Another waggon had shot its load, and was jolting out through the rickyard gate, as we swung ourselves in, shouting, over its tail Edward was the first up, and, as I gained my feet, he clutched me in a death-grapple. I was a privateersman, he proclaimed, and he the captain of the British frigate _Terpsichore_, of--I forget the precise number of guns. Edward always collared the best parts to himself; but I was holding my own gallantly, when I suddenly discovered that the floor we battled on was swarming with earwigs. Shrieking, I hurled free of him, and rolled over the tail-board on to the stubble. Edward executed a war-dance of triumph on the deck of the retreating galleon; but I cared little for that. I knew _he_ knew that I wasn't afraid of him, but that I was--and terribly--of earwigs: 'those mortal bugs o' the field.' So I let him disappear, shouting lustily for all hands to repel boarders, while I strolled inland, down the village. There was a touch of adventure in the expedition. This was not our own village, but a foreign one, distant at least a mile. One felt that sense of mingled distinction and insecurity which is familiar to the traveller: distinction, in that folk turned the head to note you curiously; insecurity, by reason of the everpresent possibility of missiles on the part of the younger inhabitants, a class eternally Conservative. Elated with isolation, I went even more nose-in-air than usual: and 'even so,' I mused, 'might Mungo Park have threaded the trackless African forest and. . . .' Here I plumped against a soft, but resisting body. Recalled to my senses by the shock, I fell back in the attitude every boy under these circumstances instinctively adopts--both elbows well up over your ears. I found myself facing a tall elderly man, clean-shaven, clad in well-worn black--a clergyman evidently; and I noted at once a far-away look in his eyes, as if they were used to another plane of vision, and could not instantly focus things terrestrial, being suddenly recalled thereto. His figure was bent in apologetic protest. 'I ask a thousand pardons, sir,' he said; 'I am really so very absent-minded. I trust you will forgive me.' Now most boys would have suspected chaff under this courtly style of address. I take infinite credit to myself for recognising at once the natural attitude of a man to whom his fellows were gentlemen all, neither Jew nor Gentile, clean nor unclean. Of course, I took the blame on myself; adding, that I was very absent-minded too. Which was indeed the case. 'I perceive,' he said pleasantly, 'that we have something in common. I, an old man, dream dreams; you, a young one, see visions. Your lot is the happier. And now--' his hand had been resting all this time on a wicket-gate--'you are hot, it is easily seen;--the day is advanced, _Virgo_ is the Zodiacal sign. Perhaps I may offer you some poor refreshment, if your engagements will permit?'