Read Manly Wade Wellman - Judge Pursuivant 01 for Free Online Page A

out upon a street beyond the square,
quiet and ill-lit. Along this way, I remembered, I could approach the Gird
home, where my automobile was parked. Once at the wheel, I could drive to the
county seat and demand protection from the sheriff. But, as I came cautiously
near the place and could see through the blizzard the outline of the car, I
heard loud voices. A part of the mob had divined my intent and had branched off
to meet me.
                   I ran down a side street, but they had seen
me. "There he is!" they shrieked at one another. "Plug
him!" Bullets struck the wall of a house as I fled past it, and the owner,
springing to the door with an angry protest, joined the chase a moment later.
                   I was panting and staggering by now, and so
were most of my pursuers. Only three or four, lean young athletes, were gaining and coming even close to my heels. With wretched determination I
maintained my pace, winning free of the close-set houses of the town, wriggling
between the rails of a fence and striking off through the drifting snow of a
field.
                   "Hey, he's heading for the Croft!"
someone was wheezing, not far behind.
                   "Let him go in," growled another
runner. "He'll wish he hadn't."
                   Yet again someone fired, and yet again the
bullet went wide of me; moving swiftly, and half veiled by the dark and the
wind-tossed snowfall, I was a bad target that night. And, lifting my head, I
saw indeed the dense timber of the Devil's Croft, its
tops seeming to toss and fall like the black waves of a high-pent sea.
                   It was an inspiration, helped by the shouts of
the mob. Nobody went into that grove - avoidance of it had become a community
habit, almost a community instinct. Even if my enemies paused only temporarily
I could shelter well among the trunks, catch my breath, perhaps hide indefinitely. And surely Zoberg would be recovered, would back up my
protest of innocence. With two words for it, the fantasy would not seem so
ridiculous. All this I sorted over in my mind as I ran toward the Devil's Croft.
                   Another rail fence rose in my way. I feared
for a moment that it would baffle me, so fast and far had I run and so greatly
drained away was my strength. Yet I scrambled over somehow, slipped and fell
beyond, got up and ran crookedly on. The trees were close now. Closer. Within a dozen yards. Behind me I heard oaths and warning exclamations. The pursuit was ceasing at
last.
                   I found myself against close-set evergreens;
that would be the hedge of which Susan Gird had told me. Pushing between and through
the interlaced branches, I hurried on for five or six steps, cannoned from a
big tree-trunk, went sprawling, lifted myself for another brief run and then,
with my legs like strips of paper, dropjjed once more. I crept forward on hands
and knees. Finally I collapsed upon my face. The weight of all I had endured -
the seance, the horrible death of John Gird, my arrest, my breaking from the
cell and my wild run for life - overwhelmed me as I lay.
                   Thus I must lie, I told myself hazily, until
they came and caught me. I heard, or fancied I heard, movement near by, then a
trilling whistle. A signal? It sounded like the song
of a little frog. Odd thought in this blizzard. I was thinking foolishly of
frogs, while I sprawled face down in the snow.
                   But where was the snow?
                   There was damp underneath, but it was warm
damp, like that of a riverside in July. In my nostrils was a smell of green
life, the smell of parks and hot-houses. My fists closed upon something.
                   Two handfuls of soft, crisp moss!
                   I rose to my elbows. A white flower bobbed and
swayed before my nose, shedding perfume upon me.
                   Far away,