dle shall be wanting.'

'Come with us, young man,' said Winifred, 'even as thou art, and the
daughters of Wales shall bid thee welcome.'

'I will not go with you,' said I. 'Dost thou see that man in the ford?'

'Who is staring at us so, and whose horse has not yet done drinking? Of
course I see him.'

'I shall turn back with him. God bless you.'

'Go back with him not,' said Peter; 'he is one of those whom I like not,
one of the clibberty-clabber, as Master Ellis Wyn observes--turn not with
that man.'

'Go not back with him,' said Winifred. 'If thou goest with that man,
thou wilt soon forget all our profitable counsels; come with us.'

'I cannot; I have much to say to him. Kosko Divvus, Mr. Petulengro.'

'Kosko Divvus, Pal,' said Mr. Petulengro, riding through the water; 'are
you turning back?'

I turned back with Mr. Petulengro.

Peter came running after me: 'One moment, young man,--who and what are
you?'

'I must answer in the words of Taliesin,' said I: 'none can say with
positiveness whether I be fish or flesh, least of all myself. God bless
you both!'

'Take this,' said Peter, and he thrust his Welsh Bible into my hand.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

AT A FUNERAL--TWO DAYS AGO--VERY COOLLY--ROMAN WOMAN--WELL AND
HEARTY--SOMEWHAT DREARY--PLUM PUDDING--ROMAN FASHION--QUITE
DIFFERENT--THE DARK LANE--BEYOND TIME--FINE FELLOW--LIKE A WILD
CAT--PLEASANT ENOUGH SPOT--NO GLOVES

So I turned back with Mr. Petulengro. We travelled for some time in
silence; at last we fell into discourse. 'You have been in Wales, Mr.
Petulengro?'

'Ay, truly, brother.'

'What have you been doing there?'

'Assisting at a funeral.'

'At whose funeral?'

'Mrs. Herne's, brother.'

'Is she dead, then?'

'As a nail, brother.'

'How did she die?'

'By hanging, brother.'

'I am lost in astonishment,' said I; whereupon Mr. Petulengro, lifting
his sinister leg over the neck of his steed, and adjusting himself
sideways in the saddle, replied, with great deliberation, 'Two days ago I
happened to be at a fair not very far from here; I was all alone by
myself, for our party were upwards of forty miles off, when who should
come up but a chap that I knew, a relation, or rather a connection, of
mine--one of those Hernes. "Aren't you going to the funeral?" said he;
and then, brother, there passed between him and me, in the way of
questioning and answering, much the same as has just now passed between
me and you; but w