s in the
lock-keeper's cottage. He and his wife had gone to bed long before. I
was so interested that I forgot what I was doing and ran into the hedge
so that I nearly came down. There was the noise of the scrape and drag
of the machine which must have sounded very loud in the stillness. It
startled him, for he looked all round, but he didn't see me, for I was
under the hedge. Then suddenly he started running. He ran as if the
devil was after him. I saw him squash down his Trilby hat so that it
was shapeless. Then he disappeared along the path. I thought this a
queer proceeding. Why should he have taken to his heels? I thought I
should like to see him again. If he kept to the towing-path, his
shortest way home, he was bound to go along the Chestnut Avenue, where,
as you know, the road and the path again come together. On a bicycle it
was easy to get there before him. I sat down on a bench and waited.
Presently he comes, walking fast, his hat still squashed in all over
his ears. I walked my bicycle slap in front of him.

"'Good-night, Major,' I said.

"He stared at me as if he didn't know me. Then he seemed to pull
himself together and said: 'Good-night, Gedge. What are you doing out
at this time of night?'

"'If it comes to that, sir,' said I, 'what are you?'

"Then he says, very haughty, as if I was the dirt under his feet--I
suppose, Sir Anthony Fenimore and Major Meredyth, you think that me and
my class are by divine prescription the dirt beneath your feet, but
you're damn well mistaken--then he says: 'What the devil do you mean?'
and catches hold of the front wheel of the bicycle and swings it and me
out of his way so that I had a nasty fall, with the machine on top of
me, and he marches off. I picked myself up furious with anger. I am an
elderly man and not accustomed to that sort of treatment. I yelled out:
'What have you been doing with the Squire's daughter on the
towing-path?' It pulled him up short. He made a step or two towards me,
and again he asked me what I meant. And this time I told him. He called
me a liar, swore he had never been on any tow-path or had seen any
squire's daughter, and threatened to murder me. As soon as I could
mount my bicycle I left him and made for home. The next afternoon, if
you remember, the unfortunate young lady's body was found at the bottom
of three fathoms of water by the lock gates."

He had spoken so clearly, so unfalteringly, that Sir Anthony had been
surprised into