“It isn’t much hurt,” he said, as they walked on slowly together. “Bit scratched, that’s all.”
“Thanks awfully,” said the small lady.
“Oh, not at all,” replied Charteris. “I enjoyed it.” (He felt he had said the right thing there. Your real hero always “enjoys it.”) “I’m sorry those bargees frightened you.”
“They did rather. But”—she added triumphantly after a pause—“I didn’t cry.”
“Rather not,” said Charteris. “You were awfully plucky. I noticed. But hadn’t you better ride on? Which way were you going?”
“I wanted to get to Stapleton.”
“Oh. That’s simple enough. You’ve merely got to go straight on down this road, as straight as ever you can go. But, look here, you know, you shouldn’t be out alone like this. It isn’t safe. Why did they let you?”
The lady avoided his eye. She bent down and inspected the left pedal.
“They shouldn’t have sent you out alone,” said Charteris, “why did they?”
“They—they didn’t. I came.”
There was a world of meaning in the phrase. Charteris felt that he was in the same case. They had not let him. He had come. Here was a kindred spirit, another revolutionary soul, scorning the fetters of convention and the so-called authority of self-constituted rules, aha! Bureaucrats!
“Shake hands,” he said, “I’m in just the same way.”
They shook hands gravely.
“You know,” said the lady, “I’m awfully sorry I did it now. It was very naughty.”
“I’m not sorry yet,” said Charteris, “I’m rather glad than otherwise. But I expect I shall be sorry before long.”
“Will you be sent to bed?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Will you have to learn beastly poetry?”
“Probably not.”
She looked at him curiously, as if to enquire, “then if you won’t have to learn poetry and you won’t get sent to bed, what on earth is there for you to worry about?”
She would probably have gone on to investigate the problem further, but at that moment there came the sound of a whistle. Then another, closer this time. Then a faint rumbling, which increased in volume steadily. Charteris looked back. The railway line ran by the side of the road. He could see the smoke of a train through the trees. It was quite close now, and coming closer every minute, and he was still quite a hundred and fifty yards from the station gates.
“I say,” he cried. “Great Scott, here comes my train. I must rush. Goodbye. You keep straight on.”
His legs had had time to grow stiff again. For the first few strides running was painful. But his joints soon adapted themselves to the strain, and in ten seconds he was sprinting as fast as he had ever sprinted off the running-track. When he had travelled a quarter of the distance the small cyclist overtook him.
“Be quick,” she said, “it’s just in sight.”
Charteris quickened his stride, and, paced by the bicycle, spun along in fine style. Forty yards from the station the train passed him. He saw it roll into the station. There were still twenty yards to go, exclusive of the station’s steps, and he was already running as fast as it lay in him to run. Now there were only ten. Now five. And at last, with a hurried farewell to his companion, he bounded up the steps and on to the platform. At the end of the platform the line took a sharp curve to the left. Round that curve the tail end of the guard’s van was just disappearing.
“Missed it, sir,” said the solitary porter, who managed things at Rutton, cheerfully. He spoke as if he was congratulating Charteris on having done something remarkably clever.
“When’s the next?” panted Charteris.
“Eight-thirty,” was the porter’s appalling reply.
For a moment Charteris felt quite ill. No train till eight-thirty! Then was he indeed lost. But it couldn’t be true. There must be some sort of a train between now and then.
“Are you certain?” he said. “Surely there’s a train before that?”
“Why, yes, sir,” said the porter gleefully, “but they be all exprusses. Eight-thirty be the only ’un what starps at Rootton.”
“Thanks,” said Charteris with marked gloom, “I don’t think that’ll be much good to me. My aunt, what a hole I’m in.” The porter made a sympathetic and interrogative noise at the back of his throat, as if inviting him to explain everything. But Charteris felt unequal to conversation. There are moments when one wants to be alone. He went down the steps again. When he got out into the road, his small cycling friend had vanished. Charteris was conscious of a feeling of envy towards her. She was doing the journey comfortably on a bicycle. He would have to walk it. Walk it! He didn’t believe he could. The strangers’ mile, followed by the Homeric combat with the two Hooligans and that ghastly sprint to wind up with, had left him decidedly unfit for further feats of pedestrianism. And it was eight miles to Stapleton, if it was a yard, and another mile from Stapleton to St. Austin’s. Charteris, having once more invoked the name of his aunt, pulled himself together with an effort, and limped gallantly on in the direction of Stapleton. But fate, so long hostile to him, at last relented. A rattle of wheels approached him from behind. A thrill of hope shot through him at the sound. There was the prospect of a lift. He stopped, and waited for the dogcart—it sounded like a dogcart—to arrive. Then he uttered a shout
