and bald, gray rocks,
only half unearthed, cumbered the road; while bunches of dwarfed
birches, browsed by straying cattle, added to the repulsiveness of the
scene. Nor were the inclosed lands scarcely more inviting. Lean shocks
of corn that had swayed under the autumn winds stretched at long
intervals across fields of thin stubble; a few half-ripened pumpkins,
hanging yet to the seared vines,--whose leaves had long since been
shrivelled by the frost,--showed their shining green faces on the dank
soil. In other fields, overrun with a great shaggy growth of rag-weed,
some of the parson's flock--father and blue-nosed boys--were lifting
poor crops of "bile-whites" or "merinos." From time to time, a tall
house jutted upon the road, with unctuous pig-sty under the lee of the
garden-fence and wood-pile sprawling into the highway, where the parson
would rein up his nag, and make inquiry after the truant Reuben.

A half-dozen of these stops and inquiries proved wholly vain; yet the
sturdy parson urged his poor, heaving nag forward, until he had come to
the little gatehouse which thrust itself quite across the high road at
some six miles' distance from Bolton Church. No stray boy had passed
that day. Thereupon the parson turned, and, after retracing his way for
two miles or more, struck into a cross-road which led westward. There
were the same fruitless inquiries here at the scattered houses, and when
he came at length upon the great river-road along which the boy had
passed at the first dawn there was no one who could tell anything of
him; and by noon the parson reentered the village, disconsolate and
hungry. He was by no means a vindictive man, and could very likely have
forgiven Reuben the blow he had struck. He had no conception of the
hidden causes which had wrought in the lad such burst of anger. He
conceived only that Satan had taken hold of him, and he had strong faith
in the efficacy of the rod for driving Satan out.

After dinner he administered a sharp lecture to his pupils, admonishing
them of the evils of disobedience, and warning them that "God sometimes
left bad boys to their own evil courses, and to run like the herd of
swine into which the unclean spirits entered,--of which account might be
found in Mark v. 13,--down a steep place, and be choked."

The parson still had hope that Reuben might appear at evening; and he
forecast a good turn which he would make, in such event, upon the
parable of the Prodigal Son