CHAPTER VII.

A SUNDAY.

Notwithstanding his weariness Donal woke early, for he had slept
thoroughly. He rose and dressed himself, drew aside the little
curtain that shrouded the window, and looked out. It was a lovely
morning. His prospect was the curious old main street of the town.
The sun that had shone into it was now shining from the other side,
but not a shadow of living creature fell upon the rough stones!
Yes--there was a cat shooting across them like the culprit he
probably was! If there was a garden to the house, he would go and
read in the fresh morning air!

He stole softly through the outer room, and down the stair; found
the back-door and a water-butt; then a garden consisting of two or
three plots of flowers well cared for; and ended his discoveries
with a seat surrounded and almost canopied with honeysuckle, where
doubtless the cobbler sometimes smoked his pipe! "Why does he not
work here rather than in the archway?" thought Donal. But, dearly
as he loved flowers and light and the free air of the garden, the
old cobbler loved the faces of his kind better. His prayer for
forty years had been to be made like his master; and if that prayer
was not answered, how was it that, every year he lived, he found
himself loving the faces of his fellows more and more? Ever as they
passed, instead of interfering with his contemplations, they gave
him more and more to think: were these faces, he asked, the symbols