wondrously relieved and comforted. He had cleansed his bosom of the
perilous stuff that weighed upon the heart.

Was this good result effected by Kenelm's artful diplomacy, or by that
insight into human passions vouchsafed unconsciously to himself, by
gleams or in flashes, to this strange man who surveyed the objects and
pursuits of his fellows with a yearning desire to share them,
murmuring to himself, "I cannot, I do not stand in this world; like a
ghost I glide beside it, and look on "?

Thus the two men continued their way slowly, amid soft pastures and
yellowing cornfields, out at length into the dusty thoroughfares of
the main road. That gained, their talk insensibly changed its tone:
it became more commonplace; and Kenelm permitted himself the license
of those crotchets by which he extracted a sort of quaint pleasantry
out of commonplace itself; so that from time to time Tom was startled
into the mirth of laughter. This big fellow had one very agreeable
gift, which is only granted, I think, to men of genuine character and
affectionate dispositions,--a spontaneous and sweet laugh, manly and
frank, but not boisterous, as you might have supposed it would be.
But that sort of laugh had not before come from his lips, since the
day on which his love for Jessie Wiles had made him at war with
himself and the world.

The sun was setting when from the brow of a hill they beheld the
spires of Luscombe, imbedded amid the level meadows that stretched
below, watered by the same stream that had wound along their more
rural pathway, but which now expanded into stately width, and needed,
to span it, a mighty bridge fit for the convenience of civilized
traffic. The town seemed near, but it was full two miles off by road.