"It is quite delicious, really," he replied, as Mrs. Torkill peeped into the open flagon. "Why," said she, in unfeigned admiration, "I'm blest if he's left a drop! Ah! ah! Well, it was good; and I'll have some more for you before you go to bed. But you shouldn't drink it off, all at a pull, like that. You might make yourself ill that way." "We men like good liquor so well--so well--we--we--what was I saying? Oh! yes, we like our liquor so well, we never know when we have had enough. It's a bad excuse; but let it pass. I'm going out for a little walk, it always sets me up after one of those headaches. Good evening, Mrs. Torkill." He was thinking plainly of other matters than her, or her caudle; and, before she had time to reply, he was out of the door. It was a sweet, soft night; the moon was up. The walk from Malory to the town is lonely and pretty. He took the narrow road that approaches Cardyllion in an inland line, parallel to the road that runs by the shore of the estuary. His own echoing footsteps among the moon-lit trees was the only sign of life, except the distant barking of a watch-dog, now and then, that was audible. A melancholy wind was piping high in the air, from over the sea; you might fancy it the aërial lamentations of the drowned. He was passing the churchyard now, and stopped partly to light a cigar, partly to look at the old church, the effect of which, in the moonlight, was singular. Its gable and towers cast a sharp black shadow across the grass and gravestones, like that of a gigantic hand whose finger pointed towards him. He smiled cynically as the fancy struck him. "Another grave there, I should not wonder if the news is true. What an ass that fellow is! Another grave, I dare say; and in my present luck, I suppose I shall fill it--fill it! That's ambiguous; yes, the more like an oracle. That shadow does look curiously like a finger pointing at me!" He smoked for a time, leaning on the pier of the iron wicket that from this side admits to the churchyard, and looking in with thoughts very far from edifying. "This will be the second disagreeable discovery, without reckoning Carmel, I shall have made since my arrival in this queer corner of the world. Who could have anticipated meeting Laura here?--or that whining fool, Carmel? Who would have fancied that Jennings, of all men, would have turned up in this out-of-the-way nook? By Jove! I'm like Saint Paul, hardly out of the shipwreck when a viper fastens on my hand. Old Sprague made us turn all that into elegiacs. I wonder whether I could make elegiacs now." He loitered slowly on, by the same old road, into Castle Street, the high-street of the quaint little town of steep roofs and many gables. The hall-door of the "Verney Arms" was open, and the light of the lamp glowed softly on the pavement.