The constable snorted. "Didn't you hear me tell you to move on? We don't want any habitual criminals hanging about here."
O'Hagan dived his hands deep into the pockets of his shiny trousers and slouched along towards the next village. About a mile ahead was an inn he knew of where he might enjoy a great refreshment, and drink the waters of Lethe. He jingled the silver in his pocket and reflected that for one night at least he could eat strongly, and drink largely, and sleep deeply.
Outside a house screened by a mysterious ten foot wall full of the plain dignity of unpretending age, a long grey motor car was standing. O'Hagan turned and surveyed it, and his quick eye rested upon a leather hand case on a rug beneath the seat. It did not take him a moment to snatch it and hide it swiftly beneath his coat. For a second or so he stood back against the wall. At that moment a girl came out of the house, in company with an elderly gentleman, and walked towards the car. O'Hagan looked at the girl swiftly. At the same time she glanced at him, and their eyes met. Things looked unhealthy for O'Hagan. But fate was altogether with him, and the motor moved off and left him standing there with the case under his coat. No glorious figure, this man, but one of those whom specialists now place amongst the doomed as cursed with the criminal instinct, with the vices that require lavish means to feed them—a man who only feels a thrill in life when he is preying on his fellows, or eluding the hand of justice.
O'Hagan walked down the road a little way with his hand resting lovingly on the leather case. He turned a corner, cut through the hedge, and took a track across a field. In the shelter of a clump of bushes he sat leisurely on the grass and went over the contents. Among the various odds and ends was a leather purse. He opened it with trembling fingers. There was a sovereign, five one pound notes folded up, eight shillings in silver, and a small silver cross hanging on a black silk riband. He dropped the silver with a sigh of satisfaction into his trousers pocket, and the notes he stored in the lining of his hat. He took up the little cross and was about to thrust it into the thick grass, when he paused for a moment, and was aware of an oppressive feeling.
On a sudden, in the midst of men and day,
And while he sat and looked around,
He seemed to be in a bygone age,
And feel himself the shadow of a dream.
O'Hagan felt that his body was decreasing, sinking under the green turf, falling down, down, down, and yet "He" was still above, gazing, wondering, open-eyed, open-mouthed, as it were. Gradually, but none the less surely, he was being crowded round by many moving "?'s" which never seemed to grow distinct. He seemed to know at once he was back in the days long past. He shut his eyes against a burning that felt like tears. When he opened them again he was looking at his own name, fairly carved in on the silver cross in quaint old English letters:
The clump of bushes before him was now obscured by a thin white cloud. As he watched he was aware of a figure that stood out distinctly before him. He was a man of his own height, thick-set, serious-looking, in a monk's mantle and hood. O'Hagan gave a hurried glance, and as hurriedly turned his head away again. The face of the man exactly resembled his own. But it was an honest face, without the look of dissipation, and the secret furtive air, which he knew marred his own features. He also thought he could see a faint nimbus round his head—but this may have been illusion. O'Hagan moved away as if he had no wish to see him; but the stranger was not to be put off by any such trick. He touched O'Hagan's arm, and brought him to a standstill.