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Page 67
The road, after the habit of country roads, wound and twisted. The
quarry was frequently out of sight. And Percy's anxiety was such
that, every time Maud vanished, he broke into a gallop. Another
hundred yards, and the blister no longer consented to be ignored.
It cried for attention like a little child, and was rapidly
insinuating itself into a position in the scheme of things where it
threatened to become the centre of the world. By the time the third
bend in the road was reached, it seemed to Percy that this blister
had become the one great Fact in an unreal nightmare-like universe.
He hobbled painfully: and when he stopped suddenly and darted back
into the shelter of the hedge his foot seemed aflame. The only
reason why the blister on his left heel did not at this juncture
attract his entire attention was that he had become aware that
there was another of equal proportions forming on his right heel.
Percy had stopped and sought cover in the hedge because, as he
rounded the bend in the road, he perceived, before he had time to
check his gallop, that Maud had also stopped. She was standing in
the middle of the road, looking over her shoulder, not ten yards
away. Had she seen him? It was a point that time alone could solve.
No! She walked on again. She had not seen him. Lord Belpher, by
means of a notable triumph of mind over matter, forgot the blisters
and hurried after her.
They had now reached that point in the road where three choices
offer themselves to the wayfarer. By going straight on he may win
through to the village of Moresby-in-the-Vale, a charming little
place with a Norman church; by turning to the left he may visit the
equally seductive hamlet of Little Weeting; by turning to the right
off the main road and going down a leafy lane he may find himself
at the door of Platt's farm. When Maud, reaching the cross-roads,
suddenly swung down the one to the left, Lord Belpher was for the
moment completely baffled. Reason reasserted its way the next
minute, telling him that this was but a ruse. Whether or no she had
caught sight of him, there was no doubt that Maud intended to shake
off any possible pursuit by taking this speciously innocent turning
and making a detour. She could have no possible motive in going to
Little Weeting. He had never been to Little Weeting in his life,
and there was no reason to suppose that Maud had either.
The sign-post informed him--a statement strenuously denied by the
twin-blisters--that the distance to Little Weeting was one and a
half miles. Lord Belpher's view of it was that it was nearer fifty.
He dragged himself along wearily. It was simpler now to keep Maud
in sight, for the road ran straight: but, there being a catch in
everything in this world, the process was also messier. In order
to avoid being seen, it was necessary for Percy to leave the road
and tramp along in the deep ditch which ran parallel to it. There
is nothing half-hearted about these ditches which accompany English
country roads. They know they are intended to be ditches, not mere
furrows, and they behave as such. The one that sheltered Lord
Belpher was so deep that only his head and neck protruded above the
level of the road, and so dirty that a bare twenty yards of travel
was sufficient to coat him with mud. Rain, once fallen, is
reluctant to leave the English ditch. It nestles inside it for
weeks, forming a rich, oatmeal-like substance which has to be
stirred to be believed. Percy stirred it. He churned it. He
ploughed and sloshed through it. The mud stuck to him like a
brother.
Nevertheless, being a determined young man, he did not give in.
Once he lost a shoe, but a little searching recovered that. On
another occasion, a passing dog, seeing things going on in the
ditch which in his opinion should not have been going on--he was a
high-strung dog, unused to coming upon heads moving along the road
without bodies attached--accompanied Percy for over a quarter of a
mile, causing him exquisite discomfort by making sudden runs at his
face. A well-aimed stone settled this little misunderstanding, and
Percy proceeded on his journey alone. He had Maud well in view
when, to his surprise, she left the road and turned into the gate of
a house which stood not far from the church.
Lord Belpher regained the road, and remained there, a puzzled man.
A dreadful thought came to him that he might have had all this
trouble and anguish for no reason. This house bore the unmistakable
stamp of a vicarage. Maud could have no reason that was not
innocent for going there. Had he gone through all this, merely to
see his sister paying a visit to a clergyman? Too late it occurred
to him that she might quite easily be on visiting terms with the
clergy of Little Weeting. He had forgotten that he had been away at
Oxford for many weeks, a period of time in which Maud, finding life
in the country weigh upon her, might easily have interested herself
charitably in the life of this village. He paused irresolutely. He
was baffled.
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