The affair was, perhaps, something of a fiasco, but they consoled themselves with the reflection that they would catch the vagabond next time, when they could run a little better and a little further, and he could run a little worse--or a good deal worse, in fact. But for Bertie the chase was very far from done. He fled, not from things of flesh and blood, but from things of air--the wild imaginings of fever. On and on and on--over fields and hedges, dykes and ditches--on and on and on, until the day waned and the night had come. And in the night his journey ended. Even delirium would no longer give strength unto his limbs. His style of going changed. Instead of running, like a maddened animal, straight forward, he went reeling, reeling, reeling, staggering from side to side. Then he staggered down. He rose no more. It was the end of the journey. Chapter XXIII THE LAND OF GOLDEN DREAMS When he returned to life he was in his mother's arms. There were familiar faces round him, and, as out of a mist, familiar voices sounded in his ear. He turned in his bed--for it was on a bed he was lying, and no longer on the stony ground--and opened his eyes, waking as from a delicious slumber. Some one bent over him; some one laid a hand softly on his brow; some one's burning tears fell on his cheek. There was his mother standing by his side. "My boy! my boy! Thank God for this, my darling boy!" Then she kissed him; and she wept. Out of the mist there came another familiar form. It was his father. "Bertie! at last! Thank God for this, indeed, my son!" And he, too, stooped and kissed the lad. And the mother rose to her feet, and became encircled in her husband's arms; and they two rejoiced together over the son who was lost and was found. He had been ill six weeks. Six weeks delirious with fever; six weeks hovering between life and death; six weeks' sorrow; six weeks' pain. That was the end of his journey. And it would have had another ending had it not been for the providence of God. He would have journeyed into that strange, unknown country, whose name is Death, but that he was found by the roadside, where he had fallen, and by a friend. It would be unwise to say that that friend was not sent to him direct from God. Among his father's patients was a certain Mr. Yates. Mr. Yates was a county magistrate, a man of position and of wealth. Under God he owed his life to Dr. Bailey's skill. It was to him reference has been made as having given Bertie half a sovereign once upon a time--half a sovereign which, to Bertie's disgust, he had had to divide with his brothers and sisters.