proposed to alight and die in peace upon the roadside. I changed my mind about that hill, though, for soon the glare of our headlights revealed the lane standing up straight on end before us. It was not a hill at all, but a very precipice; and when John cried, "Rush it, Ann! It's our only chance. We can't reverse, remember," I sent up a hurried prayer. With a crash of gears and a bellowing from our exhaust as of a thousand maddened bulls, we rushed the hill. We roared up that herring-gutted lane, and the beams from our headlamps pointed straight to heaven. Then the lights shone suddenly on the front of a house, dead ahead, and we stopped with a jolt, while I got out without troubling to open the door. "She's sliding back. I can't hold her!" cried Ann; and I thanked the gods for a countryside which fences its roads with loose stone, as I ravished boulders from the wall and rolled them under our skating wheels. "We're in a dead end," said John, exploring. "We can't turn, because I believe the van would roll over sideways, the hill's so steep. We need ropes to lower us down a cliff like this. And we can't back out. It would be sudden death to try it." A window opened in the wall above us, and a female voice made outcry. "Oh, Lor-amercy, Jim," it screamed, " 'tis the fire-enjine! The house is a-burning. Oh Lor! O me! O my!" The voice then withdrew, yelling, and a man called, "'Oo is it? What's up? Are we afire?" 'No," said Ann. "You are quite all right. Please tell that woman to stop screaming. This isn't a fire-engine. It's a caravan, and we've lost our way." "Dry up, Maria!" said the man. "We ain't afire, I tell you. It's gypsies. Now you clear out of here, you dirty thieving scum, before I set the dogs on you. You're lost, are you? Well, I'll tell you what. You're trespassing. You're on a private road, and if you found your way up you can find your way down again. Waking a man up from his bed this time of night-drat and blast you. Get out now, quick, or I'll come down to you." "Yes. Come down, do," I said. "Come down and I'll wring your nasty neck." 66 Hush, uncle," said Ann. "Look here. You are making a mistake. We aren't gypsies. We got here by mistake, and we can't turn round. I'm awfully sorry we woke you up; but, now we have, I wonder if you'd be kind enough to let us come in out of the rain until the morning. We're all very wet and cold. In fact, this gentleman ought to be in bed. He's very ill.” "Yes; he sounds ill," said the man. "He's the one who wants to wring my neck, ain't he? No more of it now. You don't get in here, not if I know it, you artful little tinker's slut! I've got my gun here, and if any of you try any games, bless me if I don't pepper you with it." The window then shut with a slam. "Charming chap," said John. "I could see we weren't going to get much help out of him, so I've been looking round. The only thing to do is to make a gap in the wall and run the whole business through into the field. We can turn there and get back on to the road right end foremost. The wall's only made of loose stones, thank goodness." We fell to work silently, and the top row of stones had been removed when mysterious white shapes, vague but enormous, materialised within the field. They advanced upon us, grunting, and John said, "Gosh!" and scrambled back into the road. I had visions of charging rhino, so I followed him. But Ann said, "Nonsense! They're only pigs. Gracious, the field seems full of them." John is young and bold. He climbed over the wall again and proceeded with the work of demolition. The years, however, have taught me caution. Also I heard just then the latch of the house-door click, so I faced about and prepared to fight a rearguard action. The door opened and revealed a small fat man, clad in a long white nightshirt, and carrying a lantern which obviously blinded him. "Carry on with the job, John -quietly," I whispered, "while I distract the enemy's attention." I advanced upon the foe, making conciliatory noises; but the wretched man would have none of me. "Keep off!" he cried, backing. "Be off with you, you thieving brutes, or I'll shoot. You're after me pigs; that's what it is. I know you." "Pigs!" I cooed. "Pigs! My dear fellow, you are labouring under a most extraordinary misapprehension. We are not thieves or gypsies, I assure you. We are touring the country in this motor caravan, and have lost our way in the dark. We ran up this cul-de-sac by mistake, and most unfortunately disturbed you. I am extremely sorry; but we will go away as soon as we can turn the caravan round. My friends are now, in fact-er-making the necessary adjustments." meanness. "Oho! said the man. "Motor folk, are you?" His voice had changed, and there were in it now the notes of greed and a certain furtive He pondered. Well, then," he went on, "you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, rampaging about in the middle of the night and frightening me frightening my missus, that is, into fits. She did have a fit-almost. And she seven months gone an' all. Yes. It'll be serious; and you ought to be made to pay for it. If I sued you for compensation" 'Certainly," I said in my most soothing tones. Compensation. Of course. shall be compensated. don't let us stand out here in the rain any longer. Hadn't we better go in and talk it over? You haven't got much on, you know, and you'll catch cold." "I will. I'm sure to," replied that crafty creature. "I'm mortal liable to colds, and as likely as not I'll catch my death out of all this. There's one thing, though: you'd have to pay me for it." "With pleasure," said I. "I mean-certainly. We will. But, if you won't let me in, suppose we adjourn to the caravan. You would probably like to see it. It's most comfortable inside. And I have a bottle of brandy there