He apparently did not hear her.
They came to the great iron gate.
“Put me down,” she said again.
Still he seemed not to hear. With his foot he rattled the gate, calling in a loud, uncontrolled voice,—the voice of a man in danger—“Hey! Hey!” He was trembling all over.
Three times he rattled the gate and called. Twice he was answered only by the reverberations of his own clamor, which shocked the stillness of the night and left a vacant ringing in the ears. In the grass the crickets sang. Far away a dog barked once and a cock woke up. Each could hear the beating of the other’s heart.
What happened the third time was apparitional. Suddenly, there was Enoch, behind the gate, looking at them. He had been there all the time in the shadow of the wall. He held a lighted lantern. That also had been concealed. Slowly he raised the latch-bar and swung the gate ajar. Then he held the lantern high and gazed unbelievingly at Thane, who was the first to speak.
“Found her up there in the grass. Was having a bit of a tiff, two of us, me ’n the Cornishman, ’n he fell on her when I knocked him out, ’n hurt her ankle, hiding there so as nobody could see her. She couldn’t walk, so’s I brought her home.”
Agnes neither stirred nor spoke. In the light of the lantern her eyes gleamed with a trapped expression. Enoch did not look at her, not even on hearing that she was hurt, but continued to stare fixedly at his puddler, repeating after him: “In the grass.”
“Don’t you want her?” Thane asked.
At that Enoch lowered the lantern, swung the gate open and stood aside.