noon
The open sympathy of the mountaineers and the negroes about the place was vaguely soothing . Looking back upon the city , it seemed a jarring place of torture when contrasted to the eternal peace of this remote spot . Free to go when and whither he liked , Mostyn spent whole days rambling alone through the narrow roads and by-paths of the mountains , often reaching all but inaccessible nooks in canons and rocky crevices where dank plants and rare flowers budded and bloomed , where velvet mosses were spread like carpets , and ferns stood like miniature palms . One morning Mostyn saw Saunders hoeing weeds out of the corn-rows in a field back of the house ; and , taking another hoe , he joined him , working steadily by his friend 's side till noon . And here he made a discovery . He found that the work furnished a sort of vent for the festering agony pent up within him . It seemed to ooze out with the sweat which dampened his clothing , to be absorbed in his heated blood , and after a cooling bath he slept more profoundly than he had slept for years .