y, promising that he would do
so. Then Home scrambled out into the noontide heat. Soon the slow
train woke up again, and lumbered on.

It was much more than three years after when Donald came to
Home's store. He looked fagged and weary as he came up the
wagon-road, having done his thirty miles that day. He had a knapsack
on his back, but that was not heavy. Home was sitting on a case
under his verandah. The sun had just set, and he had closed the
store for the day, just before the traveler showed in sight. Now
that he drew near, he knew him at once. 'Hullo! I've often
thought about you,' was his greeting. 'But what have you been
doing with yourself?' The boy's face he looked boyish still,
though no longer girlish was worn. He was very pale, and had blue
marks under his eyes. 'I've had a hell of a time,' he muttered.
'Well, come and have some skoff,' Home said. 'After that you can
tell me about it all.' The boy ate but languidly, though he
emptied cup after cup. He said hardly anything; he looked down on
his luck. The zest was gone out of his talk, as the rose-pink out
of his cheeks, since they last met.

Home tried to say something cheerful. 'Do you know, if you'd come
this day week I don't think you'd have found me here. I've sold
this store. I'm meaning to go home, and to settle down there.'
The boy congratulated him rather listlessly. Then he spoke with a
sparkle of his old keenness. 'I wish I were going home,' he said.

'Why don't you?'

'I haven't a shilling,' the boy said; 'only minus shillings, only
debts.' Home tried to say something pleasant about luck turning,
but it came out flatly. After supper the boy told a story, but he
did not seem to tell it candidly by any manner of means. The
partnership he had gone to had been dissolved a year ago. He had
been trading, backed up by a Jew, this last cold weather. He had
had horrible luck; his store had been burnt down in August. It
was November now. He had been knocking about in a certain town
for a month or two. Then he had taken to the road. Some people
had been kind to him as he came along; others hadn't.

'What do you owe?' Home asked him abruptly. 'Oh, a pound or two,'
he answered, coloring. 'It's more than that, isn't it?' Home said
gently. The boy denied its being more than that. Then all of a
sudden he owned up. 'One Jew, they were partners, said it was
twenty-five; the other said he'd take fifteen. It wasn't really
more than fifteen, honor bright.'