He sat up and listened, and then, with an excitement which made his heart jump, he recognised what it was. It was London! Had he not read in many a book of that great, low volume of sound, which some people described as the sound of many waters, and some as the distant roar of a tempest. It was soft here in his little hermitage, amid the strange solitude and silence, but rolled and murmured continuous, never ending. He perceived now that he had noticed it from the first moment, that all along he had wondered when it would stop, vaguely disquieted by it without knowing what it was; and now he knew that it would never stop, that it was the breath of the great multitude, the hum of their endless going on and on. John sat and listened to it till it went to his head, exciting him like wine. He could not rest. The contrast of this little prison-chamber in which he sat, and all that was implied in that low, continuous roar and hum of men, stirred his imagination more and more. He got up and opened the window, and looked out. Opposite to him was the great mass of building dark against the sky, which seemed to oppress and stifle the neighbourhood, taking away the air; but outside of that, away across the river where the world was, the hum, the roar, the continuous roll of sound came stronger and stronger. It called upon the young soul which stood and throbbed and listened. He had the habits of his youth and innocence strong upon him--a sort of unspoken sense of duty that restrained him and kept him from following his own impulses. It was not till some time had elapsed that he began to think it possible to obey that call--to go out and see what it was which gave forth that mighty voice. When the thought entered his mind it filled all his veins with excitement. Should he go? Why should he not go? No word had been said to him to bind him to remain where he was. It was not to waste day and night shut up in a dreary little room that he had come to London. He looked round upon the blank, grey walls, and found their bondage intolerable. It was like a box in which he was shut up. His brain and his veins seemed to be swelling, bursting with life that must have an outlet somehow. No, certainly, he could not stay there. He must have air and room to breathe; he must see for himself what was meant by London. But John, even in his excitement, was prudent. He put away his watch--which was not the one Mrs. Egerton had given him, but the old, dear silver one, the one that had no value at all and yet so great a value. He was aware that in London the natural thing was to rob a countryman, to take his watch from him. He would not expose his treasure to such a risk; but when he had laid that away he felt, with confidence, that there was nothing else to lose. They might hustle or knock him down, if they could, but there was nothing else they could do to him. Nevertheless, it was with something of that warlike exhilaration, with