St Nicholas [serial] . he sought. He would have shudto see any human-looking thing afloat, or against the bank. He would have been teito meet his dead friend there alone. He thought there must be a farming comlittle back from the river, and that he mighhelp and shelter in some house not far awahe at once climbed up into the woods. HIS U W N M A S T E K. 335 The land continued to rise, and he went on and > until he reached more level ground ; but it was woods—woods—as far as he went and as far as could see. He tore his way through the wet dergrowth ; he stumbled at fallen trunks; he Lze
St Nicholas [serial] . he sought. He would have shudto see any human-looking thing afloat, or against the bank. He would have been teito meet his dead friend there alone. He thought there must be a farming comlittle back from the river, and that he mighhelp and shelter in some house not far awahe at once climbed up into the woods. HIS U W N M A S T E K. 335 The land continued to rise, and he went on and > until he reached more level ground ; but it was woods—woods—as far as he went and as far as could see. He tore his way through the wet dergrowth ; he stumbled at fallen trunks; he Lzed eagerly forward, and stopped to listen often, |,th a heart beating hard with fatigue and fear. raccoon whinneyed, or an owl filled the hollowsof the woods with its unearthly Who ! who ! The moonlight slanted down through the thickboughs and amidst the tall stems, making littlesilver patches of light in masses of shadow, andsilver gleams on the trunks and bare ground,—gleams which wavered as the boughs moved. He. ALL WOODS \S HE WENT. ar there was something fearful in the solitude.: wind swept over the forest-tops with a low, rnful roar. Pattering drops fell, shaken in {teps on the dead twigs had in it something lous and startling. When he stood still, a was more than once deceived by these glimmer-ings, thinking he saw a way out of the forest. Then came a rush of selfish thoughts and self-reproaches. What was he there for ? He could do no goodto himself or anybody else. If Alphonse wasdrowned, why, he was drowned, and that was the 336 HIS OWN MASTER. [Maeo end of him. As for the money, he wished he hadnever let him take it; but now, he did not wantit—he had a horror of it ! Besides, the search forit was hopeless. Why had nt he stayed on boardthe steamboat, as any other boy would have done ? And again Jacob asked himself, as he had oftendone before, when his conscience or his good im-pulses had kep
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Keywords: ., bookauthordodgemar, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookyear1873
