"Ay, no doubt about that! after a fair day. But this is St. Mark's Eve, and I'll tell you what befel my grandfather on this night some years agone. 'Twas in Peter Tavy, too--it came about he'd been to the buryin' of his uncle's mother's sister's aunt, and, as he said hisself, never enjoyed hisself more at a buryin'. There was plenty o' saffron cake and cyder, and some bottles of real old Jamaica rum, mellow--Lor' bless you--soft and mellow as a cat's paw. He lived, did my grandfather, at Horndon, and it were a night much such as this. My grandfer had rather a deal stayed wi' the corpse, but he was a mighty strict and scrupulous old man, and he knowed that his wife--my grandmother as was--would expect him home about--well, I can't say for sartain, but, anyhow, some hours afore daybreak. Us poor fellers in this world o' misery and trial, can't a'ways have what we desires, so my grandfer had to sacrifice hisself on the alter of dooty, and not to bide with the corpse and the Jamaica rum, not to mention the saffron cake. 'Tes surprising, gentlemen," said Farmer Cudlip, looking round at Cleverdon, Crymes, and Solomon Gibbs, "'tes surprising now, when you come to reckon up, how soon one comes to the end o' eating cake, and yet, in Jamaica rum, and punch--I thanky' kindly, Mr. Gibbs, to fill me the glass. Thanky', sir!--As I was saying, in drink one's capacity is, I should say, boundless as the rolling ocean. Ain't it, now, Mr. Gibbs?" "Ah! Solomon the Wise never said a truer word," answered Solomon the Foolish. "'Tes curious, when you come to consider, now," said the farmer; "for meat and drink both goes the same way and into the same receptacle; yet how soon one is grounded on cake, but can float, and float--I thank you Mr. Gibbs, my glass is empty--float forever in liquor." "We should like to hear what your grandfather did," said Cleverdon, laughing. "What he did? Why, he sot down," said Cudlip. "After leaving the house of tears and bereavement, he was going home, and was very tired, his legs began to give way under him. And as he came along by the wall o' Peter Tavy Church, sez he to hisself, 'Why, dash me if it bain't St. Mark's Eve, and many a time have I heard tell that they as wait on that eve in the church porch is sure to see go by in at the door all they that is sure to die in the rest o' the year.' Well, gentlemen, my grandfer, he knewed he was a bit late, and thought his wife--my grandmother--wouldn't take it over kindly, so he thinks if he could bring her a bit of rare news, she'd mebbe forgive him. And, gentlemen, what more rare news could he bring than a tale of who was doomed to die within the year? So he went in at the churchyard-gate, and straight--that is to say, as straight as his legs, which weren't quite equal, could take him--to the porch, and there, on the side away from the wind, he sot hisself down." "I wouldn't have done it," said one of the miners, nudging his fellow; "would thou, Tummas?"