Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/53

 five," he said. He was moving forward when the man, hesitating, spoke again:

"You don't see any one coming up the road?"

Harkness stared down the white, sun-bleached expanse.

"No," he said after a moment, "I don't."

They looked for a while standing side by side silently.

After all he wasn't more than a boy—not a day more than twenty-five—but with that grave reserved look that so many British boys who were old enough to have been in the war had.

"Sure you don't see anybody?" he asked again, "coming up that farther bend?"

"No," said Harkness, shading his eyes with his hand against the sun; "can't say as I do."

"Damn nuisance," the boy said. "He's half an hour late now."

The boy stood as though to attention, his figure set, his hands at his side.

"Ah, there's some one," said Harkness. But it was only an old man with his cart. He slowly pressed up the hill past them urging his horses with a thick guttural cry, an old man brown as a berry.

"I beg your pardon," the boy turned to Harkness. "You'll think it an awful impertinence—but—are you in a terrible hurry?"

"No," said Harkness, "not terrible. I want to be at the 'Man-at-Arms' by dinner time. That's all."