first two nights he secured lodgings at a farm-house; on the third night
he was regarded as a suspicious character, and obtained reluctant
permission to stow himself in a hay-loft, where he was so happy at
roughing it and being uncomfortable that he could scarcely close an eye.
The amateur outcast lay dreamily watching the silver spears of moonlight
thrust through the roof of the barn, and extracting such satisfaction
from his cheerless surroundings as would have astonished a professional
tramp. "Poverty and hardship are merely ideas after all," said Lynde to
himself softly, as he drifted off in a doze. Ah, Master Lynde, playing
at poverty and hardship is one thing; but if the reality is merely an
idea, it is one of the very worst ideas in the world.

The young man awoke before sunrise the next morning, and started onward
without attempting to negotiate for breakfast with his surly host. He
had faith that some sunburnt young woman, with bowl of brown-bread and
milk, would turn up farther on; if she did not, and no tavern presented
itself, there were the sausage and the flask of eau-de-vie still
untouched in the holsters.

The mountain air had not wholly agreed with Mary, who at this stage of
the journey inaugurated a series of abnormal coughs, each one of which
went near to flinging Lynde out of the saddle.

"Mary," he said, after a particularly narrow escape, "there are few fine
accomplishments you haven't got except a spavin. Perhaps you've got
that, concealed somewhere about your person."

He said this in a tone of airy badinage which Mary seemed to appreciate;
but he gravely wondered what he could do with her, and how he should
replace her, if she fell seriously ill.