ow, 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. Then Roger
rescued her shoe, and I set her aloft on my shoulder, to her great
contentment, and she was laughing merrily when we reached the
turnpike, and gave her into the hands of her distracted mother.
Remembering this, I raced on at my best speed, resolved, if only I
arrived in time, to turn this little incident to account.

It did but add to my anxiety that the highroad was nowhere visible
to me as I ran, so that I could not measure my progress with that
of the coach, but was forced to go on at the same break-neck pace,
not daring to moderate it in any degree. And I could almost have
cried with vexation when that plaguey stitch in the side seized me,
and I had to stand a while to recover my breath. Then I raced on
again, desperately anxious to make up for the lost time. My work
upon the Hall estate, and my exercise with Roger, had kept my body
in good condition: yet to run for four miles or more at a stretch
with the mind in a ferment would tax any man, and by the time I
came in sight of the turnpike I was fairly overdone, dripping with
sweat--'twas a sunny day in July--and trembling in every limb.

And then I heard, or fancied I heard, the rattle of the coach on my
left, and I picked up my heels and scampered along the last
half-mile at a pace which, in other circumstances, I should have
deemed impossible, the loose stones flying from beneath my feet.

I emerged upon the highroad, threw a glance over my left shoulder,
and gave a great gasp of relief when I spied the coach plunging
down the road, but nearly a mile distant. I had had no clear notion
of what I was