Produced by Polly Stratton and Andrew Sly
The Broad Highway
by Jeffery Farnol
To
Shirley Byron Jevons
The friend of my boyish ambitions
This book is dedicated
As a mark of my gratitude, affection and esteem
As I sat of an early summer morning in the shade of a tree, eatingfried bacon with a tinker, the thought came to me that I might some daywrite a book of my own: a book that should treat of the roads andby-roads, of trees, and wind in lonely places, of rapid brooks and lazystreams, of the glory of dawn, the glow of evening, and the purplesolitude of night; a book of wayside inns and sequestered taverns; abook of country things and ways and people. And the thought pleased memuch.
"But," objected the Tinker, for I had spoken my thought aloud, "treesand suchlike don't sound very interestin'—leastways—not in a book,for after all a tree's only a tree and an inn, an inn; no, you musttell of other things as well."
"Yes," said I, a little damped, "to be sure there is a highwayman—"
"Come, that's better!" said the Tinker encouragingly.
"Then," I went on, ticking off each item on my fingers, "come Tom
Cragg, the pugilist—"
"Better and better!" nodded the Tinker.
"—a one-legged soldier of the Peninsula, an adventure at a lonelytavern, a flight through woods at midnight pursued by desperatevillains, and—a most extraordinary tinker. So far so good, I think,and it all sounds adventurous enough."
"What!" cried the Tinker. "Would you put me in your book then?"
"Assuredly."
"Why then," said the Tinker, "it's true I mends kettles, sharpensscissors and such, but I likewise peddles books an' nov-els, an' what'smore I reads 'em—so, if you must put me in your book, you might callme a literary cove."
"A literary cove?" said I.
"Ah!" said the Tinker, "it sounds better—a sight better—besides, Inever read a nov-el with a tinker in it as I remember; they'regenerally dooks, or earls, or barronites—nobody wants to read about atinker."
"That all depends," said I; "a tinker may be much more interesting thanan earl or even a duke."
The Tinker examined the piece of bacon upon his knifepoint with a coldand disparaging eye.
"I've read a good many nov-els in my time," said he, shaking his head,"and I knows what I'm talking of;" here he bolted the morsel of baconwith much apparent relish. "I've made love to duchesses, run off withheiresses, and fought dooels—ah! by the hundred—all between thecovers of some book or other and enjoyed it uncommonly well—especiallythe dooels. If you can get a little blood into your book, so much thebetter; there's nothing like a little blood in a book—not a greatdeal, but just enough to give it a 'tang,' so to speak; if you couldkill your highwayman to start with it would be a very good beginning toyour story."
"I could do that, certainly," said I, "but it would not be according tofact."
"So much the better," said the Tinker; "who wants facts in a nov-el?"
"Hum!" said I.
"And then again—"
"What more?" I inquired.
"Love!" said the Tinker, wiping his knife-blade on the leg of hisbreeches.
"Love?" I repeated.
"And plenty of it," said the Tinke