the unknown region at the end of which lay London, city of dreams.
He was not quite fourteen. His destiny was before him, and to the
fulfilment thereof he saw no hindrance. No more would the
remorseless factory hook catch him from his sleep and swing him into
the relentless machine. Never again, would he hear his mother's
shrewish voice or feel her heavy, greasy hand about his ears. He was
free--free to read, free to sleep, free to talk, free to drink in
the beauty of the lazy hours. Vaguely he was conscious that one of
the wonders that would come would be his own expansion. He would
learn many things which he did not know, things that would fit him
for his high estate. He looked down upon the foreshortened figure of
Barney Bill, his cloth cap, his shoulders, his bare brown arms, a
patch of knee. To the boy, at that moment, he was less a man than an
instrument of Destiny guiding him, not knowing why, to the Promised
Land.

At last on the quiet road Paul saw a bicyclist approaching them.
Mindful of Barney Bill's injunction, he withdrew his head. Presently
he lay down on the couch, and, soothed by the jogging of the van and
the pleasant creaking of the baskets, fell into the deep sleep of
tired and happy childhood.



CHAPTER IV

IT was a day of dust and blaze. Dust lay thick on the ground, it
filled the air, it silvered the lower branches of the wayside trees,
it turned the old brown horse into a dappled grey, it powdered the
black hair of Barney Bill and of Paul until they looked like