It was well I did so, for no sooner had I gained the
hollow than, looking back, I saw the pursuit topping the ridge
from which I had descended.
After that I did not look back; I had no time. I ran up the
burnside, crawling over the open places, and for a large part wading
in the shallow stream. I found a deserted cottage with a row of
phantom peat-stacks and an overgrown garden. Then I was among
young hay, and very soon had come to the edge of a plantation of
wind-blown firs. From there I saw the chimneys of the house smoking
a few hundred yards to my left. I forsook the burnside, crossed
another dyke, and almost before I knew was on a rough lawn. A
glance back told me that I was well out of sight of the pursuit,
which had not yet passed the first lift of the moor.
The lawn was a very rough place, cut with a scythe instead of a
mower, and planted with beds of scrubby rhododendrons. A brace
of black-game, which are not usually garden birds, rose at my
approach. The house before me was the ordinary moorland farm,
with a more pretentious whitewashed wing added. Attached to this
wing was a glass veranda, and through the glass I saw the face of
an elderly gentleman meekly watching me.
I stalked over the border of coarse hill gravel and entered the
open veranda door. Within was a pleasant room, glass on one side,
and on the other a mass of books.
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