The Tower


In all the thoughts, words, and actions of Squire Headlong, there was
a remarkable alacrity of progression, which almost annihilated the
interval between conception and execution. He was utterly regardless
of obstacles, and seemed to have expunged their very name from his
vocabulary. His designs were never nipped in their infancy by the
contemplation of those trivial difficulties which often turn awry the
current of enterprise; and, though the rapidity of his movements was
sometimes arrested by a more formidable barrier, either naturally
existing in the pursuit he had undertaken, or created by his own
impetuosity, he seldom failed to succeed either in knocking it down or
cutting his way through it. He had little idea of gradation: he saw no
interval between the first step and the last, but pounced upon his
object with the impetus of a mountain cataract. This rapidity of
movement, indeed, subjected him to some disasters which cooler spirits
would have escaped. He was an excellent sportsman, and almost always
killed his game; but now and then he killed his dog.[8.1] Rocks,
streams, hedges, gates, and ditches, were objects of no account in his
estimation; though a dislocated shoulder, several severe bruises, and
two or three narrow escapes for his neck, might have been expected to
teach him a certain degree of caution in effecting his transitions. He
was so singularly alert in climbing precipices and traversing
torrents, that, when he went out on a shooting party, he was very soon
left to continue his sport alone, for he was sure to dash up or down
some nearly perpendicular path, where no one else had either ability
or inclination to follow. He had a pleasure boat on the lake, which he
steered with amazing dexterity; but as he always indulged himself in
the utmost possible latitude of sail, he was occasionally upset by a