The Discovery Of Slowness Read Free Page B

hurt him or his mother would leave the village on their own, and Father would crash down and lose his head.
    Towards morning, he sneaked out of the house. He didn’t walk through the square past the market cross but cut between the stables, heading straight into the fields. They would search for him, so he had to remember to cover his tracks. He passed Ing Ming. He didn’t want to wake Sherard, for he was poor and would want to come along, yet he was too small to be taken on a ship. John reached the stables of Hundleby. It was still damp and cool, and the light was dim. He was eager to know about the strange world beyond, and his plans were well thought out.
    In a narrow drainage ditch he waded as far as the stream Lymn. They’d think he had gone in the direction of Horncastle and not of the sea. He then wandered northwards in a wide arc round Spilsby. When the sun came up he groped through a ford across the River Steeping, shoes in hand. Now he was already far east of the village. Possibly he might still meet the shepherd in the hill country, but the man slept into the late morning, true to his view that dawn belonged to the beasts of the forest. The shepherd had time and he thought a great deal, mostly with clenched fists. John liked him, but today it would be better not to run into him. Perhaps he’d mix in. A grown-up would always have differentviews about running away than a child, even if he was only a shepherd, a slugabed, and a rebel.
    Laboriously, John trudged through woods and fields, avoiding every road, crawling through fences and hedgerows. When he had wandered in the dark woods and had got out of the forest through the undergrowth, the sun seized him, first with its light, then with its warmth, ever more strongly. Thorns scratched his legs. He was happy as never before because he was now all on his own. Far away, gunshots from a hunting party resounded among the tree trunks. He swung in an arc through the meadowland, for he didn’t want to become their target.
    John was in search of a place where nobody would find him too slow. Such a place could still be far away, however.
    He owned one single shilling, a present from Matthew the sailor. In case of need, he could buy some roast meat and greens with it. For a shilling one could also ride for a few miles in the mail-coach, if one sat outside on the roof. But up there he wouldn’t be able to hold on too well or duck his head in time when they got to low archways. In any case, best of all was the sea and a ship.
    Perhaps he could be used as a helmsman, but then the others would have to have confidence in him. A few months ago they had got lost on a ramble through the woods. Only he, John, had observed the gradual changes, the position of the sun, the rising of the ground – he knew how to get back. He scratched a drawing on the forest ground, but they didn’t even want to look at it. They made hasty decisions which they overturned just as quickly. John couldn’t get back on his own, for they wouldn’t have let him go. Worried, he slunk behind the little kings of the schoolyard, who owed their standing to their speediness and now didn’t know how to go on. If it hadn’t been for the Scotsman driving his cattle, they would have had to spend the night outdoors.
    Now the sun was at its height. In the distance, a flock of sheep dotted the north side of a hill. The ditches became more and more frequent, the forests thinner. He looked far out into the fens and discerned windmills, tree-lined avenues, and manor houses. The wind freshened, the flocks of seagulls became larger. With slowdeliberation, he vaulted fence after fence. Cows came up to look him over, nodding and swaying.
    He lay down behind a hedgerow. Under his closed lids the sun filled his eyes with a red fire. Sherard, he thought, will feel cheated. He opened his eyes to keep from becoming sad.
    If he could just stay there and gaze upon the land like a stone, for