Northmour spoke hotly, I remember, and I suppose I
must have made some tart rejoinder. He leaped from his chair and grappled
me; I had to fight, without exaggeration, for my life; and it was only
with a great effort that I mastered him, for he was near as strong in body
as myself, and seemed filled with the devil. The next morning, we met on
our usual terms; but I judged it more delicate to withdraw; nor did he
attempt to dissuade me.
It was nine years before I revisited the neighborhood. I traveled at that
time with a tilt-cart, a tent, and a cooking stove, tramping all day
beside the wagon, and at night, whenever it was possible, gypsying in a
cove of the hills, or by the side of a wood. I believe I visited in this
manner most of the wild and desolate regions both in England and Scotland;
and, as I had neither friends nor relations, I was troubled with no
correspondence, and had nothing in the nature of headquarters, unless it
was the office of my solicitors, from whom I drew my income twice a year.
It was a life in which I delighted; and I fully thought to have grown old
upon the march, and at last died in a ditch.
It was my whole business to find desolate corners, where I could camp
without the fear of interruption; and hence, being in another part of the
same shire, I bethought me suddenly of the Pavilion on the Links.
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