"Do You Know," She Said In A Low Mysterious Voice, "That It Is Not Safe To Be Alone At Midnight On This Long Lonely Road - The Loneliest Place In All Salisbury Plain?" "The Safest," I Said.

"Safe as the Tower of London - the protectors of all England are there." "Ah, there's where the danger is!" she returned.

"If you meet some desperate man, a deserter with his rifle in his hand perhaps, do you think he would hesitate about knocking you over to save himself and at the same time get a little money to help him on his way?"

I smiled at her simulated anxiety for my safety, and set forth when it was very dark but under a fine starry sky. The silence, too, was very profound: there was no good-bye from crowing cock or hooting owl on this occasion, nor did any cyclist pass me on the road with a flash of light from his lamp and a tinkle from his bell. The long straight road on the high down was a dim grey band visible but a few yards before me, lying across the intense blackness of the earth. By day I prefer as a rule walking on the turf, but this road had a rare and peculiar charm at this time. It was now the season when the bird's-foot-trefoil, one of the commonest plants of the downland country, was in its fullest bloom, so that in many places the green or grey-green turf as far as one could see on every side was sprinkled and splashed with orange-yellow.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 251 of 298
Words from 68888 to 69155 of 82198