From the summit of his uncouth
vehicle Gissing looked down undismayed.
"Miserable freethinker!" said Borzoi. "You shall be tried by the
assembly of bishops."
"In a mere lay reader," quoted Gissing, "a slight laxity is
allowable. You had better go back and calm down the congregation,
or they'll tear the chapel to bits. This kind of thing will have
a very bad influence on church discipline."
They shouted additional menace, but Gissing had already started
his deafening machinery and could not hear what was said. He left
them bickering by the roadside.
For fear of further pursuit, he turned off the highway a little
beyond, and rumbled noisily down a rustic lane between high banks
and hedges where sumac was turning red. Strangely enough, there
was something very comforting about his enormous crawling
contraption. It was docile and reliable, like an elephant. The
crashing clangour of its movement was soon forgotten--became, in
fact, an actual stimulus to thought. For the mere pleasure of
novelty, he steered through a copse, and took joy in seeing the
monster thrash its way through thickets and brambles, and then
across a field of crackling stubble.
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