Jacob took off his hat and drew in a long breath of the fresh morning air.
“I don’t think you’re going to frighten me,” he said. “What a country!”
Almost directly they turned off the main road into what was little better than a cart track, across a great open moor, dotted everywhere with huge granite stones, marvellous clumps of heather and streaks of gorse. The sky was perfectly blue, and the wind came booming up from where the moorland seemed to drop into the sea. There were no rubber tyres on the wheels, and apparently no springs to speak of on the cart. They swayed from side to side in perilous fashion, went down into ruts, over small boulders of stone, through a stretch of swamp, across a patch of stones, always at the same half gallop. Lady Mary looked down and smiled at the enjoyment in her companion’s face.
“You’ve passed the first test,” she declared, “but then I knew you would. I brought Mr. Montague along here yesterday morning, and he cried like a child.”
“Mr. Who?” Jacob gasped.
“Mr. Montague and a friend of his. They came down with father last night. Perfectly abominable men. I hope you won’t leave me to their tender mercies for a single moment, Mr. Pratt.”
To Jacob, the warmth seemed to have gone from the sunlight, and the tearing wind was no longer bringing him joy. Up above him, the long white front of Kelsoton Castle had come into view. His wonderful holiday, then, had come to this—that he must walk, minute by minute, in fear of his liberty, perhaps his life. He was to spend the days he had looked forward to so much in this lonely spot with the men who were his sworn enemies. He looked behind him for a moment. The train by which he had come had disappeared long ago across a dark stretch of barren moor. Escape, even if he had thought of it, was cut off.
“I gather that you don’t care much for Mr. Montague, either,” she remarked, flicking one of the pony’s ears.
Jacob roused himself.
“Not exactly my choice of a holiday companion,” he admitted.