He had a glimpse of a woman’s face, and as he felt convinced by the gleam of her eyes that she must see him, the light grew less, and was gone.
The next minute the lad, after a few more evolutions that threatened to make him giddy, felt his feet touch the soft earth of a flower-bed, from which he swung himself on to the lawn, and was feeling about for the loose rope finding that there were at least twenty yards lying about amongst the shrubs.
These he gathered together into one spot, and, with a feeling of exultation growing in his sense of freedom, he gave a sharp glance through the darkness to right and left, and then, making for the carriage-drive, whose position he fully knew now, he strode off rapidly and silently in the direction of one of the forest paths which led towards the little village; but of this fact he was naturally unaware.
Chapter Twelve.
An Adventure.
Godfrey Boyne, consequent upon the darkness, was forced to keep to the well-beaten road; but it was grand. He breathed freely; there was a feeling of exultation to make his chest expand; his nostrils quivered with the delight he felt; and from time to time he checked his strong desire to run, and stopped to listen to the sounds that arrested his attention on either side—sometimes soft and mysterious, sometimes startling.
There was the low rustling amongst last year’s leaves as some mouse was busy. Then the faint trickling of a worm struggling with a strand which it was fighting hard to drag into its hole.
A little farther on he was startled by a sudden rush as something bounded away from close to his feet; and, as he stood breathing hard, he could hear it go on pat, pat, pat, pat, right away, till the sounds died out.