on the trough, and
began to talk of the weather, politics, etc., in a quiet, pleasant way,
making a joke now and then. He had a thin face, with a scraggy fringe of
yellow hair and whisker about it, and a gray, penetrating eye. The shoe
was on presently, and mounting, with a touch of his hat to Yarrow, he
rode off. The convict hesitated a moment, then called to him.

"I have a word to say to you," coming up, and putting his hand on the
horse's mane.

The man glanced at him, then jumped down.

"Well, my friend?"

"You're a clergyman?"

"Yes."

"So was I once. If you had known, just now, that I was a felon two days
ago released from the penitentiary, what would you have said to me?
Guilty, when I went in, remember. A thief."

The man was silent, looking in Yarrow's face. Then he put his hand on
his arm.

"Shall I tell you?"

"Go on."

"I would have said, that, if ever you preach God's truth again, you will
have learned a deeper lesson than I."

If he meant to startle the man's soul into life, he had done it. He a
teacher, who hardly knew if that good God lived!

"Let me go," he cried, breaking loose from the other's hand.

"No. I can help you. For God's sake tell me who you are."

But Yarrow left him, and went down the road, hiding, when he tried to
pursue him,--sitting close behind a pile of lumber. He was there when
found: so tired that the last hour and the last years began to seem like
dreams. Something cold roused him, nozzling at his throat. An old yellow
dog, its eyes burning.

"Why, Ready," he said, faintly, "have you come?"

"Come home," said the dog's eyes, speaking out what the whole day had
tried to say: "they're waiting for you; they've been waiting always;
home's there, and love's there, and the good God's there, and it's
Christmas day. Come home!"

Yarrow struggled up, and put his arms about the dog's neck: kissed him
with all the hunger for love smothered in these many years.

"He don't know I'm a thief," he thought.

Ready bit angrily at coat and trousers.

"Be a man, and come home."

Yarrow understood. He caught his breath, as he went along, holding by
the fence now and then.

"It's the chance!" he said. "And Martha! It's Martha and the little
chaps!"

But he was not sure. He was yet so near to the place where it would have
been forever too late. If Ready saw that with his wary eye, turned now
and then, as he trotted before,--if he had any terror in his dumb soul,
(or what