‘It is not too heavy,’ she said. ‘You take that end, and I’ll take this. We’ll carry him away to some place of hiding.’
Anne instantly seized the other end, and they proceeded with their burden at a slow pace to the lower garden-gate, which they reached as the tread of the press-gang resounded over the bridge that gave access to the mill court, now hidden from view by the hedge and the trees of the garden.
‘We will go down inside this field,’ said Anne faintly.
‘No!’ said the other; ‘they will see our foot-tracks in the dew. We must go into the road.’
‘It is the very road they will come down when they leave the mill.’
‘It cannot be helped; it is neck or nothing with us now.’
So they emerged upon the road, and staggered along without speaking, occasionally resting for a moment to ease their arms; then shaking him to arouse him, and finding it useless, seizing the seat again. When they had gone about two hundred yards Matilda betrayed signs of exhaustion, and she asked, ‘Is there no shelter near?’
‘When we get to that little field of corn,’ said Anne.
‘It is so very far. Surely there is some place near?’
She pointed to a few scrubby bushes overhanging a little stream, which passed under the road near this point.