Besides, I have my reasons. Be not
you wiser than your elder."
"No. Only if I am to lean on him I must have my hand in my bosom, still
grasping the haft of my knife."
"It is a new attitude to walk in; but please thyself."
And in that strange and mixed attitude of tender offices and deadly
suspicion the trio did walk. I wish I could draw them--I would not trust
to the pen.
The light of the watch-tower at Dusseldorf was visible as soon as they
cleared the wood, and cheered Gerard. When, after an hour's march, the
black outline of the tower itself and other buildings stood out clear to
the eye, their companion halted and said gloomily, "You may as well slay
me out of hand as take me any nearer the gates of Dusseldorf town."
On this being communicated to Denys, he said at once, "Let him go then,
for in sooth his neck will be in jeopardy if he wends much further with
us." Gerard acquiesced as a matter of course. His horror of a criminal
did not in the least dispose him to active co-operation with the law.
But the fact is, that at this epoch no private citizen in any part
of Europe ever meddled with criminals but in self-defence, except,
by-the-by, in England, which, behind other nations in some things, was
centuries before them all in this.
The man's personal liberty being restored, he asked for his axe. It was
given him.
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