The Broad Highway

Having finished my bars, with four strong brackets to hold them,

I put away my tools, and donned hat and coat.

It was yet early, and there was, besides, much work waiting to be

done, but I felt unwontedly tired and out of sorts, wherefore,

with my bars and brackets beneath my arm, I set out for the

Hollow.

From the hedges, on either side of me, came the sweet perfume of

the honeysuckle, and beyond the hedges the fields stood high with

ripening corn--a yellow, heavy-headed host, nodding and swaying

lazily. I stood awhile to listen to its whisper as the gentle

wind swept over it, and to look down the long green alleys of the

hop-gardens beyond; and at the end of one of these straight

arched vistas there shone a solitary, great star.

And presently, lifting my eyes to the sky, already deepening to

evening, and remembering how I had looked round me ere I faced

Black George, I breathed a sigh of thankfulness that I was yet

alive with strength to walk within a world so beautiful.

Now, as I stood thus, I heard a voice hailing me, and, glancing

about, espied one, some distance up the road, who sat beneath the

hedge, whom, upon approaching, I recognized as Gabbing Dick, the

Pedler.

He nodded and grinned as I came up, but in both there was a vague

unpleasantness, as also in the manner in which he eyed me slowly

up and down.

"You've stood a-lookin' up into the sky for a good ten minutes!"

said he.

"And what if I have?"

"Nothin," said the Pedler, "nothin' at all--though if the moon

'ad been up, a cove might ha' thought as you was dreamin' of some

Eve or other; love-sick folk always stares at the moon--leastways,

so they tell me. Any one as stares at the moon when 'e might be

doin' summ'at better is a fool, as great a fool as any man as

stares at a Eve, for a Eve never brought any man nothin' but

trouble and sorrer, and never will, no'ow? Don't frown, young

cove, nor shake your 'ead, for it's true; wot's caused more

sorrer an' blood than them Eves? Blood?--ah! rivers of it!

Oceans of good blood's been spilt all along o' women, from the

Eve as tricked old Adam to the Eve as tricks the like o' me, or

say--yourself." Here he regarded me with so evil a leer that I

turned my back in disgust.

"Don't go, young cove; I ain't done yet, and I got summ'at to

tell ye."