NGLAND

Barefoot and touzle-headed, in the coarse russet and blue homespun of an
apprentice, a small boy sidled through the wood. Like a hunted hedgehog,
he was ready to run or fight. Where a bright brook slid into the
meadows, he stopped, and looked through new leaves at the infinite blue
of the sky. Words his grandfather used to read to him came back to his
mind.

"Let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of
the mountain."

The Bible which old Joseph Bradford had left to his grandson had been
taken away, but no one could take away the memory of it. If he had
dared, Will would have shouted aloud then and there. For all his hunger
and weariness and dread of the future the strength of the land entered
into his young soul. He drank of the clear brook, and let it wash away
the soil of his pilgrimage. Then he curled himself in a hollow full of
dry leaves, and went to sleep.

When he woke, it was in the edge of the evening. Long shadows pointed
like lances among the trees. A horse was cropping the grass in a
clearing, and some one beyond the thicket was reading aloud. For an
instant he thought himself dreaming of the old cottage at
Austerfield--but the voice was young and lightsome.

"Where a man can live at all, there can he live nobly."

The reader stopped and laughed out. A lively snarling came from a burrow
not far away, where two badgers were quarrelling conscientiously.

"Just like folks ye be, a-hectorin' and a-fussin'. What's the great
question to settle now--predestination or infant baptism?--Why, where
under the canopy did you come from, you pint o' cider?"

"I be a-travelin'," Will said stoutly.

"Runaway 'prentice, I should guess. I was one myself at fifteen."

"I'm 'leven, goin' on twelve," said the boy, standing as straight as he
could.

"Any folks?"

"I lived with granddad until he died, four year back."

"And so you're wayfarin', be you? What can you do to get your bread?"

The urchin dug a bare toe into the sod. "I can work," he said
half-defiantly. "Granddad always said I should be put to school some
day, but my uncle won't have that. I can read."

"Latin?"

"No--English. Granddad weren't college-bred."

"Nor I--they gave me more lickings than Latin at the grammar school down
to Alvord, 'cause I would go bird's-nesting and fishing sooner than
study my _hic_, _haec_, _hoc_. And now I've built me a booth like a wild
man o' Virginia and come out here to get my L