"Not going! Pooh, nonsense! I thought he'd made up his mind to bring down a hart royal, at least, or leave his bones on Balmaquidder Brae." Mr. Everton looked decidedly uncomfortable. "I--I should like to try of all things," he stammered, "but--well--I won't--at least I think--I--I shan't go with you to-morrow--that is, if Sir Alan will excuse me." "Please yourself and you'll please me," replied the hospitable baronet; "but if it isn't any secret I'd like to know what has made you change your mind so suddenly." "He promised Mrs. Everton he wouldn't go," broke in the previous speaker. "She dreamed a dream, and, like Pharaoh's chief baker, she thought there was something in it." "Do be quiet, Jones," interrupted Everton, irritably. "My wife had a rather odd dream last night, and she's a bit nervous, you know, and--well, after all, it's not much to give up one day's deer-stalking, if any one's going to make herself miserable over it." We all knew each other pretty well, this little circle of guests collected by Sir Alan to help him to shoot his Scotch mountain, and very free and outspoken was the "chaff" that flew around poor Tom Everton's devoted head. He bore it with great good-humor for some time, till Jones made a rather uncalled-for remark involving questions of free will and "petticoat government." Then Tom flared up. "I don't stay at home because I'm afraid of anything, but simply because I have promised. My wife dreamed that I went out with this party, and it grew late without any of us coming back. Then she thought she saw me lying face down in the Balmaquidder, and she seemed to know I was dead. I don't remember the details, but I know she worked herself up into a shocking nervous state about it till I promised not to go. Of course it's all nonsense, I know that, but what can I do?" "Do as you promised!" It was Colonel Eyre's deep voice that uttered the words, and we all glanced round at the speaker. He had remained silent during the badinage occasioned by Everton's determination, sitting with his tumbler of Scotch whiskey-and-water in front of him, puffing away silently at the short brier-root, whose bowl scarcely cleared the sweep of his heavy, grizzled mustache. He was holding the pipe in his hand now, sitting erect and speaking with unmistakable earnestness of manner. "Do as you promised, and don't be too sure it's all nonsense, either. I have known cases in which men have lived to be very thankful that they yielded to a presentiment." "But this was a dream, colonel," broke in the irrepressible Jones. "Dream be it, then! Stay at home, Everton. As you say, it's not much to miss a day's shooting. And if you neglect this warning the chances are you may never live to regret it." The speaker took a sip from the tumbler in front of him, replaced his pipe between his lips, and leaned back as if the subject were at an end.