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We was setting on a log, purty deep into the woods, and there come a time when neither of us had said nothing fur quite a spell. But after a while I says: "Martha, we'll be going away from here in two, three days now." She never said nothing. "Will you be sorry?" I asts her. She says she will be sorry. "Well," I says, "WHY will you be sorry?" I thought she would say because I was going.
All about in the forest on either side of the road livid tongues upleaping, consuming everything and growing stronger every moment. On hobbled the man from Boston, trying desperately to make time; trying mightily to cheat the fire demons that shrieked and roared behind him. And he was not the only one that was fleeing from the seething furnace that once had been a cool autumn woods.
With a fatuousness born of vanity, however, no sooner had she sent her excuse than he began to look upon her visit to Johnson's as a mere exhibition of coyness, which, together with her conduct in the woods, was merely intended to lure him on.
He stood for a moment waiting, and suddenly thought of the pole which he had left up in the woods. He determined to get this, and perhaps, with its help, he would be able to accomplish his wishes. So off he started at a run, and in a few minutes reached the place.
Gradually, however, sky and sea as it were separated, woods and fields, and hills and valleys, and convents and churches, and quintas and cottages, came out, and colours divided themselves, and the wonderful landscape, in all its beautiful variety, appeared before us.
The mystic voice of the cuckoo is heard from many an emerald copse around; songsters that inhabit only the green hedges and woods of "Merrie England" are carolling their morning vespers in all directions; skylarks are soaring, soaring skyward, warbling their unceasing paeans of praise as they gradually ascend into cloudland's shadowy realms; and occasionally I bowl along beneath an archway of spreading beeches that are colonized by crowds of noisy rooks incessantly "cawing" their approval or disapproval of things in general.
So, out by the barn, into the road, and away from the village toward the hills, they went, with the glee of resonant bells and excited expectation. A mile, or somewhat more, along the Sedgely turnpike, took them into a bit of woods that skirted the road on either side, for a considerable distance.
But that speed could not be held for long. The sun was above the horizon now, and the long straight column of smoke that we left behind us glowed rosy-red; and all the autumn foliage of the woods was ablaze with color and light. But as the sunlight struck the rails the frost began to melt; and a wet rail is fatal to the highest speeds.
I had rather die here like a man than to be scourged to death at the Dead Oak." "Can't we get away? Is there no chance to escape?" asked Lily, whose beating heart was full of mortal terrors. "Gossifus! Wha wha what's de reason we can't take de bateau and row ober to de shore, and take to de woods?" suggested Cyd. "Well, what then?" demanded Dan, calmly. "Why, den run like a possum up a gum tree."
"There can't be any difficulty in escaping from here." "Not the least in the world," Alexis said quietly. "But where do you propose to go?" "I have not settled yet. It seems to me that any one with pluck and energy ought to be able to make his way out of this country somehow; besides, from what I hear great numbers do get away, and take to the woods."
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