Page:Buchan - The Thirty-Nine Steps (Grosset Dunlap, 1915).djvu/100

 turn up tell them I caught the south expres after your meeting."

He did, or promised to do, all these things. I shaved off the remnants of my moustache and got inside an ancient suit of what I believe is called heather mixture. The map gave me some notion of my whereabouts and told me the two things I wanted to know—where the main railway to the south could be joined and what were the wildest districts near at hand.

At two o'clock he wakened me from my slumbers in the smoking-room armchair and led me blinking into the dark, starry night. An old bicycle was found in a tool-shed and handed over to me.

"First turn to the right up by the long fir-wood," he enjoined. "By daybreak you'll be well into the hills. Then I should pitch the machine into a bog and take to the moors on foot. You can put in a week among the shepherds, and be as safe as if you were in New Guinea."

I pedalled diligently up steep roads of hill