He had already paid his "shot," and he now put down his pipe, stood up, yawned, stretched himself, and then, after clapping his hat on his head, strode slowly out of the room. Passing the bar, now empty of customers, through the inner window of which he could see the plump landlady busy with her knitting-needles, he paused for a few moments at the top of the flight of broad shallow steps which led up to the front door. Like so many similar establishments in those days, the King's Arms Hotel formed three sides of a quadrangle, with the windows facing into it, the fourth side consisting of an open gateway large enough for a coach-and-four to be driven through with ease, having shops on either side, the windows of which fronted on the main street. As John Dyce stood on the topmost step he looked to right and he looked to left. For a small provincial town the hour was growing late. In the inn yard no one was about. A light shone dimly through the stable window, and in one corner Mr. Tew's chaise, with two or three other vehicles, made a confused heap, dimly discernible. Half an hour later, with the arrival of the _Comet_, bound for Edinburgh, the whole place would wake up, as at the stroke of an enchanter's wand, to a brief spasm of feverish energy and excitement. Meanwhile somnolence reigned. John Dyce, whistling under his breath, descended the steps and picked his way slowly in the direction of the stable, presumably in search of the ostler; but it was not till a full quarter of an hour later that he rode out of the inn yard, and, having crossed the market-place, took the road which led due north out of the town. The clock of the old church chimed the half-hour past ten as he left it behind. A crescent moon was sailing in a clear sky. Presently John's nag broke into a gentle trot, and so the two jogged quietly along till the last house in Appleford had been left some four miles behind. Then, at a point where the road, dipping a little, cut through the dark heart of a plantation of firs, he drew rein and let his horse subside into a walk. He had got about halfway through the plantation when, a little way ahead of him, what looked like an irregular fragment of the blackness which walled him in on either hand broke itself away, as it were, and, moving out into the middle of the road, showed there clear and distinct by the light of the young moon, and then, as he drew a pace or two nearer, took on itself the shape of another horse and another rider. John seemed in nowise alarmed by the sudden apparition, but rather, indeed, as if the _rencontre_ was not unexpected by him. "So! it is you; I was rather doubtful at first," said the other in a full rich voice as he drew near. "Well, what luck have you had?"