the door had
closed behind her.

There would be three of them against one man. She walked faster as she
thought of it, and her breath was drawn heavily.

Lowrie bent down in his hiding-place, smiling grimly. He knelt upon
the grass behind a hedge at the road-side. He had reached the place a
quarter of an hour before, and he had chosen his position as coolly as
if he had been sitting down to take his tramp dinner in the shade. There
was a gap in the hedge and he must not be too near to it or too far from
it. It would be easier to rush through this gap than to leap the hedge;
but he must not risk being seen. The corner where the other men lay
concealed was not far above him. It was only a matter of a few yards,
but if he stood to wait at one turn and the engineer took the other, the
game would escape.

So he had placed his comrades at the second, and he had taken the first.

"I'd loike to ha' th' first yammer at him," he had said, savagely. "Yo'
can coom when yo' hear me."

As he waited by the hedge, he put his hand out stealthily toward his
"knob-stick" and drew it nearer, saying to himself:

"When I ha' done settlin' wi' him fur mysen, I shall ha' a bit o' an
account to settle fur her. If it's his good looks as she's takken wi',
she'll be noan so fond on him when she sees him next, I'll warrant."

He had hit upon the greater villainy of stopping short of murder,--if he
could contain himself when the time came.

At this instant a sound reached his ears which caused him to start. He
bent forward slightly toward the gap to listen. There were footsteps
upon the road above him--footsteps that sounded familiar. Clouds had
drifted across the sky and darkened it, but he had heard that tread
too often to mistake it now when every nerve was strung to its highest
tension. A cold sweat broke out upon him in the impotence of his wrath.

"It's th' lass hersen," he said. "She's heerd summat, an' she's as good
as her word!"--with an oath.

He got up and stood a second trembling with rage. He drew his sleeve
across his forehead and wiped away the sweat, and then turned round
sharply.

"I'll creep up th' road an' meet her afore she reaches th' first place,"
he panted. "If she sees th' lads, it's aw up wi' us. I'll teach her
summat as she'll noan forget."

He was out into the Knoll Road in a minute more.

"I'll teach her to go agen me," he muttered.

"I'll teach her, by ------" But the sentence was never ended. There was