Now it seemed to me that I was back upon the road, standing once
more beside the great oak-tree. And, as I watched, a small,
hunched figure crept from the jagged opening in the trunk, a
figure with a jingling pack upon its back, at sight of which I
turned and ran, filled with an indescribable terror. But, as I
went, the Tinker's pack jingled loud behind me, and when I
glanced back, I saw that he ran with head dangling in most
hideous fashion, and that his right hand grasped a razor. On I
sped faster and faster, but with the Tinker ever at my heels,
until I had reached this tavern; the door crashed to, behind me,
only just in time, and I knew, as I lay there, that he was
standing outside, in the moonlight, staring up at my casement
with his horrible, dead face.
Here I very mercifully awoke, and lay, for a while, blinking in
the ghostly radiance of the moon, which was flooding in at the
window directly upon me. Now whether it was owing to the
vividness of my dream, I know not, but as I lay, there leapt up
within me a sudden conviction that somebody was indeed standing
outside in the lane, staring up at my window. So firmly was I
convinced of this that, moved by a sudden impulse, I rose, and,
cautiously approaching the window, peered out. And there, sure
enough, his feet planted wide apart, his hands behind his back,
stood a man staring up at my window. His head was thrown back so
that I could see his face distinctly a fleshy face with small,
close-set eyes and thick lips, behind which I caught the gleam of
big, white teeth. This was no tinker, but as I looked, I
recognized him as the slenderer of the two "Corinthians" with
whom I had fallen out at "The Chequers." Hereupon I got me back
to bed, drowsily wondering what should bring the fellow hanging
about a dilapidated hedge-tavern at such an hour. But gradually
my thoughts grew less coherent, my eyes closed, and in another
moment I should have been asleep, when I suddenly came to my
elbow, broad awake and listening, for I had heard two sounds, the
soft creak of a window opened cautiously near by, and a stealthy
footstep outside my door.