Chapter 29 - Page 2

thought
all was not right; the keen-eyed fellow watches me like a tiger lying in
wait for his leap. When I stood on the horseblock, he half suspected
that something was wrong. Nay, check your beast--we must let the animals
walk a little, for he is laying his hand on the pommel of his saddle. If
he mounts, we are gone. The foot-soldiers could reach us with
their muskets."

"What does he now?" asked Henry, reining his horse to a walk, but at the
same time pressing his heels into the animal's sides, to be in readiness
for a spring.

"He turns from his charger, and looks the other way, now trot on
gently--not so fast--not so fast. Observe the sentinel in the field, a
little ahead of us--he eyes us keenly."

"Never mind the footman," said Henry, impatiently, "he can do nothing
but shoot us--whereas these dragoons may make me a captive again.
Surely, Harvey, there are horse moving down the road behind us. Do you
see nothing particular?"

"Humph!" ejaculated the peddler. "There is something particular, indeed,
to be seen behind the thicket on our left. Turn your head a little, and
you may see and profit by it too."

Henry eagerly seized this permission to look aside, and the blood
curdled to his heart as he observed that they were passing a gallows,
which unquestionably had been erected for his own execution. He turned
his face from the sight, in undisguised horror.

"There is a warning to be prudent," said the peddler, in the sententious
manner that he often adopted.

"It is a terrific sight, indeed!" cried Henry, for a moment veiling his
eyes with his hand, as if to drive a vision from before him.

The peddler moved his body partly around, and spoke with energetic but
gloomy bitterness, "And yet, Captain Wharton, you see it where the
setting sun shines full upon you; the air you breathe is clear, and
fresh from the hills before you. Every step that you take leaves that
hated gallows behind; and every dark hollow, and every shapeless rock in
the mountains, offers you a hiding place from the vengeance of your
enemies. But I have seen the gibbet raised, when no place of refuge
offered. Twice have I been buried in dungeons, where, fettered and in
chains, I have passed nights in torture, looking forward to the
morning's dawn that was to light me to a death of infamy. The sweat has
started from limbs that seemed already drained of their moisture; and if
I ventured to the hole that admitted air through grates of iron to look
out upon the smiles of nature, which God has bestowed for the meanest of
His creatures, the gibbet has glared before my eyes, like an evil
conscience harrowing the soul