stions and went on.

The night was perfectly still; the only sound was the occasional
barking of a dog at a distance, as if disturbed in his sleep. A brook
rippled by the wayside, and he was glad to hear its strange sound; it
went as if chatting with him for a while, and then disappeared, and all
was silent. He passed through a ravine, where it was so dark from the
high trees on both sides that he could not see the path; quietly
composing himself, he went forward, thinking how beautiful it must be
there in the clear daylight. He emerged from the ravine, and was
rejoiced to be in the highway again. Over the ridge of a mountain shone
a star, so large, so brilliant, always, going up higher, and gleaming
so brightly! Does Manna know what star this is?

There was a light in the first house of a village; he stopped. He heard
voices. The woman inside was mourning and lamenting, that, on the
morrow, her only cow was to be sold. Taking his resolution quickly,
Roland placed several gold pieces upon the window-sill of the lower
room, and knocked on the window-pane, crying,--

"You people! there is, some money for the cow upon the sill."

He ran breathlessly away, a sort of trouble coming over him, as if he
were a thief; he did not stop until he had gone some distance,
crouching down in a ditch. He could not tell why he had run from there.
As he now lay there and hearkened whether the people followed him, he
laughed merrily to himself, to think that it must seem to them to have
been some spirit that goes about healing men's sorrows, and making them
grateful. No one came. He went on vigorously, happy in the thought of
what he had done, and thinking that when he had a great deal of
money--as he would have at some time--he would go about secretly in the
world, and thus make everybody happy wherever his footsteps went.

When he fixed his gaze again upon the path, he saw a strange-looking
man in the field by the wayside, who was aiming a gun directly at him.
Roland, trembling, stood still, and asked the man what he wanted; the
man did not move. Roland set the dog upon him, and the dog came back,
shaking his head. Roland went up to the form, and laughed and trembled
at the same time, to find that it was nothing but a scarecrow.

A wagon, groaning under its heavy load, came nearer and nearer. It was
a strange creaking and clattering, as the wagon swayed upon its axle,
and the wheels grated upon and crushed the stones. Roland came to