The lane they followed had been nearly straight for several miles, but it now took a turn, and winding uncertainly for some distance forked into two. By night country roads are apt to reveal ungainly qualities which pass without observation during day; and though Darton had travelled this way before, he had not done so frequently, Sally having been wooed at the house of a relative near his own. He never remembered seeing at this spot a pair of alternative ways looking so equally probable as these two did now. Johns rode on a few steps. ‘Don’t be out of heart, sonny,’ he cried. ‘Here’s a handpost. Enoch—come and climm this post, and tell us the way.’ The lad dismounted, and jumped into the hedge where the post stood under a tree. ‘Unstrap the baskets, or you’ll smash up that wine!’ cried Darton, as the young man began spasmodically to climb the post, baskets and all. ‘Was there ever less head in a brainless world?’ said Johns. ‘Here, simple Nocky, I’ll do it.’ He leapt off, and with much puffing climbed the post, striking a match when he reached the top, and moving the light along the arm, the lad standing and gazing at the spectacle. ‘I have faced tantalization these twenty years with a temper as mild as milk!’ said Japheth; ‘but such things as this don’t come short of devilry!’ And flinging the match away, he slipped down to the ground. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Darton. ‘Not a letter, sacred or heathen—not so much as would tell us the way to the great fireplace—ever I should sin to say it! Either the moss and mildew have eat away the words, or we have arrived in a land where the natyves have lost the art o’ writing, and should ha’ brought our compass like Christopher Columbus.’ ‘Let us take the straightest road,’ said Darton placidly; ‘I shan’t be sorry to get there—’tis a tiresome ride. I would have driven if I had known.’ ‘Nor I neither, sir,’ said Enoch. ‘These straps plough my shoulder like a zull. If ’tis much further to your lady’s home, Maister Darton, I shall ask to be let carry half of these good things in my innerds—hee, hee!’ ‘Don’t you be such a reforming radical, Enoch,’ said Johns sternly. ‘Here, I’ll take the turkey.’ This being done, they went forward by the right-hand lane, which ascended a hill, the left winding away under a plantation. The pit-a-pat of their horses’ hoofs lessened up the slope; and the ironical directing-post stood in solitude as before, holding out its blank arms to the raw breeze, which brought a snore from the wood as if Skrymir the Giant were sleeping there. CHAPTER II