ore they could check themselves. The third was as
quick as lightning. He stopped, half turned, and struck at me with his
stick. The blow was aimed at hazard, and was not a severe one. It
fell on my left shoulder. I returned it heavily on his head. He
staggered back and jostled his two companions just as they were both
rushing at me. This circumstance gave me a moment's start. I slipped
by them, and took to the middle of the road again at the top of my
speed.

The two unhurt men pursued me. They were both good runners--the road
was smooth and level, and for the first five minutes or more I was
conscious that I did not gain on them. It was perilous work to run for
long in the darkness. I could barely see the dim black line of the
hedges on either side, and any chance obstacle in the road would have
thrown me down to a certainty. Ere long I felt the ground changing--it
descended from the level at a turn, and then rose again beyond.
Downhill the men rather gained on me, but uphill I began to distance
them. The rapid, regular thump of their feet grew fainter on my ear,
and I calculated by the sound that I was far enough in advance to take
to the fields with a good chance of their passing me in the darkness.
Diverging to the footpath, I made for the first break that I could
guess at, rather than see, in the hedge. It proved to be a closed
gate. I vaulted over, and finding myself in a field, kept across it
steadily with my back to the road. I heard the men pass the gate,
still running, then in a minute more heard one of them call to the
other to come back. It was no matter what they did now, I was out of
their sight and out of their hearing. I kept straight across the
field, and when I had reached the farther extremity of it, waited there
for a minute to recover my breath.

It was impossible to venture back to the road, but I was determined
nevertheless to get to Old Welmingham that evening.

Neither moon nor stars appeared to guide me. I only knew that I had
kept the wind and rain at my back on leaving Knowlesbury, and if I now
kept them at my back still, I might at least be certain of not
advancing altogether in the wrong direction.

Proceeding on this plan, I crossed the country--meeting with no worse
obstacles than hedges, ditches, and thickets, which every now and then
obliged me to alter my course for a little while--until I found myself
on a hill-side, with the ground sloping away steeply before m