"Well, Sherry, when I'm out of sorts I'll come to you," said Harry, rising. "Now, while you pack up, I'll go a stroll up the hillside; there'll be a good view now the day is clearing, and maybe I'll get a glimpse of Salisbury spire."
He left the river-bank and strolled leisurely up a gentle ascent, which gradually became steeper until it terminated somewhat suddenly in a stretch of level ground. Fifty yards from the edge rose a long grassy mound, a well-known landmark in the neighbourhood. It was, in fact, a barrow, dating centuries back into the dim ages—the burial place, perhaps, of British warriors who had fought and fallen in defence of their country against the Roman invader. Harry had always felt a romantic interest in these memorials of the past, and more than once had stood by such a barrow, alone in the moonlight of a summer night, while his imagination called up visions of far-off forgotten things.
He sat down now with his back to the mound, and allowed his eyes to rove over the prospect. Tradition said that three counties were visible from this elevated spot, and on a clear morning like this it seemed likely enough that report said true. Far to the left, peeping over the bare contour of Harnham Hill, rose the graceful spire of Salisbury Cathedral, at least fifteen miles away as the crow flies. His eye followed the winding course of the little stream below him, losing it here and there behind some copse or knoll, tracing it again to its junction with a larger stream, till this in its turn was lost to view amid the distant elm-bordered meadows. Nearer at hand he saw the old Roman road, grass-grown and silent now, bounding the park of Sir Godfrey Fanshawe, crossing the stream by an ancient bridge, and running into the London road at some invisible point to the right. It was a very pleasing prospect, brilliant beneath the cloudless sky, and freshened by the early morning showers.
As he looked along the forsaken highway, once trodden perhaps by the legions of Constantine the Great, his glance was momentarily arrested by a small moving speck in the distance. "Some wagon from one of Sir Godfrey's home farms," he thought. It was approaching him, for it passed out of sight into a clump of trees, then reappeared, and was again hidden by an intercepting ridge. The road was downhill; in fifteen or twenty minutes, perhaps, the wagon would pass beneath him, at a point nearly three-quarters of a mile away, where the highway skirted a belt of trees perched on the side of a steep declivity. Between him and the road lay a ditch which, as he knew, was apt in winter-time to overflow on to the meadows and the lower parts of the track, making a sticky swamp of the chalky soil. But it was dry now, and the floodings were only indicated by the more vivid green of the grass and the tall reeds that filled the hollow on this side. On the other side a strong stone wall edged the road, marking the boundary of Sir Godfrey's park; it was overhung with elms, from which at this moment Harry saw a congregation of rooks soar away.
Thus idly scanning the roadway, all at once his eye lit upon the figure of a horseman half concealed by the belt of reeds in the hollow. He was motionless; his back was towards Harry, his horse's head pointing towards the road, from which he was completely screened by the reeds and the willows.
"What is he doing there?" thought Harry. He rose, and walked towards the edge of the descent. Narrowly scanning the brake, he now descried two other horsemen within a few yards of the first, but so well concealed that but for his quickened curiosity he would probably never have discovered them. For all he knew, there might be others. "What is their game?" His suspicion was aroused; the vehicle he had seen approaching was perhaps not a wagon; it might be a chaise belonging to Sir Godfrey; it might be—— "Why, 'tis without a doubt Lord Godolphin himself on his way to London, and coming by the shortest cut." There was no need for further speculation; in those days the inference was sure: a carriage in the distance, a party of horsemen lurking in a copse by the roadside—— "'Tis highway robbery—ah! the Queen's purse!"
Harry unconsciously smiled at the thought. His first impulse was to warn the approaching travellers. But the carriage was at present out of sight; he could not make signals, and before he could reach the stretch of road between the ambuscade and their prey, the travellers would certainly be past, while he himself might be seen by the waiting horsemen, and headed off as he crossed a tract of open country. Moving downwards all the time, he in a flash saw all that it was possible to do. The stream passed under the roadway some twenty yards beyond the spot where the horsemen were lying in wait; the banks were reedy, and might screen an approach to the copse beyond the wall. There was a bare chance, and Harry took it.
He raced downhill towards Sherebiah, who was sitting on the bank still, placidly smoking his pipe; landscape had no charm for him.
"Sherry," said Harry in jerks, "Lord Godolphin or someone is driving down the road; highwaymen hiding in the reeds; in five or six minutes—come, come, we have no time to lose."
"Then we'll go home along," said Sherry, putting his pipe in his pocket as he rose.