lace to the home I had
journeyed so many months to find when I was sanguine and hopeful.

There appeared to be a dead weight upon me; and as I first opened my
eyes, I felt as if the best thing I could do would be to rouse up Esau,
and go right away. But as I looked round, my eyes lit upon Mr Gunson
lying insensible in his bed, with Mrs Dean seated patiently by his
side, and I felt ashamed of my thoughts, for I could not go away and
leave one who had shown himself so true a friend from our first meeting,
and I at once determined, no matter how painful my position might be, to
stay by his side, and tend him till he grew strong again.

I shivered as I thought this, for I could just see his pale face below
his bandaged head, and the ideas came--suppose he does not recover--
never grow strong again? suppose he dies? The weak tears rose to my
eyes at the thought, and I lay wistfully gazing at him in the silence of
that bright morning, for I felt that I should be almost alone out there
in that wild, new country. For Mr and Mrs John would certainly be
more and more influenced by Mr Raydon; and as I could not stay at the
Fort, I should never see them. The old plans of staying with them, and
building up a new house somewhere in one of the lovely spots by the
river, were gone, and I told myself that I should soon have to say
good-bye to them.

There would be Esau, though;--perhaps not: for Mrs Dean would naturally
want to stay where there were women; and as she had become attached to
Mrs John, the chances were that she would stay at or near the Fort, and
that would influence Esau, who would be forgiven by Mr Raydon, and stay
too, while I should go off into the wilderness all alone.

Taken altogether, I was about as miserable and full of doleful ideas as
a boy of my age could be. Not one bit of blue sky could I see through
the clouds that shut in my future; and I was growing worse as I lay
there with an indistinct fancy that I had heard Mr Raydon's voice in
the night, when a bright ray of sunshine came through the window, and
made a ruddy golden spot on the pine-wood ceiling.

It was only a ray of light, but it worked wonders, for it changed the
current of my thoughts, setting me thinking that the sun was just
peeping over the edge of the mountain lying to the east, and brightening
the mists that lay in the valleys, and making everything look glorious
as it chased away the shadows from gully and ravine, till it shone full