'If he escape he will make for Bradford Orcas and hide in the Corton woods. That is quite certain. They always make for home. I would that we were in that friendly place, so that you could go live in the cottage and bring provisions, with tobacco and drink, to us unsuspected and unseen. When we have rested here a while we will push across the hills and try to get there by night; but it is a weary way to drag that wounded man. However'--he broke off and said earnestly--'make up thy mind, Child, to the worst. 'Tis as if a shipwrecked man should hope that enough of the ship would float to carry him home withal. Make up thy mind. We are all ruined and lost--all--all--all. Thy father is dying--thy lover is dead--thou art thyself in great danger by reason of that affair at Taunton. Everything being gone, turn round therefore and make thyself as comfortable as possible. What will happen we know not. Therefore count every day of safety for gain, and every meal for a respite.' He was silent for a while, leaving me to think over what he had said. Here, indeed, was a philosopher. Things being all lost, and our affairs in a desperate condition, we were to turn round and make ourselves as comfortable as we could! This, I suppose, is what sailors are wont to do; certainly they are a folk more exposed to misfortune than others, and therefore, perhaps, more ready to make the best of whatever happens. 'Barnaby,' I said presently, 'how can I turn round and make myself comfortable?' 'The evening is still,' he said, without replying. 'See, there is a bat, and there another. If it were not for the trouble in there'--he pointed to the hut--'I should be easy in my mind and contented. I could willingly live here a twelvemonth. Why, compared with the lot of the poor devils who must now be in prison, what is ours? They get the foul and stinking clink, with bad food, in the midst of wounded men whose hurts are putrefying, with jail fever, and with the whipping-post or the gallows to come. We breathe sweet air, we find sufficient food--to-morrow, if I know any of the signs, thou shalt taste a roasted hedgehog, dish fit for a king! I found at the bottom of the comb a pot left by some gipsies: thou shalt have boiled sorrel and mushrooms to thy supper. If we stay here long enough there will be nuts and blackberries and whortleberries. Pity, a thousand pities, there is not a drop of drink! I dream of punch and hipsy. Think upon what remains, even if thou canst not bear to think of what is lost. Hast ever seen a tall ship founder in the waves? They close over her as she sinks, and, in an instant, it is as if that tall ship with all her crew had never been in existence at all. The army of Monmouth is scattered and ruined. Well; it is, with us, amidst these woods, just as if there had been no army. It has been a dream perhaps. Who can tell? Sometimes all the past seems to have been a dream. It is all a dream--past and future. There is