But _what_ was that “all”? What had he to tell?—As well to find that out first. And really it was difficult to find out;—it perplexed him. There he sat, feeling as though some weighty, half-guilty secret lay upon his heart, something that he was almost acting a traitor’s part in keeping hidden there, and carrying away with him unconfessed. Yet, when he sought for words in which to tell it, _what_ had he to say? Only that upon every excuse (and often indeed without excuse), he used to loiter about the stall of the village blacksmith—once a seaman, and sharer in some of old John Hawkins’ most desperate enterprises;—that he was never tired of listening to his wonderful tales of daring deeds wrought by English hearts and hands upon the high seas, where the small, slight vessels of English merchantmen so often measured their strength against the stately caraques of the Don;—that he cared little to ride anywhere save to the crest of the hill, whence he could see the far-off waters sparkle in the sunlight, and sometimes watch a white sail gliding slowly by, wondering if it was bound for that great mysterious West, the land of his romance and enchantment. That was all he could find to say; and what was there in that to trouble his mother with at midnight? But beneath there was a blind, dumb instinct, a great passionate longing, for which he had no words. Perhaps it was a heritage from some far-off Viking ancestor, whose slender, snake-like galley had pushed its prow into unknown seas in search of fame and plunder. Walter had no names for the thoughts and feelings that for more than a year had been troubling him so strangely, growing every day more frequent and more keen. He only knew that he would have given all the world to change his fine cloth and velvet for a pea-jacket, his Holland shirt for a Jersey, his scholar’s pen for a stout cutlass. But what use in crying for the moon? Work of a different sort was cut out for him. To-morrow he must go to London, to visit his kinsfolk in the city; and after that to Oxford, to study hard (he liked study well enough, when ships were not sailing away westward before his mind’s eye), to win honour, fame, and wealth, and at last—perhaps—if God willed and made him worthy—to take holy orders and preach, like Sir John Carr. What folly he had been thinking! He felt quite ashamed of himself. He would go to bed, sleep, and forget it all. The sooner the better, for the nights were cold (it was early March); he should freeze if he sat there much longer. He must rise before daybreak; but he was sure old Dickon would call him in good time; _he_ was never late. So Walter Grey paid the tribute of a sigh to his boyish dreams; then he went to bed and to sleep, nevertheless he did not forget them all. XXII. His Own Way. “It is bound up in the heart of man, that longing for the West. I complain of no one for fleeing away thither, beyond the utmost sea, as David wished to flee and be at peace.”