He put it in a hanging pocket of his coat, and waited till he could catch a companion to fill the opposite pocket.
Thus weighted, he continued his journey.

It gave him the cheerful feeling that a boy has when choice marbles are in his pocket.

Neither birds nor marbles under such circumstances have absolute use, but then there is always the pleasant time ahead when it will be suitable to take them out and look at them.

The man did not finger his birds as a boy might have done his marbles, but he did not forget them, and every now and then he lifted the flaps of the, baggy pockets to refill them with air.
He was tramping fast now down the trough of the little valley, under trees that, though leafless, were thick enough to shut out the surrounding landscape.

The pencils of the evening sunlight, it is true, found their way all over the rounded snow-ground, but the sunset was hidden by the branches about him, and nothing but the snow and the tree trunks was forced upon his eye, except now and then a bit of blue seen through the branches--a blue that had lost much depth of colour with the decline of day, and come nearer earth--a pale cold blue that showed exquisite tenderness of contrast as seen through the dove-coloured grey of maple boughs.
Where the valley dipped under water and the lake in the midst of the hills had its shore, Trenholme came out from under the trees.