With the swiftness of terror I concluded that my visits to Glen Doone were known, and now my life was the forfeit.
It was a most lucky thing for me, that I heard their clothes catch in the brambles, and saw their hats under the rampart of ash, which is made by what we call 'splashing,' and lucky, for me that I stood in a goyal, and had the dark coppice behind me.

To this I had no time to fly, but with a sort of instinct, threw myself flat in among the thick fern, and held my breath, and lay still as a log.

For I had seen the light gleam on their gun-barrels, and knowing the faults of the neighbourhood, would fain avoid swelling their number.

Then the three men came to the gap in the hedge, where I had been in and out so often; and stood up, and looked in over.
It is all very well for a man to boast that, in all his life, he has never been frightened, and believes that he never could be so.

There may be men of that nature--I will not dare to deny it; only I have never known them.