“We could do with less heat,” replied Temple.
“Ay,” said the farmer, “I never felt it worse. But it’s good for the corn.”
And, with that, he left us. The other two came back with water and oceans of milk. Sticks were soon gathered from the coppice, and the fire made; the round pot, filled with water, was put on to boil for tea, and the tent was set up.
Often and often in my later life have I looked back to that evening. The meal over—and a jolly good one we made—we sat round the camp fire, then smouldering down to red embers, and watched the setting sun, Rupert Temple and Tod smoking. It was a glorious sunset, the west lighted up with gold and purple and crimson; the sky above us clear and dark-blue.
But oh, how hot it was! The moon came up as the sun went down, and the one, to our fancy, seemed to give out as much heat as the other. There we sat on, sipping our grog, and talking in the bright moonlight, Temple with his elbows on the grass, his face turned up towards the sky and the few stars that came out. The colours in the west gave place to a beautiful opal, stretching northwards.
It was singular—I shall always think so—that the conversation should turn on MacRae, the Scotchman who used to make our skin creep at Oxford with his tales of second-sight. We were not talking of Oxford, and I don’t know how MacRae came up. Temple had been talking of astronomy; from that we got to astrology; so perhaps it was in that way. Up he came, however, he and his weird beliefs; and Rupert Temple, who had not enjoyed the honour of Mac’s acquaintance, and had probably never heard his name before, got me to relate one or two of Mac’s choice experiences.
“Was the man a fool?” asked Rupert.
“Not a bit of it.”
“I’m sure I should say so. Making out that he could foresee people’s funerals before they were dead, or likely to die.”
“Poor Fred was three-parts of a believer in them,” put in Temple, in a dreamy voice, as though his thoughts were buried in that past time.