'What in the name of wonder can this fellow be! a madman? a highwayman?
a cut-throat? If he had not scoured off so fast, we'd have seen who was
in most danger, he or I. I never nearer death than I have been to-night!
I hope I may be no nearer to it for a score of years to come--if so,
I'll be content to be no farther from it. My stars!--a pretty brag this
to a stout man--pooh, pooh!'
Gabriel resumed his seat, and looked wistfully up the road by which the
traveller had come; murmuring in a half whisper:
'The Maypole--two miles to the Maypole. I came the other road from the
Warren after a long day's work at locks and bells, on purpose that I
should not come by the Maypole and break my promise to Martha by looking
in--there's resolution! It would be dangerous to go on to London without
a light; and it's four miles, and a good half mile besides, to the
Halfway-House; and between this and that is the very place where one
needs a light most. Two miles to the Maypole! I told Martha I wouldn't;
I said I wouldn't, and I didn't--there's resolution!'
Repeating these two last words very often, as if to compensate for the
little resolution he was going to show by piquing himself on the great
resolution he had shown, Gabriel Varden quietly turned back, determining
to get a light at the Maypole, and to take nothing but a light.
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