God
Forbid, Thought I, That I Should Brutalise This Innocent Creature; Let
Her Go At Her Own Pace, And Let Me Patiently Follow.
What that pace was, there is no word mean enough to describe; it was
something as much slower than
A walk as a walk is slower than a run; it
kept me hanging on each foot for an incredible length of time; in five
minutes it exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the muscles of
the leg. And yet I had to keep close at hand and measure my advance
exactly upon hers; for if I dropped a few yards into the rear, or went on
a few yards ahead, Modestine came instantly to a halt and began to
browse. The thought that this was to last from here to Alais nearly
broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this promised to be the
most tedious. I tried to tell myself it was a lovely day; I tried to
charm my foreboding spirit with tobacco; but I had a vision ever present
to me of the long, long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair of
figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to the minute,
and, like things enchanted in a nightmare, approaching no nearer to the
goal.
In the meantime there came up behind us a tall peasant, perhaps forty
years of age, of an ironical snuffy countenance, and arrayed in the green
tail-coat of the country.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 10 of 131
Words from 2383 to 2633
of 34922
