Thus, though he no longer had any wish to run, he contrived to jog along quite cheerily till mid-afternoon. Then the low-lying clouds darkened and a soft rain, striking chilly against Hugh’s face, made him glad to pull his cloak up to his eyes. The fields and cottages looked gray through the downpour, and then all he saw was the broad puddles of the roadway, as of necessity he bent his head against the storm. At each step he could hear the water oozing in his shoes, his stockings were clammy wet, and his hat brim flapped cold against his forehead; but as the afternoon waned he lost these single sensations, and only knew that from head to foot he was soaked and numb and weary. Still he plodded on, because he must hold out till he reached an inn, but it was at a heavy mechanical pace, while he counted the steps and wondered drearily if the march would never end. Twilight was turning to night when he splashed at last into a considerable village and stumbled into the first inn to which he came. There was a brisk fire in the common room and but one other guest, so Hugh was free to slip into the chimney corner and dry his dripping clothes while he ate his supper. For civility’s sake he began talking to his companion, from whom he learned that he was now over the boundary and into Leicestershire. The knowledge gave him a childish homesick pang; Everscombe seemed to have fallen hopelessly far behind him and Nottingham was still distant the length of a county. With no further care to eat he thrust aside his trencher and dragged himself off to bed. In his waking moments he heard the rain plashing softly on the thatch of the shed beneath his window, and with the morning light he found the sky still gray and the storm still beating down. He put out one hand to his coat, flung on the stool beside his pallet, and felt that it was not half dried from yesterday’s soaking. Then for a time he rested quiet again, while he wondered in half-shamed fashion if he might not lie by a day till the storm was over. But when he reckoned up his store of money, he saw he could not afford to lose so many hours; it was yet more than two days’ march to Nottingham, and he had not full three shillings to keep him on the way. He wondered at the speed with which money went, for he was new to ordering such matters; hitherto he had been sure of his three meals a day and bed at night, and looked upon stray sixpences as valuable only for the apples and tops into which they might be turned. He put that last recollection out of his head as speedily as possible, ashamed of his scarcely ended childhood, and, accepting the responsibilities of the manhood he had claimed for himself, got up and dragged on his damp clothes.