“Hillo!”

“Hillo!” said Yarrow.

Then they went on with their paper.  That was the only sound for a long time.  Some farmers passed after a while, giving him good-morning, in country-fashion.  A trifle, but it was warm, heartsome:  he had put the world on trial, you know, and he was not very far from death.  Men more soured than Yarrow have been surprised to find it was God’s world, with God’s own heart, warm and kindly, speaking through every human heart in it, if they touched them right.  About noon, the blacksmith’s children brought him his dinner in a tin bucket, leaving it inside.  When they came out, one freckled baby-girl came up to Yarrow.

“Tie my shoe,” she said, putting up one foot, peremptorily.  “Are you hungry?” looking at him curiously, after he had done it, at the same time holding up a warm seed-cake she was eating to his mouth.  He was ashamed that the spicy smile tempted him to take it.  He put it away, and seated her on his foot.

“Let me ride you plough-boy fashion,” he said, trotting her gently for a minute.

Her father passed them.

“You must pardon me,” said Yarrow, with a bow.  “I used to ride my boy so, and”—­

“Eh?  Yes.  Sudy’s a good girl.  You’ve lost your little boy, now?” looking in Yarrow’s face.

“Yes, I’ve lost him.”

The blacksmith stood silent a moment, then went in.  Soon after a tall man rode up on a gray horse; it had cast a shoe, and while the smith went to work within, the rider sat down by Yarrow on the trough, and began to talk of the weather, politics, etc., in a quiet, pleasant way, making a joke now and then.  He had a thin face, with a scraggy fringe of yellow hair and whisker about it, and a gray, penetrating eye.  The shoe was on presently, and mounting, with a touch of his hat to Yarrow, he rode off.  The convict hesitated a moment, then called to him.

“I have a word to say to you,” coming up, and putting his hand on the horse’s mane.

The man glanced at him, then jumped down.

“Well, my friend?”

“You’re a clergyman?”

“Yes.”

“So was I once.  If you had known, just now, that I was a felon two days ago released from the penitentiary, what would you have said to me?  Guilty, when I went in, remember.  A thief.”

The man was silent, looking in Yarrow’s face.  Then he put his hand on his arm.

“Shall I tell you?”

“Go on.”

“I would have said, that, if ever you preach God’s truth again, you will have learned a deeper lesson than I.”

If he meant to startle the man’s soul into life, he had done it.  He a teacher, who hardly knew if that good God lived!

“Let me go,” he cried, breaking loose from the other’s hand.

“No.  I can help you.  For God’s sake tell me who you are.”

But Yarrow left him, and went down the road, hiding, when he tried to pursue him,—­sitting close behind a pile of lumber.  He was there when found:  so tired that the last hour and the last years began to seem like dreams.  Something cold roused him, nozzling at his throat.  An old yellow dog, its eyes burning.