Sampson looked back along the road. He could no longer see the foot-passenger. She had doubtless gone down a side lane. There was light enough for him to see that the road was clear. He had come to a place where heavy oak woods closed in on the highway, and the trees overarched making it doubly obscure. If Herring was to be stayed, this was the place, now was the time; in another ten minutes it would be too late. Further on the road would be lighter and less solitary.
Quick as thought, Tramplara dismounted and led his horse along the road to a gate, He unfastened the gate, and took the bay through into the wood, where he tied him up behind the hedge. Then he unhinged the gate—it was a large five-barred gate—and with some little effort carried it into the road, and threw it down across it.
He looked at his legs; he wore light tight breeches—they would be seen if he stood aside in the hedge, waiting the result. So he went through the gateway and leaned his back against the post, standing inside with his arms folded. If there had been sufficient light, and any one had been there to note his face, an ugly smile would have been seen covering it. 'By God,' he muttered, 'he escaped me once to-day: this time he shall not escape.'
He heard the tramp of the horse approach nearer; it was descending a hill, and muffled, then ascending the next. Herring's voice was audible, cheering on his horse. Not another sound but the rush of the Lew Water, a petty river, swirling over its stony bed, and breaking against snags of timber that had fallen from the banks.
Yes! a night-jar in the wood screeched; then was silent, then screeched again intermittently, as though signalling danger.
Late in the year though it was, in the hedge, close to Sampson, was a glow-worm. The light annoyed him. He could distinguish by it the crane's-bill leaf on which the insect sat. He put up his foot and broke down the earth, and then stamped it and the luminous little creature together. Through the interstices of the clouds one star was visible. He would have torn it out of the sky and stamped it to darkness in the mire, if he could have reached it.
Louder, more distinctly, came the clatter of hoofs. The road was level, and the pace of the horse accelerated. 'On, old fellow, we shall soon be up with him!'
Sampson heard Herring's voice almost in his ear. His heart gave a bound, and then—a cry, a crash, and, for a moment, silence.
'The gate has done it,' said Sampson Tramplara, stepping lightly into the road.
He was right; the gate had done it. The horse had been spurred on to a good speed, and neither he nor his rider had noticed the obstruction till the poor brute's legs were between the rails, and he was down and floundering. Herring was flung, and lay his length on the road. Sampson went up to him; he was unconscious. Then Sampson turned his attention to the horse.