Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/268



ITH the briefest of introductions, inasmuch as my part is only that of a listener and recorder, I may say that I had left Torford early one morning with the intention of walking some twenty miles and striking the railway again at Ashbridge. Provided with flask and sandwich box and trusting rather to the compass than to the roads, I was reconciled to the possibility of not meeting a human being from morning till night, but a darkening of the sky before the afternoon was far advanced warned me that I should soon be compelled to find a shelter or be drenched to the skin. Of stunted trees there was no scarcity, indeed, but the vivid flashes of lightning which now followed one another with an ever-diminishing interval dashed the thought of seeking such questionable protection. In despair I ran to the top of a small knoll near at hand, expecting at the best to discover a solitary cottage or a cowshed at no great distance. To my relief from this eminence I saw lying almost at my feet a tiny moorland hamlet nestling in a little valley and further concealed by its girdling fringe of oaks. The first house was an inn: I saw its swinging sign and stayed to see no more, for the next moment the deluge came and in the slashing pelt of the rain every vestige of the landscape melted out. I scrambled down the steep decline, took the lane in a few long bounds, and flung myself breathless into the welcome shelter of the nearest room.