A bluster of warm wind brought a thaw, and the ice in the lake was breaking—a disjointing time, a cracking of winter's old bones, a time when being alone we feel less lonely than in a noisy company. At night Milford sat musing in the kitchen. The outer door stood open, and he heard the cattle tramping about in the mushy barnyard. The hired man and his wife were singing a lonesome song in the sitting-room. There came another tramping, not of cattle, but of one more weary, of a man, the Professor. He trod into the light that fell from the door, and Milford bounded up to meet him, but fell back in reverence of his grief-stricken face. For a time the old man did not speak. He dropped his bundle, once so precious, but now a sapless husk, laid his walking-stick across it, took hold of a chair, and let himself slowly down with a groan.
"We are going to have rain," he said, attempting to smile, and unbuttoning his old coat with a palsied fumble.
"Yes, I think so. The clouds have been tumbling about all day."
"A weird song they are singing in there."
"The love song of the ignorant and the poor," said Milford.
"The poor and the wise would not have written it," the Professor replied.
"Shall I tell them to stop?" Milford asked.
"Oh, no, poor crickets. Bring some cider, my boy. Let us live for a time in recollection only. I will not take too much."
"You may take as much as you like. It is time to drink."
"Yes, to drink or to rave."