er would hunt for him, not along
the coast but inland. Northbourne was not the road to London, even
though a train might be caught from Northbourne. The whole business was
desperate, but this course seemed the least desperate way out of it. And
he need not hurry, speed would be of no avail in this race against
Fate.

He took the money from his pocket and counted it. Out of the nine pounds
he started with from Hoover's there remained only five pounds eleven and
ninepence.

He had spent as follows:

Mrs. Henshaw L2 0 0
Panama 6 11
Nightshirt 3 11
Coat 15 0
Public House 10
Shave and Newspaper 7
Road Map 1 0
----------
L3 8 3

He went over these accounts and checked them in his head. Then he put
the money back in his pocket and started on his way across the fields.

Despite all his worries this English country interested him, it also
annoyed him. Fields, the size of pocket handkerchiefs, divided one from
the other by monstrous hedges and deep ditches. To cross this country in
a straight line one would want to be a deer or a bounding kangaroo.
Gates, always at corners and always diagonal to his path, gave him
access from one field to the other. Trees there were none. The English
tree has an antipathy to the sea, and keeps away from it, but the hedge
has no sensitiveness of this sort. These hedges seemed to love the sea,
to judge by their size.

He was just in the act of clambering over one of the innumerable gates
when a voice hailed him. He looked back. A young man in leggings, who
had evidently been following him unperceived, raised a hand. Jones
finished his business with the gate, and then, with it between him and
the stranger, waited. He was well dressed in a rough way, evidently a
superior sort of farmer, and physically a person to be reckoned with. He
was also an exceedingly cantankerous looking individual.

"Do you know that you are trespassing?" asked he, when they were within
speaking distance.

"No," said Jones.

"Well, you are. I must ask you for your name and address, please."

"What on earth for--what harm am I doing your old fields?" Jones had
forgotten his position, everything, before the outrage on common sense.

"You are trespassing, that's all. I must ask you for your name and
address."

Now to Jones came the r