R. DENIS O'HALLORAN paused in the shelter of the inn porch, clasping his long horseman's cloak about him. He was a man below the middle height and of a spare and active figure. His expression was resolute and his eyes of a merry audacity. The light from behind him threw his shadow in gigantic relief upon the spreading puddles of the highway. Above him the gale roistered among the chimneys and gables of the old house. An April moon, sailing dear in a hurrying sky, showed him where, to the southward, his road crept up from the village into the shadows of the hills.
"'Tis no night for travelers, sir," said the landlord, pushing forward. "A young gentleman would be safer employed with a bowl of punch, or it might be a spike of mulled claret, than in riding the moors."
"Safer, ye say?" The brogue betrayed him.
Indeed, sir," urged the landlord, "if you were of this country you would know that we have been much plagued of late by knaves that the late unhappy rebellion has let loose upon us. 'Twas not a week since that Sir Francis Grove, of Oakdale, was waylaid."
"Pish, man, I know ye've a bed to let," grinned Mr. O'Halloran.
"There be yet worse things than a cut-purse," said the landlord, wagging his head.
"Faith, but I'd make their acquaintance."
"The powers of evil, young gentleman. For when a body is freshly swung by the Beacon Hill, which I would have you remember that you must pass, there have been substantial folk come riding here, calling loudly for strong drink and telling of things that crouched beneath the tree like toads, and things that screamed and chattered in the air. The Lord preserve us."
"Let me be plain with ye, landlord," said Mr. O'Halloran. "On to York I must. As f'r what I may meet by the way, I take it that a sword an' pistol will serve f'r the wan and a clane conscience f'r the other. My horse, if ye plase."
"'Tis here, sir, 'tis here," said the landlord. He bustled out into the road as he spoke, waving an arm to an advancing hostler.
Denis O'Halloran rode swiftly through the village street, easing his mount as he met the shoulder of the hill. To right and left, as his horse stumbled and grunted up the ill-kept road, there spread a succession of vast and melancholy moorlands that rose and fell in long undulations until they were merged in the gloom of the middle distance. From the ridges above him the gusts swooped down in sudden squalls like the firing of cannon. Not a cottage, not a barn, nor any creature that might house therein, was to be seen. Bold as he might be, his courage did not save him from uneasy glances toward the shifting pools of shadow which the scattered bushes threw upon the track. It was an age when the wayfarer had still to rely upon his own weapon for safety, and he knew that after nightfall such waste places must have their perils.
He reached the crown of the hill and pushed forward at a livelier gait. It was a rolling country, however, and within a mile he found himself descending a sharp incline into a valley deep in shadow. Once his hand slipped round to his sword; but it was no more than the cry of a distant owl, and he was jeering at himself for a coward as his horse stumbled among the bowlders of a ford and breasted the opposing slope.
The wind was still blowing in fitful gusts, but the high crest of the hill, beneath which he now found himself, afforded him an absolute shelter. Moreover, it hid the moon. Silence on a solitary and dangerous way is ever suggestive in its possibilities. He found himself leaning forward with eager ears. Suddenly he drew rein, cocking his head with a queer trick he had, like a dog at a door. From somewhere beyond the bend of the road there came a faint sound as of metal on metal or metal on stone. Yet it was neither beat of hoof nor clink of stirrup iron.
For man Denis O'Halloran had little fear. He had already acquired some reputation in campaigns under an alien flag. But it was a superstitious age and he came of a superstitious people. The tales of the landlord had not left him unaffected. Therefore, when pushing warily forward he rounded the spur of the hill into the full light of the moon, the spectacle which met his gaze shook his heart into his mouth and his hand to the pistol in his holster.