don’t stop, we will, that’s one thing.”

The rain did not stop; and though the coach did, it was not till evening had set in.  And that was too late.  The wet and cold had wrought for more days than one; they brought on disease from which even Winthrop’s strong frame and spirit could not immediately free him.  He lay miserably ill all the next day and the next night, and yet another twelve hours; and then finding that his dues paid would leave him but one dollar unbroken, Winthrop dragged himself as he might out of bed and got into the stage-coach for Mannahatta which set off that same evening.

CHAPTER XVI.

I reckon this always —­ that a man is never undone till he be hanged; nor never welcome to a place, till some certain shot be paid, and the hostess say, welcome.  TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.

What a journey that was, of weariness and pain and strong will.  Unfit, and almost unable to travel, empty of means and resources almost alike, he would go, —­ and he was going; and sheer determination stood in the place and filled the want of all things beside.  It was means and resources both; for both are at the command of him who knows how to command them.  But though the will stand firm, it may stand very bare of cheering or helping thoughts; and so did Winthrop’s that live-long night.  There was no wavering, but there was some sadness that kept him company.

The morning broke as cheerless as his mood.  It had rained during the night and was still raining, or sleeting, and freezing as fast as it fell.  The sky was a leaden grey; the drops that came down only went to thicken the sheet of ice that lay upon everything.  No face of the outer world could be more unpromising than that which slowly greeted him, as the night withdrew her veil and the stealthy steps of the dawn said that no bright day was chasing her