A sudden smile illumined his face. The situation was novel, and to him enjoyable. He was greatly fatigued,--he had over-exerted himself during the past three or four days, walking much further than he had ever been accustomed to, and his limbs ached sorely--nevertheless, with the sense of rest and relief from strain, came a certain exhilaration of spirit, like the vivacious delight of a boy who has run away from school, and is defiantly ready to take all the consequences of his disobedience to the rules of discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new" experience of life. No one would give him what he sought. To him the "social" round was ever the same dreary, heartless and witless thing, as empty under the sway of one king or queen as another, and as utterly profitless to peace or happiness as it has always been. The world of finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which ended in a loathing of the thing gained. Others might and would consume themselves in fevers of avarice, and surfeits of luxury,--but for him such temporary pleasures were past. He desired a complete change,--a change of surroundings, a change of associations--and for this, what could be more excellent or more wholesome than a taste of poverty? In his time he had met men who, worn out with the constant fight of the body's materialism against the soul's idealism, had turned their backs for ever on the world and its glittering shows, and had shut themselves up as monks of "enclosed" or "silent" orders,--others he had known, who, rushing away from what we call civilisation, had encamped in the backwoods of America, or high up among the Rocky Mountains, and had lived the lives of primeval savages in their strong craving to assert a greater manliness than the streets of cities would allow them to enjoy,--and all were moved by the same mainspring of action,--the overpowering spiritual demand within themselves which urged them to break loose from cowardly conventions and escape from Sham. He could not compete with younger men in taking up wild sport and "big game" hunting in far lands, in order to give free play to the natural savage temperament which lies untamed at the root of every man's individual being,--and he had no liking for "monastic" immurements. But he longed for liberty,--liberty to go where he liked without his movements being watched and commented upon by a degraded "personal" press,--liberty to speak as he felt and do as he wished, without being compelled to weigh his words, or to consider his actions. Hence--he had decided on his present course, though how that course was likely to shape itself in its progress he had no very distinct idea. His actual plan was to walk to Cornwall, and there find out the native home of his parents, not so much for sentiment's sake as for the necessity of having a definite object or goal in view.