`` They amused me and kept me interested till something real would come in their place . If I 'd had to carry them out I dare say they 'd have bothered me a lot . Things are more comfortable as they are . I 'm happy as a bird , Jacob . '' `` Oh , sure , '' said Jacob . He pondered the business deeply all the way back home , but could make nothing of it . `` But I ai n't obliged to , '' he concluded sensibly . `` Miss Hannah 's satisfied and happy and it 's nobody else 's concern . However , I call it a curious thing . '' The Redemption of John Churchill John Churchill walked slowly , not as a man walks who is tired , or content to saunter for the pleasure of it , but as one in no haste to reach his destination through dread of it . The day was well on to late afternoon in mid-spring , and the world was abloom . Before him and behind him wound a road that ran like a red ribbon through fields of lush clovery green . The orchards scattered along it were white and fragrant , giving of their incense to a merry south-west wind ; fence-corner nooks were purple with patches of violets or golden-green with the curly heads of young ferns . The roadside was sprinkled over with the gold dust of dandelions and the pale stars of wild strawberry blossoms . It seemed a day through which a man should walk lightly and blithely , looking the world and his fellows frankly in the face , and opening his heart to let the springtime in . But John Churchill walked laggingly , with bent head . When he met other wayfarers or was passed by them , he did not lift his face , but only glanced up under his eyebrows with a furtive look that was replaced by a sort of shamed relief when they had passed on without recognizing him . Some of them he knew for friends of the old time . Ten years had not changed them as he had been changed . They had spent those ten years in freedom and good repute , under God 's blue sky , in His glad air and sunshine .
He , John Churchill , had spent them behind the walls XXXXX a prison .
Before If behind by like of through till under without