Clare got on the stone hearth of the forge, and lay down in the hot
ashes, too far gone with hunger to care for the clothes that were
almost beyond caring for. He was soon fast asleep; and warmth and
sleep would do nearly as much for him as food.



Chapter XX.

Tommy reconnoitres.


Tommy, out in the moonlight, found himself in a waste yard, scattered
over with bits of iron, mostly old and rusty. It was not an
interesting place, for it was not likely to afford him anything to
eat. Yet, with the instinct of the human animal, he went shifting and
prying and nosing about everywhere. Presently he heard a curious
sound, which he recognized as made by a hen. More stealthily yet he
went creeping hither and thither, feeling here and feeling there, in
the hope of laying his hand on the fowl asleep. Urged by his natural
impulse to forage, he had forgotten Clare's warning. His hand did find
her, and had it been his grandmother instead of Clare in the smithy,
he would at once have broken the bird's neck before she could cry out;
but with the touch of her feathers came the thought of Clare, and by
this time he understood that what Clare said, Clare would do.

He had some knowledge of fowls; he had heard too much talk about them
at his grandmother's not to know something of their habits; and
finding she sat so still, he concluded that under her might be