The country looked very beautiful bathed in the summer's sunshine, but he was in no mood to enjoy it. The birds sang their glad songs in the trees, but to him they seemed only to mock his sorrow. In the fields he saw the sleek cattle grazing as he passed, or lying in the sunshine contentedly chewing their cud, while he was footsore, hungry, and sad, and he wondered what the end of it all would be.

As the afternoon wore away he found himself hedged in with plantations on every side, and not a single human habitation in sight.

For awhile he dragged himself along with fast failing courage and strength; then he gave up in despair.

"It's no go," he said; "I ken go no furder."

His feet were hot and blistered with his long tramp over the hard and dusty road. His head ached from the fierce heat that had been beating down on him all the day, his strength was all but gone, for he had tasted no food since the previous evening.

"I dunno how the Lord's goin' to do it," he said, the tears starting in his eyes. "Nelly said as how the Lord 'ud provide, an' so did the angel that gived me the bob; but I dunna see how. I wonder if He's goin' to take me to heaven? P'r'aps that's the way He's goin' to do it, an' then I'll never be 'ungry no more."

Climbing on a gate, he looked around him, but no house was anywhere visible.

"It's all up, I reckon," he said sadly, getting down on the inside and making his way through the tangled undergrowth into the heart of the plantation. "I'll find a snug place 'ere somewheres, where I ken wait till the Lord comes. I wonder if He'll be long?"

He had not gone far before he found a place that suited him. A luxuriant patch of ferns growing out of a carpet of moss, bordered on every side with tall brushwood, while overhead giant fir-trees sighed and moaned in the evening breeze, made a perfect arbour of quiet and repose. Pressing down the yielding ferns, he had soon a bed soft as he could desire, while a mossy bank made a pillow grateful as a kiss of love to his aching head and burning cheek.

"I'll be comfortable 'ere till the Lord comes," he said, stretching out his weary limbs. "I wonder if He'll bring Nelly wi' Him?"

Then he closed his eyes and waited. Above him the fir-branches swayed gently in the soft evening breeze, and from far away came the subdued plash of falling water. It was very strange and solemn, but soothing and restful withal.