In London I bought a good horse, through the kind offices of the host of my inn, and on the morrow at daybreak I set out upon the Ipswich road. That very morning my last adventure befell me, for as I jogged along musing of the beauty of the English landscape and drinking in the sweet air of June, a cowardly thief fired a pistol at me from behind a hedge, purposing to plunder me if I fell. The bullet passed through my hat, grazing the skull, but before I could do anything the rascal fled, seeing that he had missed his mark, and I went on my journey, thinking to myself that it would indeed have been strange, if after passing such great dangers in safety, I had died at last by the hand of a miserable foot-pad within five miles of London town.
I rode hard all that day and the next, and my horse being stout and swift, by half-past seven o’clock of the evening I pulled up upon the little hill whence I had looked my last on Bungay, when I rode thence for Yarmouth with my father. Below me lay the red roofs of the town; there to the right were the oaks of Ditchingham and the beautiful tower of St. Mary’s Church, yonder the stream of Waveney wandered, and before me stretched the meadow lands, purple and golden with marsh weeds in bloom. All was as it had been, I could see no change at all, the only change was in myself. I dismounted, and going to a pool of water near the roadway I looked at the reflection of my own face. I was changed indeed, scarcely should I have known it for that of the lad who had ridden up this hill some twenty years ago. Now, alas! the eyes were sunken and very sorrowful, the features were sharp, and there was more grey than black in the beard and hair. I should scarcely have known it myself, would any others know it, I wondered? Would there be any to know it indeed? In twenty years many die and others pass out of sight; should I find a friend at all among the living? Since I read the letters which Captain Bell of the ‘Adventuress’ had brought me before I sailed for Hispaniola, I had heard no tidings from my home, and what tidings awaited me now? Above all what of Lily, was she dead or married or gone?
Mounting my horse I pushed on again at a canter, taking the road past Waingford Mills through the fords and Pirnhow town, leaving Bungay upon my left. In ten minutes I was at the gate of the bridle path that runs from the Norwich road for half a mile or more beneath the steep and wooded bank under the shelter of which stands the Lodge at Ditchingham. By the gate a man loitered in the last rays of the sun. I looked at him and knew him; it was Billy Minns, that same fool who had loosed de Garcia when I left him bound that I might run to meet my sweetheart. He was an old man now and his white hair hung about his withered face, moreover he was unclean and dressed in rags, but I could have fallen on his neck and embraced him, so rejoiced was I to look once more on one whom I had known in youth.
Seeing me come he hobbled on his stick to the gate to open it for me, whining a prayer for alms.
‘Does Mr. Wingfleld live here?’ I said, pointing up the path, and my breath came quick as I asked.
‘Mr. Wingfield, sir, Mr. Wingfield, which of them?’ he answered. ‘The old gentleman he’s been dead nigh upon twenty years. I helped to dig his grave in the chancel of yonder church I did, we laid him by his wife–her that was murdered. Then there’s Mr. Geoffrey.’
‘What of him?’ I asked.
‘He’s dead, too, twelve year gone or more; he drank hisself to dead he did. And Mr. Thomas, he’s dead, drowned over seas they say, many a winter back; they’re all dead, all dead! Ah! he was a rare one, Mr. Thomas was; I mind me well how when I let the furriner go–‘ and he rambled off into the tale of how he had set de Garcia on his horse after I had beaten him, nor could I bring him back from it.