For reasons best known to himself he kept the men in the service of the Revenue at arm's-length, and such as were connected with the soil, and whose talk was of bullocks, were not to his taste. As a man advances in life he makes imperceptibly a _volte-face_. He turns his back on the future as devoid of interest to him, that he may gaze fondly at the ground whence he started. Youth values what it can acquire only for what it can make out of it; age appreciates what it holds in hand only for what it was and for the efforts expended in modelling it to what it now is. The present is appreciated, not as containing in its womb that which will be, but for the faded traces perceived in it of past loveliness. As the threads that connect man with his early career break, those that remain are clung to with intense tenacity. Rattenbury did not like Dench, he even regarded him with repugnance; yet, as there were none other in the place who had been in any way linked with his early life, he endured him as one with whom he could converse with pleasure. But it would be a misconception to suppose that Job Rattenbury lived for the past alone, and that he was without an eye for the future. As far as his own future was concerned he was indifferent, but his ambition with regard to Jack had a forward look. Days close in rapidly in November. Rattenbury drew the little blind over his window, and excluded the fishy glimmer of the dying day. He did not light a candle. Candles in those times were of tallow, and were a constant annoyance, as they needed periodic snuffing, but he threw more wood upon the fire, and the whole room gleamed with saffron light that scintillated in the burnished copper and brass articles on the mantelshelf and in the Bristol lustre crockery on the dresser, but nowhere more brilliantly than in those living agates, the eyes of Winefred. Mrs. Marley was engaged at the fire, and was turning out that same beefsteak pudding on which at the moment all Winefred's thoughts and desires hung. Olver's eye observed her every movement, but it did so furtively, and he was careful that neither she nor Job should notice to what an extent she engrossed his attention. When the supper was served, Mrs. Marley and Winefred sat and ate along with the two men, and the girl did full justice to the pudding. That done the women rose, cleared away the dishes, leaving only tumblers and the ale-jug to the master and his guest, that they might smoke and drink and converse together without restraint. So, as ancient cronies, the captain and the ferryman fell into talk upon times past beyond recall save as a memory, and the _Paycock_ was often in their mouths. And as they drank they looked into the fire and drew long pulls at their pipes, and the mistrust, the aversion entertained by Rattenbury ebbed away.