I
The Gentleman had gone, and the scent-bottle with him.
The boy stood on a track that ran among the gorse, and looked about him.
The wind was at his back, and the sun on his cheek. Above him the brow, rough with gorse, swelled up against the light.
He rushed up the hill into the sky.
On the top, he hunted the landscape with anxious eyes. There was nothing to be seen; no round but the zig-a-zig of the heartless grasshoppers, merry all about him, and the thunder of his own heart.
He swung round. About him, above him, below him, dumb earth, blind sea, deaf heaven.
What was his agony to them?
His hopes died, and he with them. Here was the end of his mission and the end of him.
Old Ding-dong had trusted him—and now!
Mother believed in him—and now!
There would be no Lewes before breakfast; no London before night; no
Nelson to-morrow morning.
A jackdaw chuckled overhead; a far sheep bleated; a great beetle, with black wing-cases flung back, roared by.
For the rest, all was silence and despair.
He had hoped greatly; he had tried hard; and failed utterly.
Above all he had not eaten for twenty-four hours.
The boy sat down and wept.