If this was somebody from Snaasen, what was he doing off the track? Could he be watching me? Well, I proposed to do a little stalking on my own account. I got down on all4ours and crawled in cover in the direction of the sound. It was very dark there, but I could see a faint light where the scrub thinned round the stream.
Soon I was at the edge of the yeasty water. The sounds had stopped but suddenly they began again a little farther up, and there was a scuffle as if part of the bank had given way. The man, whoever he was, seemed to be trying to cross. That would be a dangerous thing to do, for the torrent was wide and very strong. I crawled a yard or two up-stream, and then in an open patch saw what was happening.
A fallen pine made a crazy bridge to a great rock, from which the rest of the current might conceivably be leaped. A man was kneeling on the trunk and beginning to move along it… But as I looked the rotten thing gave way and the next I saw he was struggling in the foam. It was all the matter of a fraction of a second, and before I knew I was leaning over the brink and clutching at an arm. I gripped it, braced one leg against a rock, and hauled the owner close into the edge out of the main current. He seemed to have taken no hurt, for he found a foothold, and scarcely needed my help to scramble up beside me.
Then to my surprise he went for me tooth and nail. It was like the assault of a wild beast, and its suddenness rolled me on my back. I felt hands on my throat, and grew angry, caught the wrists and wrenched them away. I flung a leg over his back and got uppermost, and after that he was at my mercy. He seemed to realise it, too, for he lay quite quiet and did not struggle.
What the devil do you mean?’ I said angrily. ‘You’d have been drowned but for me, and then you try to throttle me.’
I got out my torch and had a look at him. It was the figure of a slight young man, dressed in rough homespun such as Norwegian farm lads wear. His face was sallow and pinched, and decorated with the most preposterous wispy beard, and his hair was cut roughly as if with garden shears. The eyes that looked up at me were as scared and wild as a deer’s.
‘What the devil do you mean?’ I repeated, and then to lily surprise he replied in English.
‘Let me up,’ he said, ‘I’m too tired to fight. I’ll go back with you.’
Light broke in on me.
‘Don’t you worry, old chap,’ I said soothingly. ‘You’re going back with me, but not to that infernal saeter. We’ve met before, you know. You’re Lord Mercot, and I saw you ride “Red Prince” last year at the “House” Grind.’
He was sitting up, staring at me like a ghost. ‘Who are you? Oh, for God’s sake, who are you?’ ‘Hannay’s my name. I live at Fosse Manor in the Cotswolds.
You once came to dine with us before the Heythrop Ball’ ‘Hannay!’ He repeated stumblingly—‘I remember—I think—remember—remember Lady Hannay. Yes— and Fosse. It’s on the road between—He scrambled to his feet.
‘Oh, sir, get me away. He’s after me—the new devil with the long face, the man who first brought me here. I don’t know what has happened to me, but I’ve been mad a long time, and I’ve only got sane in the last days. Then I remembered— and I ran away. But they’re after me. Oh, quick, quick! Let’s hide.’
‘See here, my lad,’ I said, and I took out my pistol. ‘The first man that lays a hand on you I shoot, and I don’t miss. You’re as safe now as if you were at home. But this is no place to talk, and I’ve the devil of a lot to tell you. I’m going to take you down with me to my lodging in the valley. But they’re hunting you, so we’ve got to go cannily. Are you fit to walk? Well, do exactly as I tell you, and in an hour you’ll be having a long drink and looking up time-tables.’
I consider that journey back a creditable piece of piloting. The poor boy was underfed and shaking with excitement, but he stepped out gallantly, and obeyed me like a lamb. We kept off the track so as to muffle our steps in grass, and took every corner like scouts in a reconnaissance. We met Newhover coming back, but we heard him a long way off and were in good cover when he passed. He was hurrying as furiously as ever and I could hear his laboured breathing. After that we had a safe road over the meadow, but we crossed the bridge most circumspectly, making sure that there was no one in the landscape. About half-past one I pushed open Gaudian’s bedroom window, woke him, and begged him to forage for food and drink.
‘Did you get into Snaasen?’ he asked sleepily.
‘No, but I’ve found what we’ve been looking for. One of the three hostages is at this moment sitting on your cabin-box.’
XII.
I RETURN TO SERVITUDE
We fed Mercot with tinned meats and biscuits and bottled beer, and he ate like a famished schoolboy. The odd thing was his terror had suddenly left him. I suppose the sight of me, which had linked him up definitely With his past, had made him feel a waif no more, and, once he was quite certain who he was, his natural courage returned; He got great comfort from looking at Gaudian, and indeed I could not imagine a better sedative than a sight of that kind, wise old face. I lent him pajamas, rubbed him down to prevent a chill from his ducking, put him in my bed, and had the satisfaction of seeing him slip off at once into deep slumber.
Next morning Gaudian and I interviewed Peter Bojer and explained that a young English friend of ours had had an accident, while on a walking tour, and might be with us for a day or two. It was not likely that Newhover would advertise his loss’ and in any case Peter was no gossip, and Gaudian, who had known him for years, let him see that we wanted the fact of a guest being with us kept as quiet as possible. The boy slept till nearly midday, while I kept a watch on the road. Newhover appeared early, and went down to Merdal village where he spent the better part of the forenoon. He was probably making inquiries, but they were bound in his own interest to be discreet ones. Then he returned to Tryssil, and later I saw a dejected figure tramping up the Snaasen track. He may have thought that the body of the fugitive was in some pool of the torrent or being swirled down by the Skarso to the sea, and I imagined that that scarcely fitted in with his instructions.
When Mercot awoke at last and had his breakfast he looked a different lad. His eyes had lost their fright, and though he stuttered badly and seemed to have some trouble in collecting his wits, he had obviously taken hold of himself. His great desire was to get clean, and that took some doing, for he could not have had a bath for weeks. Then he wanted to borrow my razor and shave his beard, but I managed to prevent him in time, for I had been thinking the thing out, and I saw that that would never do. So far as I could see, he had recovered his memory, but there were still gaps in it; that is to say, he remembered all his past perfectly well till he left Oxford on February 17th, and he remembered the events of the last few days, but between the two points he was still hazy.
On returning to his rooms that February evening he had found a note about a horse he was trying to buy, an urgent note asking him to come round at once to certain stables. He had just time for this, before dressing for dinner, so he dashed out of the house—meeting nobody, as it chanced, on the stairs, and, as the night was foggy, being seen by no one in the streets. After that his memory was a blank. He had wakened in a room in London, which he thought was a nursing home, and had seen a doctor—I could picture that doctor and had gone to sleep again. After that his recollection was like a black night studded with little points of light which were physical sensations. He remembered being very cold and sometimes very tired, he recollected the smell of paraffin, and of mouldy hay, and of a treacly drink which made him sick. He remembered faces, too, a cross old woman who cursed him, a man who seemed to be always laughing, and whose laugh he feared more than