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He was not looking at his old, unclipped chestnut horse, nor at the roadalong which he was driving, but his face was turned in my direction, andhe was staring past me with an expression of curiosity and, as Ithought, of apprehension. He raised the whip to lash the horse, and thendropped it again, as if convinced that it was useless. At the same time,following the direction of his gaze, I saw what it was which had excitedhim.
A man was running across the moor. He ran clumsily, stumbling andslipping among the stones; but the road curved, and it was easy for himto cut us off. As we came up to the spot for which he had been making,he scrambled over the stone wall and stood waiting, with the evening sunshining on his brown, clean-shaven face. He was a burly fellow, and inbad condition, for he stood with his hand on his ribs, panting andblowing after his short run. As we drove up I saw the glint of earringsin his ears.
“Say, mate, where are you bound for?” he asked, in a rough butgood-humoured fashion.
“Farmer Purcell’s, at the Garth Farm,” said the driver.
“Sorry to stop you,” cried the other, standing aside; “I thought as Iwould hail you as you passed, for if so be as you had been going my wayI should have made bold to ask you for a passage.”
His excuse was an absurd one, since it was evident that our little trapwas as full as it could be, but my driver did not seem disposed toargue. He drove on without a word, and, looking back, I could see thestranger sitting by the roadside and cramming tobacco into his pipe.
“A sailor,” said I.
“Yes, maister. We’re not more than a few miles from Morecambe Bay,” thedriver remarked.
“You seemed frightened of him,” I observed.
“Did I?” said he, drily; and then, after a long pause, “Maybe I was.” Asto his reasons for fear, I could get nothing from him, and though Iasked him
many questions he was so stupid, or else so clever, that Icould learn nothing from his replies. I observed, however, that fromtime to time he swept the moors with a troubled eye, but their hugebrown expanse was unbroken by any moving figure. At last in a sort ofcleft in the hills in front of us I saw a long, low-lying farm building,the centre of all those scattered flocks.
“Garth Farm,” said my driver. “There is Farmer Purcell himself,” headded, as a man strolled out of the porch and stood waiting for ourarrival. He advanced as I descended from the trap, a hard, weather-wornfellow with light blue eyes, and hair and beard like sun-bleached grass.In his expression I read the same surly ill-will which I had alreadyobserved in my driver. Their malevolence could not be directed towards acomplete stranger like myself, and so I began to suspect that my unclewas no more popular on the north-country fells than he had been inStepney Highway.
“You’re to stay here until nightfall. That’s Mr. Stephen Maple’s wish,”said he, curtly. “You can have some tea and bacon if you like. It’s thebest we can give you.”
I was very hungry, and accepted the hospitality in spite of the churlishtone in which it was offered. The farmer’s wife and his two daughterscame into the sitting-room during the meal, and I was aware of a certaincuriosity with which they regarded me. It may have been that a young manwas a rarity in this wilderness, or it may be that my attempts atconversation won their goodwill, but they all three showed a kindlinessin their manner. It was getting dark, so I remarked that it was time forme to be pushing on to Greta House.
“You’ve made up your mind to go, then?” said the older woman.
“Certainly. I have come all the way from London.”
“There’s no one hindering you from going back there.”
“But I have come to see Mr. Maple, my uncle.”
“Oh, well, no one can stop you if you want to go on,” said the woman,and became silent as her husband entered the room.
With every fresh incident I felt that I was moving in an atmosphere ofmystery and peril, and yet it was all so intangible and so vague that Icould not guess where my danger lay. I should have asked the farmer’swife point-blank, but her surly husband seemed to divine the sympathywhich she felt for me, and never again left us together. “It’s time youwere going, mister,” said he at last, as his wife lit the lamp upon thetable.
“Is the trap ready?”
“You’ll need no trap. You’ll walk,” said he.
“How shall I know the way?”
“William will go with you.”
William was the youth who had driven me up from the station. He waswaiting at the door, and he shouldered my gun-case and bag. I stayedbehind to thank the farmer for his hospitality, but he would have noneof it. “I ask no thanks from Mr. Stephen Maple nor any friend of his,”said he, bluntly. “I am paid for what I do. If I was not paid I wouldnot do it. Go your way, young man, and say no more.” He turned rudely onhis heel and re-entered his house, slamming the door behind him.
It was quite dark outside, with heavy black clouds drifting slowlyacross the sky. Once clear of the farm inclosure and out on the moor Ishould have been hopelessly lost if it had not been for my guide, whowalked in front of me along narrow sheep-tracks which were quiteinvisible to me. Every now and then, without seeing anything, we heardthe clumsy scuffling of the creatures in the darkness. At first my guidewalked swiftly and carelessly, but gradually his pace slowed down, untilat last he was going very slowly and stealthily, like one who walkslight-footed amid imminent menace. This vague, inexplicable sense ofdanger in the midst of the loneliness of that vast moor was moredaunting than any evident peril could be, and I had begun to press himas to what it was that he feared, when suddenly he stopped and draggedme down among some gorse bushes which lined the path. His tug at my coatwas so strenuous and imperative that I realized that the danger was apressing one, and in an instant I was squatting down beside him as stillas the bushes which shadowed us. It was so dark there that I could noteven see the lad beside me.
It was a warm night, and a hot wind puffed in our faces. Suddenly inthis wind there came something homely and familiar—the smell of burningtobacco. And then a face, illuminated by the glowing bowl of a pipe,came floating towards us. The man was all in shadow, but just that onedim halo of light with the face which filled it, brighter below andshading away into darkness above, stood out against the universalblackness. A thin, hungry face, thickly freckled with yellow over thecheek bones, blue, watery eyes, an ill-nourished, light-colouredmoustache, a peaked yachting cap—that was all that I saw. He passed us,looking vacantly in front of him, and we heard the steps dying awayalong the path.
“Who was it?” I asked, as we rose to our feet.
“I don’t know.”
The fellow’s continual profession of ignorance made me angry.
