I ran hard so as to shake irresolution out of my mind,
for I found myself half wishing that Mistress Waynflete had pleaded with
me at first instead of trying to thrust me out of my plan. After all the
highwayman's was hardly my calling in life. So I ran hard, saying to
myself that it must be done, and the sooner it was over the better. Then I
laughed. With my rusty old birding-piece I was as ill-equipped for
highwaymanship as I was for farming with my Georgics. "Stand and deliver,"
quoth I to myself, "or I'll double your weight with swan-shot." Were the
unknown horseman a resolute man armed with a hair-trigger, I was as good
as done for.
Arrived in the shelter of the wood, I began picking my way through the
thick undergrowth towards the road. Fallen branchlets snapped beneath my
heedless feet and the sounds rang in my ears like pistol-shots. A saucy
robin cocked his care-free eye on me from the top of a crab-tree, and I
could have envied him as I stumbled by. It was perhaps fourscore yards
through, and half-way I stopped to listen. Yes, there came to my ear the
slow trot-ot-ot of hoofs on the hard road.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140