.

in heat or cold, Through many a wood, and many an open road, In sunshine and in shade, in wet and fair, Drooping or blithe of heart, as might befall, My best companions now the driving winds, And now the 'trotting brooks' and whispering trees-- And now the music of my own sad steps, With many a short-lived thought that passed between And disappeared." Never before had the words failed to thrill him with the romance of the road.

Now as the rainy twilight threatened with never an inn in sight, he lingered on the final lines: "The music of my own sad steps!" Sad steps indeed that postponed his meeting with Brian! Did he not owe it to his son to travel with all possible speed to the farmhouse instead of plodding belatedly along the highway in rain and gloom and twilight?
Had he after all a right to indulge his passion for tramping and footsore penance when already word might have come to the sister with the ink-pool eyes?
The runaway was young.

His remorse would come the quicker.

For every day he, Kenny, lingered in selfish penance on the road, he must pay in a widening of distance between Brian and himself.