CHAPTER X.
"'I don't remember seeing a boy.'"
Beyond the meadow lay a field of wheat, tall and yellow, although not yet quite ripe for the sickle. Stooping until my hands almost touched the ground, I ran as fast as possible under the shelter of the friendly hedge, until, reaching the cornfield, I scrambled through another hedge, and lay down on my face amidst the wheat.
But still it was impossible to feel in the slightest degree safe, the road being only a few yards distant, while I distinctly heard the sound of approaching wheels. If it had not been for the bend in the lane, I should scarcely have been able to delay capture many minutes, and even as it was, I lay quaking while I wondered whether Mr. Turton would be able to see me from the road.
The cab passed my hiding-place, however, so that I began to hope it might not be going to stop, until on the point of rising, I heard the horse pulled up, heard the door opened, and recognised Mr. Turton's voice as he told Augustus to alight.
'The boy must be hiding somewhere hereabouts,' he exclaimed.
'He might easily have got into that wood,' said Augustus, and I regretted that in my haste I had not taken to the wood on the other side of the road.
While Augustus and his father must have gone to inspect the woods, I heard the sound of an approaching motor-car, and guessed that it had stopped close to the cab on the other side of the hedge.
I lay on my face with the thick wheat growing high all around, my eyes raised to the hedge, above which I could see the top of a man's straw hat. I supposed that his motor-car had broken down, but at any rate, his companion alighted and came on to the raised path, so that I could see her hat and face.