I went at a good, round pace, being determined to cover as much
distance as possible ere dawn, since I felt assured that so soon as my
indomitable aunt Julia discovered my departure she would immediately
head a search party in quest of me; for which cogent reason I
determined to abandon the high road as soon as possible and go by less
frequented byways.

A distant church clock chimed the hour and, pausing to hearken, I
thrilled as I counted eleven, for, according to the laws which had
ordered my life hitherto, at this so late hour I should have been
blissfully asleep between lavender-scented sheets. Indeed my loved
aunt abhorred the night air for me, under the delusion that I suffered
from a delicate chest; yet here was I out upon the open road and
eleven o'clock chiming in my ears. Thus as I strode on into the
unknown I experienced an exhilarating sense of high adventure unknown
till now.

It was a night of brooding stillness and the moon, high-risen, touched
the world about me with her magic, whereby things familiar became
transformed into objects of wonder; tree and hedgerow took on shapes
strange and fantastic; the road became a gleaming causeway whereon I
walked, godlike, master of my destiny. Beyond meadow and cornfield to
right and left gloomed woods, remote and full of mystery, in whose
enchanted twilight elves and fairies might have danced or slender
dryads peeped and sported. Thus walked I in an ecstasy, scanning with
eager eyes the novel beauties around me, my mind full of the poetic
imaginations conjured up by the magic of this midsummer night, so that
I yearned to paint it, or set it to music, or write it into adequate
words; and knowing this beyond me, I fell to repeating Milton's noble