Page:The Kimberly Fugitive.pdf/2

Rh fall than its rider, who dolefully handled a pedal which declined to revolve.

"Can I be of any help?" inquired Pringle with his usual suavity. "I hope there's nothing serious the matter."

"Pedal pin's bent, and I've hurt my ankle," returned the cyclist. He spoke shortly, as if inclined to blame Pringle for the accident due to his own folly.

"Is it a sprain?" asked Pringle sympathetically. "Do you think you can ride with it?"

"Nothing much, I think." He walked round the machine with a slight limp, and added surlily, "But I can't ride a thing like that." He indicated the pedal with a pettish finger as he raised the machine from the ground.

"Oh, I think a few minutes' work will put that right," observed Pringle encouringly.

"No! Really?" He brightened visibly, as if Pringle had rid him of a certain incubus.

"I don't think we shall find a repairer open now—besides, I don't know of one just about here. If you will allow me, I'll see what I can do to put it right. As you say, you can't ride it like that."

The stranger was obviously not a practical cyclist, and Pringle, leaning his own machine against the kerb, had produced a spanner and was on his hands and knees beside the damaged cycle before the other had well got his pouch unstrapped. Pringle had put down his concern for the machine to the natural affection of an owner, but, with some of the dust and mud brushed off, it stood revealed as a hired crock, with cheap Belgian fittings. The dull enamel, the roughly machined lugs, the general lack of finish, showed the second-rate machine; and it was no drop-forging which yielded to the persuasion of a very moderately powerful wrench, the soft steel straightening under the leverage almost as readily as it had bent. Meanwhile, the owner vented an unamiable mood in dispersing the inevitable boys crowding like vultures round the fallen cycle; and when Pringle, his labour ended, struck his shoulder beneath the handle-bar and was peppered with a shower of dust and pellets from the mud-guards, he had lost some of his former incivility, and, producing a handkerchief, insisted on dusting his benefactor with quite a gracious air.

"I see you've ridden far," remarked Pringle as he finished.

"Yes; from—er—er—Colchester," was the hesitating reply.

"Suppose we move on a bit from this crowd?" Pringle suggested. "I think we are both going westwards."

"I was on the look out for a quiet hotel somewhere near here," said the cyclist as they rode side by side.

"I think the 'Embankment' in Arundel Street would suit you; it's moderate and quiet—round here to the right. By the bye, it's some time since I was on the Colchester Road, but I remember what an awful hill there is at Hatfield Peverel. I don't know which is the worst—to come up or go down."

"Hatfield—Hatfield Peverel?" repeated the other musingly.

"Just this side of Witham, you know. Why surely you must have noticed that hill!"

"Oh, yes. Witham—yes, a very nasty hill!"

"No, not Witham. You come to the hill at Hatfield Peverel."

"Yes, yes—I know." And then, as if anxious to change the subject, "Are we anywhere near the hotel?"

"Just the other side of that red-brick building. I see you've managed to pick up a little real estate on your way." The stranger started and glanced suspiciously at Pringle, who explained, "The mud, I mean."

"Oh the mud. Ha! ha! ha!" There was more of hysteria than hilarity in the laugh, and the man suddenly grew voluble.

"Yes, I came through a lot of mud. Fact is, I was caught in the thunderstorm."

"Indeed! That's good news. Whereabouts was it?"

"Near Tonbridge."

"Tonbridge?"

"Tut! What am I talking about? I mean Colchester. But this is the place, isn't it? Good-night—good-night!" He dragged the machine into the hotel, leaving Pringle to silently debate whether his boorishness was due to his confusion, or his confusion to his boorishness.

With his foot on the step, Pringle was just remounting when a muffled rumble sounded overhead. The stars were hidden by a huge inksplash, and a pallid, ghostly light flickered in the south; then, with measured pat, huge blobs of rain began to fall, while a blast, as from all the furnaces across the stream, blew up from the Embankment. It was the long-deferred storm, and Pringle told himself his ride must be abandoned; he had wasted too much time over this