His lot for ever! His lot, that is, so long as he himself should live to bear it. His lot, till what was left of what was once a man was laid by what once was Dolly, in a grave! Then touch and hearing would be gone too, and he and Dolly alike forgotten in the black void of the time to come.... What did he matter? He flung the unconsidered unit, himself, aside, in view of a new terror that came suddenly—an image of his little lass without her Daddy. That was too much pain to bear. To think of the lassie left alone!
But why think of it at all, yet awhile? Might not he see her again within the hour? Was it not a chance that even now she was on her way, coming——coming?...
What was that? A dog's bark he knew quite well—the Rector's dog—somewhere over by the Rifle Butts. Near a mile off—yes!—but clear to the sharpened hearing of a blind man. Equally clear to his dog too, asleep in the sun, and calling for prompt action. The little tyke started up, barking in reply, and scoured away to make his presence felt elsewhere. Jim's thought stopped, that he might listen for a distant step on the road, a step he knew well. A great swinging stride unlike any other man's in those parts—how mistake it? But another quarter of an hour must pass before either could have articulate speech of the other, mere shouting apart. Jim was just on the very verge of his release from suspense, and could not bear to wait a moment longer, patience or no! He started along the paved way that led to the road, guiding himself, as he could well do, by touching the curb with his stick. It was all plain sailing to him, so far, and no guide was needed.
He stood and listened, waiting for the approaching footsteps. He could hear his own little deserter's bark, no great distance down the road; and through it, at intervals, the bark of the other dog, coming slowly nearer. But otherwise, nothing outside the sum of noises he could know the day by from the night, a monotone with here and there a special sound of beast or bird or insect. Yes!—there was another sound, some way off still; the motor-car that had passed the cottage last night, coming from the Hall. Jim knew its special hoot of old; could have sworn to it among a dozen others.
An old turf-cutter was near enough to see Jim at this moment, and, after, told what he saw. This man was some way off, trimming the roadside turf; but his eyes were good, though he was deaf as any post.
He saw Jim—so his tale ran—standing where the path began, close against the road. He seemed to be listening for something. Quite unexpectedly he saw him throw up his arms as though surprised or delighted; but of this the old man, hearing nothing, could not speak with certainty. He had somehow an impression, though, that Jim was "raising a great shouting." Then he saw him step suddenly into the road, and limp with his stick, but with wonderful activity, towards the twist in its course that it makes round the clump of thorn-trees that shuts in the Abbey Well. The old turf-cutter saw him last just as he turned that corner.
Immediately after, a motor-car, going at a mad speed, tore along the road from the Park. Whether this car was sounding its trumpet the deaf man could not say. All he knew was that it followed without slacking down round the corner Jim had been last seen at. It vanished in a thick cloud of its own dust. The deaf man "misdoubted something had gone wrong," not from any noise, of course, but because he "watched along the road" for the dust-cloud, and none came. He suspected nothing, however, beyond some hitch in the car's working-gear, until some ten minutes later, when the motor came back, slowly—or relatively slowly. Then he saw that it contained a young lady, who looked, he said, "all mazed and staring like"; a gentleman, who lay back with blood running down his face, and seemed "no ways better than dead," and the chauffeur. Then a little dog came barking down the road, and went after the motor-car. He could see it was barking. That was all he could tell. He laid his turf-spud aside, and went along the road to find Jim and learn what he could of the mishap.
Athelstan Taylor left the Rectory, with a heavy heart, shortly before nine o'clock. He knew he should find Jim at the Abbey Well, and he wanted to make sure the news should not reach him through any other channel. It would inevitably leak out now. He knew well how things of the kind will travel, contrary to all calculations.
It occurred to him just as he was starting that if he took his dog with him, Jim's prevision of something wrong, which he looked to as likely to make his task easier, would have time to mature before his arrival. Jim would hear the dog's bark, and recognize it, long before his own footsteps could reach his ears. He had not at first intended to have the animal with him, but he now went back and released him, and felt that the idea was a good one. He could cover the ground, going by the short-cut near the Rifle Butts, in less than half-an-hour. He might be hindered on the way, but at least he would be as quick as he could. No one should be beforehand with Jim, if he could help it.