heard the crash of the huge trees as they fell beneath my axe; and
then I bethought me that a man was intended to marry--I ought to
marry; and if I married, where was I likely to be more happy as a
husband and a father, than in America, engaged in tilling the ground?
I fancied myself in America engaged in tilling the ground, assisted by
an enormous progeny--well, why not marry and go and till the ground in
America? I was young, and youth was the time to marry in and to
labour in; I had the use of all my faculties; my eyes, it is true,
were rather dull from early study, but I could see tolerably well with
them and they were not bleared. I felt my arms and thighs and
teeth--they were strong and sound enough; so now was the time to
labour, to marry, eat strong flesh, and beget strong children--the
power of doing all this would pass away with youth, which was terribly
transitory. I bethought me that a time would come when my eyes would
be bleared and perhaps sightless; my arms and thighs strengthless and
sapless; when my teeth would shake in my jaws, even supposing they did
not drop out. No going a-wooing then, no labouring, no eating strong
flesh and begetting lusty children then; and I bethought me how, when
all this should be, I should bewail the days of my youth as misspent,
provided I had not in them founded for myself a home, and begotten
strong children to take care of me in the days when I could not take
care of myself; and thinking of these things I became sadder and
sadder, and stared vacantly upon the fire until my eyes closed in a
doze."

It is significant that upon his return from the dream that followed this
reverie, the would-be colonist blew upon the embers and filled and heated
the kettle, that he might be able to welcome Isopel with a cup of the
beverage that she loved. It was the newly awakened Benedick brushing his
hat in the morning; but unhappily his conversion was not so complete as