Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/27

 "What prisoner?"

"The prisoner out there in the Square. He has escaped! He's gone!"

"But how do you know?"

"I just saw him running down Main Street like a streak of lightning."

My grandfather took out his silk handkerchief, passed it over his brow, and said:

"To think of anyone running on a day like this!"

And Uncle John Brand stood there and gazed at his brother with an expression of despair.

"Can't you understand," he said, speaking in an intense tone, as if somehow to impress my grandfather with the importance of this event in society, "can't you understand that the prisoner out there in the Square has broken away, has escaped, and at this minute is running down Main Street, and that he's getting farther and farther away with each moment that you sit there?"

I had a vivid picture of the man running with long strides, in the soft dust of Main Street; he must even then, I fancied, be far down the street; he must indeed be down by Bailey's, and perhaps Bailey's dog was rushing out at him, barking. And I hoped he would run faster, and faster, and get away, though I felt it was wrong to hope this. Uncle John Brand seemed to be right; though I did not like him as I liked my grandfather.

"But how could he get away?" my grandfather was asking. "He was in irons."

"He got the irons off somehow," Uncle John Brand said, exasperated; "I don't know how. He