There is some satisfaction too in playing the vagabond in the
streets of a big town till the sky pales above the ridges of the roofs. I
have done that repeatedly for pleasure--of a sort. But to tramp the
slumbering country-side in the dark is for me a wearisome nightmare of
exertion.
With perfect detachment Mrs. Fyne watched me go out after her husband.
That woman was flint.
* * * * *
The fresh night had a smell of soil, of turned-up sods like a grave--an
association particularly odious to a sailor by its idea of confinement
and narrowness; yes, even when he has given up the hope of being buried
at sea; about the last hope a sailor gives up consciously after he has
been, as it does happen, decoyed by some chance into the toils of the
land. A strong grave-like sniff. The ditch by the side of the road must
have been freshly dug in front of the cottage.
Once clear of the garden Fyne gathered way like a racing cutter. What
was a mile to him--or twenty miles? You think he might have gone
shrinkingly on such an errand. But not a bit of it. The force of
pedestrian genius I suppose.
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