Good Advice from a Strange Quarter—Midnight and Anxiety.
The state of my mind at this moment must have been akin to that of a snake-charmed bird. I felt utterly, abjectly helpless. Had the apparition taken a knife out and proceeded to kill us, I do not think I should have lifted a hand or uttered a cry, except a frightened moan like a person in a nightmare.
He stood and looked down at us long and earnestly. A strangely haggard, but not an evil face, black beard of a week’s growth perhaps, and short dark hair hardly seen for the napkin that bound his head instead of a hat or cap.
We found voice at last, both at the same time. “Oh, sir,” we said, beseechingly, “do not kill us!” He started as we spoke the last two words, started as if stung, and gazed behind him with quick dramatic action, his black eyes all ablaze for the moment. So have I often since seen a hunted wolf look when at bay.
The first words he spoke betrayed him to be a foreigner.
“Kill!” he said, “what for I kill you? You alone? All alone?”
“Yes,” we replied, “yes, sir, quite alone.”
“’Tis goot. Do not fear me. Where go you to-morrow day? What you do here?”
I glanced at him for a moment before I spoke, and the truth flashed across my mind. This was the terrible convict we heard the soldiers say was abroad on the moor. He was not in convict dress, and though his coat was in rags, his boots were good. We learned from him, afterwards, that he had exchanged clothes, strange though it appeared, with a scarecrow. There was some humour here, though sadly blended with deepest pathos.
No, this man might rob, but he would not kill us. He was in trouble like ourselves. So we told him we were running away from school.