.

ROWLEY.
I am not certain that I had ever really appreciated before that hour the extreme peril of the adventure on which I was embarked.

The sight of my cousin, the look of his face--so handsome, so jovial at the first sight, and branded with so much malignity as you saw it on the second--with his hyperbolical curls in order, with his neckcloth tied as if for the conquests of love, setting forth (as I had no doubt in the world he was doing) to clap the Bow Street runners on my trail, and cover England with handbills, each dangerous as a loaded musket, convinced me for the first time that the affair was no less serious than death.

I believe it came to a near touch whether I should not turn the horses' heads at the next stage and make directly for the coast.

But I was now in the position of a man who should have thrown his gage into the den of lions; or, better still, like one who should have quarrelled overnight under the influence of wine, and now, at daylight, in a cold winter's morning, and humbly sober, must make good his words.