III.
BEHIND THE WALL.
"Ruinous" these farm buildings certainly were; but "uninhabited"—obviously not quite! I rose stealthily and crossed to the door, and just as I reached it the door of the other house began to open. I stepped back and peered round the corner for quite a minute before anything more happened. My neighbour, whoever he was, seemed unconscionably slow in his movements.
And then a very old, bent, and withered woman appeared, with a grey shawl about her head. As she looked slowly round her, first to one side and then to the other, I cautiously drew back; but even as I did so I knew it was too late. A wisp of smoke had given us both away. This time it was a trail from my cigarette which I could see quite plainly drifting through the open door.
I heard her steps coming towards me, and then her shadow filled the doorway. There was nothing for it but taking the bull by the horns.
"Good morning!" I said genially.
She did not start. She did not speak. She just stared at me out of as unpleasant-looking a pair of old eyes as I have ever looked into. I suspected at once why the old crone lived here by herself; she did not look as if she would be popular among her neighbours.
"I think it is going to be a fine day," I continued breezily.
She simply continued to stare; and if ever I saw suspicion in human eyes, I saw it in hers.
"What do you think yourself?" I inquired with a smile. "I have no doubt you are more weatherwise than I."
Then at last she spoke, and I thought I had never heard a more sinister remark.
"Maybe it will be a fine day for some," she replied.
"I hope I may be one of them!" I said as cheerfully as possible.
She said not one word in reply, and her silence completed the ominous innuendo.
It struck me that a word of explanation would be advisable.
"My bicycle broke down," I said, "and I took the liberty of bringing it in here to repair it."
Her baleful gaze turned upon my hapless motor-cycle.
"What for did you have to mend it in here?" she inquired; very pertinently, I could not but admit.
"It was the most convenient place I could find," I replied carelessly.
"To keep it from the rain maybe?" she suggested.
"Well," I admitted, "a roof has some advantages."
"Then," said she, "you've been here a long while, for there's been no rain since I wakened up."
"But I didn't say I came here for shelter," I said hastily.
She stared at me again for a few moments.
"You're saying first one thing and then the other," she pronounced.
I felt inclined to tell her that she had missed her vocation. What a terrible specimen of the brow-beating, cross-examining lawyer she would have made! However, I decided that my safest line was cheerful politeness.
"Have it your own way, my good dame!" I said lightly.
Her evil eyes transfixed me.
"You'll be a foreigner," she said.
"A foreigner!" I exclaimed; "why on earth should you think that?"
"You're using queer words," she replied.
"What words?" I demanded.
"Dame is the German for an old woman," said she.
This astonishing philological discovery might have amused me at another time, but at this moment it only showed me too clearly how her thoughts were running.
"Well," said I, "if it's German, I can only say it is the first word of that beastly language I've ever spoken!"
Again I was answered by a very ominous silence. It occurred to me very forcibly that the sooner I removed myself from this neighbourhood the better.
"Well," I said, "my bicycle is mended now, so I had better be off."
"You had that," she agreed.
"Good-bye!" I cried as I led my cycle out, but she never spoke a syllable in reply.
"Fate has not lost much time in forcing my hand!" I said to myself as I pushed my motor-cycle along the track towards the highroad. I thought it wiser not to look round, but just before I reached the road I glanced over my left shoulder, and there was the old woman crossing the fields at a much brisker pace than I should have given her credit for, and heading straight for the nearest farm. My hand was being forced with a vengeance.
Instinctively I should liked to have turned uphill and got clear of this district immediately, but I was not sure how my cycle would behave itself, and dared not risk a stiff ascent to begin with. So I set off at top speed down the road I had come the night before, passing the old crone at a little distance off, and noticing more than one labourer in the fields or woman at a house door, staring with interest at this early morning rider. When the news had spread of where he had come from, and with what language he interlarded his speech, they might do something more than stare. There was a telegraph-office not at all far away.
As I sped down that hill and swung round away from the sea at the foot, I did a heap of quick thinking. As things had turned out I dared not make for any place of concealment far off the highroads. Now that there was a probability of the hue and cry being raised, or at least of a look-out being kept for me, the chances of successfully slipping up the valley of some burn without any one's notice were enormously decreased. I had but to glance round at the openness of the countryside to realise that. No; on the highroads I could at least run away, but up in the moors I should be a mere trapped rat.
Then I had the bright thought of touring in zigzag fashion round and round the island, stopping every here and there to address an inhabitant and leave a false clue, so as to confuse my possible pursuers. But what about my petrol? I might need every drop if I actually did come to be chased. So I gave up that scheme.
Finally, I decided upon a plan which really seems to me now to be as promising as any I could think of. About the least likely place to look for me would be a few miles farther along the same road that ran past my last night's refuge, in the opposite direction from that in which people had seen me start. I resolved to make a detour and then work back to that road.
I had arrived at this decision by the time I reached the scene of last night's mishap. Fortunately my cycle was running like a deer now, and I swept up the little slope in a few seconds and sped round the loch, opening up fresh vistas of round-topped heather hills and wide green or brown valleys every minute. At a lonely bit of the road I jumped off, studied my map afresh, and then dashed on again.
Presently a side road opened, leading back towards the coast, and round the corner I sped; but even as I did so the utter hopelessness of my performance struck me vividly—that is to say, if a really serious and organised hunt for me were to be set afoot. For the roadside was dotted with houses, often at considerable intervals it is true, but then all of them had such confoundedly wide views over that open country. There was a house or two at the very corner where I turned, and I distinctly saw a face appearing at a window to watch me thunder past. The noise these motor-cycles make is simply infernal!
