Description
The Broad Highway
ANTE SCRIPTUM
As I sat of an early summer morning in the shade of a tree, eating
fried bacon with a tinker, the thought came to me that I might some day
write a book of my own: a book that should treat of the roads and
by-roads, of trees, and wind in lonely places, of rapid brooks and lazy
streams, of the glory of dawn, the glow of evening, and the purple
solitude of night; a book of wayside inns and sequestered taverns; a
book of country things and ways and people. And the thought pleased me
much.
"But," objected the Tinker, for I had spoken my thought aloud, "trees
and suchlike don’t sound very interestin’–leastways–not in a book,
for after all a tree’s only a tree and an inn, an inn; no, you must
tell of other things as well."
"Yes," said I, a little damped, "to be sure there is a highwayman–"
"Come, that’s better!" said the Tinker encouragingly.
"Then," I went on, ticking off each item on my fingers, "come Tom
Cragg, the pugilist–"
"Better and better!" nodded the Tinker.
"–a one-legged soldier of the Peninsula, an adventure at a lonely
tavern, a flight through woods at midnight pursued by desperate
villains, and–a most extraordinary tinker. So far so good, I think,
and it all sounds adventurous enough."
"What!" cried the Tinker. "Would you put me in your book then?"
"Assuredly."
"Why then," said the Tinker, "it’s true I mends kettles, sharpens
scissors and such, but I likewise peddles books an’ nov-els, an’ what’s
more I reads ’em–so, if you must put me in your book, you might call
me a literary cove."
"A literary cove?" said
Product ID: 9781776833016
Sku: 9781776833016