that'll do us both good." "Ah! Brandy, is it?" said he. "Well, I will have a drop if you say so. But don't you get thinking a drink or two's going to pay me for this night's work. Why, I wouldn't take a ten-pun' note for the damage you've done to my missus alone, let alone me." Half a tumblerful of brandy may be relied upon to produce curious effects if poured into an empty stomach at 2 A.M. in the morning. At any rate, it induced my new-found friend to (1) hang his lantern on a non-existing hook; (2) fling himself carelessly on to the settle; (3) state, with emphasis, that £100 cash down would not even begin to make up for all he had suffered that night; and (4) to hold out his glass for what he called "another go of that there gargle, mister. And don't you spoil it this time with any of your water." Five minutes later the second half-tumbler-load had disappeared, when I underHe then climbed into the stood my friend to state that van, and, as the Fates would he regarded me as a most have it, trod upon Lum Fat, excellent fellow, that a fat who immediately went into cheque was the one and only action and bit him on the leg. cure he knew for hydrophobia, He then savaged the man's and that he would be glad to bare ankles, tore the front out sell me his wife Maria for £250 of his night-shirt, and fled, with down. However, his utterlion-like growlings, out into ance was considerably impeded the night. His exploit, though by this time, so perhaps I may neat, was most untimely; and be maligning the fellow. By it did not help matters that, the time he had finished even through his victim's lavish the bottle his mood changed. lamentations, we could hear He wept. He assured me that alleged lap-dog worrying that I had blasted his life his trophy in triumph under- and his love, and that he neath the van. This unfortu- proposed to retain possession nate episode might, perhaps, of the caravan as security have made me sorry for the for these outrages. He then man; but, when it became turned his face to the wall with a gesture both tragic and therefore, that my victim was final, and slept. I shut him in and left him. I found the breach in the wall had been completed, and from the field beyond came shouts and barkings. "Stop them. Oh, stop them!" I heard Ann cry, and then a boiling torrent of pigs poured through the gap and engulfed me. Now we have done it," said John. "Why didn't you stop them? We just went into the field to find a good place to turn the car, and then Lum Fat must have chased them. Where's your friend?" 66 either dead or very deaddrunk indeed. I held my peace, and once more the cavalcade proceeded. At the bottom of the hill I said, "Ann, my fever seems mercifully to have left me. I feel more or less myself again, and I think, instead of going to Buxton, we'd much better trek for home. I have come to the conclusion that caravanning in England is far too rough and dangerous a life for me. Let's go home. You'll have to get the van mended, anyway; and, to tell you the truth, I have reasons for wishing to leave this place as soon and as quickly as we can." this, remember, is a very free translation), "Thus shall you disarm your enemy. Without friends and alone, he will be powerless to contrive mischief against you. And, in any case, you may be pretty sure the strangers will do for the fellow." Our road ran through a wild secluded valley, where dark wet woods encompassed us, and it seemed to me the transport of my enemy's person had proceeded far enough, and that the time had come to cast him forth. I thought also that I could distinguish faint shouts and thumpings proceeding from the van, and though I was loth that my victim should forgo any of those nauseous horrors which had afflicted me inside that rumbling tumbril, yet I understood it would be difficult to explain him satisfactorily should he make outcry when we next passed through a town. "Ann," I said, "I didn't tell you at the time, because you might have argued, and that would have been fatal. The fact is I thought it advisable to shanghai the owner of those pigs. If you listen you can hear him calling now. He sounds weak, but anxious, so I think this is the time and place to maroon him." All my niece Ann said was "Uncle," but there was a whole world of meaning in her cry. John did a little better. He said, "Suffering Muckings, you have done it now!" And he stopped the car with a jerk. The van door slammed, and simultaneously Lum Fat VOL. CCXXI.-NO. MCCCXXXVIII. sprang from my lap and scurried to the rear with fierce bloodthirsty growlings. We, too, sprang from the car, and beheld a short, fat, bare-legged figure in a fluttering nightshirt scudding up the road. In full cry astern sailed our misguided lap - dog, giving tongue. Lum Fat, however, is not built for speed. A fiftyyard burst was his limit, and he then sat down and barked. His quarry stopped also. He turned towards us, and raised his hands beseechingly to heaven, and I thought at first that this was a sign of surrender. But it seems he must have been merely calling on the gods to witness his indignities, because he then shook his fists at us viciously, and used some language which, I admit, surprised me. Ann insists that she merely ran forward with the idea of "explaining," though how and what she proposed to explain is quite beyond my understanding. John says he followed Ann "just to see fairplay." Our late guest showed me, though, that he had little doubt as to their intentions. He judged, I imagine, that the moment for the murder had now arrived, for he uttered a loud cry and sprang into the wood, and vanished. It was half an hour at least before Ann would abandon the search, and she only gave up then, I think, because John said, "I bet he thinks we mean to kill him when we do find him." T 2 |