Stirling hesitated a moment.
"All right, my man," said he, calmly.
"Now?" the heavy, suspicious voice on the doorstep insisted.
"I'll be there before ye if ye don't sprint, man. I'll run up in the car." Stirling shut the door. I heard footsteps on the gravel path outside.
"Ye heard?" said he to me. "And what am I to do with ye?"
"I'll go with you, of course," I answered.
"I may be kept up there a while."
"I don't care," I said roisterously. "It's a pub and I'm a traveller."
Stirling's household was in bed and his assistant gone home. While he and Titus got out the car I wrote a line for the Brindleys: "Gone with doctor to see patient at Toft End. Don't wait up.—A.L." This we pushed under Brindley's front door on our way forth. Very soon we were vibrating up a steep street on the first speed of the car, and the yellow reflections of distant furnaces began to shine over house roofs below us. It was exhilaratingly cold, a clear and frosty night, tonic, bracing after the enclosed warmth of the study. I was joyous, but silently. We had quitted the kingdom of the god Pan; we were in Lucina's realm, its consequence, where there is no laughter. We were on a mission.
"I didn't expect this," said Stirling.