While she was very mercifully occupied thus, I spent several hours in pacing up and down the glades of the wood to keep myself warm, for, after all, in the air of the dawn, the sleeves of one's shirt are no very adequate protection. To diversify this occupation I hunted an occasional squirrel, but with no prospect of catching one; and lay in wait, stone in hand, for many a white-tailed rabbit, but did so in vain. Indeed, the only good fortune that fell to me in these nefarious pursuits was the discovery of a bird's-nest with several fine eggs in it. But somehow I had not the heart to disturb those exquisite things; it may have been, especially as a small piece of sentiment may not come amiss even to the sworn enemies of it on an occasion of this kind, that the distrest birds and the distrest Cynthia had something in common. Any lingering fumes of wine being long since out of my head, thanks to the operations of the wholesome open air, I grew conscious of a very distinct craving for food about eight of the clock. It was then that the thought of the generous Mr. Fielding's guinea proved such a source of solid comfort. One must be a vagrant by the wayside, dependent on chance for one's crusts of bread, to experience what the contemplation of twenty-one shillings sterling means, when that contemplation is sharpened and assisted by a biting hunger. In the days of my material greatness, not my houses, lands, revenues, not all my precious possessions had the power to bestow upon me that inexpressible sense of delightful anticipation which Mr. Fielding's guinea was able to do. A whole guinea to a desperately hungry mortal who for two days had begged his bread! What would it not purchase? How much sheer honest feeding did it represent! It would permit of delicate feeding, too, for Cynthia. A fine lusty mutton-pasty for the earl; and a bowl of cream-covered milk, flanked with the whitest bread and the purest butter, for his countess.