Here, though the course was
hidden from their view, they could yet faintly distinguish the
noise of distant shouts, the hum of voices, and the beating of
drums. Climbing the eminence which lay between them and the spot
they had left, the child could even discern the fluttering flags
and white tops of booths; but no person was approaching towards
them, and their resting-place was solitary and still.
Some time elapsed before she could reassure her trembling
companion, or restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity. His
disordered imagination represented to him a crowd of persons
stealing towards them beneath the cover of the bushes, lurking in
every ditch, and peeping from the boughs of every rustling tree. He
was haunted by apprehensions of being led captive to some gloomy
place where he would be chained and scourged, and worse than all,
where Nell could never come to see him, save through iron bars and
gratings in the wall. His terrors affected the child. Separation
from her grandfather was the greatest evil she could dread; and
feeling for the time as though, go where they would, they were to
be hunted down, and could never be safe but in hiding, her heart
failed her, and her courage drooped.
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