It was impossible to venture back to the road, but I was determined nevertheless to get to Old Welmingham that evening.

Neither moon nor stars appeared to guide me.  I only knew that I had kept the wind and rain at my back on leaving Knowlesbury, and if I now kept them at my back still, I might at least be certain of not advancing altogether in the wrong direction.

Proceeding on this plan, I crossed the country—­meeting with no worse obstacles than hedges, ditches, and thickets, which every now and then obliged me to alter my course for a little while—­ until I found myself on a hillside, with the ground sloping away steeply before me.  I descended to the bottom of the hollow, squeezed my way through a hedge, and got out into a lane.  Having turned to the right on leaving the road, I now turned to the left, on the chance of regaining the line from which I had wandered.  After following the muddy windings of the lane for ten minutes or more, I saw a cottage with a light in one of the windows.  The garden gate was open to the lane, and I went in at once to inquire my way.

Before I could knock at the door it was suddenly opened, and a man came running out with a lighted lantern in his hand.  He stopped and held it up at the sight of me.  We both started as we saw each other.  My wanderings had led me round the outskirts of the village, and had brought me out at the lower end of it.  I was back at Old Welmingham, and the man with the lantern was no other than my acquaintance of the morning, the parish clerk.

His manner appeared to have altered strangely in the interval since I had last seen him.  He looked suspicious and confused—­his ruddy cheeks were deeply flushed—­and his first words, when he spoke, were quite unintelligible to me.

“Where are the keys?” he asked.  “Have you taken them?”

“What keys?” I repeated.  “I have this moment come from Knowlesbury.  What keys do you mean?”

“The keys of the vestry.  Lord save us and help us! what shall I do?  The keys are gone!  Do you hear?” cried the old man, shaking the lantern at me in his agitation, “the keys are gone!”

“How?  When?  Who can have taken them?”

“I don’t know,” said the clerk, staring about him wildly in the darkness.  “I’ve only just got back.  I told you I had a long day’s work this morning—­I locked the door and shut the window down—­it’s open now, the window’s open.  Look! somebody has got in there and taken the keys.”

He turned to the casement window to show me that it was wide open.  The door of the lantern came loose from its fastening as he swayed it round, and the wind blew the candle out instantly.

“Get another light,” I said, “and let us both go to the vestry together.  Quick! quick!”

I hurried him into the house.  The treachery that I had every reason to expect, the treachery that might deprive me of every advantage I had gained, was at that moment, perhaps, in process of accomplishment.  My impatience to reach the church was so great that I could not remain inactive in the cottage while the clerk lit the lantern again.  I walked out, down the garden path, into the lane.