The Narrative of Mr. James Rigby | Page 7

we could not arrive there before
the early evening of the following day, which would however give us

comfortable time for a good long night's rest before the morning's sport
opened. Fortunately I had plenty of loose cash with me, so that there
was nothing to delay us in that regard. We made ready in Dorrington's
rooms (he was a bachelor) in Conduit Street, and got off comfortably
by the ten o'clock train from Euston.
Then followed a most delightful eight days. The weather was fine, the
birds were plentiful, and my first taste of grouse-shooting was a
complete success. I resolved for the future to come out of my shell and
mix in the world that contained such charming fellows as Dorrington,
and such delightful sports as that I was then enjoying. But on the eighth
day Dorrington received a telegram calling him instantly to London.
"It's a shocking nuisance," he said; "here's my holiday either knocked
on the head altogether or cut in two, and I fear it's the first rather than
the second. It's just the way in such an uncertain profession as mine.
There's no possible help for it, however; I must go, as you'd understand
at once if you knew the case. But what chiefly annoys me is leaving
you all alone."
I reassured him on this point, and pointed out that I had for a long time
been used to a good deal of my own company. Though indeed, with
Dorrington away, life at the shooting lodge threatened to be less
pleasant than it had been.
"But you'll be bored to death here," Dorrington said, his thoughts
jumping with my own. "But on the other hand it won't be much good
going up to town yet. Everybody's out of town, and Mowbray among
them. There's a little business of ours that's waiting for him at the
moment -- my partner mentioned it in his letter yesterday. Why not put
in the time with a little tour round? Or you might work up to London
by irregular stages, and look about you. As an artist you'd like to see a
few of the old towns -- probably, Edinburgh, Chester, Warwick, and so
on. It isn't a great programme, perhaps, but I hardly know what else to
suggest. As for myself I must be off as I am by the first train I can get."
I begged him not to trouble about me, but to attend to his business. As a
matter of fact, I was disposed to get to London and take chambers, at

any rate for a little while. But Chester was a place I much wanted to see
-- a real old town, with walls round it -- and I was not indisposed to
take a day at Warwick. So in the end I resolved to pack up and make
for Chester the following day, and from there to take train for Warwick.
And in half an hour Dorrington was gone.
Chester was all delight to me. My recollections of the trip to Europe in
my childhood were vivid enough as to the misfortunes that followed
my father, but of the ancient buildings we visited I remembered little.
Now in Chester I found the mediaeval town I had so often read of. I
wandered for hours together in the quaint old "Rows," and walked on
the city wall. The evening after my arrival was fine and moonlight, and
I was tempted from my hotel. I took a stroll about the town and
finished by a walk along the wall from the Watergate toward the
cathedral. The moon, flecked over now and again by scraps of cloud,
and at times obscured for half a minute together, lighted up all the
Roodee in the intervals, and touched with silver the river beyond. But
as I walked I presently grew aware of a quiet shuffling footstep some
little way behind me. I took little heed of it at first, though I could see
nobody near me from whom the sound might come. But soon I
perceived that when I stopped, as I did from time to time to gaze over
the parapet, the mysterious footsteps stopped also, and when I resumed
my walk the quiet shuffling tread began again. At first I thought it
might be an echo; but a moment's reflection dispelled that idea. Mine
was an even, distinct walk, and this which followed was a soft, quick,
shuffling step -- a mere scuffle. Moreover, when, by way of test, I took
a few silent steps on tip-toe, the shuffle still persisted. I was being
followed.
Now I do not know whether or not it may sound like a childish fancy,
but I confess I thought of my father. When last I had been in England,
as