On the horizon a score of windmills waved their arms like beckoning ghosts.

He was a good swimmer.

It flashed upon him that his one hope was to make for the canal and strike for the farther bank.

There was a reasonable chance of shaking off one or more of his pursuers by this device.
He leapt the narrow ditch that ran parallel with the road, and began to bear across the green meadows in a line which verged towards the canal-bank, at an angle sufficiently acute to prevent his foes from intercepting him by a short cut.

By their shouts he judged that his guess was fairly correct, and the prospect of having to swim the canal daunted them somewhat.