He was
making, no doubt, for the little glen up which I fancied that he must
have retreated on the first occasion when saw him. I set off walking
round the tarn on my own side--the left side--expecting to anticipate
him, and that he must pass me on his way up the little burnside. But I
had miscalculated the distance, or the pace. He was first at the
burnside; and now I cast courtesy and everything but curiosity to the
winds, and deliberately followed him. He was a few score of yards ahead
of me, walking rapidly, when he suddenly climbed the burnside to the
left, and was lost to my eyes for a few moments. I reached the place,
ascended the steep green declivity and found myself on the open
undulating moor, with no human being in sight!
The grass and heather were short. I saw no bush, no hollow, where he
could by any possibility have hidden himself. Had he met a Boojum he
could not have more "softly and suddenly vanished away."
I make no pretence of being more courageous than my neighbours, and, in
this juncture, perhaps I was less so. The long days of loneliness in
waste Glen Aline, and too many solitary cigarettes, had probably injured
my nerve. So, when I suddenly heard a sigh and the half-smothered sound
of a convulsive cough-hollow, if ever a cough was hollow--hard by me, at
my side as it were, and yet could behold no man, nor any place where a
man might conceal himself--nothing but moor and sky and tufts of
rushes--then I turned away, and walked down the glen: not slowly.
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