The Courtship of Morrice Buckler by A.E.W. Mason

DEW jewelling the grasses in the fields, the chatter of birds among the trees, a sparkling freshness in the air, and before me the road running white into the gold of the rising sun. But behind! On the top of St Michael's hill, outlined black against the pearly western sky, rose the gaunt cross-trees of the gallows. 'Twas the last glimpse I had of Bristol, and I lingered as one horribly fascinated until the picture was embedded in my heart. In London I tarried but so long as sufficed for me to repair the deficiencies of my dress, since my very linen was now become unsightly and foul, and, riding to Gravesend, took ship for Rotterdam.

I had determined to join Larke with me in my undertaking, for I bethought me of his craving for strange paths and adventures, and hoped to discover in him a readiness of wit which would counteract my own scrupulous hesitancy. For this I implicitly believed that it was not so much the wariness that Julian bespoke which would procure success, as the instinct of opportunity, the power, I mean, at once to grasp the fitting occasion when it presented, and to predispose one's movements in the way best calculated to bring about its presentment. In this quality I knew myself to be deficient. 'Twas ever my misfortune to confuse the by-ways with the high-road. I would waste the vital moment in deliberation as to which was shortest, and alas! the path I chose in the end more often than not turned out to be a cul-de-sac. In the particular business in which I was engaged such overweening prudence would be like to nullify my purpose, and further, destroy both Jack and myself. For beyond a description of Count Lukstein's person which I had from Julian some while ago, I knew nothing but what he had told me in the prison; and that knowledge was too scanty to serve as the foundation for even the flimsiest plan. The region, the Castle, the aggregate of servants, and their manner of life-- it behoved me to have certain information on all these particulars were I to pre-arrange a mode of attack. As things were, I must needs lie in ambush for chance, and seize it with all speed when it passed our way.