When they had walked about two miles, the boy began to fear he might be intruding, and would have taken his hand from the other, but the man held it tight, and stooping whispered it was not far now. The child, who, without knowing it, had taken the man under the protection of his love, yielded at once, went with him to the grave, joined in the service, and saw the grave filled. They went again as they had come. Not a word was spoken. The man wept a little now and then, drew the back of his brown hand across his eyes, and pressed a little closer the hand he held. At the gate of the parsonage the boy took his leave. He said they would be wondering what had become of him, or he would have gone farther. The man released him without a word. His mother had been uneasy about him, but when he told her how it was, she said he had done right. “Yes,” returned the boy; “I belong there myself.” The mother knew he was not thinking of the grave. One more anecdote I will give, serving to introduce the narrative of the following chapter, and helping to show the character of the boy. He was so unlike most boys, that one must know all he may about him, if he would understand him. Never yet, strange as the assertion must seem, had the boy shown any anger. His father was a little troubled at the fact, fearing such absence of resentment might indicate moral indifference, or, if not, might yet render him incapable of coping with the world. He had himself been brought up at a public school, and had not, with all his experience of life, come to see, any more than most of the readers of this story now see, or for a long time will see, that there lies no nobility, no dignity in evil retort of any kind; that evil is evil when returned as much as when given; that the only shining thing is good--and the most shining, good for evil. One day a coarse boy in the village gave him a sharp blow on the face. It forced water from his eyes and blood from his nose. He was wiping away both at once with his handkerchief, when a kindly girl stopped and said to him-- “Never mind; don’t cry.” “Oh, no!” answered Clare; “it’s only water, it’s not crying. It would be cowardly to cry.” “That’s a brave boy! You’ll give it him back one of these days.” “No,” he returned, “I shall not. I couldn’t.” “Why?” “Because it hurts so. My nose feels as if it were broken. I know it’s not broken, but it feels like it.” The girl, as well as the boys who stood around him, burst into laughter. They saw no logic in his reasoning. Clare’s was the divine reasoning that comes of loving your neighbour; theirs was the earthly reasoning that came of loving themselves. They did not see that to Clare another boy was another of himself; that he was carrying out the design of the Father of men, that his creatures should come together into one, not push each other away.