It was nearing seven o’clock and growing dusk when Kit at last struck the high road between four and five miles below Crofts. It was a full ten-mile drive by the road from Wootton Beeches, but Kit had saved over two miles by taking the short cut across the fields. He stopped for the first time since he had started on his mad chase after the Doctor, and looked panting up and down the deserted road.
‘I can’t have been much more than three-quarters of an hour, and I bet it’s four miles,’ he muttered. The mud with which he was splashed up to the collar showed the kind of ground over which he had been travelling, and the way his breath was coming and going told how much of the four miles had been covered at a run. Now that he had exhausted his first impulse to rush after the Doctor and bring him back at any cost, he began to realise what an absurd thing he had set himself to do. Dr. Hurst had had an hour’s start of him at least, and even the short cut across the fields would not make up for that. With a quick-trotting cob like his, he would have reached his destination easily by this time and discovered the trick that had been played upon him, and no effort on Kit’s part would bring him back a moment sooner than he would be coming of his own accord. Besides, if it was any good going after him, Finny would have sent her man on horseback long before this, and he would have outdistanced Kit in any case.
‘If only our bicycles had been there instead of at Crofts, I might have caught him up then,’ cried the boy, as the hopelessness of the position dawned upon him.
Nothing answered him, and the road looked more dreary than ever. A good deal of rain had fallen that week, and the drip drip of the trees overhead added a kind of melancholy to everything. Christopher’s quick imagination called up all the details of the scene he had left behind him: the unwonted anger of his cousin, the anxiety of Finny and Auntie Anna when he had rushed into the drawing-room with her message, and then their eagerness to ring the bell and send some one for the Doctor, whom he knew to be far away on a wild-goose chase of his own making. He pictured with vividness too the consternation that would be caused in the house when Finny’s messenger returned from his fruitless errand, and the look that would come on Auntie Anna’s face when Peter came in from his tramp with the other boys and explained the trick that had been played on the Doctor. No wonder he had hurried straight out of the house and struck blindly across the fields, without stopping to reflect whether it would be any good or not! Even now, though he knew how little he could do, he felt unable to remain inactive; and turning his face in the direction of Crofts, he once more broke into a run and hurried wildly along the muddy, desolate road.
He had been running about thirty-five minutes, only falling into a walk now and then to recover his breath, when the sound of wheels, coming from behind made him draw to the side of the road. He still trudged on, however, with his head down and his hands clenched, and he did not even trouble to look round when the vehicle caught him up and passed him. The light from the lamp flashed across his face as it rolled swiftly by; and immediately afterwards, the trap pulled up just ahead of him.
‘Hullo! Is that Christopher Berkeley?’ said a voice from above.
Kit staggered, and stood speechless. It was the Doctor’s voice; there was no doubt about that. But how came he to be driving towards Crofts instead of away from it? His sudden appearance was so remarkable that the boy’s head felt in a whirl.
‘I–I thought––’ he faltered.
The Doctor gave a quiet laugh, and climbed down from his seat.
‘You thought I was green enough for anything, didn’t you?’ he observed. ‘Just stand by the animal, will you, while I get out of my coat?’