“No doubt,” resumed he, “King Solomon was quite right, as he always was, I suppose, in what he SAID, for his wisdom mun ha’ laid mostly in the tongue—right, I say, when he said, ‘Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth;’ but I can’t help thinking there’s another side to it. I think it would be as good advice to a man on the other tack, whose boasting lay far to windward, and he close on a lee-shore wi’ breakers—it wouldn’t be amiss to say to him, ‘Don’t strike your colours to the morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.’ There’s just as many good days as bad ones; as much fair weather as foul in the days to come. And if a man keeps up heart, he’s all the better for that, and none the worse when the evil day does come. But, God forgive me! I’m talking like a heathen. As if there was any chance about what the days would bring forth. No, my lad,” said the old sailor, assuming the dignity of his superior years under the inspiration of the truth, “boast nor trust nor hope in the morrow. Boast and trust and hope in God, for thou shalt yet praise Him, who is the health of thy countenance and thy God.” I could but hold out my hand. I had nothing to say. For he had spoken to me as an angel of God. The old man was silent for some moments: his emotion needed time to still itself again. Nor did he return to the subject. He held out his hand once more, saying— “Good day, sir. I must go back to my work.” “I will go back with you,” I returned. And so we walked back side by side to the village, but not a word did we speak the one to the other, till we shook hands and parted upon the bridge, where we had first met. Old Rogers went to his work, and I lingered upon the bridge. I leaned upon the low parapet, and looked up the stream as far as the mists creeping about the banks, and hovering in thinnest veils over the surface of the water, would permit. Then I turned and looked down the river crawling on to the sweep it made out of sight just where Mr Brownrigg’s farm began to come down to its banks. Then I looked to the left, and there stood my old church, as quiet in the dreary day, though not so bright, as in the sunshine: even the graves themselves must look yet more “solemn sad” in a wintry day like this, than they look when the sunlight that infolds them proclaims that God is not the God of the dead but of the living. One of the great battles that we have to fight in this world—for twenty great battles have to be fought all at once and in one—is the battle with appearances. I turned me to the right, and there once more I saw, as on that first afternoon, the weathercock that watched the winds over the stables at Oldcastle Hall. It had caught just one glimpse of the sun through some rent in the vapours, and flung it across to me, ere it vanished again amid the general dinginess of the hour. CHAPTER XXV. TWO PARISHIONERS.