were on the top of his form and kept commiserating me on the
discomforts of my job. The picture of that patient, gentle old
fellow, hobbling about his compound and puzzling over his _Pilgrim's
_Progress, a cripple for life after five months of blazing glory,
would have stiffened the back of a jellyfish.

This last letter was horribly touching, for summer had come and
the smell of the woods behind his prison reminded Peter of a place
in the Woodbush, and one could read in every sentence the ache of
exile. I sat on that stone wall and considered how trifling were the
crumpled leaves in my bed of life compared with the thorns Peter
and Blaikie had to lie on. I thought of Sandy far off in Mesopotamia,
and old Blenkiron groaning with dyspepsia somewhere in America,
and I considered that they were the kind of fellows who did their
jobs without complaining. The result was that when I got up to go
on I had recovered a manlier temper. I wasn't going to shame my
friends or pick and choose my duty. I would trust myself to Providence,
for, as Blenkiron used to say, Providence was all right if you
gave him a chance.
It was not only Peter's letter that steadied and calmed me. Isham
stood high up in a fold of the hills away from the main valley, and
the road I was taking brought me over the ridge and back to the
stream-side. I climbed through great beechwoods, which seemed in
the twilight like some green place far below the sea, and then over
a short stretch of hill pasture to the rim of the vale. All about me
were little fields enclosed with walls of grey stone and full of dim
sheep. Below were dusky woods around what I took to be Fosse
Manor, for the great Roman Fosse Way, straight as an arrow,
passed over the hills to the south and skirted its grounds. I could
see the stream slipping among its water-meadows and could hear