at his poor, raw chest. Nothing mattered now,
he told himself, except that he should accomplish the work his Master
had given him to do, and along with the work he believed that he should
also be granted a sufficiency of strength. After that--why, he would be
quite ready and eager for the next call upon him, whenever it came.

But there was not a house or cottage within sight, only a long stretch
of barren land, half heather, partly coarse grass, over which some
small, horned sheep and half-grown cattle had been turned out to
pasture. About three miles off, at a place called Hanleigh Heath, there
was a farm with a solitary wayside dwelling attached--a big, bare barn
of a place, part of which the farmer had utilized as a sort of rude
hostelry. The dwarf knew it well. It was called the Traveller's Delight.
He had put up there with the Harrises one night several years before.
The landlord and Joe seemed the best of friends--as "thick as thieves,"
in fact. Therefore Bambo felt that he dared not venture within the
hostelry with his charges--it would not be safe; besides, they had no
money to pay for lodging. Nevertheless, they must make for it with all
speed. The rain was coming on, and soon too. The Traveller's Delight
held out their only chance of refuge from the wet and the darkness, and
the dwarf hoped that in some of its straggling outhouses they should
find shelter for the night.

It was almost dark when Darby and the dwarf saw a light twinkling a
short way off, like a bright, friendly eye from out the gloom. Oh, how
thankful they were! for both were weary beyond the power of moving many
yards further. Darby was staggering from giddiness and stumbling at
every step. His little legs dragged one after the other as if each foot
were weighted with lead. Bambo spoke no word, for speech was now hardly
possible to him, his throat was so sore, his breath so laboured, his
chest so torn by the deep, grating cough, which, in spite of all his
efforts, he could not suppress. The instant the rain actually began to
fall he had taken off his jacket to wrap around Joan, who was sound
asleep in his arms, and his vest he had put upon Darby. It hung about
the boy's slim shoulders and over his knees somewhat like a sack. It had
saved him from a wetting, however; while Bambo, thus stripped of his
outer garments, was soaked to the skin.

He carefully laid the still sleeping Joan under the shelter of a hayrick
in the stackyard behind the i