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Chapter I

THE LAST drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the Pedestrian stuffed his map into his pocket, settled his pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders, and stepped out froe chestnut tree into the h a rift in the clouds to ard, but straight ahead over the hills the sky was the colour of dark slate Every tree and blade of grass was dripping, and the road shone like a river The Pedestrian wasted no time on the landscape but set out at once with the deterood walker who has lately realized that he will have to walk farther than he intended That, indeed, was his situation If he had chosen to look back, which he did not, he could have seen the spire of Much Nadderby, and, seeing it, ht have uttered a h obviously eed hands since he last went for a walking tour in these parts The kindly old landlord on whom he had reckoned had been replaced by someone whom the barmaid referred to as 'the lady,' and the lady was apparently a British innkeeper of that orthodox school who regard guests as a nuisance His only chance noas Sterk, on the far side of the hills, and a good six miles away The map marked an inn at Sterk The Pedestrian was too experienced to build any very sanguine hopes on this, but there seee

He walked fairly fast, and doggedly, without lookingto shorten the ith soht He was tall, but a little round-shouldered, about thirty-five to forty years of age, and dressed with that particular kind of shabbiness which ht easily have been h he had not the man-of-the-world air of the one or the indefinable breeziness of the other In fact, he was a philologist, and fellow of a Cae His name was Ransom

He had hoped when he left Nadderby that heat some friendly farm before he had walked as far as Sterk But the land this side of the hills seemed almost uninhabited It was a desolate, featureless sort of country es and few trees It attracted no visitors like the richer country south of Nadderby and it was protected by the hills fro drew in and the noise of the birds calish landscape usually is The noise of his own feet on the

He had walked thus for a ht ahead He was close under the hills by now and it was nearly dark, so that he still cherished hopes of a substantial farht, which proved to be a very sly nineteenth-century brick A woman darted out of the open doorway as he approached it and almost collided with him

"I beg your pardon, sir," she said "I thought it was my Harry"

Ransom asked her if there was any place nearer than Sterk where he et a bed

"No, sir," said the woht fix you up at Nadderby"

She spoke in a hu else Ransom explained that he had already tried Nadderby

"Then I don't know, I'm sure, sir," she replied "There isn't hardly any house before Sterk, not what you want There's only The Rise, wherefrom that way, sir, and that's why I coht to be ho time"

"The Rise," said Ransom "What's that? A farm? Would they put me up?"

"Oh no, sir You see there's no one there now except the Professor and the gentleman fro like that, sir They don't even keep any servants, exceptthe furnace like, and he's not in the house"

"What's this professor's name?" asked Ransom, with a faint hope

"I don't know, I'entleentleman is a professor He don't knowa little si home so late, and they said they'd always send hiood day's work, either"

The e of the woman's vocabulary did not expresssufficiently near to perceive that she was treht to call on the mysterious professor and ask for the boy to be sent home: and it occurred to him just a fraction of a second later that once he were inside the house - aht very reasonably accept the offer of a night's hospitality Whatever the process of thought may have been, he found that theat The Rise had assu determined upon He told the woman what he intended to do

"Thank you very much, sir, I'm sure," she said "And if you would be so kind as to see hiate and on the road before you leave, if you see what I htened of the Professor and he wouldn't come away once your back was turned, sir, not if they hadn't sent him home themselves like"

Ransooodbye, after ascertaining that he would find The Rise on his left in about fivestill, and he proceeded slowly and painfully on his way

There was no sign of any lights on the left of the road - nothing but the flat fields and a mass of darkness which he took to be a copse It seemed more than five minutes before he reached it and found that he had been e and in the hedge was a white gate: and the trees which rose above hiate were not the first line of a copse but only a belt, and the sky showed through theate of The Rise and that these trees surrounded a house and garden

He tried the gate and found it locked He stood for adarkness His first inclination, tired as he felt, was to continue his journey to Sterk: but he had committed himself to a troublesome duty on behalf of the old woman He knew that it would be possible, if one really wanted, to force a way through the hedge He did not want to A nice fool he would look, blundering in upon soates locked in the country - with this silly story of a hysterical mother in tears because her idiot boy had been kept half an hour late at his work! Yet it was perfectly clear that he would have to get in, and since one cannot crawl through a hedge with a pack on, he slipped his pack off and flung it over the gate The moment he had done so, it seemed to him that he had not till now fully arden if only in order to recover the pack He becaot down on his hands and knees and began to wore

The operation proved more difficult than he had expected and it was several minutes before he stood up in the wet darkness on the inner side of the hedge sroped his way to the gate, picked up his pack, and then for the first tihter on the drive than it had been under the trees and he had no difficulty in e stone house divided frolected lawn The drive branched into two a little way ahead of hientle sweep to the front door, while the left ran straight ahead, doubtless to the back premises of the house He noticed that this path was churned up into deep ruts -now full of water - as if it were used to carrying a traffic of heavy lorries The other, on which he now began to approach the house, was overgroith ht: soaped blank without shutter or curtain, but all were lifeless and inhospitable The only sign of occupation was a column of sested the chimney of a factory, or at least of a laundry, rather than that of a kitchen The Rise was clearly the last place in the world where a stranger was likely to be asked to stay the night, and Ranso it, would certainly have turned away if he had not been bound by his unfortunate promise to the old woman