The Watchers

y and taken his body-servant with him, and his landlady had no knowledge of his whereabouts. I thought it probable, however, that some of his friends might have th

e tragical events might be happening about that watched and solitary house in Tresco which troubled me, or even pity for the girl maddened by her fears, or regret that I had not been able to do Clutterbuck that slight service which I purposed. But I took out the map of the Great West Road, and thought of the lad Parmiter trudging along it, doing a day's work here among the fields, begging a lift there upon a waggon and slowly working his way down into the West. I had a ver

tape. I saw it slant upwards to the brow of a hill, and dip into the cup of a valley; here through a boskage of green I saw a flash of silver where the river ran; there between flat green fields it lay, a broad white line geometrically straight to the gate of a city; it curved

p; it was the road itself imprisoned in hedges, sunlit, and chequered with the shadows of trees. I could see the horseman, I could see the dust spirting up from beneath his horse's hoofs like smoke from a gun-barrel. Only his hat was pushed down upon his brows because of the wind made by the speed of his galloping, so that I could not see his face. But it was Clutterbuck I had no doubt. Whither had he gone from his lodging? Now I was convinced that I knew. There had been no need of my night's wanderings from tavern to tavern, had I but looked at my map before. It was Clutterbuck without a doubt. At some bend of the ro

er!" and a voice

keley! What in the wo

ng at the corner of St James's Street, outside in the streets the world was beginning to wake, and the voice which ha

e, leaning over my sh

map of the Great West Road;" and in my e

pped over to the sideboard and took up a glass or two which stood there. The glasses were clean and dry. He looked at me again, his curi

e story was told to me at the 'Cocoa Trees.' My landlady repeated it. I conjectured that it must needs be some little affair to be settled with sharps at six in the morning; and so that you might not say your friends neglect you, I turn from my bed, and hurry to you at three o'clock of the morning. I find that you have left your front-door unlatched

s hand from my sleeve and took it up and away from my eyes. He looked

ts simple lines and curves call up I know not what pictures of flowering hedgerows; a little black blot means a village of stone cottages, very

er," I

rply. "Well, where is Parmiter?

eter," said he, leaning forwa

tioning my conjecture, but accepti

t'other side of Hartley Row; I know it. There should be a mail-coach there, and the horses out of the shafts, and one or two

I returned. "But here

el

yet furthe

s a fore

es

into it between the trees. He h

e? Did you

. But I could no

attitude and even in his breathing. Every now and then he raised his eye

we both again s

rbuck whisp

ree?" He tore himself away from the contemplation of the map. "The thing's magical!" he

yourself. Why don't you go?"

buck rose impatien

s reason why I should not. You do not know in what you are meddling. You are taken like a schoo

ed, "but, by the Lord, these last days I

t came now, it thrilled through me with a veritable shock. I leaned back in my

apping the map with his forefinger,

ded a

face were m

d never b

great high-road, climbing and winding through a country-side rich with all the colours of the summer. But it was only a map of lines and curves, nor could I an

galloped into the open

casm was forced. It was but a cloa

ok my

ill not," sai

I asked. "What if t

ld go a stranger and offer your unsou

re in the balance, would

your life and

at all my last seven years rose up

death! There's that boy Parmiter tramping down his road. He does a far better thing than I have ever done. You know! Why talk of it? You know the life I have lived, and since that boy flung his example in my eyes, upon my word I sicken to think of it. Twelve years ago, Clutterbuck, I came to London, a ca

this strain. Nor should I have said so much now, but I was fairly shaken out of my

ithin his knowledge. The events of that day were the beginning of all the trouble, indeed, but Lieutenant Clutterbuck never knew more of it than what concerned himself, and as I sat over against