“It is too heavy for you,” he went on as he lifted it; “I don’t know what is inside, only water, I think; it will be all right here by the side.”

A gust of wind swept round the kitchen, fluttering the herbs which hung from the ceiling and blowing the dust and flame from the front of the fire.

“Dear, dear!” Mr. Gillat exclaimed as he drew back, “What a wind!” Then, as he caught the whisper and whistle of the leafless things which whisper to one another out of doors even in the dead winter time, he realised that the outer door must be open.

“Shut it!” he said.  “The latch is so old, it is beginning to get worn out, and the wind is so strong, too.  Let me see if I can shut it.”  He went to the back kitchen for that purpose and found that he was talking to empty air, the Captain was gone.

In great consternation he went out after his charge.  He had not had a minute’s start; he could not have got far, not much more than round the corner of the house.  So thought Mr. Gillat, and started round the nearest corner after him.  Julia would not have done that; with the instinct of the wild animal and the rogue for cover, and for the value of the obvious in concealment, she would have looked by the water butt first.  It was not a hiding-place; the bush beside did not half conceal Captain Polkington, yet he stood dark and unobtrusive against it and so close to the door that in looking out for him one naturally looked beyond him.  As Johnny went round one side of the house the Captain left the meagre shelter of the butt and went round the other, bent now on finding some better hiding-place till it should be safe for him to go to his precious store.  And seeing that he was braced by an insatiable whisky thirst and so possessed by one idea that he had almost a madman’s cunning in achieving his purpose, it is not wonderful that he succeeded.  While Johnny hastily searched the out-buildings he lay hid.  And when at last Mr. Gillat went back to the house, being convinced that his charge must have gone back before him, he, nerved and strengthened by a dose of the precious spirit, carefully climbed over the garden wall, carrying with him all that was left of his store.  It was rather heavy, and the rising wind was strong, but he was strong, too, and he bore more strength with him.  He could carry a weight and fight with the wind if he wanted to; his heart was well enough when it was properly treated.  And it should be properly treated as long as he had his comfort, his precious medicine safe and in a place where prying hands could not touch it.

* * * * *

Julia came home from Halgrave later than she expected, but the wind had increased to a gale, so that walking along the exposed road had been no easy matter.  Johnny by this time was almost desperate with alarm, for Captain Polkington had not come back and, in spite of a continuous search in likely and unlikely places, he had not been able to find any trace of him or his whisky.  It is true his search was not very systematic at the best of times; it is not likely to have been now; as his alarm increased, it grew worse, until, by the time Julia came in, it had become little more than a repeated looking in the same unlikely places and an incessant toiling up and down-stairs and across the garden in the howling wind.