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Updated: June 29, 2025
Let the wind blow from this quarter never so fiercely, in the steep lanes under the seaward edge of the moor a man could hear it screaming overhead and laugh at it, lighting his pipe. The sound of hoofs and wheels died away down the westward road. Doctor Unonius, with face set for home, pursed his mouth and inaudibly whistled a tune, 'In the month of November, in the year 'fifty-two.
There was a yell of pain, a wild curse, a scuttering of hoofs, and the old horse, unaccustomed to the whip and well-nigh scared out of his senses, plunged forward into the night. For a minute or so Doctor Unonius, as he called to Dapple and plied the whip, fancied that in the intervals of these encouragements he caught the sound of footsteps pursuing him down the hard road.
'Honest men don't put on women's clothes to tramp the moors at night, Doctor Unonius objected. 'Well, I don't see that it mightn't happen. A man having this money to carry, and afraid of being robbed, might put it to himself that rough characters specially gipsies often let a woman pass where they'd attack a man.
Doctor Unonius sighed. He had designed to spend the evening on his treatise. But he cherished a real regard for Sir John, whom all the countryside esteemed for a sportsman and an upright English gentleman; and Sir John, who, without learning of his own, held learning in exaggerated respect, cherished an equal regard for the doctor. 'My compliments to your master.
'To be sure, the widow squared her chin and glanced at Doctor Unonius defiantly 'and what should the doctor be doing here except attending on the sick? And where should my poor maid Tryphena be lying at this moment but upstairs and in bed with the colic?
Doctor Unonius stood for half a minute or so and gazed out with his forehead pressed to the pane. Then he closed the shutter again, let fall the curtain, and with a slight shiver went back to the fireplace. He had picked up a pair of tongs and was stooping to pick up the charred ends of wood and pile them to revive the blaze, when another sound fetched him upright again.
In ten minutes or so they'll be wanting your blood in a bottle and, if it's all the same to you, Mr Truman, I'd rather they didn't start hunting you through these premises. What's more, she added, as he hesitated, 'the riding-officer was close on your track just now. You owe it to Doctor Unonius here, that he has overrun it. The butcher clutched at his bag, and made as if to open it.
The stranger climbed out and stood beside the step, with one hand holding on to the edge of the footboard. 'Come, hand me down my bag. For answer Doctor Unonius lifted his foot and brought it down suddenly on the hand, grinding his heel into the fingers. At the same moment the whiplash fell over Dapple's haunches.
Here of a sudden it occurred to Doctor Unonius that the man, though travelling alone, might be travelling to meet accomplices; and these accomplices might be hiding around and waiting, even at this moment. He remembered that beyond the white gate a short farm-road led around to the back entrance of the building.
At all events, neither one nor the other uttered a sound. Doctor Unonius, wrenching a lamp from its socket, walked boldly forward at Dapple's bit and, coming to the back entrance by the midden-yard, knocked boldly. To his surprise, within a few seconds a faint light shone through the chink by the door-jamb, and he heard a footstep coming down the passage.
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