Still, the troubles he could not see were trooping about him, and it was doubtless as part of the scheme that was to test him, and bring about his retribution when he was found wanting, that a nut on the bush of the dog-cart’s wheel slackened during the homeward journey. As a result, four men and several guns were flung without serious injury into the road; and when the horse had been taken to a neighboring farm, Tony and three of his friends found themselves under the necessity of walking home. He took them the shortest way by lane and stile, and they came to the footbridge across the river as dusk was closing down. Both he and Appleby long remembered that evening.
The sun had sunk behind a bank of smoky cloud, and a cold wind wailed dolefully through the larches in the wood, under which the black water came sliding down. There was no mist in the meadows now, and straggling hedgerow and coppice rose shadowy and dim against the failing light. The river, however, still shone faintly as it swirled round the pool beneath the bridge, and the men stopped a moment and leaned upon the single rail. It was seldom any one but a keeper took that path to the hall.
Appleby noticed how the dead leaves came sailing down, and little clusters of them swung round and round in the eddies. It was a trifle, but it fixed his attention, and often afterwards he could see them drift and swing at the mercy of the current. Then it seemed to him that their aimless wandering had been curiously portentous. He, however, looked up when Tony struck a match to light a cigarette with, and saw his face by the pale flame of it. Tony shook off his troubles readily, and there was a twinkle in his eyes, while his laugh rang lightly at a jest one of the others made. Then a man standing further along the bridge stretched out his hand.
“There’s a stone among the boulders at the tail of the pool that seems different from the rest. One could almost fancy it was somebody’s head,” he said.
“Good Lord!” said one of the others. “One could do more than fancy it. Can’t you see his shoulder just above the water?”
Tony dropped his cigarette, and stared at Appleby with a curious horror in his face, but the latter gripped his arm.
“Keep your head!” he said sternly.
Nobody else heard him, for the rest were hastening across the bridge, and in a moment or two one of them sprang down among the boulders at the edge of the pool. He called out sharply as the others followed him, and standing very still when they came up with him, they saw a white face that moved as the stream swirled about it looking up at them. A wet shoulder also bumped softly against a stone.
“I think it’s your keeper, Palliser,” said one of them a trifle hoarsely. “It would have been more pleasant if somebody else had found him, but we can’t leave him in the water.”
Tony seemed to shiver, and glanced at Appleby. “Yes,” he said, and his voice was very strained, “it’s Davidson.”