Presently, as he went, he saw a stone well near a cottage by the roadside.

On a ledge of the well stood a bucket of water.

He tilted the bucket and drank.

He would have liked to ask for bread at the cottage-door, but he said to himself, Why should he eat, for was he not going to die?
Yet why should he not eat, even if he were going to die?
He turned his head wistfully, he was so faint with hunger.

The force driving him on, however, was greater than hunger--he ran harder....