His first intention was to hire a horse
there and ride home forthwith, for to walk many miles without a gun in
his hand, and along an ordinary road, was as much out of the
question to him as to other spirited young men of his kind. He did not
much mind about taking the bad news to Godfrey, for he had to offer
him at the same time the resource of Marner's money; and if Godfrey
kicked, as he always did, at the notion of making a fresh debt, from
which he himself got the smallest share of advantage, why, he wouldn't
kick long: Dunstan felt sure he could worry Godfrey into anything. The
idea of Marner's money kept growing in vividness now the want of it
had become immediate; the prospect of having to make his appearance
with the muddy boots of a pedestrian at Batherley, and encounter the
grinning queries of stablemen, stood unpleasantly in the way of his
impatience to be back at Raveloe and carry out his felicitous plan;
and a casual visitation of his waistcoat pocket, as he was ruminating,
awakened his memory to the fact that the two or three small coins
his fore-finger encountered there were of too pale a colour to cover
that small debt, without payment of which Jennings had declared he
would never do any more business with Dunsey Cass. After all,
according to the direction in which the run had brought him, he was
not so very much farther from home than he was from Batherley; but
Dunsey, not being remarkable for clearness of head, was only led to
this conclusion by the gradual perception that there were other
reasons for choosing the unprecedented course of walking home.
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