The sight of my cousin, the look of his face--so handsome, so
jovial at the first sight, and branded with so much malignity as
you saw it on the second--with his hyperbolical curls in order,
with his neckcloth tied as if for the conquests of love, setting
forth (as I had no doubt in the world he was doing) to clap the Bow
Street runners on my trail, and cover England with handbills, each
dangerous as a loaded musket, convinced me for the first time that
the affair was no less serious than death. I believe it came to a
near touch whether I should not turn the horses' heads at the next
stage and make directly for the coast. But I was now in the
position of a man who should have thrown his gage into the den of
lions; or, better still, like one who should have quarrelled
overnight under the influence of wine, and now, at daylight, in a
cold winter's morning, and humbly sober, must make good his words.
It is not that I thought any the less, or any the less warmly, of
Flora. But, as I smoked a grim segar that morning in a corner of
the chaise, no doubt I considered, in the first place, that the
letter-post had been invented, and admitted privately to myself, in
the second, that it would have been highly possible to write her on
a piece of paper, seal it, and send it skimming by the mail,
instead of going personally into these egregious dangers, and
through a country that I beheld crowded with gibbets and Bow Street
officers.
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