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Amyntas drank the port, but his face did not express due satisfaction.

‘Damn the boy!’ said the parson. ‘Port’s wasted on him.’ … Then, thinking again what Amyntas might want, he rose slowly from his chair, stretching his legs. ‘I’m not so young as I used to be; I get stiff after a day’s hunting.’ He walked round his room, looking at his bookshelves; at last he picked out a book and blew the dust off the edges. ‘Here’s a Bible for you, Amyntas. The two finest things in the world are port and the Bible.’

Amyntas thanked him, but without great enthusiasm. Another idea struck the parson, and he shouted out another question.

‘Have you any money?’

Amyntas told him of the guinea.

‘Damn your father! What’s the good of a guinea?’ He went to a drawer and pulled out a handful of gold–the tithes had been paid a couple of days before. ‘Here are ten; a man can go to hell on ten guineas.’

‘Thank you very much, sir,’ said Amyntas, pocketing the money, ‘but I don’t think I want to go quite so far just yet.’

‘Then where the devil do you want to go?’ shouted the parson.

‘That’s just what I came to ask you about.’

‘Why didn’t you say so at once? I thought you wanted a glass of port. I’d sooner give ten men advice than one man port.’ He went to the door and called out, ‘Jane, bring me another bottle.’ He drank the bottle in silence, while Amyntas stood before him, resting now upon one leg now upon another, turning his cap round and round in his hands. At last the parson spoke.

‘You may look upon a bottle of port in two ways,’ he said; ‘you may take it as a symbol of a happy life or as a method of thought…. There are four glasses in a bottle. The first glass is full of expectation; you enter life with mingled feelings; you cannot tell whether it will be good or no. The second glass has the full savour of the grape; it is youth with vine-leaves in its hair and the passion of young blood. The third glass is void of emotion; it is grave and calm, like middle age; drink it slowly, you are in full possession of yourself, and it will not come again. The fourth glass has the sadness of death and the bitter sweetness of retrospect.’

He paused a moment for Amyntas to weigh his words.

‘But a bottle of port is a better method of thought than any taught by the school-men. The first glass is that of contemplation–I think of your case; the second is apprehension–an idea occurs to me; the third is elaboration–I examine the idea and weigh the pros and cons; the fourth is realisation–and here I give you the completed scheme. Look at this letter; it is from my old friend Van Tiefel, a Dutch merchant who lives at Cadiz, asking for an English clerk. One of his ships is sailing from Plymouth next Sunday, and it will put in at Cadiz on the way to Turkey.’

Amyntas thought the project could have been formed without a bottle of port, but he was too discreet to say so, and heartily thanked the parson. The good man lived in a time when teetotalism had not ruined the clergy’s nerves, and sanctity was not considered incompatible with a good digestion and common humanity….

V

Amyntas spent the evening bidding tender farewells to a round dozen of village beauties, whose susceptible hearts had not been proof against the brown eyes and the dimples of the youth. There was indeed woe when he spread the news of his departure; and all those maiden eyes ran streams of salt tears as he bade them one by one good-bye; and though he squeezed their hands and kissed their lips, vowing them one and all the most unalterable fidelity, they were perfectly inconsolable. It is an interesting fact to notice that the instincts of the true hero are invariably polygamic….