He now withdrew into the wood and started off with the apparent
intention of gaining a view of St. Agatha's from the front, and I
followed. He seemed harmless enough; he might be a curious pilgrim
from the summer resort; but I was just now the guardian of St. Agatha's
and I intended to learn the stranger's business before I had done with
him. He swung well around toward the driveway, threading the flower
garden, but hanging always close under the trees, and the mournful
whistle would have guided me had not the moon made his every movement
perfectly clear. He reached the driveway leading in from the Annandale
road without having disclosed any purpose other than that of viewing
the vine-clad walls with a tourist's idle interest. The situation had
begun to bore me, when the school gardener came running out of the
shrubbery, and instantly the young man took to his heels.
"Stop! Stop!" yelled the gardener.
The mysterious young man plunged into the wood and was off like the
wind.
"After him, Andy! After him!" I yelled to the Scotchman.
I shouted my own name to reassure him and we both went thumping through
the beeches. The stranger would undoubtedly seek to get back to his
boat, I reasoned, but he was now headed for the outer wall, and as the
wood was free of underbrush he was sprinting away from us at a lively
gait. Whoever the young gentleman was, he had no intention of being
caught; he darted in and out among the trees with astounding lightness,
and I saw in a moment that he was slowly turning away to the right.
"Run for the gate!" I called to the gardener, who was about twenty feet
away from me, blowing hard. I prepared to gain on the turn if the
young fellow dashed for the lake; and he now led me a pretty chase
through the flower garden. He ran with head up and elbows close at his
sides, and his light boat shoes made scarcely any sound. He turned
once and looked back and, finding that I was alone, began amusing
himself with feints and dodges, for no other purpose, I fancied, than
to perplex or wind me. There was a little summer-house mid-way of the
garden, and he led me round this till my head swam. By this time I had
grown pretty angry, for a foot-race in a school garden struck me with
disgust as a childish enterprise, and I bent with new spirit and drove
him away from his giddy circling about the summer-house and beyond the
only gate by which he could regain the wood and meadow that lay between
the garden and his boat. He turned his head from side to side
uneasily, slackening his pace to study the bounds of the garden, and I
felt myself gaining.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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