The night was moonless but strewn with stars. A tonic north-east wind hummed over the high moors, and seemed to p.r.i.c.k old Dapple, prescient of his own straw and rack, to his very best trot. It was a penetrating wind, too; but Doctor Unonius, wrapped in his frieze coat, with the famous Penalune brandy playing about the c.o.c.kles of his heart, defied its chill. At this rate half an hour would bring him to the gate of Landeweddy Farm, under the lee of Four Barrows; and beyond Landeweddy, where the road plunged straight to Polpeor and the coast, he would reach complete shelter. Let the wind blow from this quarter never so fiercely, in the steep lanes under the seaward edge of the moor a man could hear it screaming overhead and laugh at it, lighting his pipe.
The sound of hoofs and wheels died away down the westward road.
Doctor Unonius, with face set for home, pursed his mouth and inaudibly whistled a tune,--
"In the month of November, in the year "fifty-two."
"Whoa there, Dapple! Steady! Why, what ails the horse?"
For Dapple, as the gig turned a corner of road, on a sudden had shied violently, half reared, and come to a halt with a jerk that set the gig quivering, and had almost broken its shafts.
"Why, hallo!" exclaimed the doctor, peering forward.
To the right of the road, a little ahead of him, stood a woman.
She had drawn aside, close to the hedge, doubtless to let them pa.s.s.
The rays of the gig lamp fell full on her--a broad-shouldered woman of more than ordinary height. Over her head was flung a dark shawl, and her left hand held its edges tightly together at the throat.
In her right she carried a leathern bag. This was as much as the doctor could see, for the shawl concealed her features. He could not recognise her at all, though he knew, or believed that he knew, everybody--man, woman, or child--within a radius of ten miles.
But Doctor Unonius was ever polite.
"Hey? Good-evening, ma"am!" he sang out. "You startled the old horse a bit. I hope he has not frightened you?"
There was no answer.
"Can I offer you a lift, ma"am, if you"re going my way? The hour is late, and the weather none too pleasant for tramping these high moors."
Still there was no answer.
"You needn"t be afraid of Dapple," he a.s.sured her. "He"ll stand still as a rock now, if you"ll climb up."
"Thank you," she answered at last, with a hesitating step forward, and the voice was hoa.r.s.e and constrained.
"Come round to the other side then. Here, give me your bag."
The woman crossed in front of Dapple--who backed a foot or so uneasily--came around to the step, and handed up her bag. It was a two-handled bag, of j.a.panned leather, and Doctor Unonius, as he took it from her and rested it against the splashboard, noted also that it was exceedingly heavy. He held out his hand. The woman grasped it, and clambered up beside him.
He gave a sharp look at her and called to Dapple. The horse pulled himself together and broke into a brisk trot, which continued for hard upon half a mile before either occupant of the gig broke silence.
For Doctor Unonius was considering. Though a student he was a man of considerable courage and cool-headed in emergency, as he was now not a little pleased to prove, for hitherto life had provided few emergencies to test him. But here was an emergency, and--at this time of night, and in this place--it looked to be an ugly one.
He had to deal with a discovery, and the discovery was this.
The hand he had just gripped was no woman"s at all, but the hand of a man.
He stole another glance at his companion. She, or he, was leaning forward in a huddled att.i.tude to meet the wind which now, as they rounded an edge of the down, blew crosswise athwart the gig and a little ahead. Nothing of face could be seen, only--and this dimly by the starshine--the hand that grasped the shawl. But it was enough; a man"s hand, the doctor could almost swear. He recognised this with a slight thrill. He was not afraid, but he was undeniably excited.
What on earth should a man be doing in woman"s clothes, on this road and at this hour? The road led no whither but to Polpeor and the coast, and pa.s.sed on its way no human habitation but Landeweddy Farm and a couple of cottages half a mile beyond it, close under the dip of the hill. . . .
"You are shivering," said Doctor Unonius, after a pause.
The crouching figure nodded, but did not speak.
"Are you cold? Here, take some more of the rug."
For a moment there was no answer, then a shake of the head.
"Ill, then? Feverish? I am a doctor: let me feel your pulse."
