Rodney, with the boy at his side, is covering ground in a state of blissful uncertainty. He may be a mile from home, or ten miles, for all he knows, and the boy seems none the wiser.
"Where are we now?" says Geoffrey, suddenly, stopping and facing "the boy."
"I don't know, sir."
"But you said you knew the entire locality,—couldn't be puzzled within a radius of thirty miles. How far are we from home?"
"I don't know, sir. I never was abroad before, an' I'm dead bate now, an' the bag's like lead."
"You're a nice boy, you are!" says Mr. Rodney; "Here, give me the bag! Perhaps you would like me to carry you too; but I shan't, so you needn't ask me. Are you hungry?"
"No," says the boy valiantly; but he looks hungry, and Geoffrey's heart smites him, the more in that he himself is starving likewise.
"Come a little farther," he says, gently, slinging the heavy bag across his own shoulders. "There must be a farmhouse somewhere."
There is. In the distance, imbedded in trees, lies an extensive farmstead, larger and more home-like than any he has yet seen.
"Now, then, cheer up, Paddy!" he says to the boy: "yonder lies an oasis in our howling wilderness."