In sunshine and in shade, in wet and fair,
Drooping or blithe of heart, as might befall,
My best companions now the driving winds,
And now the 'trotting brooks' and whispering trees--
And now the music of my own sad steps,
With many a short-lived thought that passed between
And disappeared."


Never before had the words failed to thrill him with the romance of the
road. Now as the rainy twilight threatened with never an inn in sight,
he lingered on the final lines: "The music of my own sad steps!"

Sad steps indeed that postponed his meeting with Brian! Did he not owe
it to his son to travel with all possible speed to the farmhouse
instead of plodding belatedly along the highway in rain and gloom and
twilight? Had he after all a right to indulge his passion for tramping
and footsore penance when already word might have come to the sister
with the ink-pool eyes? The runaway was young. His remorse would come
the quicker. For every day he, Kenny, lingered in selfish penance on
the road, he must pay in a widening of distance between Brian and
himself. Kenny quickened his sagging foot-steps. Drenched and hungry,
he felt himself better able to see the thing in sane and unpoetic light.

It came to this: Would Brian prefer the rags of romantic loitering to
the speed, train or otherwise, of eager affection? Surely not! He
must not be selfish. Foot-sore or foot-fresh, his remorse would be the
same. With Brian it would be the inner things that counted.

At twilight Kenny found a thrifty farmer who agreed to take him in. He