It was the noon spell on a day in late October, and Constans sat on the river end of the long wooden pier at the tanyard eating his luncheon of bread and bacon scraps. The tide was running up slowly, as could be noted from the bubbles and drift-wood that circled past the piling of the wharf, and Constans, happening to glance down into the swirl, saw something that brought him to his feet. Nothing more remarkable than a bottle of thick, greenish glass, but bottles of any kind had become valuable now that the art of glass blowing was so little practised, and such flotsam was not to be despised. Having strung a length of noosed cord to a light pole, Constans threw himself flat along the string-piece of the pier and began angling for the prize. A failure or two and then he had it snared securely; now it was in his hand. The bottle was foul with slime and fungous growth, showing that it had been in the water for a long period. Possibly it had been out to sea and back many times before this particular flood-tide had brought it to Messer Hugolin's tannery and under the eyes of one who would have the wit to distinguish it from a rotten stick. At all events it had found a port at last. The bottle had been corked and then sealed with pitch, and Constans had to use some care in getting at its contents, a slender cylinder of tightly rolled paper. Finally he succeeded in drawing it out uninjured, and saw that it was superscribed to his uncle Hugolin. The old man looked up with a frown as Constans presented himself at the door of the counting-room. The rest hour was over and Constans's place was at the tan-pit. How was the work to get done if everybody shirked their part of the common task? A message in a bottle. What foolery was this? Nevertheless, Messer Hugolin extended his hand to receive the roll, and, removing the waxed string that bound it, knit his brows over the enclosure--half a dozen sheets of writing. Constans was about to retire discreetly, but Messer Hugolin raised his hand. "The writing is too fine for my eyes," he grumbled. "Read it for me, nephew; but, harkee! you will keep your mouth shut whatever its import." Then, in a sudden gust of passion: "A thousand plagues on that fool of an up-river factor who broke for me my reading-glass! Not another one to be had in Croye for good-will or gold, and I compelled to borrow another's eyes, to live at the mercy of my meanest clerk. Come, boy, you must have the sense of it by this time!" "Shall I read it aloud?" asked Constans, and then, in compliance with his uncle's nod, he began: "'Dated at Doom, in the year 90 after the Great Change.