Had he known it, the grey was the faster of the two, though lacking Moonbeam’s sweet paces and lionlike heart. His enemy was up on him at once, and it looked as if there was nothing before him but to override hounds. But the discipline of the sport was stronger than a just wrath. The Squire took a pull on the grey and drew back. He was biding his time.
Alastair seized the first chance, which came when hounds were engulfed in a wide wood of oaks on the edge of a heath. Taking advantage of a piece of thick cover, he caught Moonbeam by the head and swung him down a side glade. Unfortunately he was observed. An oath from Squire Thicknesse warned him that that sportsman had forgone the pleasure of being in at the death for the satisfaction of doing justice on a horse-thief.
Now there was no hunt etiquette to be respected. The grey’s hooves spurned the rotten woodland turf, and pursuer and pursued crashed into a jungle of dry bulrushes and sallows. Alastair was saved by the superior agility of his horse, which could swerve and pivot where the heavier grey stumbled. He gained a yard or two, then a little more by a scramble through a gap, and a crazy scurry down a rabbit track. … He saw that his only chance was to slip off, for Moonbeam had the madness of the chase on him, and if left riderless would rejoin the hounds. So when he had gained some forty yards and was for the moment out of the Squire’s sight, he took his toes from the stirrups and flung himself into a bed of bracken. He rolled over and over into a dell, and when he came to a halt and could look up he saw the grey’s stern disappearing round the corner, and heard far off the swish and crash of Moonbeam’s flight.
Not a second was to be lost, for the Squire would soon see that the rider had gone and turn back in the search for him. Alastair forced his stiff legs to a run, and turned in the direction which he thought the opposite of that taken by hounds. Up a small path he ran, among a scrub of hazels and down into a desert of red bracken and sparse oak trees. The noises in the wood grew fainter, and soon his steps were the loudest sound, his steps and the heavy flight of an occasional scared pigeon. He ran till he had put at least a mile of rough land behind him, and had crossed several tracks, which would serve to mislead the pursuit. Lacking a bloodhound, it would not be easy to follow his trail. Then in a broader glade he came upon a thatched hovel, such as foresters and charcoal-burners use when they have business abroad in the night hours.
Alastair crept up to it cautiously, and through a crack surveyed the interior. His face hardened and an odd light came into his eye. He strode to the door and pushed the crazy thing open.
Within, breakfasting on a hunch of bread and cheese, sat the man Edom, Mr. Kyd’s servant.
VIII
Broom at the Crossroads
The face before him had the tightened look of a sudden surprise: then it relaxed into recognition; but it showed no fear, though the young man’s visage was grim enough.
“You are Mr. Kyd’s servant?”
“Your honour has it. I’m Edom Lowrie at your honour’s service.”
“Your master started yesterday for Wiltshire. Why are you not with him?”
The man looked puzzled.
“Ye’re mista’en, sir. My master came here yestereen. I left him at skreigh o’day this morning.”
It was Alastair’s turn to stare. Kyd had lied to him, thinking it necessary to deceive him about his road—scurvy conduct, surely, between servants of the same cause. Or perhaps this fellow Edom was lying. He looked at him and saw no hint of double-dealing in the plain ugly face. His sandy eyebrows were indistinguishable from his freckled forehead and gave him an air of bald innocence, his pale eyes were candid and good-humoured, the eaves of his great teeth were comedy itself. The more Alastair gazed the harder he found it to believe that this rustic zany had betrayed him. But what on earth was Kyd about?
“Where is your master now?” he asked.
The other took off his hat and scratched his head. “I wadna like to say, sir. You see he telled me little, forbye sayin’ that he wadna see me again for the best pairt o’ a month. I jalouse mysel’ that he’s gone south, but he micht be for Wales.”
“Were you in Flambury last night?”
The man looked puzzled till Alastair explained. “Na, na, I was in nae village. I had a cauld damp bed in a bit public. My maister wasna there, but he appeared afore I was out o’ the blankets, a’ ticht and trim for the road, and gied me my marching-orders. I was to traivel the woods on foot, and no get mysel’ a horse till I won to a place they ca’ Camley.”
“Are you for Scotland?”
“Nae sic fortune. I’m for the Derbyshire muirs wi’ letters.” He hesitated. “Your honour’s no gaun that road yoursel’? I wad be blithe o’ company.”
The light in the hut was too dim to see clearly, for there was no window, the door was narrow and the day was sullen.
“Step outside, Mr. Lowrie, till I cast an eye over you,” said Alastair.
The man pocketed the remains of his bread and cheese
