Our pa.s.senger swore something and then groaned.
"Hush, darling!" said Pyecroft, "or I"ll have to hug you."
The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running north to Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.
"And now," said I, "I want to see your authority."
"The badge of your ratin"?" Pyecroft added.
"I"m a constable," he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have bewrayed him across half a county"s plough; but boots are not legal evidence.
"I want your authority," I repeated coldly; "some evidence that you are not a common drunken tramp."
It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite trouble to supplement his deficiencies.
"If you don"t believe me, come to Linghurst," was the burden of his almost national anthem.
"But I can"t run all over Suss.e.x every time a blackmailer jumps up and says he is a policeman."
"Why, it"s quite close," he persisted.
""Twon"t be--soon," said Hinchcliffe.
"None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, _they_ was gentlemen," he cried. "All I can say is, it may be very funny, but it ain"t fair."
I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten his badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub or barracks where he had left it.
Pyecroft listened critically as we spun along the hard road.
"If he was a concentrated Boer, he couldn"t expect much more," he observed. "Now, suppose I"d been a lady in a delicate state o" health-- you"d ha" made me very ill with your doings."
"I wish I "ad. "Ere! "Elp! "Elp! Hi!"
The man had seen a constable in uniform fifty yards ahead, where a lane ran into the road, and would have said more but that Hinchcliffe jerked her up that lane with a wrench that nearly capsized us as the constable came running heavily.
It seemed to me that both our guest and his fellow-villain in uniform smiled as we fled down the road easterly betwixt the narrowing hedges.
"You"ll know all about it in a little time," said our guest. "You"ve only yourselves to thank for runnin" your "ead into a trap." And he whistled ostentatiously.
We made no answer.
"If that man "ad chose, "e could have identified me," he said.
Still we were silent.
"But "e"ll do it later, when you"re caught."
"Not if you go on talking. "E won"t be able to," said Pyecroft. "I don"t know what traverse you think you"re workin", but your duty till you"re put in cells for a highway robber is to love, honour, an" cherish _me_ most special--performin" all evolutions signalled in rapid time. I tell you this, in case o" anything turnin" up."
"Don"t you fret about things turnin" up," was the reply.
Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set to work, when, without warning, the road--there are two or three in Suss.e.x like it--turned down and ceased.
"Holy Muckins!" he cried, and stood on both brakes as our helpless tyres slithered over wet gra.s.s and bracken--down and down into forest--early British woodland. It was the change of a nightmare, and that all should fit, fifty yards ahead of us a babbling brook barred our way. On the far side a velvet green ride, sprinkled with rabbits and fern, gently sloped upwards and away, but behind us was no hope. Forty horse-power would never have rolled wet pneumatic tyres up that verdurous cliff we had descended.
"H"m!" Our guest coughed significantly. "A great many cars thinks they can take this road; but they all come back. We walks after "em at our convenience."
"Meanin" that the other jaunty is now pursuin" us on his lily feet?" said Pyecroft.
"_Pre_cisely."
"An" you think," said Pyecroft (I have no hope to render the scorn of the words), "_that"ll_ make any odds? Get out!"
The man obeyed with alacrity.
"See those spars up-ended over there? I mean that wickyup-thing.
Hop-poles, then, you rural blighter. Keep on fetching me hop-poles at the double."
And he doubled, Pyecroft at his heels; for they had arrived at a perfect understanding.
There was a stack of hurdles a few yards down
stream, laid aside after sheep-washing; and there were stepping-stones in the brook. Hinchcliffe rearranged these last to make some sort of causeway; I brought up the hurdles; and when Pyecroft and his subaltern had dropped a dozen hop-poles across the stream, laid them down over all.
"Talk o" the Agricultur"l Hall!" he said, mopping his brow--""tisn"t in it with us. The approach to the bridge must now be paved with hurdles, owin"
to the squashy nature o" the country. Yes, an" we"d better have one or two on the far side to lead her on to _terror fermior_. Now, Hinch! Give her full steam and "op along. If she slips off, we"re done. Shall I take the wheel?"
"No. This is my job," said the first-cla.s.s engine-room artificer. "Get over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the uphill."
We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken.
Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her, pushing her madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite. Of the bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those hurdles which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches.
"She--she kicked out all the loose ones behind her as she finished with "em," Hinchcliffe panted.
"At the Agricultural Hall they would "ave been fastened down with ribbons," said Pyecroft. "But this ain"t Olympia."
"She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don"t you think I conned her like a c.o.c.k-angel, Pye?"
"_I_ never saw anything like it," said our guest propitiatingly. "And now, gentlemen, if you"ll let me go back to Linghurst, I promise you you won"t hear another word from me."
"Get in," said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road once more.
"We "aven"t begun on _you_ yet."
"A joke"s a joke," he replied. "I don"t mind a little bit of a joke myself, but this is going beyond it."
"Miles an" miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We"ll want water pretty soon."
Our guest"s countenance brightened, and Pyecroft perceived it.