"Think!" exclaimed the wise man, eyeing the youngster fiercely, and glancing at the father with a look that seemed to ask if there was now any need to tell what he thought—"think!" said he; "why, that he'll bring his ninepence to nought!" And he thrust his middle finger into the pipe-head to put out the fire in the tobacco, and placed the pipe, sternly, on the mantle-piece. Old Davy's face fell; and he also laid down his pipe. Tom Cussitt took his large-skirted hat from the peg, called to his maid for the milking-kit, and prepared, according to his wont, to go forth and milk his cows; for he followed husbandry in humble and industrious style during the greater part of his life, notwithstanding his astrological profession. "Good morning, Davy Lidgitt!" he said; and left father and son, alike wonder-stricken, by the fire-side. There, however, they did not remain many minutes, but were on their way to Ludforth; and a melancholy way it seemed to old Davy. Betty Lidgitt felt as melancholy as her husband when he had related Tom Cussitt's laconic prophecy. Yet she strove to comfort her spouse with the encouraging remembrance, that "the Wise Man had not said much; and, for the little that he did say, why, belike, it was meant more for caution than aught worse." Old Davy was willing to think so, but could not succeed in persuading himself of it; and, indeed, young Davy showed "too much of the cloven foot," as his father somewhat sourly said, at times, "to lead a body to think that the imp of mischief would ever leave him;" so that, to his dying day, poor old Davy would, ever and anon, sigh over his remembrance of Tom Cussitt's short but sorrowfully significant saying. The story would become tiresome by going over the catalogue of a thousandth part of young Davy Lidgitt's doings in the "improving way," during the dozen years that intervened between the visit to the Wise man of Welton and old Davy's retirement from business as a carrier. Nor is it needful to chronicle similar deeds of the son that occurred from that period to the day of the father's death,—though some of these latter sorely harassed the old man's temper,—especially young Davy's purchase of coloured collars for the horses, and a fancy tilt, that cost thrice the price of the old one, and let in the rain! It was when old Davy was "safe under the sod," as the sexton said when he had finished the covering of his grave, and clapped it soundly with his spade in token of admiration for his own work,—it was then that young Davy began to let all the world in Long Ludforth see there was a man amongst them that possessed brains.