It was a bleak wide-bitten place enough, looking as if
'twould never pay for turning, and instead of hedges there were dreary
walls built of dry stone without mortar. Behind one of these walls,
broken down in places, but held together with straggling ivy, and
buttressed here and there with a bramble-bush, Elzevir put me down at
length and said, 'I am beat, and can carry thee no farther for this
present, though there is not now much farther to go. We have passed
Purbeck Gates, and these walls will screen us from prying eyes if any
chance comer pass along the down. And as for the soldiers, they are not
like to come this way so soon, and if they come I cannot help it; for
weariness and the sun's heat have made my feet like lead. A score of
years ago I would have laughed at such a task, but now 'tis different,
and I must take a little sleep and rest till the air is cooler. So sit
thee here and lean thy shoulder up against the wall, and thus thou canst
look through this broken place and watch both ways. Then, if thou see
aught moving, wake me up.--I wish I had a thimbleful of powder to make
this whistle sound'--and he took Maskew's silver-butted pistol again from
his bosom, and handled it lovingly,--'tis like my evil luck to carry
fire-arms thirty years, and leave them at home at a pinch like this.
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