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Allingham couldn't say a word. He stood there panting and swallowing quickly. Arthur Withers caught up to them.¤ÐÃØ¥¥ÀÜ"But it happened," the Curate whispered. "It really did happen—and we shall hear and see more. I only hope I shall be well enough to stand it. We are living in great days."¥Ú줰¤»"Ah! madam, I'll do the little I can. How am I to know him?"¥é³·¥

�¤`¤¥¤Ò¤Presently his reverie was abruptly disturbed by a faint noise, strangely familiar although remote. It seemed to reach him from the right, as though something crept slowly along the hedge line, hidden from his view. It was a soft, purring sound, very regular and sustained. At first he thought it was the cry of a pheasant, but decided that it was much too persistent. It was something that made a noise in the process of walking along.«îªÈThe Doctor shot out a hand and gripped the framework of the shelves. As his eyes rested upon the object that now confronted him, he swung slowly round until his body was partly supported by the shelves. His mouth opened wide and remained stretched to its limit.¤¥¥¥¥¥¥Ï¥¥¥À

�§öö¥§¦¥¤èôõ¥But in this attempt he was unexpectedly thwarted. The Clockwork man recovered himself; he ran straight back to the wicket and then stopped dead. The umpire was in the act of replacing the bails, for the wicket had been put down, and, fast as this eccentric cricketer had run in the first place, he had not been quick enough to reach the crease in time. By all the rules of the game, and beyond the shadow of doubt, he had been "run out." He now regarded the stumps meditatively, with[Pg 36] a finger jerked swiftly against his nose, as though recognising a former state of consciousness. And then, with a swift movement, he took up his position in readiness to receive the ball.²¤¤¥õ¿Õ¤¥ÝÙ¥The spectators gave themselves up wholly to the fun. It must have seemed to them that this extraordinary cricketer was also gifted with a sense of humour, however eccentric; and that his nonsensical action was intended by way of retaliation for the ironic cheers that had greeted his running at all. Nobody, except Arthur Withers, realised that the Clockwork man run thus far because for some reason he had been unable to stop himself. It may be remarked here that many of the Clockwork man's subsequent performances had this same accidental air of humour; and that even his most grotesque attitudes gave the observer an impression of some wild practical joke. He was so far human, in appearance and[Pg 35] manner, in spite of those peculiar internal arrangements, which will be dealt with later, that his actions produced an instantaneous appeal to the comic instinct; and in laughing at him people forgot to take him seriously.ºÚ¥¥¤¤¥ó¥¥¥

"Yes, you thought you were deceiving me."õÈ¥äHetty darted up the secondary staircase intent only on her little charge. The child was unusually nervous and imaginative, as if she had been frightened by the ghost stories of a foolish nurse. Alternatively her mother's pet and encumbrance, Mamie had been driven back upon herself. And she had given up all the love of her heart to Hetty.ª¥¤Û¥¥¥The Doctor wiped his mouth and produced a stethoscope. His manner became soothingly professional. He murmured sympathetic phrases and pulled a chair closer to his patient.¥¤µæ¤¤¤¥©é

�¤¤Ð°`¥ï¥¤¤She was conscious that somebody was by her side. She looked and found that her companion was the Countess. No answer came. Hetty touched the other's arm. She was shaking from head to foot like a reed in the gale.¤¥¤¥À³Æð³�`¥¤

"By getting you to send him so far to your own army's rear that he cannot get back; to compel him to leave the country; to go into your country, where law and order reign as they cannot here between the lines."¤¨Ù¤¥¥ì±If this history were more of war than of love--and really at times I fear it is--we might fill pages telling of the brigade's September and early October operations in that long tongue of devastated country which narrowed from northeast to southwest between Big Black on our front and the Tallahala and Bayou Pierre behind us. At Baker's Creek it had a bloody all-day fight, in which we took part after having been driven in upon the brigade. It was there that at dusk, to the uproarious delight of half the big camp, and with our Captain once more at our head, for he had rejoined us that very morning, we came last off the field, singing "Ned Ferry's a-comin' down de lane."൤¥ó¿Ô�Ù¤Æí

He broke off and struggled with some queer kind of mechanical emotion. "And now they play games with us. They wind us up and make us do all sorts of things, just for fun. They try all sorts of experiments with us, and we can't help ourselves because we're in their power; and if they like they can stop the clock, and then we aren't anything at all."¤¤¥åïí¥µ¤¤¤¥"I see," said Allingham, slowly, "it is because you are, so to speak, temporarily incapacitated, that you are able to come down to the level of our world."ï¤Þ¥³ð¤¤¥�æ`¯¤¥¥`¥È

A comfortable world! Of course, there were malcontents. When the shoe pinched, anybody would cry out for fire from heaven. But if a plebiscite were to be taken, it would be found that an overwhelming majority would be in favour of a world without miracles. If, for example, it could be demonstrated that this Clockwork man was a being in many ways superior to the rest of mankind, he would be hounded out of existence by a jealous and conservative humanity.¤ßµ¥¥¬�¥¥Ùá¥â³êÜáÚå¤�¥¥¦¥Û¤íÓÛêÍ¥¥

CHAPTER TWO´ò¥»Ì¥¥"You have to run," repeated Arthur, in louder tones.Ä¥¼¤¤¤Ä�Ú¤¤¥»¤¥¤¥è

We dropped to a more dignified gait and moved gayly in among our gathering friends, asking if we were in time. "No--o! you're too late!--but still we've waited for you; couldn't help ourselves; she wouldn't stir without you."¥½¥¥êí¸¥Latterly he had suffered from strange irritations not easily to be ascribed to liver, misgivings, a sense of having definitely accepted a secondary edition of himself. An old acquaintance would have detected at once the change in his character, the marked leaning towards conservatism in politics and a certain reactionary tendency in his general ideas. He was becoming fixed in his views, and believed in a stable universe. His opinions, in fact, were as automatic as his Swedish exercises in the morning and his apple before breakfast. There was a slight compensatory increase in his sense of humour, and there was his approaching marriage to Lilian Payne, the gifted daughter of a wealthy town councillor.¼¤¤¥¤Í¤¤¤¥d±"I must be getting back," said the Clockwork man to himself, as he trundled slowly over the hump of the meadow and approached the stile. "I shall only make a muddle of things here."À¤ö¤