He had not gone very far when in his walk he touched on something lying in the path. Bending down and touching it with his hand he found that it was the form of a fellow creature. “He is overcome with fatigue; can I help him along?” he thought. He rose up to look round, and let the beam of light which he held in his hand touch the prostrate form. “I wish he could get up by himself,” he thought. No sooner had he felt this wish than he had a sensation of pain in his limbs, and the figure rose up. “I could not move,” it said, “until you came, with all my reasons to get along; the pain was as much as the pleasure.” “Who are you?” “I am a wanderer, and am trying to reach the place where I was born; they will help me there.” Now in the valley there was a certain set of people called wanderers, who had proved themselves unfit for any real work. These, if inoffensive, were allowed to roam about subsisting on charity. The student walked alongside this wanderer; and every step the wanderer made he felt a sensation of pain in his limbs. But the two walked quickly on till they came to the dwelling he had left so shortly before. The student led him in and let him rest in his chamber. And then he himself left the dwelling again, taking with him a few necessaries. CHAPTER IX. When he had seen the wanderer safely housed he determined to go and visit a friend who had lived in a town not very far from the metropolis. This friend had been his most intimate companion when he first became a student, but being older had finished his studies sooner, and had left the metropolis before the student’s misfortune. In leaving his place of exile the student rendered himself liable to punishment, and he gave up the means of subsistence which had been provided for him there. He was obliged to go as a wanderer, and trust to the liberality of the people on the way. He was hospitably received as a rule. The region was remote from the metropolis, the inhabitants were glad to talk with a stranger—and the wanderers were, in general, held to have a stock of exchangeable talk and news. But he did not speak with any one of what lay present to his mind, till one occasion. As he was walking along early in the day, he was hailed by an inhabitant who looked like a well-to-do farmer. Something in the student’s appearance attracted him, for, learning that he was on his way to a distant town, he asked him to stay and take the first meal of the day with him. This inhabitant had been a clerk employed in the council of pleasure and pain. But the sedentary life had been too trying for him; he had come to live in the country on a small possession of his till he had overcome the strain. “Did you not find it very dull in the part you come from?” “No; I found that the people had much of interest to tell me.”