But he did not become intoxicated, he insists.
He was simply eloquent beyond his sober wont, and with the finer
edge gone from his judgment. And after that long talk of the brave
old days that were past forever, he went out into moonlit Hithergate--
alone and up the cliff road where the villas cluster together.
He had bewailed, and now as he walked up the silent road he still
bewailed, the fate that had called him to such an uneventful life
as a pedagogue's. What a prosaic existence he led, so stagnant,
so colourless! Secure, methodical, year in year out, what call was
there for bravery? He thought enviously of those roving, mediaeval
days, so near and so remote, of quests and spies and condottieri
and many a risky blade-drawing business. And suddenly came a doubt,
a strange doubt, springing out of some chance thought of tortures,
and destructive altogether of the position he had assumed that evening.
Was he--Mr. Ledbetter--really, after all, so brave as he assumed?
Would he really be so pleased to have railways, policemen, and
security vanish suddenly from the earth?
The talkative man had spoken enviously of crime.
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