“Jove!” he muttered.  “Not a moment too soon—­this holiday!”

Then, hat in hand, he started down the hill.

It was a long hill, very long, much longer than it had any need or right to be.  It had a twist in its nature which would not allow it to run straight.  It meandered; it hesitated; it never knew its own mind, but twisted and turned and thought better of it a dozen times in half a mile.  It was a hill with short cuts favourably known to small boys and to tramps with a distaste for highways; but this tramp, not being a real one, knew none of them, and was compelled to do exactly as the hill did.  The result was, that when at last it slipped into the cool shade of a row of beeches at its base, its victim was as exhausted as itself.

He was thirsty, too, and, worse still, he knew from a certain dizzy blindness that one of his bad headaches was coming on—­and there still lay another mile between him and the town.  Pressing his hand against his eyes to restore for the moment their normal clearness of vision, he saw, a short way down the road, a gate; and through the gate and behind some trees, the white gleam of a building.  But better than all, he saw, between the gate and the building, a red pump!  Then the blindness and pain descended again, and he stumbled on more by faith than by sight; blundering through the half-open gate, his precarious course directed wholly by the pump’s exceeding redness, which shone like a beacon fire ahead.

Fortunately, it was a real pump with real water and a sucker in good standing, warranted to need no priming.  At the stroke of the red handle the good, cool water gurgled and arose with a delightful “plop!” It splashed from the spout freely upon the face and hands of the victim of the long hill—­delicious, life-giving!  The delight it brought seemed compensation almost for heat and pain and weariness.  Callandar felt that if he could only let its sweetness stream indefinitely over his closed eyes it would wash away the blindness and the ache.  Perhaps—­

“I am afraid I cannot allow you to use this pump!” said a crisp voice primly.  “This is not,” with capital letters, “a Public Pump!”

Callandar wiped the surplus water from his face and looked up.  There, beside him in the yellow haze of his semi-blindness, stood the owner of the voice.  She appeared to be clothed in white, tall and commanding.  Surrounded by the luminous mist, her appearance was not unlike that of a cool and capable avenging angel.

“This pump,” went on the angel with nice precision, “is not for the use of pedestrians.”

“Ah!” said the pedestrian.

“If you will continue down the road,” the voice went on, “you will find, when you reach the town, a public pump.  You may use that.”

The pedestrian, feeling dizzier than ever, sat down upon the pump platform.  It was wet and cool.

“The objection to that,” he said wisely, “is simple.  I cannot continue down the road.”