My walking-stick was a light one, of little or no use for purposes of defence.  I stopped before leaving Knowlesbury and bought a stout country cudgel, short, and heavy at the head.  With this homely weapon, if any one man tried to stop me I was a match for him.  If more than one attacked me I could trust to my heels.  In my school-days I had been a noted runner, and I had not wanted for practice since in the later time of my experience in Central America.

I started from the town at a brisk pace, and kept the middle of the road.

A small misty rain was falling, and it was impossible for the first half of the way to make sure whether I was followed or not.  But at the last half of my journey, when I supposed myself to be about two miles from the church, I saw a man run by me in the rain, and then heard the gate of a field by the roadside shut to sharply.  I kept straight on, with my cudgel ready in my hand, my ears on the alert, and my eyes straining to see through the mist and the darkness.  Before I had advanced a hundred yards there was a rustling in the hedge on my right, and three men sprang out into the road.

I drew aside on the instant to the footpath.  The two foremost men were carried beyond me before they could check themselves.  The third was as quick as lightning.  He stopped, half turned, and struck at me with his stick.  The blow was aimed at hazard, and was not a severe one.  It fell on my left shoulder.  I returned it heavily on his head.  He staggered back and jostled his two companions just as they were both rushing at me.  This circumstance gave me a moment’s start.  I slipped by them, and took to the middle of the road again at the top of my speed.

The two unhurt men pursued me.  They were both good runners—­the road was smooth and level, and for the first five minutes or more I was conscious that I did not gain on them.  It was perilous work to run for long in the darkness.  I could barely see the dim black line of the hedges on either side, and any chance obstacle in the road would have thrown me down to a certainty.  Ere long I felt the ground changing—­it descended from the level at a turn, and then rose again beyond.  Downhill the men rather gained on me, but uphill I began to distance them.  The rapid, regular thump of their feet grew fainter on my ear, and I calculated by the sound that I was far enough in advance to take to the fields with a good chance of their passing me in the darkness.  Diverging to the footpath, I made for the first break that I could guess at, rather than see, in the hedge.  It proved to be a closed gate.  I vaulted over, and finding myself in a field, kept across it steadily with my back to the road.  I heard the men pass the gate, still running, then in a minute more heard one of them call to the other to come back.  It was no matter what they did now, I was out of their sight and out of their hearing.  I kept straight across the field, and when I had reached the farther extremity of it, waited there for a minute to recover my breath.