“Je––hosephat!” Jim jumped up. “And I never heard a thing.”
“I don’t wonder at that, Jim. Dad only got the wire an hour ago making the definite offer.”
“By jingo!––I must go and give him my congratulations. Here’s the Mayor looking for you, Eileen. I’ll leave you to him. I must find your dad.”
And while the reception at John Royce Pederstone’s was at its height, Phil Ralston was trudging the hills alone, coming over the ranges from Lumby, a village which lay several miles distant, where he had gone by stage direct from the smithy. He walked in the melancholy enjoyment of his own thoughts. It did him good––and he knew it––to get off in this way when things were not going to his liking. It gave him an opportunity to review himself in the cold blood of retrospect, without interference; and it gave him time quietly to review the conduct of others about him; a chance to decide whether he was right or wrong in the 211 position he had assumed; a chance to plan his future course from what had already taken place.
It was a crisp, frosty night, with a deep blue velvet dome of cloudless sky overhead, with star-diamonds that flashed and twinkled with ever varying colours, until a crescent moon, shaped like the whip of an orange, rose up over the hills to the east, cold, luminous and silvery, and paled the lesser twinkling lights into insignificance and ultimate obscurity.
As Phil topped the last hill overlooking Vernock, his head was high and so were his spirits, for he had made up his mind that come what might he would pursue his way calmly and earnestly to the end as he thought fit, and, if Eileen Pederstone cared to betray his secret, he would meet that difficulty as he had met others.
He looked down into the town before him, but its usual fairy-like aspect was absent, for the town fathers were beginning to get frugal and did not use their electricity on the main streets when the moon was up or when the snow was lying. Only the smaller lights of the dwelling houses gave out any signs of life.
He dropped gradually down, then across an orchard and on to the main highway leading to Vernock.
As he was passing the town jail, his attention was attracted by an unusual commotion there. Voices were gabbling noisily and quite a crowd was gathered at the main entrance. He hurried over. The first man he ran against was Langford, who accosted Phil in a rush of Doric, which at once informed him that something serious must be wrong.
“Where ha’e ye been, man? I’ve been pryin’ for ye everywhere.”