t's when it was
found that he was missing. Lastly he thought of Jerry, and a faint,
saddened kind of smile crossed his face as he knew how troubled the man
would be; for he felt that Jerry liked him, and he was sad as he told
himself that he would never see him more.

By this time he had tramped a couple of miles, having reached a shady
lane, and now a gleam of sunshine on ahead showed him that for which he
was looking--a little stream.

This crossed the road, but the water was muddy and foul, for it
communicated with the river, and the flood had ascended it like a tide;
but a quarter of a mile farther on he came across the stream again,
trickling now among watercress by the side of the road, and here it was
bright, pure, and sparkling, offering him, in one spot, a splendid basin
in which to bathe face and hands, from which task he rose up refreshed,
and trudged on, thinking of trying at the first village he reached for a
hat or cap.

An hour had passed before the opportunity offered, and then, next door
to a little inn, he found a regular village shop, where pretty well
everything could be purchased.

A woman served him, and looked at him curiously; for it did not happen
every morning for a good-looking, quiet youth in tweeds to enter, as
soon as she was down, to buy himself a flannel cricketing cap, because
he had lost his own, and then, upon paying for it and reaching the
doorway, turn round and buy a small yesterday's cottage loaf and a piece
of cheese, which he tied up in his handkerchief, said "Good-morning,"
and walked off, well watched by the inquisitive shopkeeper till he was
out of sight.

"Now I never made a bet in my life," she said, as she turned away to
prepare her breakfast, "and I don't know how it's done; but I'd lay a
penny that that young man met robbers on the road who stole his hat, and
that he is going to seek his fortune just as we read about in books."

She never knew how nearly she was right, and Richard did not give her a
second thought as he walked steadily on till well out of sight of the
village, when he began to relieve the painful gnawing sensation of
hunger, from which he suffered, by breaking off pieces of his loaf.

Then came a little bit of satisfaction; for, passing a farmhouse in a
lonely spot, he saw a big heavy-looking woman carrying a couple of pails
full of frothy new milk to the door, and, following her, he soon had his
desire for a pint of the warm sweet fluid satisfie