Then the fat Fleming recurred to his mind, but somehow he did not make him laugh this time. ‘Poor devil,’ he thought, and said _Pater Noster_ again. He pondered silently for a long time, and his mind began to be strangely disturbed. ‘Pah!’ quoth he, shaking himself, and took another draught of wine, but the liquor had no taste and he put the tankard down. He looked upward to the sky; there was still no moon or stars to be seen, only blackness overhead and blackness all round, save for a little lightening in the East where the day would presently break. He thought of the woman who had just left him; then he thought of his mother, whom he had not seen these five years--five years which he had spent in roving, smuggling and pirating from the Hanse Ports to the Holy Land. God knows how many more sins he had piled on his conscience since the day he had last bid her farewell in the tiny apple-orchard behind the house. Then she had had a mad notion of going on a pilgrimage with him to Saint Thomas at Canterbury, and he had told her to keep her old bones safe by the fireside and to leave such junketings to young wenches. ‘Ah,’ she had answered, ‘I should be easier in my mind had thou and I made vows together at the tomb of the Holy Thomas.’ He had replied to her roughly to keep house and to say her prayers at home, and had trudged away without more ado in his ill-temper. He remembered her now standing under the trees and looking sadly after him. He thought there had been tears in her eyes, and at the time he had been fain to whistle to make his mind the easier. Peter was an evil fellow, and he knew it. There were few knavish trades asea or ashore to which he had not turned his hand. Many were the gallows that ached for him, many were those who had vowed to have their own by him again, and many were the souls who would accuse him before the Righteous Judge at the Dreadful Doomsday. Yet his mother had taught him _Ave_, _Pater Noster_, and _Credo_ as soon as he might run and talk, and had nurtured him in all good religion. Truly she was a godly woman, this mother of his, and she had borne a graceless son. Surely she would sit with the Saints at last around Our dear Lord’s feet, while he would have his portion in the Lake which burns with fire. If only with a word he could undo five years, why, then he might start again.