At that I gripped my wife's arm, and without ceremony ran her out into the road. Then I fetched out the servant, telling her I would go up-stairs myself for the box she was clamouring for.
"We can't possibly stay here," I said; and as I spoke the firing reopened for a moment upon the common.
"But where are we to go?" said my wife in terror.
I thought, perplexed. Then I remembered her cousins at Leatherhead.
"Leatherhead!" I shouted above the sudden noise.
She looked away from me downhill. The people were coming out of their houses astonished.
"How are we to get to Leatherhead?" she said.
Down the hill I saw a bevy of hussars ride under the railway bridge; three galloped through the open gates of the Oriental College; two others dismounted, and began running from house to house. The sun, shining through the smoke that drove up from the tops of the trees, seemed blood-red, and threw an unfamiliar lurid light upon everything.
"Stop here," said I; "you are safe here;" and I started off at once for the Spotted Dog, for I knew the landlord had a horse and dog-cart. I ran, for I perceived that in a moment every one upon this side of the hill would be moving. I found him in his bar, quite unaware of what was going on behind his house. A man stood with his back to me, talking to him.
"I must have a pound," said the landlord, "and I've no one to drive it."
262