It was then that I fell into the true spirit for such an adventure. Since the chances were everywhere against me if my enemies took certain steps, well then, the only thing to do was to hope they did not take them and dismiss that matter from my mind. I was taking the best precautions I could think of, and the cooler I kept and better spirits I was in, the more likely would luck be to follow me. For luck is a discerning lady and likes those who trust her. Accordingly, the sun being now out and the morning beautifully fine, I decided to enjoy the scenery and make the most of a day ashore.
My first step was to ease up and ride just as slowly as I could, and then I saw at once that I was doing the wisest thing in every way. I made less noise and less dust, and was altogether much less of a phenomenon. And this encouraged me greatly to keep to my new resolution.
"If I leave it all to luck, she will advise me well!" I said to myself.
I headed coastwards through a wide marshy valley with but few houses about, and in a short time saw the sea widening before me and presently struck the road I was seeking. At the junction I obeyed an impulse, and, jumping off my cycle, paused to survey the scenery. A fertile vale fell from where I stood, down to a small bay between headlands. It was filled with little farms, and all at once there came over me an extraordinary impression of peacefulness and rest. Could it actually be that this was a country at war; that naval war, indeed, was very very close at hand, and beneath those shining waters a submarine might even now be stealing or a loose mine drifting? The wide, sunshiny, placid atmosphere of the scene, with its vast expanse of clear blue sky, larks singing high up and sea-birds crying about the shore, soothed my spirits like a magician's wand. I mounted and rode on again in an amazingly pleasant frame of mind for a spy within a hair's-breadth of capture, and very probably of ignominious death.
Up a long hill my engine gently throbbed, with moorland on either side that seemed to be so desolated by the gales and sea spray that even heather could scarcely flourish. I meant to stop and rest by the wayside, but after a look at the map I thought on the whole I had better put another mile or two between me and the lady with the baleful eyes. At the top I had a very wide prospect of inland country to the left, a treeless northern-looking scene, all green and brown with many lakes reflecting the sunshine. A more hopeless land to hide in I never beheld, and I was confirmed in my reckless resolution. Chance alone must protect me.
Down a still steeper hill I rode, only now amid numberless small farms and with another bay shining ahead. The road ran nearly straight into the water and then bent suddenly and followed the rim of the bay, with nothing but empty sea-links on the landward side. The farms were left behind, a mansion-house by the shore was still a little distance ahead, and there was not a living soul in sight as I came to a small stone-walled enclosure squeezed in between the road and the beach below. I jumped off, led my cycle round this and laid it on the ground, and then seated myself with my back against the low wall of loose stones and my feet almost projecting over the edge of the steep slope of pebbles that fell down to the sand.
I was only just out of sight, but unless any one should walk along the beach, out of sight I certainly was, and it struck me forcibly that ever since I had given myself up to luck, every impulse had been an inspiration. If I were conducting the search for myself, would I ever dream of looking for the mysterious runaway behind a wall three feet high within twenty paces of a public road and absolutely exposed to a wide sweep of beach? "No," I told myself, "I certainly should not!"
There I sat for hour after hour basking in the sunshine, and yet despite my heavy clothing kept at a bearable temperature by gentle airs of cool breeze off the sea. The tide, which was pretty high when I arrived, crept slowly down the sands, but save for the cruising and running of gulls and little piping shore-birds, that was all the movement on the beach. Not a soul appeared below me all that time. The calm shining sea remained absolutely empty except once for quarter of an hour or so when a destroyer was creeping past far out. To the seaward there was not a hint of danger or the least cause for apprehension.
On the road behind me I did hear sounds several times, which I confess disturbed my equanimity much more than I meant to let them. Once a motor-car buzzed past, and not to hold my breath as the sound swelled so rapidly and formidably was more than I could achieve. The jogging of a horse and trap twice set me wondering, despite myself, whether there were a couple of men with carbines aboard. But the slow prolonged rattling and creaking of carts was perhaps the sound that worried me most. They took such an interminable time to pass! I conceived a very violent distaste for carts.
I do take some credit to myself that not once did I yield to the temptation to peep over my wall and see who it was that passed along the road. I did not even turn and try to peer through the chinks in the stones, but simply sat like a limpet till the sounds had died completely away. The only precaution I took was to extinguish my cigarette if I chanced at the moment to be smoking.
In the course of my long bask in that sun bath I ate most of my remaining sandwiches and a cake or two of chocolate, but kept the remainder against emergencies. At last as the sun wore round, gradually descending till it shone right into my eyes, and I realised that the afternoon was getting far through, hope began to rise higher and higher. It actually seemed as if I were going to be allowed to remain within twenty yards of a highroad till night fell. "And then let them look for me!" I thought.
I don't think my access of optimism caused me to make any incautious movement. I know I was not smoking, in fact it must simply have been luck determined to show me that I was not her only favourite. Anyhow, when I first heard a footstep it was on the grass within five yards of me, and the next moment a man came round the corner of the wall and stopped dead short at the sight of me.
He was a countryman, a small farmer or hired man, I should judge—a broad-faced, red-bearded, wide-shouldered, pleasant-looking fellow, and he must have been walking for some distance on the grass by the roadside, though what made him step the few yards out of his way to look round the corner of the wall, I have never discovered to this day. Possibly he meant to descend to the beach at that point. Anyhow there he was, and as we looked into one another's eyes for a moment in silence I could tell as surely as if he had said the words that he had heard the story of the suspicious motor-cyclist.