going to do beyond attempting to keep the gate
closed, and now I realized with a sinking heart that, even if I
should succeed therein, the coach could scarcely be delayed long
enough for help to arrive. But certainly that was the first step,
and I dashed straight into the keeper's cottage, the door of which
stood open, and found Mistress Peabody, his wife, paring potatoes
at the table, her little girl by her side.

"Where is Peabody?" I blurted out.

"Sakes alive!" cried the woman, "but you did give me a start.
Whatever be amiss?"

What more I said I know not, but at my demand that she should
refuse to open the gate for the coming coach the poor bewildered
soul dropped her potatoes and declared she could never do it;
'twould cause terrible trouble with Peabody, and maybe bring about
his dismissal by the justices, and where he was she did not know,
and she had told him many a time he would get into a coil if he
left his duty and went so often to the King William a-fuddling
himself with--

"For God's sake, woman," I broke in, exasperated, "take the child
into the garden and leave it to me."

I fairly pushed her out at the back door, the little girl clinging
to her skirts, terrified at my appearance and the fierceness of my
words. I shut the door upon them, whipped the key of the gate from
its nail on the wall, flung it into the pan of water among the
potatoes, and then, a desperate expedient coming into my mind,
sauntered leisurely out of the front door, picking up as I passed a
stick of wood from among a heap with which the child had been
playing on the floor.

I climbed the gate, and sat upon the topmost bar, with my feet on
the third. Then, having pulled the broad brim of my hat down over
my eyes, I took out my clasp knife (it had been given me a few days
before by Roger as a memento) and began to whittle the stick,
whistling a doleful tune.

The coach was by this time within a hundred yards of me.

"Gate! gate!" shouted the postilion, but I paid no heed. There was
now a man on the box; I suppose he had been picked up at the
crossroads. He joined his cry to the postilion's, and together they
roared "Gate!" with many imprecations of the kind that men who deal
with horses have at command.

But I still went on whittling my stick, not without some feeling of
insecurity, for the coach was approaching at a furious speed, and
it seemed impossible that the postilion could draw up in time to
prevent the horses fro