I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the wood I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my rest broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed near me more than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters; no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me. Towards morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet. Do not ask me, reader, to give a minute account of that day; as before, I sought work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I starved; but once did food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I saw a little girl about to throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig trough. "Will you give me that?" I asked.

     She stared at me. "Mother!" she exclaimed, "there is a woman wants me to give her these porridge."

     "Well lass," replied a voice within, "give it her if she's a beggar. T' pig doesn't want it."

     The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it ravenously.

     As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, which I had been pursuing an hour or more.