Clare went over the wall and the well without a notion of what he was
going to do, except look for work. He had eaten half a loaf, and now
drew in his cap some water from the well and drank. He felt better
than any moment since leaving the farm. He was full of hope.

All his life he had never been other than hopeful. To the human being
hope is as natural as hunger; yet how few there are that hope as they
hunger! Men are so proud of being small, that one wonders to what
pitch their conceit will have arrived by the time they are nothing at
all. They are proud that they love but a little, believe less, and
hope for nothing. Every fool prides himself on not being such a fool
as believe what would make a man of him. For dread of being taken in,
he takes himself in ridiculously. The man who keeps on trying to do
his duty, finds a brighter and brighter gleam issue, as he walks, from
the lantern of his hope.

Clare was just breaking into a song he had heard his mother sing to
his sister, when he was checked by the sight of a long skinny mongrel
like a hairy worm, that lay cowering and shivering beside a heap of
ashes put down for the dust-cart--such a dry hopeless heap that the
famished little dog did not care to search it: some little warmth in
it, I presume, had kept him near it. Clare's own indigence made him
the more sorry for the indigent, and he felt very sorry for this
member of the family; but he had neither work nor alms to give him,
therefore strode on. The dog looked wistfully after him, as if
recognizing one of his own sort, one that would help him if he could,
but did not follow him.

A hundred yards further, Clare came to a baker's shop. It was the
first he felt inclined to enter, and he went in. He did not know it