Book One - Chapter 29 How Black George and I Shook Hands

The world was full of sunshine, the blithe song of birds, and the
sweet, pure breath of waking flowers as I rose next morning, and,
coming to the stream, threw myself down beside it and plunged my
hands and arms and head into the limpid water whose contact
seemed to fill me with a wondrous gladness in keeping with the
world about me.

In a little while I rose, with the water dripping from me, and
having made shift to dry myself upon my neckcloth, nothing else
being available, returned to the cottage.

Above my head I could hear a gentle sound rising and falling with
a rhythmic measure, that told me Donald still slept; so, clapping
on my hat and coat, I started out to my first day's work at the
forge, breakfastless, for the good and sufficient reason that
there was none to be had, but full of the glad pure beauty of the
morning. And I bethought me of the old Psalmist's deathless
words: "Though sorrow endure for a night, yet joy cometh in the morning"
(brave, true words which shall go ringing down the ages to bear
hope and consolation to many a wearied, troubled soul); for now,
as I climbed the steep path where bats had hovered last night,
and turned to look back at the pit which had seemed a place of
horror--behold! it was become a very paradise of quivering green,
spangled with myriad jewels where the dew yet clung.