ice in church; so he answered with a certain pride:

"Ah, I can sing proper well."

"Sing summat," said the boy.

Frank waited a minute to choose a tune, and then sang "Ring the Bell,
Watchman," straight through. The boy listened attentively, and joined,
after the second verse, in the chorus, which was also taken up in a
gruff and uncertain manner by the mate in the other shed. The deaf man
looked on approvingly, and the lathe kept up a grinding accompaniment.

"That's fine, that is," said the boy when the last notes of Frank's
clear voice died away. "Do yer know any more?"

"I know a side more," said Frank, "and hymns too."

"Can yer sing `Home Sweet Home?'" asked the boy.

"Ah."

But this song was not so successful, for after the chorus had been sung
with great animation, and the second verse eagerly expected, something
choked and gurgled in Frank's throat so that he could not sing any more.
All that night, as he lay on the bed of shavings, which he shared with
his new companion, he waked at intervals to hear those words echoing
through the woods: "Home Sweet Home--There's no place like Home." But
with the morning sun these sounds vanished, and he began his onward
journey cheerily, refreshed by his rest and food. As he went down the
cart-track the boy had pointed out to him he sang scraps of songs to
himself, the birds twittered busily above his head, and the distant
sound of the deaf man's lathe came more and more faintly to his ears.
He felt sure now that he was on his way to make his fortune, and the
wood seemed full of voices which said, "Lunnon Town, Lunnon Town," over
and over again. The thought of his mother's sad face was, it is true, a
little depressing. "But," he said to himself, "how pleased she'll be
when I come back rich!" Then he considered what sort of shawl he would
buy for her with the first money he earned--whether it should be a
scarlet one, or mixed colours with an apple-green border, like one he
had seen once in a shop at Daylesbury.

These fancies beguiled the way, and he was surprised when, after what
seemed a short time, he found himself at the edge of the wood, and in a
broad high-road; that must be the Wickham Road, and he had still three
miles to walk before reaching the town and the chair factories, where he
meant to ask for work as a first step on his way to London.

It was not a busy-looking road, and the carts and people who passed now
and then seemed to have plenty of