Sure never death offered a sweeter release. Very softly I raised it, and found oblivion. I might have sought to use it on my enemy, and escape; but, alas! the unsophisticated mind of the child could compass no such artifice.
We went on all day, as I realised during the intervals of my waking, by the unfrequented roads, jolting, loitering, sometimes in lonely places halting to rest the pony. The moral force my master (as I must now call him) put upon himself to avoid the wayside taverns, is the most convincing proof of his tenacity.
At last, a thicker darkness descended upon me, lying there in hopeless apathy, and night and sleep stretched their shroud over my miseries.
I awoke to rough movement and the sound of voices. My master was carrying me into a little ill-lighted cottage, which stood solitary upon the edge of a common. Sharp and brilliant, at no great distance, in a soughing night, sparkled the first lamps of a town.
I was borne into a tiny room, where something, covered with a cloth, lay stretched upon a rickety table. My master put me to the ground, and stood back to regard me. Another man, an expressionless sweep like himself, but gaunt and bent-shouldered, joined silent issue in this scrutiny.
“Well,” said the latter at length, “they’ll fit right enow; but damn the exchange!”
He stopped to cough rendingly; then went on—
“If you mean a deal, I’m game for half a bull, and there’s my word on it. But burn them duds, Johnny! I won’t take the risk on ’em.”
My master considered.
“Mayhap you’re right,” said he. “Call it done.”