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and in the morning I'll be off again.” He stopped and his face flexed with pain. “I used to love the winter so.”

Old Robert helped him from the room with a hand under his arm, then came and sat again by the fire. He looked at the boy who lay unmoving on the floor.

“What are you thinking about now, son?” he asked very softly after a time. And Henry drew his gaze back from the land beyond the blaze.

“I'm thinking I’ll be wanting to go soon, father.”

“I know, Henry. The whole of this long year I’ve seen it growing in you like a strong tree—London or Guinea or Jamaica. It comes of being fifteen and strong, with the passion for new things on you. Once I saw the valley grow smaller and smaller, too, until finally it smothered me a little, I think. But aren’t you afraid of the knives, son, and the poisons, and the Indians? Do not these things put fear on you?”

“No-o-o,” Henry said slowly.

“Of course not—and how could they? The words have no meaning to you at all. But the sadness of Dafydd, and the hurt of him, and his poor, sick body—aren’t you afraid of those? Do you want to go about the world weighed down with such a heart?”

Young Henry considered long.

“I would not be like that,” he said at last. “I would be coming back very often for my blood’s sake.”