in reality a trap. There
was no cover for a tomtit in those bald green places.
I sat quite still and hopeless while the beat grew louder. Then I saw an aeroplane
coming up from the east. It was flying high, but as I looked it dropped several hundred
feet and began to circle round the knot of hill in narrowing circles, just as a hawk
wheels before it pounces. Now it was flying very low, and now the observer on board
caught sight of me. I could see one of the two occupants examining me through glasses.
Suddenly it began to rise in swift whorls, and the next I knew it was speeding eastward
again till it became a speck in the blue morning.
That made me do some savage thinking. My enemies had located me, and the next thing
would be a cordon round me. I didn’t know what force they could command, but I was
certain it would be sufficient. The aeroplane had seen my bicycle, and would conclude
that I would try to escape by the road. In that case there might be a chance on the
moors to the right or left. I wheeled the machine a hundred yards from the highway,
and plunged it into a moss-hole, where it sank among pond-weed and water-buttercups.
Then I climbed to a knoll which gave me a view of the two valleys. Nothing was stirring
on the long white ribbon that threaded them.
I have said there was not cover in the whole place to hide a rat. As the day advanced
it was flooded with soft fresh light till it had the fragrant sunniness of the South
African veld. At other times I would have liked the place, but now it seemed to suffocate
me. The free moorlands were prison walls, and the keen hill air was the breath of
a dungeon.
I tossed a coin—heads right, tails left—and it fell heads, so I turned to the north.
In a little I came to the brow of the ridge which was the containing wall of the pass.
I saw the highroad for maybe ten miles, and far down it something that was moving,
and that I took to be a motor-car. Beyond the ridge I looked on a rolling green moor,
which fell away into wooded glens.
Now my life on the veld has given me the eyes of a kite, and I can see things for
which most men need a telescope … Away down the slope, a couple of miles away, several
men were advancing, like a row of beaters at a shoot …
I dropped out of sight behind the sky-line. That way was shut to me, and I must try
the bigger hills to the south beyond the highway. The car I had noticed was getting
nearer, but it was still a long way off with some very steep gradients before it.
I ran hard, crouching low except in the hollows, and as I ran I kept scanning the
brow of the hill before me. Was it imagination, or did I see figures—one, two, perhaps
more—moving in a glen beyond the stream?
If you are hemmed in on all sides in a patch of land there is only one chance of escape.
You must stay in the patch, and let your enemies search it and not find you. That
was good sense, but how on earth was I to escape notice in that table-cloth of a place?
I would have buried myself to the neck in mud or lain below water or climbed the tallest
tree. But there was not a stick of wood, the bog-holes were little puddles, the stream
was a slender trickle. There was nothing but short heather, and bare hill bent, and
the white highway.
Then in a tiny bight of road, beside a heap of stones, I found the roadman.
He had just arrived, and was wearily flinging down his hammer. He looked at me with
a fishy eye and yawned.
‘Confoond the day I ever left the herdin’!’ he said, as if to the world at large.
‘There I was my ain maister. Now I’m a slave to the Goavernment, tethered to the roadside,
wi’ sair een, and a back like a suckle.’
He took up the hammer, struck a stone, dropped the implement with an oath, and put
both hands to his ears. ‘Mercy on me! My heid’s burstin’!’ he cried.
He was a wild figure, about my own size but much bent, with a week’s beard on his
was no cover for a tomtit in those bald green places.
I sat quite still and hopeless while the beat grew louder. Then I saw an aeroplane
coming up from the east. It was flying high, but as I looked it dropped several hundred
feet and began to circle round the knot of hill in narrowing circles, just as a hawk
wheels before it pounces. Now it was flying very low, and now the observer on board
caught sight of me. I could see one of the two occupants examining me through glasses.
Suddenly it began to rise in swift whorls, and the next I knew it was speeding eastward
again till it became a speck in the blue morning.
That made me do some savage thinking. My enemies had located me, and the next thing
would be a cordon round me. I didn’t know what force they could command, but I was
certain it would be sufficient. The aeroplane had seen my bicycle, and would conclude
that I would try to escape by the road. In that case there might be a chance on the
moors to the right or left. I wheeled the machine a hundred yards from the highway,
and plunged it into a moss-hole, where it sank among pond-weed and water-buttercups.
Then I climbed to a knoll which gave me a view of the two valleys. Nothing was stirring
on the long white ribbon that threaded them.
I have said there was not cover in the whole place to hide a rat. As the day advanced
it was flooded with soft fresh light till it had the fragrant sunniness of the South
African veld. At other times I would have liked the place, but now it seemed to suffocate
me. The free moorlands were prison walls, and the keen hill air was the breath of
a dungeon.
I tossed a coin—heads right, tails left—and it fell heads, so I turned to the north.
In a little I came to the brow of the ridge which was the containing wall of the pass.
I saw the highroad for maybe ten miles, and far down it something that was moving,
and that I took to be a motor-car. Beyond the ridge I looked on a rolling green moor,
which fell away into wooded glens.
Now my life on the veld has given me the eyes of a kite, and I can see things for
which most men need a telescope … Away down the slope, a couple of miles away, several
men were advancing, like a row of beaters at a shoot …
I dropped out of sight behind the sky-line. That way was shut to me, and I must try
the bigger hills to the south beyond the highway. The car I had noticed was getting
nearer, but it was still a long way off with some very steep gradients before it.
I ran hard, crouching low except in the hollows, and as I ran I kept scanning the
brow of the hill before me. Was it imagination, or did I see figures—one, two, perhaps
more—moving in a glen beyond the stream?
If you are hemmed in on all sides in a patch of land there is only one chance of escape.
You must stay in the patch, and let your enemies search it and not find you. That
was good sense, but how on earth was I to escape notice in that table-cloth of a place?
I would have buried myself to the neck in mud or lain below water or climbed the tallest
tree. But there was not a stick of wood, the bog-holes were little puddles, the stream
was a slender trickle. There was nothing but short heather, and bare hill bent, and
the white highway.
Then in a tiny bight of road, beside a heap of stones, I found the roadman.
He had just arrived, and was wearily flinging down his hammer. He looked at me with
a fishy eye and yawned.
‘Confoond the day I ever left the herdin’!’ he said, as if to the world at large.
‘There I was my ain maister. Now I’m a slave to the Goavernment, tethered to the roadside,
wi’ sair een, and a back like a suckle.’
He took up the hammer, struck a stone, dropped the implement with an oath, and put
both hands to his ears. ‘Mercy on me! My heid’s burstin’!’ he cried.
He was a wild figure, about my own size but much bent, with a week’s beard on his
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