John Ayliffe's spirits rose at the conclusion of this transaction. He calculated that with one thing or another he should have sufficient money to last him a year, and that was quite as far as his thoughts or expectations went. A long, long year! What does youth care for any thing beyond a year? It seems the very end of life to pant in expectation, and indeed, and in truth, it is very often too long for fate. "Next year I will"--Pause, young man! there is a deep pitfall in the way. Between you and another year may be death. Next year thou wilt do nothing--thou wilt be nothing. His spirits rose. He put the money into his pocket, and, with more wit than he thought, called it "light heaviness," and then he sat down and smoked a pipe, while Mr. Shanks drew up the paper; and then he drank punch, and made more, and drank that too, so that when the paper giving Mr. Shanks a lien upon the silver was completed, and when a dull neighbor had been called in to see him sign his name, it needed a witness indeed to prove that that name was John Ayliffe's writing. By this time he would very willingly have treated the company to a song, so complete had been the change which punch and new prospects had effected; but Mr. Shanks besought him to be quiet, hinting that the neighbor, though as deaf as a post and blind as a mole, would think him as the celebrated sow of the psalmist. Thereupon John Ayliffe went forth and got his horse out of the stable, mounted upon his back, and rode lolling at a sauntering pace through the end of the town in which Mr. Shanks's house was situated. When he got more into the country he began to trot, then let the horse fall into a walk again, and then he beat him for going slow. Thus alternately galloping, walking, and trotting, he rode on till he was two or three hundred yards past the gates of what was called the Court, where the family of Sir Philip Hastings now lived. It was rather a dark part of the road, and there was something white in the hedge--some linen put out to dry, or a milestone. John Ayliffe was going at a quick pace at that moment, and the horse suddenly shied at this white apparition--not only shied, but started, wheeled round, and ran back. John Ayliffe kept his seat, notwithstanding his tipsiness, but he struck the furious horse over the head, and pulled the rein violently. The animal plunged--reared--the young man gave the rein a furious tug, and over went the horse upon the road, with his driver under him. CHAPTER XXXVI.