Jimmy watched them out of sight and started to follow at a leisurely pace. It certainly was an ideal afternoon for a country walk. The sun was just hesitating whether to treat the time as afternoon or evening. Eventually it decided that it was evening and moderated its beams. After London the country was deliciously fresh and cool. Jimmy felt an unwonted content. It seemed to him just then that the only thing worth doing in the world was to settle down somewhere with three acres and a cow and become pastoral.
There was a marked lack of traffic on the road. Once he met a cart and once a flock of sheep with a friendly dog. Sometimes a rabbit would dash out into the road, stop to listen, and dart into the opposite hedge, all hind-legs and white scut. But except for these he was alone in the world.
And gradually there began to be borne in upon him the conviction that he had lost his way.
It is difficult to judge distance when one is walking but it certainly seemed to Jimmy that he must have covered five miles by this time. He must have mistaken the way. He had certainly come straight; he could not have come straighter. On the other hand, it would be quite in keeping with the cheap substitute which served the Earl of Dreever in place of a mind that he should have forgotten to mention some important turning. Jimmy sat down by the roadside.
As he sat there came to him from down the road the sound of a horse’s feet trotting. He got up. Here was somebody at last who would direct him.
“Halloa!” he said. “Accident? And, by Jove, a side-saddle!”
Jimmy stopped the horse, and led it back the way it had come. As he turned the bend in the road he saw a girl in a riding-habit running towards him. She stopped running when she caught sight of him, and slowed down to walk.
“Thank you ever so much,” she said, taking the reins from him. “Dandy, you naughty old thing!”
Jimmy looked at her flushed, smiling face, and stood staring. It was Molly McEachern.