Four Canadian Highwaymen | Page 9

no pulse. By the way, are you hit?'
'Yes.'
'Good God, where?' He pointed to his breast; and to the horror of Harland blood was oozing through his waistcoat.
'Let me attend to you,' the doctor, who had the heartiest sympathy for our hero, cried, springing up.
'No; you must attend to him. Besides, as I expected, here come the officers, good-bye.' In a moment he was upon his horse, and galloping across the stubble-stretches, and clearing the snake fences that divided field from field, like a bird. The magistrate and two constables, for such were the officials that comprised the interrupting party, no sooner saw Roland in flight, than they turned in pursuit at a rate of speed equal to his own, and called upon him to surrender. He made no reply.
'Then, men, fire upon him,' the magistrate shouted. One of the constables raised his carbine and fired.

CHAPTER IV.
TO THE EDGE OF MARKHAM SWAMP.
'Swish-h-h' went the clumsy slug past Roland's ear. He grasped his revolver; and the resolution of the moment was to stand at bay and fight the churls. But the reflection not occupying the hundredth part of a second showed him that such a course was not to be thought of. His antagonist had fallen; but this was only a crime of honour. To shoot the Queen's officers would be a vulgar felony. So he kept upon his course, confident in the mettle of his noble horse, who with nostrils distended, and neck thrust out, would now lay back one ear and now another, as if to listen to the progress of the pursuers.
At last our hero reached the road, which lay along a level country skirted on one side by pine groves, and upon the other by the recently-harvested fields. Turning in his saddle he perceived that while he had distanced two of his pursuers, the third, the fellow with the blunder-buss, was gaining slightly upon him. He noticed also that the officer was engaged as the horse galloped along in putting another charge into his weapon. About fifteen minutes more of fierce riding followed; and although Roland's horse showed no signs of exhaustion, the pursuing beast, which was taller in limb and more lithe, was remorselessly, though slowly, lessening the distance. The road now began to sink into a valley, and thick forest grew upon either side. Roland's pursuer was not more than fifteen paces behind, when the fugitive heard a scuffing sound. He but too well divined what it was; and the next moment his horse fell to the road, struck by the slugs from the pursuer's carbine.
'It is as well,' muttered our hero, as he sprang away from the gasping beast. The next moment he had disappeared in the dense, dark wood. Ah! how sheltering, how kindly, seemed that sombre sanctuary, with its dark grey tufts beneath his feet, and the thick, dusk-green branches of the fir and pine! The gloomy background seemed to invite him further into the heart of its shade and silence. No bird whistled through the glaucous green of this silent, majestic wood; nor was there any treacherous bramble to crackle beneath his feet. For upon this chill, grey carpet no flood of sunshine ever came to coax tiny sprays out of the ground; and the layers of fine needles, or tufts of dank, sunless moss were soft and noiseless as down under his tread. The stately trees grew far enough apart to allow him to move with considerable speed, and after he had satisfied himself that he was beyond the sight of his pursuers, he changed his course and proceeded in a direction almost opposite to that by which he had come.
He believed that such a move could not fail to delude the sleuth hounds, who would suppose that he continued his flight directly away from the scene of his offence. In a little while he sobered his pace down to a walk; and shortly afterwards he sat down in the sombre solitude to ponder his situation.
Full well he knew that before the set of sun nearly every inhabitant of the county of York would hear of the deed; and that a hue-and-cry would be speedily raised by the officers of the law.
It is true that duelling was at this period as much in vogue in genteel circles as it was in England; yet the victor in an affair beyond the water, had no difficulty in slipping away from the scene of his offence, and in passing across the Channel. Here he remained for a decent season; and when he returned, the law in deference to its toleration of the code of honour, shut its eyes. Friends of the vanquished never, or hardly ever, instituted proceedings.
But in the colonies it was different. Godliness had taken a deeper hold in the soil; the