“But Thomas was not with you, was he?” asked Partridge at last, breaking his intent silence.
“Nay, and there is a matter wherein the Elder may hold me as superstitious as the captain,” replied Thacher, forcing a smile; “but it has seemed to me that the Lord, not ready to take him, and not willing to try him by the sharp discipline vouchsafed to me, interposed with a special Providence in his behalf.
“Only the night before we were to sail, Thomas had a dream, and, like Belshazzar of old, he could not in waking remember its tenure, but only its terror. Of one thing, however, he seemed fully assured, and that was that he must not sail upon our voyage; and so strong and terrible was his dread that he would not so much as come to see us off, but as we went our way to the shore he struck into the forest and made the fifteen miles or so afoot.”
“And has he never recalled the dream?” asked Mr. Partridge, with a look askance at his prospective son-in-law just then trying to snatch a rose from his sweetheart’s hand.
“No; that is, he has always seemed so ill at ease in talking of the matter that we have let it drop. It runs in my mind that it is as much a puzzlement to him as it can be to others.”
“‘There be more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’ or in mine, quoth my old gossip Will Shakespeare,” said the captain, and Anthony Thacher heartily replied,—
“And spake the truth as fairly as though he had worn gown and bands. A great student of men was that same gossip of yours, Captain.”
“Ay, and a rollicking good fellow. I knew him well, and something more than well, in the time I was in England after the peace of 1609, and in certain of his plays there’s many a quip and quirk shot at me and my poor achievements. Didst ever see a play called ‘Henry the Fourth’?”
“Nay, Captain, I was never in a playhouse in my life.”
“More’s your loss, friend. Well, in that play there’s a bit runs like this, or something so:—