His companion made a quick gesture as if to hide the hand grasping the gig-rail: but after another pause, and as if reluctantly, it was reached across. The other still clutched the shawl.
Doctor Unonius, drawing off his right-hand glove with his teeth, reached across also and laid his fingers in professional fashion on the wrist. Yes; he was right. The wrist was a man"s wrist, large and bony. He screwed up his eyes and peered down as well as he might at the upturned hand. He could see that the finger-tips were square, and the palm, if he mistook not, showed a row of callosities at the base of the fingers. Something in the pulse"s beat caught his attention, and almost at the same moment his nostrils expanded suspiciously. Doctor Unonius had a delicate sense of smell.
"This man," he thought, "is in a blue fright; and moreover, and although he smokes a deal of rank tobacco, I am open to bet he is a butcher by trade."
He relaxed the pressure of his fingers very slightly, and the hand was sharply withdrawn.
Almost at the same moment the doctor"s own hand went swiftly to his head. There was a tug at the reins, and it fetched old Dapple up with a sprawl.
"My hat is gone!" exclaimed the doctor.
Sure enough it was: and as he leaned and peered after it, he could just discern it for a moment before it dropped like a sable bird against a dark furze bush a few yards away to the left.
"My hat is gone," he repeated.
His companion did not budge, hardly so much as turned a glance, but sat as before, shivering and dumb.
"I am very sorry to trouble you, ma"am," ventured the doctor politely. "But would it inconvenience you very much to climb down and recover my hat? It lies yonder, against the furze. With one of the lamps you will find it easily."
"Can"t you climb down yourself and fetch it? I"ll hold the reins."
The voice was husky, the tone ungracious.
"No, ma"am. Dapple is restive to-night, and I prefer--if you"ll forgive me--not to trust him to a lady and a stranger. If you refuse, my hat must e"en remain where it lies."
The figure rose, as if upon a sudden resolve, and set one foot on the step.
"I"ll fetch it for you. But being driven to-night is cold work, and I won"t trouble you any further. Hand me down my bag, please."
The stranger climbed out and stood beside the step, with one hand holding on to the edge of the footboard.
"Come, hand me down my bag."
For answer Doctor Unonius lifted his foot and brought it down suddenly on the hand, grinding his heel into the fingers. At the same moment the whiplash fell over Dapple"s haunches. There was a yell of pain, a wild curse, a scuttering of hoofs, and the old horse, unaccustomed to the whip and well-nigh scared out of his senses, plunged forward into the night.
For a minute or so Doctor Unonius, as he called to Dapple and plied the whip, fancied that in the intervals of these encouragements he caught the sound of footsteps pursuing him down the hard road.
But the chase, if chase were given, was vain from the first: for Dapple tore along as though the devil himself sat behind the splashboard.
But while the gig swayed and rocked, and while the wind sung past his ears, Doctor Unonius thrust a foot out, and steadying it against the hard bag, enjoyed some crowded moments of glorious life. After all these sedentary years adventure had swooped on him out of the night and was wafting him along in a sort of ecstasy. If the hand were, after all, a woman"s, he could never forgive himself. . . . But it was not: of that he felt sure. Complete success had crowned his simple manoeuvre. He felt all the exhilaration of a born student who suddenly discovers he can be practical--the sort of exhilaration Cicero felt, to his surprise, in dealing with the conspiracy of Catiline, and never during the rest of his life forgot.
It was hard on Dapple, but the doctor urged him for a mile before his natural kind-heartedness rea.s.serted itself and he reined up the good old horse, to breathe him.
Now was his time to have a look at the bag. He reached down and lifted it to his knees, and again its weight surprised him. "It will be locked, no doubt," said the doctor to himself, as he drew the off gig-lamp from its socket to light his inspection.
But no: the bag was fastened by an ordinary spring-catch, and, when he pressed this, fell open easily. He listened for a second or two, with a glance over his shoulder into the darkness behind. But nothing could be heard--nothing but the night-call of a curlew somewhere on the moor, far to his right. Holding the lamp a little higher in his left, he thrust his right hand into the bag, groped, and drew out--