‘Every seventh year, and cries “cuckoo!” Did you not know it, child?’ ‘On my faith, no.’ ‘Ay. ’Tis the reason it lacks a nest of its own.’ ‘But----’ he gave it up, bubbling with expressionless laughter. ‘You had better go and get it,’ said he. He had hoped for something more informative. As it was, her verdict left him exactly where he had been. However, there was no help for it; the man was there, and there he must now remain, until Destiny decided one way or the other on the question of his disposal. In the meantime the faithful souls who were to represent his authority during his absence would see to it that his instructions were implicitly carried out. He parted from his Uncle that evening, as he and Clerivault had to be on their way at an early hour the following morning. Going in to the recluse, with a certain emotion at his heart, he found him characteristically occupied between a Vulgate and a great tankard of burnt sack plentifully laced with Nantes brandy. A thread of incense, rising from a tiny chafing dish on the table, seemed designed, like a pious kissing-comfit, to neutralise the pungent breath of that ungodly mixture; while the mentality which could appropriate such material to such a use appeared further illustrated in the faldstool, or prie-Dieu, set before a bureau on which stood a laughing head in bronze of a leaf-crowned Dionysus. The ex-Judge looked up vacantly, as Brion entered, and motioned him mechanically to a seat. ‘Not now,’ said the young man. ‘The time that remains to me here is short. I have come to ask your blessing on my venture, Uncle Quentin.’ Staring a moment, the other shook his head. ‘What venture, nephew?’ ‘Have you forgotten? To the New World.’ He seemed to listen and weigh; and then a sudden light went up in his brain:-- ‘To the New World? My blessing? A devil’s viaticum that! A curse from my lips might speed thee better.’ ‘Come, Uncle. You will not start me on such handicap, like the poor scratch in the game. I of all should know what your blessing is worth to one you love.’ Bagott passed his hand across his eyes. ‘Do you say so, boy? Yet you will leave me.’ ‘Would you not have me go?’ ‘To the New World? Ay.’ He seemed to muse, pondering some vision. ‘For whither she hath gone should not her son follow?’ He stared and stared before him, till his eyes ran with weak tears. ‘I loved your mother, Brion,’ he sobbed: ‘I loved your mother.’ It was useless to prolong the scene. The young man knelt, and took the shaking hands in his, and, kissing them, laid them on his own head. They slipped down to imprison his face, to draw it towards the dishonoured lips whose utterance had yet never meant to him aught but truth and love.