A Runaway

My dreams had even taken practical shape. As I was dressing myself
that morning I had puzzled my brain to find a pretext for taking the
first step, which would be to remain a few days at the inn.

The pretext for doing this had appeared to me. For a moment I had
snatched at it and shown my joy, and then it had utterly
disappeared--the vision, the fancy, the anticipations, the plans, the
vine-covered home in the air, all were destroyed as completely as if
it had been the tire of my bicycle scattered about in little bits upon
the ground.

"Come along, old Orso!" I exclaimed, endeavoring to mend my pace, and
giving the bear a good pull upon his chain. But the ugly creature did
not walk any faster; he simply looked at me with an air as if he would
say that if I kept long upon the road I would learn to take it easy,
and maintained the deliberate slouch of his demeanor.

Presently I stopped, and Orso was very willing to imitate me in that
action. I found, to my surprise, that I was not walking upon a
macadamized road: such was the highway which passed the inn and led, I
had been told, to the Cheltenham. I was now upon a road of gravel and
clay, smooth enough and wide enough, but of a different character from
that on which I had started that morning. I looked about me. Across a
field to my left I saw a line of trees which seemed to indicate a
road. I had a dim recollection of having passed a road which seemed to
turn to the left, but I had been thinking very earnestly, and had paid
little attention to it. Probably that road was the main road and this
the one which turned off.