Warning: If you have a visual impairment, use the manuscript transcript version including the Lucy Maud Montgomery’s foot notes and contextual annotation references.

Chapter 10

152

“That’s right—that’s right, Anne. But don’t tell Marilla I said anything about it. She might think I was putting my oar in and I promised not to do that.”

“Wild horses won’t drag the secret from me,” promised Anne solemnly. “How would wild horses drag a secret from a person anyhow?”

But Matthew was gone, scared at his own success. He fled hastily to the remotest corner of the horse pasture lest Marilla should suspect what he had been up to. Marilla herself, up upon her return to the house, was agreeably surprised


TEXT ANNOTATION

"How would wild horses drag a secret from a person anyhow?": The vivid expression has puzzled more people than Anne. Believed to have been inspired by a medieval torture where a person, tied to two different horses, was stretched into a confession. Anne’s quick ear and imagination have picked up the colorful expression from reading popular literature.