ves is to fling them into
recklessness and despair."--Froude.

Although David did not know the exact route the quack had laid out for
his journey, he was certain that it would be easy enough to trace him in
that sparsely-settled region, and so he turned his face in the direction
in which the equipage vanished when he watched it from the barn. His
movements did not seem to come from his own volition but to originate in
something external. He had a sense of yielding to necessity. There are
heroic moments in our lives, when that subtle force we call our "will"
demonstrates, or at all events persuades us, that we are "_free_." There
are others, like those through which the young adventurer was now
passing, when we experience a feeling of utter helplessness amidst
cosmic forces and believe ourselves to be straws in a mighty wind or
ill-fated stars borne along a predestined orbit.

Surrendering himself to the current of events, the recalcitrant Quaker
escaped for a time the painful consciousness of personal responsibility.

The tranquil stars above him seemed to look down upon the wanderer in
silent approval. The night birds chanted their congratulations from the
tree tops, and reading his own thoughts into their songs he imagined he
heard them saying, "Let each one find his mate; let each one find his
mate."

The cool night breeze caressed and kissed him as it hurried by on silent
wings, and for an hour or two he tramped along with a peace in his heart
which seemed to be a reflection from the outside world.

But gradually a change came over the face of nature, and this, too,
reflected itself in the mirror of his soul.

In the heavens above him the clouds commenced to gather like hostile
armies. They skirmished, sent out their flying battalions and then fell
upon each other in irresistible fury. Great, jagged flashes of
lightning, like sword thrusts from gigantic and hidden hands rent the
sky; wild crashes of thunder pealed through the reverberating dome of
heaven; the rain fell in torrents; the elements of nature seemed to have
evaded their master, vaulted their barriers and precipitated themselves
in a furious struggle.

The lonely pilgrim perceived the resemblance which his conflicting
emotions bore to this wild scene, and smiled grimly. He found in all
this tumult a justification for the tempest in his soul.

It was not until the light of morning struggled through this universal
gloom, that the weary and b