"Oh, nothing!" said Crymes. "Anthony Cleverdon and I were discussing the Lyke-Way, and whether either of us cared to go along it at night. I shrink from it, just as does Farmer Cudlip. Nor does Cleverdon seem more disposed to walk it."
"I am not disposed to travel over it in rain and wind, in the midst of a thunder-storm. I would go along it any other night when moon and stars show, to allow of a man finding his road."
"I'll tell you what," said the yeoman; "there's worst places than the Lyke-Way on such a night as this."
"Where is that?"
"Do you know what night it be?"
"A very foul one."
"Ay, no doubt about that! after a fair day. But this is St. Mark's Eve, and I'll tell you what befel my grandfather on this night some years agone. 'Twas in Peter Tavy, too—it came about he'd been to the buryin' of his uncle's mother's sister's aunt, and, as he said hisself, never enjoyed hisself more at a buryin'. There was plenty o' saffron cake and cyder, and some bottles of real old Jamaica rum, mellow—Lor' bless you—soft and mellow as a cat's paw. He lived, did my grandfather, at Horndon, and it were a night much such as this. My grandfer had rather a deal stayed wi' the corpse, but he was a mighty strict and scrupulous old man, and he knowed that his wife—my grandmother as was—would expect him home about—well, I can't say for sartain, but, anyhow, some hours afore daybreak. Us poor fellers in this world o' misery and trial, can't a'ways have what we desires, so my grandfer had to sacrifice hisself on the alter of dooty, and not to bide with the corpse and the Jamaica rum, not to mention the saffron cake. 'Tes surprising, gentlemen," said Farmer Cudlip, looking round at Cleverdon, Crymes, and Solomon Gibbs, "'tes surprising now, when you come to reckon up, how soon one comes to the end o' eating cake, and yet, in Jamaica rum, and punch—I thanky' kindly, Mr. Gibbs, to fill me the glass. Thanky', sir!—As I was saying, in drink one's capacity is, I should say, boundless as the rolling ocean. Ain't it, now, Mr. Gibbs?"
"Ah! Solomon the Wise never said a truer word," answered Solomon the Foolish.
"'Tes curious, when you come to consider, now," said the farmer; "for meat and drink both goes the same way and into the same receptacle; yet how soon one is grounded on cake, but can float, and float—I thank you Mr. Gibbs, my glass is empty—float forever in liquor."
"We should like to hear what your grandfather did," said Cleverdon, laughing.