"Not strange," Master Bertie answered gravely. "I would rather call it providential. Let us think of that, and be of better courage, friend. We have been used; we shall not be cast away before our time." I looked back. For some minutes I had thought I heard behind us a light footstep, more like the pattering of a dog than anything else. I could see nothing, but that was not wonderful, for the moon was young and the sky overcast. "Do you hear some one following us?" I said. Master Bertie drew rein suddenly, and turning in the saddle we listened. For a second I thought I still heard the sound. The next it ceased, and only the wind toying with the November leaves and sighing away in the distance, came to our ears. "No," he said, "I think it must have been your fancy. I hear nothing." But when we rode on the sound began again, though at first more faintly, as if our follower had learned prudence and fallen farther behind. "Do not stop, but listen!" I said softly. "Cannot you hear the pattering of a naked foot now?" "I hear something," he answered. "I am afraid you are right, and that we are followed." "What is to be done?" I said, my thoughts busy. "There is Caen wood in front," he answered, "with a little open ground on this side of it. We will ride under the trees and then stop suddenly. Perhaps we shall be able to distinguish him as he crosses the open behind us." We made the experiment; but as if our follower had divined the plan, his footstep ceased to sound before we had stopped our horses. He had fallen farther behind. "We might ride quickly back," I suggested, "and surprise him." "It would be useless," Bertie answered. "There is too much cover close to the road. Let us rather trot on and outstrip him." We did trot on; and what with the tramp of our horses as they swung along the road, and the sharp passage of the wind by our ears, we heard no more of the footstep behind. But when we presently pulled up to breathe our horses--or rather within a few minutes of our doing so--there it was behind us, nearer and louder than before. I shivered as I listened; and presently, acting on a sudden impulse, I wheeled my horse round and spurred him back a dozen paces along the road. I pulled up. There was a movement in the shadow of the trees on my right, and I leaned forward, peering in that direction. Gradually, I made out the lines of a figure standing still as though gazing at me; a strange, distorted figure, crooked, short, and in some way, though no lineament of the face was visible, expressive of a strange and weird malevolence. It was the witch! The witch whom I had seen in the kitchen at the Gatehouse. How, then, had she come hither? How had she, old, lame, decrepit, kept up with us?