THE LAST drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the Pedestrian stuffed his map into, his pocket settled. His pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders and stepped, out from the shelter of a large chestnut tree into the middle. Of the road. A violent yellow sunset was pouring through a rift in the clouds, to westwardBut straight ahead over the hills the sky was the colour of Dark Slate. Every tree and blade of grass, was dripping and. The road shone like a river. The Pedestrian wasted no time on the landscape but set out at once with the determined stride. Of a good walker who has lately realized that he will have to walk farther than he intended. That indeed was,, his situation.If he had chosen to, look back which he did not he could, have seen the spire of Much Nadderby and seeing it might,,,, Have uttered a malediction on the inhospitable little hotel which though empty had, obviously, refused him a bed. The place. Had changed hands since he last went for a walking tour in these parts.The kindly old landlord on whom he had reckoned had been replaced by someone whom the barmaid referred to as', the lady '. And the lady was apparently a British innkeeper of that orthodox school who regard guests as a nuisance. His only chance. Now was Sterk on the, far side of, the hills and a good six miles away. The map marked an inn at Sterk.The Pedestrian was too experienced to build any very sanguine hopes, on this but there seemed nothing else within range.
He. Walked, fairly fast and doggedly without looking, much about him like a, man trying to shorten the way with some interesting. Train of thought. He, was tall but a little round - shouldered about thirty-five, to forty years, of ageAnd dressed with that particular kind of shabbiness which marks a member of the intelligentsia on a holiday. He might. Easily have been mistaken for a doctor or a schoolmaster at first sight though he, had not the man-of-the-world air of the. One or the indefinable breeziness of the other. In fact he was, a philologist and fellow, of a Cambridge college. His name. Was Ransom.
.He had hoped when he left Nadderby that he might find a night 's lodging at some friendly farm before he had walked as far. As Sterk. But the land this side of the hills seemed almost uninhabited. It was, a desolate featureless sort of country. Mainly devoted to cabbage, and turnip with poor hedges and few trees.It attracted no visitors like the richer country south of Nadderby and it was protected by the hills from the industrial. Areas beyond Sterk. As the evening drew in and the noise of the birds came to an end it grew more silent than an English. Landscape usually is. The noise of his own feet on the metalled road became irritating.
.He had walked thus for a matter of two miles when he became aware of a light ahead. He was close under the hills by now. And it was, nearly dark so that he still cherished hopes of a substantial farmhouse until he was quite close to the real. Origin of, the light which proved to be a very small cottage of ugly nineteenth-century brick.A woman darted out of the open doorway as he approached it and almost collided with him.
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