when I saw my late fellow-passenger, who had just caught
sight of me, 'legging it' down the station approach like a professional
pedestrian and looking back nervously over his shoulder. Resolving
firmly to put the subject out of my mind, I walked slowly into the town
and betook myself to the London Road; and though, as I passed the
Falstaff Inn and crossed Gad's Hill, fleeting reminiscences of Prince
Henry and the men in buckram came unsought, with later suggestions of a
stagecoach struggling up the hill in the dark and masked figures
creeping down the banks into the sunken road, I kept to my good
resolution. The bag was a little cumbersome--it contained a large
parcel of bulbs from Covent Garden that Grayson had asked me to
bring--and yet it was pleasant to break off from the high road and stray
by well-remembered tracks and footpaths across the fields. It was all
familiar ground; for in years gone by, when Grayson was in practice, we
would come down together for weekends to his little demesne, and often I
would stay on alone for a week or so and ramble about the country by
myself. So I knew every inch of the country side and was so much
interested in renewing my acquaintance with it that I was twenty minutes
late for lunch.

"I had a most agreeable day with Grayson (who was working at the
historical aspects of disease), and would have stayed later than I did.
But at about half-past eight--we had dined at seven--Grayson began to be
restless and fidgetty and at last said apologetically:

"'Don't think me inhospitable, Challoner, but if you aren't going to
stay the night you had better be going. And don't go by Gad's Hill.
Take the road down to Higham and catch the train there.'

"'Why, what is the matter with Gad's Hill?' I asked.

"'Nothing much by daylight, but a great deal at night. It has always
been an unsafe spot and is especially just now. There has been quite an
epidemic of highway robberies lately. They began when the hoppers were
here last autumn, but some of those East-end ruffians seem to have
settled in the neighborhood. I have seen some very queer-looking
characters even in this village; aliens, apparently, of the kind that
you see about Stepney and Whitechapel.

"'Now, you get down to Higham, like a good fellow, before the country
settles down for the night.'

"Needless to say, the prowling alien had no terrors for me, but as
Grayson was really uneasy, I made no demur and took my leave almost
immed