ways to Taunton. One way,
I know, leads along this valley, past Chard there, where the houses are.
The other way must lie across these combes, high up. Which way shall I
choose, I wonder?" A moment's thought showed me that the combes would
be unfrequented, while the valley road, being the easy road, which (as I
knew) the Duke's army had chosen, would no doubt be full of people, some
of them (perhaps) the King's soldiers, coming up from Bridport. If I
went by that road my pursuers would soon hear of me, even if I managed
to get past the watchers on the road. On the other hand, Aurelia would
probably know that I should choose the combe road. Still, even if she
sent out mounted men, she would find me hard to track, since the combes
were lonely, so lonely that for hours together you can walk there
without meeting anybody. There would be plentiful cover among the combes
in case I wished to lie low. Besides, I had a famous start, a five
hours' start; for I should not be missed until eight o'clock. It could
not then have been much more than half-past two. In five hours an active
boy, even if he knew not the road, might put some half a dozen miles
behind him. I say only half a dozen miles, because the roads were the
roughest of rough mud-tracks, still soft from the rains. As I did not
know the way, I knew that I might count on going wrong, taking wrong
turns, etc. As I wished to avoid people, I counted on travelling most
of the way across country, trusting to luck to find my way among the
fields. So that, although in five hours I should travel perhaps ten or
twelve miles, I could not count on getting more than six miles towards
Taunton.

CHAPTER XXIII. FREE

For the first hour or two, as no one would be about so early, I thought
it safe to use the road. I put my best foot foremost, going up the great
steep combe, with Chard at my back.

The road was one of the loneliest I have ever trodden. It went winding
up among barren-looking combes which seemed little better than waste
land. There were few houses, so few that sometimes, on a bit of rising
ground, when the road lifted clear of the hedges, one had to look about
to see any dwelling of men. There was little cultivation, either. It was
nearly all waste, or scanty pasture. A few cows cropped by the wayside
near the lonely cottages. A few sheep wandered among the ferns. It was
a very desolate land to lie within so few miles of England's richest
valleys. I walked through it