CHAPTER V.
A FOOTPATH WALK AND ITS INCIDENTS--HARVEST ASPECTS--ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SKIES--HUMBLER OBJECTS OF CONTEMPLATION--THE DONKEY: ITS USES AND ABUSES.
Immediately after breakfast the following morning, my kind host accompanied me for a mile on my walk, and put me on a footpath across the fields, by which I might save a considerable distance on the way to Saffron Walden, where I proposed to spend the Sabbath.
After giving me minute directions as to the course I was to follow, he bade me good-bye, and I proceeded on at a brisk pace through fields of wheat and clover, greatly enjoying the scenery, the air, and exercise.

Soon I came to a large field quite recently ploughed up _clean_, footpath and all.

Seeing a gate at each of the opposite corners, I made my way across the furrows to the one at the left, as it seemed to be more in the direction indicated by my host.

There the path was again broad and well-trodden, and I followed it through many fields of grain yellowing to the harvest, until it opened into the main road.

This bore a little more to the left than I expected, but, as I had never travelled it before, I believed it was all right.