The minstrel left them at the entrance of the town, saying, “I regret that I cannot see more of either of you, as I quit Luscombe at daybreak. Here, by the by, I forgot to give it before, is the address you wanted.” KENELM.--“Of the little child. I am glad you remembered her.” The minstrel again looked hard at Kenelm, this time without dropping his eyes. Kenelm’s expression of face was so simply quiet that it might be almost called vacant. Kenelm and Tom continued to walk on towards the veterinary surgeon’s house, for some minutes silently. Then Tom said in a whisper, “Did you not mean those rhymes to hit me here--_here_?” and he struck his breast. “The rhymes were written long before I saw you, Tom; but it is well if their meaning strike us all. Of you, my friend, I have no fear now. Are you not already a changed man?” “I feel as if I were going through a change,” answered Tom, in slow, dreary accents. “In hearing you and that gentleman talk so much of things that I never thought of, I felt something in me,--you will laugh when I tell you,--something like a bird.” “Like a bird,--good!--a bird has wings.” “Just so.” “And you felt wings that you were unconscious of before, fluttering and beating themselves as against the wires of a cage. You were true to your instincts then, my dear fellow-man,--instincts of space and Heaven. Courage!--the cage-door will open soon. And now, practically speaking, I give you this advice in parting: You have a quick and sensitive mind which you have allowed that strong body of yours to incarcerate and suppress. Give that mind fair play. Attend to the business of your calling diligently; the craving for regular work is the healthful appetite of mind: but in your spare hours cultivate the new ideas which your talk with men who have been accustomed to cultivate the mind more than the body has sown within you. Belong to a book-club, and interest yourself in books. A wise man has said, ‘Books widen the present by adding to it the past and the future.’ Seek the company of educated men and educated women too; and when you are angry with another, reason with him: don’t knock him down; and don’t be knocked down yourself by an enemy much stronger than yourself,--Drink. Do all this, and when I see you again you will be--” “Stop, sir,--you will see me again?” “Yes, if we both live, I promise it.” “When?” “You see, Tom, we have both of us something in our old selves which we must work off. You will work off your something by repose, and I must work off mine, if I can, by moving about. So I am on my travels. May we both have new selves better than the old selves, when we again shake hands! For your part try your best, dear Tom, and Heaven prosper you.” “And Heaven bless you!” cried Tom, fervently, with tears rolling unheeded from his bold blue eyes. CHAPTER XIV.