It couldn't be at the stars; such a desperado was neither astrologer nor astronomer.

It must be at the high gallows, and he was going to be hanged presently.

Would the executioner come into possession of his conical crowned hat and plume of feathers?
I counted the feathers again--three white, two green.
While I still lingered over this very improving and intellectual employment, my thoughts insensibly began to wander.

The moonlight shining into the room reminded me of a certain moonlight night in England--the night after a picnic party in a Welsh valley.

Every incident of the drive homeward, through lovely scenery, which the moonlight made lovelier than ever, came back to my remembrance, though I had never given the picnic a thought for years; though, if I had _tried_ to recollect it, I could certainly have recalled little or nothing of that scene long past.