d-looking youth, with
bare head, save for a mass of unkempt hair; a face all scratched and
bruised, and made to look savage and repulsive by vindictiveness; the
clothes were dirty, bedraggled and torn, while the riding boots were
torn and muddy.

And Naomi Penryn had seen me thus--ay worse. I went to the river and
washed, and then looked at myself again. My face was still scratched and
bruised, but I had the Pennington features. After all, there was nothing
mean and cunning about them. The eyes were wild, and perhaps fierce, but
they were honest and frank still. The clothes were much worn and torn,
but the body they covered was strong and shapely. There was nothing weak
or shambling in those six feet three inches.

Then I remembered what I had been a year before, and what I had become
through injustice. Could I not make myself worthy? But how? I faced, or
tried to face, facts truthfully. I was without home or friends, if I
except the friendship of Eli Fraddam the gnome, who was at once despised
and feared on every hand. I had no money, I had no clothes. Moreover, I
had no means of getting any. I had no trade; I had no thorough knowledge
of anything save farming, and no farmer dared to hire me. It was true I
had some little experience of fishing, and could manage a boat fairly
well, but not well enough to gain a livelihood by such work.

And yet a love had come into my life for one who was tenderly nurtured,
one doubtless accustomed to abundant riches; I, who was an outcast, a
beggar. And I owed my poverty, my disgrace, to the Tresidders. Let God
who knows all hearts judge whether there was not an excuse for my
hatred. And yet, although the Tresidders had made my very love a seeming
madness, that same love made me see beauty, and led me to hope with a
great hope.

I turned my face toward Pennington, wondering all the while if I should
see Naomi again. For I called her Naomi in my own heart, and to me it
was the sweetest name on earth. I repeated it over to myself again and
again, and the birds, who sang to me overhead, sang to me songs about
her. And as I trudged along, I tried to think again how I should buy
back Pennington, not for revenge, but because of my love. But no ray of
light shone to reveal to me the way. I could see nothing for it but that
I, poor and friendless, must forever remain poor and friendless still.
And yet all the while birds sang love songs and told me of Naomi Penryn.

When I at length saw E