Tommy Flynn, The Harlford Bruiser
I hurried down the avenue to where it joined the dusty roadway.
I stood for a few moments in indecision. To my left, down in the hollow, the way led through the village. To my right, it stretched far on the level until it narrowed to a grey point piercing a semi-circle of green; but I knew that miles beyond, at the end of that grey line, was the busy town of Grangeborough, with its thronging people, its railways and its steamships. That was the direction for me.
I waved my hand to sleepy little Brammerton and I swung to the right, for Grangeborough and the sea.
Soon the internal tumult, caused by what I had just gone through, began to subside, and my spirits rose attune to the glories of the afternoon.
Little I cared what my lot was destined to be—a prince in a palace or a tramp under a hedge. Although, to say truth, the tramp's existence held for me the greater fascination.
I was young, my lungs were sound and my heart beat well. I was big and endowed with greater strength than is allotted the average man.
Glad to be done with pomp, show and convention, my life was now my very own to plan and make, or to warp and spoil, as fancy, fortune and fate decreed.
I hankered for the undisturbed quiet of some small village by the sea, with work enough,—but no more,—to keep body nourished and covered; with books in plenty and my pipe well filled; with an open door to welcome the sunshine, the scented breeze, the salted spray from the ocean and my congenial fellow-man.
But, if I should be led in the paths of grubbing men, 'mid bustle, strife and quarrel, where the strong and the crafty alone survived, where the weaklings were thrust aside, I was ready and willing to take my place, to take my chance, to pit brawn against brawn, brain against brain, to strike blow for blow, to fail or to succeed, to live or die, as the gods might decree.