Sam Brandon must have run five hundred yards back before want of breath compelled a slackening of speed, and his panic fear gave place to common-sense.
“What a fool I am!” he said to himself, with wonderful accuracy; “it must have been some precious old cow.”
This thought brought him quite to a stand, and after a little consideration, he felt so certain of the cause of his alarm that he turned and continued his route again toward the village, reaching the dark part, hesitating for a few moments before going on, and now hearing up to the left and over the dimly-seen hedgerow the regular crop, crop, crop of some animal grazing upon the crisp dew-wet grass.
“If anybody had told me,” he muttered, “that I could have been scared by a jolly old cow, I should have kicked him. How absurd!”
He walked on now firmly enough, till, in spite of the darkness, the road became more familiar, and in due time he could see the lights at Heatherleigh, and looking up to his right against the starry sky, the top of the great mill.
It was too soon, he felt, and turning back, pretty well strung up now to what was rapidly assuming the aspect of a desperate venture, he walked on till the golden sand looked light upon his left, and showed a way into the wood. Here he turned off, walked cautiously in amongst the tall columns for a few yards, and then sat down on the fir-needles, listened to find that all was still, and taking out cigarette-case and match-box he struck a light and began to smoke, sheltering the bright burning end of the little roll of tobacco, and trying as he rested to improve his plans.
For he was hot and tired. He had found the station beyond Furzebrough quite seven miles from the village, and being a perfectly fresh route to him, it had seemed twice as far; while the fact that he wished to keep his visit a profound secret forced him to refrain from asking questions as to the way, after being instructed by the station-master at the first.
It was restful and pleasant there on the soft natural couch of sand and fir-needles, and after a time Sam’s head began to bow and nod, and then, just as he was dropping off fast asleep, the cigarette, which he had been puffing at mechanically, dropped from his lips and fell in his lap.
In a few minutes the fume which had been rising changed its odour from burning vegetable to smouldering animal, and Sam leaped up with a yell of pain, to hastily clap his hands to a bright little round hole upon the leg of his trousers, where the woollen material had caught fire and burned through to his skin.
“Hang the stupid thing!” he grumbled, as he squeezed the cloth and put out the tiny glowing spark. “Must have dropped off. Looked nice if I’d slept all night in this idiotic place. Too soon yet, but I mustn’t go to sleep again.”