Charles River.
Finding it at high water, I plunged in, with my knapsack and cloak
on my head, and made my way across, reaching the opposite shore
safely. After going two miles or so, I discovered friendly covert
in the woods, where, in spite of my cloak and dry cedar boughs
wrapped round, I shivered as I lay until the morning. When the sun
came up, I drew out, that it might dry me; after which I crawled
back into my nest and fell into a broken sleep. Many times during
the day I heard the horns of my hunters, and more than once voices
near me. But I had crawled into the hollow of a half-uprooted stump,
and the cedar branches, which had been cut off a day or two before,
were a screen. I could see soldiers here and there, armed and
swaggering, and faces of peasants and shopkeepers whom I knew.
A function was being made of my escape; it was a hunting-feast,
in which women were as eager as their husbands and their brothers.
There was something devilish in it, when I came to think of it: a
whole town roused and abroad to hunt down one poor fugitive, whose
only sin was, in themselves, a virtue--loyalty to his country.
Pages:
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347