Although he was tired enough, he could not sleep at once, nor even after a moderate time of lying there, in his ears the monotonous, not unmusical sound. He thought of what he should do to-morrow, and he could not tell. Walk on? Yes. How far, and where should he stop? So far he had not begged, but that could not last. The colour came into his cheek. He did not wish to beg. And were there no pride in the matter, there was the law of the land. Beggars and vagabonds and masterless men, how hardly were they dealt with! They were dealt with savagely, and few asked what was the reason or where was the fault. _Work._ Yes, he would work, but how and where? Dimly he had thought all along of stopping at last in some town or village, of some merciful opportunity floating to him, of tarrying, staying there—finding room somewhere—his skill shown—some accident, perhaps, some case like the alderman’s wife ... a foothold, a place to grip with the hand, then little by little to build up. Quiet work, good work, people to trust him, assurance, a cranny of peace at last ... and all the time the light growing. But where was the cranny, and how would he find the way to it? Over him shone the Sickle. He lay and wondered, and at last he slept, with the Serpent rising in the east. Late in the night, waking for a moment, he saw that the sky was overcast. The air, too, was colder. He wrapped the cloak more closely about him and slept again. When he woke the day was here, but not such a day as yesterday. The clouds hung grey and threatening, the wind blew chill. There set in a day of weariness and crosses. It passed somehow. Footsore, at dusk, he knocked at a cotter’s door, closed fast against the wind which was high. When the family questioned him, he told them that he was a poor physician, come from overseas, going toward kinspeople. There chanced to be a sick child in the cottage; they let him stay for reading her fever and telling them what to do. The next day and the next and the next the sky was greyer yet, and the wind still blew. It carried with it flakes of snow. The road stretched bare, none fared abroad who could stay indoors. Aderhold now stumbled as he walked. There was a humming in his ears. In the early afternoon of his sixth day from London he came to as lonely a strip of country as he had seen, lonely and grey and furrowed and planted with a gnarled wood. The flakes were coming down thickly.