the Horn in a tramp steamer, but when he shaved off his beard,
and put on silk underclothing and the tweeds of Sackville Street,
he grew as lazy as any flaneur of the pavement. Gaston however
was not sympathetic. He was always glad when anything unpleasant
happened to his master.

Leaving Gaston to sit on the luggage, Lawrence swung off with his
long even stride, flicking with his stick at the bachelor's
buttons in the hedge. He could not miss his way, said the
station master: straight down the main road for a couple of
miles, then the first turning on the left and the first on the
left again. Some half a mile out of Countisford however Lawrence
came on a signpost and with the traveller's instinct stopped to
read it:

WINCANTON 8 M.
CASTLE WHARTON 3 1/2 M.
CHILMARK 3 M.

So ran the clear lettering on the southern arm. Eastwards a much
more weatherbeaten arm, pointing crookedly up a stony cart track,
said in dim brown characters: "CHILMARK 2 M." Plainly a short cut
over the moor! Better stones underfoot than padded dust: and
Lawrence struck uphill swiftly, glad to escape from the traffic
of the London road. But he knew too much about short cuts to be
surprised when, after climbing five hundred feet in twice as many
yards--for the gradients off the Plain are steep--he found
himself adrift on the open moor, his track going five ways at
once in the light dry grass.