"
His prompt detection of the ailment, and prescription of a remedy
which in an hour showed its good effects, installed him in the
landlord's best graces. The latter said, "Well, it shall cost you
nothing to-night," as he led the way to the supper-room. When
Jacob went to bed he was surprised on reflecting that he had not
only been talking for a full hour in the bar-room, but had been
looking people in the face.
Resisting an offer of good wages if he would stay and help look
after the stables, he set forward the next morning with a new and
most delightful confidence in himself. The knowledge that now
nobody knew him as "Jake Flint" quite removed his tortured self-
consciousness. When he met a person who was glum and ungracious of
speech, he saw, nevertheless, that he was not its special object.
He was sometimes asked questions, to be sure, which a little
embarrassed him, but he soon hit upon answers which were
sufficiently true without betraying his purpose.
Wandering sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, he
slowly made his way into the land, until, on the afternoon of the
fourth day after leaving home, he found himself in a rougher
region--a rocky, hilly tract, with small and not very flourishing
farms in the valleys.
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