"Mr. Giveen, sorr," cried Moriarty, protruding his head and shoulders from the window of the third-class carriage, which was now in motion. "Mr. Giveen, sorr, here's the shillin' I owe you."
A shilling fell on the platform at Mr. Giveen's feet. He stooped to grab it as it rolled in a leisurely manner towards the booking-office door, missed it, pursued it, and was lost.
At least he lost the train.
Moriarty's profound knowledge of the psychology of the horse often stood him in good stead when dealing with higher animals—or lower.
CHAPTER XV
Crowsnest lies upon a hill. It consists of a post-office, a tiny butcher's shop, a greengrocer's, an Italian warehouse, and a church. The London road climbs the hill, passes through the village, descends the hill, and vanishes from sight. Trees swallow it up. Century-old elms cavern it over. When the great-grandfathers of these elms were young the Roman road leading over the hill to the sea was old. As it was then, so is it now, and so will it be when these elms are coffin-boards, enclosing the bones of vanished and long-forgotten people.
At the foot of the hill passes a nameless river, which the Roman road crosses by a bridge whose stones are as old as the road itself. On a summer's afternoon, leaning one's elbow comfortably on the moss-grown balustrade of this bridge, the river and the road hold one's mind between them; the river leaping amid the weed-green stones, here in the cave-like twilight of the foliage, here diamond bright where the sun dazzle strikes through the leaves; the road steadfast and silent, with a silence which the motor-horn cannot break—a silence that has been growing and feeding upon life since the time of Tiberius.