“Take me,” I say, eagerly, jumping up; “now, this minute! You cannot be more anxious nor half so anxious to prove me a false prophet as I am to be proved one.”
“I am quite at your service,” he answers, “as soon as you please. Jenny, get your hat and come too.”
“And if we do not find him,” says Jane, smiling playfully—“I think I am growing pretty easy on that head—you will promise to eat a great deal of luncheon and never mention ‘Bradshaw’ again?”
“I promise,” reply I, gravely. “And if, on the other hand, we do find him, you will promise to put no more obstacles in the way of my going, but will let me depart in peace without taking any offence thereat?”
“It is a bargain,” she says gaily. “Witness, Robin.”
So we set off in the bright dewiness of the morning on our walk over Robin’s farm. It is a grand harvest day, and the whitened sheaves are everywhere drying, drying in the genial sun. We have been walking for an hour and both Jane and I are rather tired. The sun beats with all his late-summer strength on our heads and takes the force and spring out of our hot limbs.
“The hour of triumph is approaching,” says Robin, with a quiet smile, as we draw near an open gate through which a loaded wain, shedding ripe wheat ears from its abundance as it crawls along, is passing. “And time for it too; it is a quarter past twelve and you have been on your legs for fully an hour. Miss Bellairs, you must make haste and find the murderer, for there is only one more field to do it in.”
“Is not there?” I cry eagerly, “Oh, I am glad! Thank God, I begin to breathe again.”
We pass through the open gate and begin to tread across the stubble, for almost the last load has gone.
“We must get nearer the hedge,” says Robin, “or you will not see their faces; they are all at dinner.”