a few
minutes he was on the road he had traversed twice that day, and walking
fast toward the farm.

Once or twice he hesitated, for the way lay so low down in the valley,
with the hills towering up to such a height on either side, that the
night seemed as dark as during the fog of the previous night; but he got
along over the ground pretty well in spite of its seeming more hilly and
rough, till at the end of about an hour and a half he felt that he must
be approaching the farm, and he advanced more cautiously, listening for
footsteps and voices from time to time.

There was a good broad green marge to the lane about here, and he
stepped on to it, the turf deadening his footsteps.

"But I don't recollect seeing this grass in the morning," he thought;
and then he stopped short, for it suddenly occurred to him that he had
not come upon the cluster of houses where the people smiled and nodded
at one another as they passed.

"I can't have trailed off into another road, can I?" he said to himself,
as he felt quite startled and turned hot.

He looked round, but it was too dark to make out anything, and he was
about to start on again, comforting himself with the idea that he must
be right, when he heard at a distance the _pat-pat_ of feet on hard
ground, and drew back close up to the side to stoop down among some
brambles, which told him at once after their fashion what they were.

"If I only dared ask whoever this is," thought Archy, "I should do."

His thoughts took another direction directly, for, apparently about
twenty yards away, he heard some one sneeze, and then mutter
impatiently, followed by another sneeze.

And all the while the regular _pat-pat_ of footsteps came from his
right, but not as he had come, for the sound was as if some one was
approaching by a road which came at right angles to the one he was in.

Archy crouched there, breathless and listening, wondering who the man
could be who was perfectly silent now, but he had not moved away unless
the turf had silenced his footprints.

"How lucky it was I stopped!" thought the midshipman. "I should have
walked right on to him and been caught."

The steps came nearer, and at last it seemed as if they were going to
pass on, when a gruff voice from close by said,--

"Well, lad?"

There was a sudden stoppage, and an exclamation, and--

"Made me jump, master."

"Don't talk foolery," said the first voice in impatient tones, and to
Archy it was unmist