Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/182

 His first impulse as he stood on the lawn was to go away as far as he could from that house. Yes, as far as ever he could—miles and miles and miles—China if you like. Ah, no! That was just where that man would be!

He was trembling and shaking and wiping his forehead with his handkerchief; the breeze stroked him with cool fingers. He must run for ever to be clear of that house—and then suddenly remembered that he must not run because he had his duty to do—and even as he remembered that a figure stepped up to him out of the trees. He would have called out—so wild and trembling were his nerves—had he not at once recognized from his great size that this was Jabez the fisherman.

He might have been an incarnation of the night with his deep black beard, his grave kindly face, and his simple, natural quiet. He was dressed in his fisherman's jersey and blue trousers and had no covering on his head.

"Good evening, sir," he said. "Mr. Dunbar told me as how you'd be wanting to be back in the house for a moment to fetch something you'd forgotten.

"We'd best be just stepping off the lawn, sir, if you don't mind. They foreigners are always nosing around."

They turned quietly off the grass and stood