And then I heard, or fancied I heard, the rattle of the coach on my left, and I picked up my heels and scampered along the last half-mile at a pace which, in other circumstances, I should have deemed impossible, the loose stones flying from beneath my feet.
I emerged upon the highroad, threw a glance over my left shoulder, and gave a great gasp of relief when I spied the coach plunging down the road, but nearly a mile distant. I had had no clear notion of what I was going to do beyond attempting to keep the gate closed, and now I realized with a sinking heart that, even if I should succeed therein, the coach could scarcely be delayed long enough for help to arrive. But certainly that was the first step, and I dashed straight into the keeper's cottage, the door of which stood open, and found Mistress Peabody, his wife, paring potatoes at the table, her little girl by her side.
"Where is Peabody?" I blurted out.
"Sakes alive!" cried the woman, "but you did give me a start. Whatever be amiss?"
What more I said I know not, but at my demand that she should refuse to open the gate for the coming coach the poor bewildered soul dropped her potatoes and declared she could never do it; 'twould cause terrible trouble with Peabody, and maybe bring about his dismissal by the justices, and where he was she did not know, and she had told him many a time he would get into a coil if he left his duty and went so often to the King William a-fuddling himself with--
"For God's sake, woman," I broke in, exasperated, "take the child into the garden and leave it to me."
I fairly pushed her out at the back door, the little girl clinging to her skirts, terrified at my appearance and the fierceness of my words. I shut the door upon them, whipped the key of the gate from its nail on the wall, flung it into the pan of water among the potatoes, and then, a desperate expedient coming into my mind, sauntered leisurely out of the front door, picking up as I passed a stick of wood from among a heap with which the child had been playing on the floor.
I climbed the gate, and sat upon the topmost bar, with my feet on the third. Then, having pulled the broad brim of my hat down over my eyes, I took out my clasp knife (it had been given me a few days before by Roger as a memento) and began to whittle the stick, whistling a doleful tune.
The coach was by this time within a hundred yards of me.
"Gate! gate!" shouted the postilion, but I paid no heed. There was now a man on the box; I suppose he had been picked up at the crossroads. He joined his cry to the postilion's, and together they roared "Gate!" with many imprecations of the kind that men who deal with horses have at command.