“Though, indeed, it is empty!” he explained, as though I had spoken.  “Old habits cling to one, young sir, and my pipe, here, has been the friend of my solitude these many years, and I cannot bear to turn my back upon it yet, so I carry it with me still, and sometimes, when at all thoughtful, I find it between my lips.  But though the flesh, as you see, is very weak, I hope, in time, to forego even this,” and he sighed, shaking his head in gentle deprecation of himself.  “But you look pale—­haggard,” he went on; “you are ill, young sir!”

“No, no,” said I, springing to my feet; “look at this arm, is it the arm of a sick man?  No, no—­I am well enough, but what of him we found in the ditch, you and I—­the miserable creature who lay bubbling in the grass?”

“He has been very near death, sir—­indeed his days are numbered, I think, yet he is better, for the time being, and last night declared his intention of leaving the shelter of my humble roof and setting forth upon his mission.”

“His mission, sir?”

“He speaks of himself as one chosen by God to work His will, and asks but to live until this mission, whatever it is, be accomplished.  A strange being!” said the little Preacher, puffing at his empty pipe again as we walked on side by side, “a dark, incomprehensible man, and a very, very wretched one—­poor soul!”

“Wretched?” said I, “is not that our human lot?  ’Man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward,’ and Job was accounted wise in his generation.”

“That was a cry from the depths of despond; but Job stood, at last, upon the heights, and felt once more God’s blessed sun, and rejoiced—­even as we should.  But, as regards this stranger, he is one who would seem to have suffered some great wrong, the continued thought of which has unhinged his mind; his heart seems broken—­dead.  I have, sitting beside his delirious couch, heard him babble a terrible indictment against some man; I have also heard him pray, and his prayers have been all for vengeance.”

“Poor fellow!” said I, “it were better we had left him to die in his ditch, for if death does not bring oblivion, it may bring a change of scene.”

“Sir,” said the Preacher, laying his hand upon my arm, “such bitterness in one so young is unnatural; you are in some trouble, I would that I might aid you, be your friend—­know you better—­”

“Oh, sir! that is easily done.  I am a blacksmith, hardworking, sober, and useful to my fellows; they call me Peter Smith.  A certain time since I was a useless dreamer; spending more money in a week than I now earn in a year, and getting very little for it.  I was studious, egotistical, and pedantic, wasting my time upon impossible translations that nobody wanted—­and they knew me as—­Peter Vibart.”

“Vibart!” exclaimed the Preacher, starting and looking up at me.

“Vibart!” I nodded.

“Related in any way to—­Sir Maurice Vibart?”