“It was _that_ his look kept bringing before me,” he said to himself, and he sighed because he knew that there was too little of the element of joy in his life, and that he plodded on from day to day, considering religion a privilege and a duty, but somehow missing the gladness which might have been his. Ralph meanwhile, much refreshed by the rest and food and by his host’s kindly words, tramped on contentedly enough through the wild, desolate country which led to Grantown. The sun was just setting as he reached the village; workmen were making their way homeward, some children with little, dusty, bare feet were playing battledore and shuttlecock in the road, the ruddy light on their hair looked like burnished copper. “Come awa bairns, it’s time ye were a’ in bed,” called a comely mother standing in the open doorway of one of the houses. “Just a wee whilie,” pleaded the children. “Ah!” she replied, yielding under protest, “You’re an awfu’ care to me!” But there was love and pride in her eyes nevertheless, as she watched their play. Ralph sighed a little as he tramped on. He was now both hungry and tired, and began to consider his plans; it was quite clear that he could not afford the price of a bed, and it was still too light to venture upon such shelter as might be found in barns or under hedges. He turned into a baker’s shop, secured a good-sized stale loaf, and then for want of anything better to do, found his way to the railway station where he amused himself by looking out trains which he had no money to travel by, after which, having had the good fortune to find a _Glasgow Herald_ in the waiting-room, left behind by some traveller, he read until it was quite dusk. The quiet little place roused into a sort of activity about a quarter past eight when two trains arrived, one from Perth, the other from Elgin, and Ralph sauntered on to the platform with a faint hope that he might see some face that he knew--he could almost in his loneliness have welcomed the Skoots! But very few passengers alighted, and directly they had been seen off the premises the porters began to lock up for the night--no more trains were expected. “After all,” reflected Ralph, as he left the village behind him, and tramped along the highroad in the gathering gloom, “if I had gone out to the colonies I should think nothing of camping out for a night. There’s no more disgrace in it here than there. And luckily there’s no law, as there is in England, against sleeping under a hedge, I can’t be had up as a vagrant in Scotland. How, if only I had not been forced to sell Macneillie’s knife it would have been handy enough for cutting this loaf which must certainly have come out of the Ark.” He wrenched off the top with difficulty and laughed to himself as he thought how horrified Lady Mactavish would be, could she see him now in the shabbiest of clothes, tramping a dusty road and munching stale bread as he went.