But an hour at the utmost exhausted what he had to say to her; indeed, he had never had so much to say to her as it would take an hour to tell. Half-an-hour, perhaps, now and then--that he would like to keep up, just to please her; and it would please himself too. But he did not care for any more. As for all the rest, he did not mind, not he! if he never saw the White House again. Thus he was thinking as he hastened along the road, his hasty feet ringing upon the path notwithstanding that it was somewhat damp and the atmosphere dull, giving forth no particular echo. Some one else was coming along the Wyburgh Road, a small uncertain blackness in the white atmosphere. Harry knew very well at the first glance who it was, as familiar a figure as any in the country side. Anybody would have known him by his step even, that peculiar step as of one springy foot and one shuffling one which gave a one-sided movement to the man, and an unmistakable rhythm to the sound of him. Perhaps he knew Harry’s step too, for he paused at the corner, turning his face in the way the young man was coming. “Who will that be?” he said, in the obscurity, “if I’m no mistaken an angry man--” “It’s I, Isaac,” said Harry, “angry enough if that would do me any good.” “It’s you, Mr. Harry! that was what I thought. No, it does little good; but so long as you wear it off in the feet of ye, my lad, and keep it out o’ th’ other end--” “It’s very easy talking! Keep it out of the other end! I would like to know for my part,” cried the young man, glad of utterance, “why old folks should go against young folks in the way they do. It’s like a disease, as if they couldn’t help it. The more reasonable a thing is, the more they don’t see it. It’s enough to make a fellow break with everything, and take himself off to the end of the earth.” “There might be sense in that--if the ends of th’ earth would take ye from yoursel’, Mr. Harry. But that’s queer talking for the like of you that have always had your own gate.” He had come close up to the young man and was gazing keenly up at him. “Have you no had your ain gate? I dreamt it then. T’ auld maister was o’ that mind.” “Uncle Henry?--Isaac, you’re a good old fellow--you’ve always been kind to me; but don’t talk nonsense, if you please. Uncle Henry of that mind! did he ever let me do anything I wanted to do? from the day I went to him till the day I left.” “Tut, tut, Mr. Harry, he always wished you weel--always weel; and if you have patience, you’ll get it all, every penny; just have patience,” the new-comer said, patting Harry’s arm coaxingly. And then he drew a little closer, still with his fingers on Harry’s arm. “And where may you be going, my braw lad, at this hour of the night with your face turned from home?” “Going? what does it matter where I am going. I don’t mind if it was into the river there, or out of the world. Well, if you will have it, I’m going to the ‘Red Lion’ to rest a bit and come to myself.”