"Here, Prue, is the last feed I shall give you"; and he emptied the contents of the measure into the trough. "Good-by, old Prue; I shall never see you again."
The mare plunged her nose deep down into the savory mess, and seemed for a moment to forget her friend in the selfish gratification of her appetite. If she had fully realized the unpleasant fact that Harry was going, perhaps she might have been less selfish, for this was not the first time she had been indebted to him for extra rations.
Passing through the barn, the runaway was again in the open air. Everything looked gloomy and sad to him, and the scene was as solemn as a funeral. There were no sounds to be heard but the monotonous chirp of the cricket, and the dismal piping of the frogs in the meadow. Even the owl and the whip-poor-will had ceased their nocturnal notes, and the stars looked more gloomy than he had ever seen them before.
There was no time to moralize over these things, though, as he walked along, he could not help thinking how strange and solemn everything seemed on that eventful night. It was an epoch in his history; one of those turning points in human life, when all the works of nature and art, borrowing the spirit which pervades the soul, assume odd and unfamiliar forms. Harry was not old enough or wise enough to comprehend the importance of the step he was taking; still he was deeply impressed by the strangeness within and without.
Taking his bundle from the hollow stump, he directed his steps toward Pine Pleasant. He walked very slowly, for his feelings swelled within him and retarded his steps. His imagination was busy with the past, or wandering vaguely to the unexplored future, which with bright promises tempted him to press on to the goal of prosperity. He yearned to be a man; to leap in an instant over the years of discipline, that yawned like a great gulf between his youth and his manhood. He wanted to be a man, that his strong arm might strike great blows; that he might win his way up to wealth and honor.
Why couldn't he be a great man like Squire Walker. Squire West wouldn't sound bad.
"One has only to be rich in order to be great," thought he. "Why can't I be rich, as well as anybody else? Who was that old fellow that saved up his fourpences till he was worth a hundred thousand dollars? I can do it as well as he, though I won't be as mean as they say he was, anyhow. There are chances enough to get rich, and if I fail in one thing, why—I can try again."
Thus Harry mused as he walked along, and fixed a definite purpose before him to be accomplished in life. It is true it was not a very lofty or a very noble purpose, merely to be rich; but he had been obliged to do his own philosophizing. He had not yet discovered the true philosopher's stone. He had concluded, like the alchemists of old, that it was the art of turning anything into gold. The paupers, in their poverty, had talked most and prayed most for that which they had not. Wealth was to them the loftiest ideal of happiness, and Harry had adopted their conclusions. It is not strange, therefore, that Harry's first resolve was to be a rich man.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you," was a text which he had often heard repeated; but he did not comprehend its meaning, and he had reversed the proposition, determined to look out for "all these things" first.
The village clock struck eleven, and the peal of the clear notes on the silent air cut short his meditations, and admonished him to quicken his pace, or Ben would reach the place of rendezvous before him. He entered the still shades of Pine Pleasant, but saw nothing of his confederate. Seating himself on the familiar rock in the river, he returned to his meditations.