aeroplane had seen my bicycle, and would conclude that I would try to escape by the road. In that case there might be a chance on the moors to the right or left. I wheeled the machine a hundred yards from the highway and plunged it into a moss-hole, where it sank among pond-weed and water-buttercups. Then I climbed to a knoll which gave me a view of the two valleys. Nothing was stirring on the long white ribbon that threaded them.
I have said there was not cover in the whole place to hide a rat. As the day advanced it was flooded with soft fresh light till it had the fragrant sunniness of the South African veld. At other times I would have liked the place, but now it seemed to suffocate me. The free moor lands were prison walls, and the keen hill air was the breath of a dungeon.
I tossed a coin—heads right, tails left—and it fell heads, so I turned to the north. In a little I came to the brow of the ridge which was the containing wall of the pass. I saw the highroad for maybe ten miles, and far down it something that was moving, and that I took to be a motor-car. Beyond the ridge I looked on a rolling green moor, which fell away into wooded glens. Now my life on the veld has given me the eyes of a kite, and I can see things for which most men need a telescope . . . Away down the slope, a couple of miles away, men were advancing like a row of beaters at a shoot.
I dropped out of sight behind the skyline. That way was shut to me, and I must try the bigger hills to the south beyond the highway. The car I had noticed was getting nearer, but it was still a long way off with some very steep gradients before it. I ran hard, crouching low except in the hollows, and as I ran I kept scanning the brow of the hill before me. Was imagination, or did I see figures—one, two, perhaps more—moving in a glen beyond the stream?
If you are hemmed in on all sides in a patch of land there is only one chance of escape. You must stay in the patch, and let your enemies search it and not find you. That was good sense, but how on earth was I to escape notice in that table-cloth of a place? I would have buried myself to the neck in mud or lain below water or climbed the tidiest tree. But there was not a stick of wood, the bog-holes were little puddles, the stream was a slender trickle. There was nothing but short heather, and bare hill bent, and the white highway.
Then in a tiny bight of road, beside a heap of stones, I found the Roadman.
He had just arrived, and was wearily flinging down his hammer. He looked at me with a fishy eye and yawned.
“Confoond the day I ever left the herdin’!” he said, as if to the world at large. “There I was my ain maister. Now I’m a slave to the Goavernment, tethered to the roadside, wi’ sair een, and a back like a suckle.”
He took up the hammer, struck a stone, dropped the implement with an oath, and put both hands to his ears. “Mercy on me! My heid’s burstin’!” he cried.
He was a wild figure, about my own size but much bent, with a week’s beard on his chin, and a pair of big horn spectacles.
“I canna dae’t,” he cried again. “The Surveyor maun just report me. I’m for my bed.”
I asked him what was the trouble, though indeed that was clear enough.
“The trouble is that I’m no sober. Last nicht my dochter Merran was waddit, and they danced till lower in the byre. Me and some ither chiels sat down to the drinkin’, and here I am. Peety that I ever lookit on the wine when it was red!”
I agreed with him about bed.
“It’s easy speakin,” he moaned. “But I got a postcaird yestreen sayin’ that the new Road Surveyor would be round the day. He’ll come and he’ll no find me, or else he’ll find me fou, and either way I’m a done man. I’ll awa back to my bed and say I’m no weel, but I door that’ll no help me, for they ken my kind o’ no-weel-ness.”
Then I had an inspiration. “Does the new Surveyor know you?” I asked.
“No him. He’s just been a week at the job. He rins about in a wee motor-cawr, and wad speir the inside oot o’ a whelk.”
“Where’s your house?” I asked, and was directed by a wavering finger to he cottage by the stream.
“Well, back to your bed,” I said, “and sleep in peace. I’ll take on your job for a bit and see the Surveyor.”
He stared at me blankly; then, as the notion dawned on his fuddled brain, his face broke into the vacant drunkard’s smile.
“You’re the billy,” he cried. “It’ll be easy eneuch managed. I’ve finished that bing o’ stanes, so you needna chap ony mair this forenoon. Just take the lorry, and wheel eneuch metal frae yon quarry doon the road to mak anither bing the morn. My name’s Alexander Trummle, and I’ve been seeven year at the trade, and twenty afore that herdin’ on Leithen Water. My freens ca’ me Ecky, and whiles Specky, for I wear glesses, being weak i’ the sicht. Just you speak the Surveyor fair, and ca’ him Sir, and he’ll be fell pleased. I’ll be back or midday.”
I borrowed his speetacles and filthy old hat; stripped off coat, waistcoat, and collar, and gave him them to carry home; borrowed, too, the foul stump of a clay pipe as an extra property. He indicated my simple tasks, and without more ado set off at an amble bedwards. Bed may have been his chief object, but I tnink there was also something left in the foot of a bottle. I prayed that he might be safe under cover before my friends arrived on the scene.
Then I set to work to dress for the part. I opened the collar of my shirt—it was a vulgar blue-and-white check such as ploughmen wear—and revealed a neck as brown as any tinker’s. I rolled up my sleeves, and there was a forearm which might have been a blacksmith’s, sunburnt and rough with old scars. I got my boots and trouser legs all white from the dust of the road, and hitched up my trousers, tying them with string below the knee. Then I set to. work on my face. With a handful of dust I made a watermark round my neck, the place where Mr Tumbull’s Sunday ablutions might be expected to stop. I rubbed a good deal of dirt also into the sunburn of my cheeks. A roadman’s eyes would no doubt be a little inflamed, so I contrived to get some dust in both of mine; and by dint of vigorous rubbing produced a bleary effect.
The sandwiches Sir Harry had given me had gone off with my coat, but the roadman’s lunch, tied up in a red handkerchief, was at my disposal. I ate with great relish several of the thick slabs of scone and cheese and drank a little of the cold tea. In the handkerchief was a local paper tied with string and addressed to Mr Turnbull— obviously meant to solace his midday leisure. I did up the bundle again, and put the paper conspicuously beside it.
My boots did not satisfy me, but by dint of kicking among the stones I reduced them to the granite-like surface which marks a road man’s footgear. Then I bit and scraped my finger nails till the edges were all cracked and uneven. The men I was matched against would miss no detail. I broke one of the bootlaces and retied it a
