Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/189

Rh hammock to the pitch of a weatherly ship. I was not in dread of falling, either; for her heels fell so lightly on the turf that they persuaded all fear of broken bones out of the thought of falling; but I was in desperate dread of those thundering tub-carriers just behind, who seemed to come down like a black racing wave right on top of us, and to miss us again and again by a foot or less. The weight of them on this wide, empty down—that was the nightmare we seemed to be running from.

We passed through an open gate, then another; then out upon hard road for half-a-mile or so (but I can tell you nothing of the actual distance or the pace), and then through a third gate. All the gates stood open; had been left so on purpose, of course; and the grey granite side-posts were my only milestones throughout the journey. Every mortal thing was strange as mortal thing could be. Here I was, in a foreign land I had never seen in my life, and could not see now; on horseback for the first time in my life; and going the dickens knew whither, at the dickens knew what pace; in much certain and more possible danger; alone, and without speech to explain myself when—as I supposed must happen sooner or later—my runaway fate should shoot me among human folk. And overhead—this seemed the oddest thing of all—shone the very same stars that were used to look in at my bedroom window over Roscoff quay. My mother had told me once that these were millions of miles away, and that