Allardyce for assistance, and to follow me, if he
could, along the byroad to Deuxhill. The man was not too
quick-witted, and I could have beaten him for his slowness to
comprehend the urgency of the affair. But some glimmering of it
dawning upon him, he promised to borrow a horse from Farmer Grubb
close by, he having none of his own, and to send a messenger back
to the Hall. Without further parley I left him, and set off along
the byroad, scarce giving a glance to the poor dog limping
painfully towards the inn.
Chapter 11: I Hold A Turnpike.
Could I reach the turnpike in time? I wondered. I had lost perhaps
three minutes at the inn. The coach must already have reached the
crossroads, and was now, without doubt, speeding southward on a
course parallel with my own, but downhill, whereas the byroad,
though shorter, was for the most part uphill, and so rough that I
risked spraining my ankle on a stone or in a rut.
And even supposing I gained the turnpike before the coach, would
the keeper be persuaded to close his gates against a three-horsed
vehicle on the highway? I knew the man, and luckily had done him a
slight service which perchance he would be willing to repay. Once,
when Roger and I had gone to the Borle Brook to fish, we came upon
a little girl some five years old sitting by the brink, weeping
bitterly. One foot was bare, her little shoe was floating down the
stream, she had lost herself, and was so frightened that it was
long before we could make out from her sobbing answers to our
questions that she was daughter to the turnpike man.
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