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 doubtless 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.
The sound came nearer. The horse turned the corner; and Jimmy saw with surprise that it bore no rider.
"Hullo?" he said. "Accident? And, by Jove, a side-saddle!"
The curious part of it was that the horse appeared in no way a wild horse. It gave the impression of being out for a little trot on its own account, a sort of equine constitutional.
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 toward him. She stopped running when she caught sight of him, and slowed down to a walk.
"Thank you ever so much," she said, taking the reins from him. "Dandy, you naughty old thing! I got off to pick up my crop, and he ran away."