CHAPTER VI.

Doctor Unonius had drawn the table close beside an elbow-chair to the right of the fireplace. The excuse he made to himself was that, with a bright fire burning, he could the better see to read by blending its blaze with the light of the lamp. But it may be conjectured that, having disposed himself thus comfortably, he indulged in a nap. A strange sound fetched him out of it with a bounce. He leapt to his feet, and stood for a moment stupidly rubbing his eyes. The fire had burnt itself low. Blair's Grave lay face-downward on the hearth-rug, whither it had slipped from his knee. The clock in the corner ticked at its same deliberate pace, but its hands pointed to twenty minutes past two.

What was the sound? Or, rather—since it no longer continued—what had it been? As it seemed to him, it had resembled the beat of horses' hoofs at a gallop; a stampede almost. It could not have gone past on the high-road, for the noise had never been loud: yet it seemed to come from the high-road for a while, and then to drop suddenly and be drawn out in a series of faint thudded echoes.

Doctor Unonius went to the window, drew the curtains, unbarred a shutter, and stared out into the night. A newly risen moon hung low in the south-east, just above the coping of the courtlage wall, but the wall with its shrubs and clumps of ivy, massed in blackest shadow, excluded all view of the terrestrial world. The sound, whatever it had been, was not repeated.

Doctor Unonius stood for half a minute or so and gazed out with his forehead pressed to the pane. Then he closed the shutter again, let fall the curtain, and with a slight shiver went back to the fireplace.

He had picked up a pair of tongs and was stooping to pick up the charred ends of wood and pile them to revive the blaze, when another sound fetched him upright again. This also was the sound of a horse at a gallop, but now it drew nearer and nearer up the road. It clattered past the courtlage wall, and with that came to a sudden sprawling halt. A man's voice, the rider's, shouted some two or three words the doctor could not catch; but a moment later he heard the latch of the yard gate clink and horse and man lunge through, and had scarcely time to arm himself with one of the guns before three sharp strokes rattled on the back door.

Doctor Unonius hurried out to the passage. There he all but ran into Mrs Tresize, who came downstairs, lamp in hand and fully dressed as before. As before, too, she was entirely composed in manner.

'I will open,' she said. 'Go back and put the other gun away quickly, the pistol too. Keep the one in your hand if you will, and come back to me while I pretend to draw the bolts. No, please don't argue. It will be all right if you do as I say.'

She appeared so very sure of herself that, against his will, the doctor obeyed.

'Pretend to draw the bolts?' he kept muttering. Had the door been unbarred, then, all this while?

She was opening it, at any rate, when he returned to the passage. But before lifting the latch she demanded, as if upon second thought,—

'Who is there? And what is your business?'

'Mr Rattenbury,' answered a loud voice. 'You shall know my business fast enough if you will kindly open.'

Without more ado she flung the door wide, and the ray of her lamp fell upon Mr Rattenbury, the young riding-officer, cloaked, high-booted, and spurred.

'A strange business it must be, sir,' said the widow, 'that brings you hammering up sick folk at this time of night!'

'Sick folk, eh?' said the riding-master, with a brusque laugh. 'Sick folk don't usually sit up till past two in the morning ready dressed. Hadn't we better stow that kind of talk, ma'am?'

'You had better,' Mrs Tresize answered composedly, 'hitch your horse's bridle to the staple you'll find on the left, and step inside—that is, if you are not in too great a hurry.' Here she turned for a look behind her. 'My goodness!' she cried with a well-feigned start, 'if you haven't scared the doctor into fetching a gun!'

Mr Rattenbury stared past her into the passage. 'Doctor Unonius?' he exclaimed, catching his breath in surprise.

'At your good service, Mr Rattenbury, though you have given us a shock, sir. May I ask what keeps you afoot to-night? Not a run of goods, I hope?'

Mr Rattenbury stared at him. If any one man in the whole countryside bore a reputation of simple probity, it was Doctor Unonius. Impossible to connect him with tricks to defraud the Revenue! And yet had not the young riding-officer distinctly seen Landaveddy show and anon eclipse a light, and in such a fashion that it could only be interpreted as a signal.

'There has been a run, and an infernally daring one,' said Mr Rattenbury; 'in Lealand Cove, not half an hour ago. And the deuce of it is we had warning of it all along.'

'Warning?' echoed Mrs Tresize, with a touch of anxiety in her voice.

'Yes, ma'am. It was known to us—though I'll not tell you how—that Truman, the Grampound butcher, was acting freighter for a pretty large run, and for a week now two of my fellows have been at Grampound keeping an eye on him. I sent over a relief this very afternoon, and the relieved men brought back the report that Truman had scarcely quitted his house for a week. They left at four o'clock. It was dusk, and he'd lit a couple of candles in his shop, and was seated there reading a newspaper. Another thing put us off. The boat chartered was the Bold Venture, with Cornelius Roose on board. Cornelius—as I dare say you have heard, doctor—is the cleverest spotsman on this coast; but he was never yet known to risk a run unless he had his brother John to help ashore. So we kept a sharp eye on John Roose, and unbeknown to him, as we thought. Well, to-night he attends a prayer-meeting at Polruan, that's five miles east of home, and starts back at ten o'clock, our men shadowing him all the way. Goes quietly to bed he does, and just as I'm thinking to do the same, be shot if Cornelius hasn't beaten up with a foul wind, dodged the cutter, and nipped into Lealand Cove, where somebody has two score of pack horses waiting—'

'Pack horses?'

'Yes, the old game. It hasn't been played before in my time, and my men had almost forgotten the trick of it. The horses need training, you see, and we reckoned the trained ones had all died out.'

'Horses?' repeated Doctor Unonius. 'Then that accounts for the noise
I heard—'

'Eh?' queried Mr Rattenbury sharply.

'A sound of galloping, as it were. I opened the window to look, but could see nothing.

Mrs Tresize caught her breath. 'Yes, yes,' she put in, 'Doctor Unonius opened the window. You wouldn't charge him with making signals, I hope?'

'But—' began Doctor Unonius and Mr Rattenbury together. The doctor was about to say that, the road being hidden from this downstairs window, it followed that the window could not be seen from the road. But the riding-officer had the louder voice and bore him down.

'But,' he objected, 'the light was shown from an upstairs window, ma'am.'

'To be sure,' the widow squared her chin and glanced at Doctor Unonius defiantly—'and what should the doctor be doing here except attending on the sick? And where should my poor maid Tryphena be lying at this moment but upstairs and in bed with the colic?'

The doctor, on a sudden confronted with this amazing lie, cast up his hands a little way, and so, averting his eyes, turned slowly round to the fireplace. His brain swam. For the moment he could scarcely have been more helpless had some one dealt him a blow in the wind. His nature so abhorred falsehood that he blushed even to suspect it. To have it flung at him thus brazenly—

As he recovered his wits a little he heard the widow say,—

'And as for the horses, they never came this way.'

'Is that so?' Mr Rattenbury swung round upon the doctor.

'They—they certainly did not pass along the road outside,' said Doctor Unonius, speaking as in a dream. 'The noise of galloping turned off at some distance below the house, and seemed to die away to the northward.'

'Then I've made a cursed mess of this,' said the riding-officer, snatching up his hat. 'Your pardon, ma'am! and if you won't forgive me to-night, I'll call and apologise to-morrow.'