Moved by these piteous exclamations, and not wishing to subject the poor old lady to the wrath of a master evidently an unfeeling tyrant, I resolved to pluck up courage and releap the dangerous abyss.
“Oh, yes, never fear,” said I, therefore. “What’s been done once ought to be done twice, if needful. Just get out of my way, will you?”
And I receded several paces over a ground much too rough to favor my run for a spring. But my heart knocked against my ribs. I felt that impulse can do wonders where preparation fails.
“You had best be quick, then,” said the old woman.
Horrid old woman! I began to esteem her less. I set my teeth, and was about to rush on, when a voice close beside me said,—
“Stay, young man; I will let you through the gate.”
I turned round sharply, and saw close by my side, in great wonder that I had not seen him before, a man, whose homely (but not working) dress seemed to intimate his station as that of the head-gardener, of whom my guide had spoken. He was seated on a stone under a chestnut-tree, with an ugly cur at his feet, who snarled at me as I turned.
“Thank you, my man,” said I, joyfully. “I confess frankly that I was very much afraid of that leap.”
“Ho! Yet you said, what can be done once can be done twice.”
“I did not say it could be done, but ought to be done.”