Heedless of my direction, I hurried away, yet, ever when I had left it far behind, I glanced back more than once ere its towering branches were lost to my view.

So I walked on through the shadows, past trees that were not trees, and hedges that were not hedges, but frightful phantoms, rather, lifting menacing arms above my head, and reaching after me with clutching fingers.  Time and again, ashamed of such weakness, I cursed myself for an imaginative fool, but kept well in the middle of the road, and grasped my staff firmly, notwithstanding.

I had gone, perhaps, some mile or so in this way, alternately rating and reasoning with myself, when I suddenly fancied I heard a step behind me, and swung round upon my heel, with ready stick; but the road stretched away empty as far as I could see.  Having looked about me on all sides, I presently went on again, yet, immediately, it seemed that the steps began also, keeping time with my own, now slow, now fast, now slow again; but, whenever I turned, the road behind was apparently as empty and desolate as ever.

I can conceive of few things more nerve-racking than the knowledge that we are being dogged by something which we can only guess at, and that all our actions are watched by eyes which we cannot see.  Thus, with every step, I found the situation grow more intolerable, for though I kept a close watch behind me and upon the black gloom of the hedges, I could see nothing.  At length, however, I came upon a gap in the hedge where was a gate, and beyond this, vaguely outlined against a glimmer of sky, I saw a dim figure.

Hereupon, running forward, I set my hand upon the gate, and leaping over, found myself face to face with a man who carried a gun across his arm.  If I was startled at this sudden encounter he was no less so, and thus we stood eyeing each other as well as we might in the half light.

“Well,” I demanded, at last, “what do you mean by following me like this?”

“I aren’t follered ye,” retorted the man.

“But I heard your steps behind me.”

“Not mine, master.  I’ve sat and waited ’ere ’arf a hour, or more, for a poachin’ cove—­”

“But some one was following me.”

“Well, it weren’t I. A keeper I be, a-lookin’ for a poachin’ cove just about your size, and it’s precious lucky for you as you are a-wearin’ that there bell-crowned ’at!”

“Why so?”

“Because, if you ’adn’t ‘appened to be a-wearin’ that there bell-crowner, and I ’adn’t ‘appened to be of a argifyin’ and inquirin’ turn o’ mind, I should ha’ filled you full o’ buckshot.”

“Oh?” said I.

“Yes,” said he, nodding, while I experienced a series of cold chills up my spine, “not a blessed doubt of it.  Poachers,” he went on, “don’t wear bell-crowned ’ats as a rule—­I never seed one as did; and so, while I was a-watchin’ of you be’ind this ’ere ’edge, I argies the matter in my mind.  ‘Robert,’ I says to meself,