Ravenshoe. Henry Kingsley

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      THE "WARREN HASTINGS."

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      Time, the inexorable, kept mowing away at poor Charles's flowers until the disagreeable old creature had cut them all down but two or three, and mowed right into the morning when it was necessary that he should go home; and then Charles, looking forward through his tears, could see nothing at first but the very commonest grass. For was he not going to leave Adelaide, probably never to see her again? In short, Charles was in love, and going to separate from the object of his affections for the first time; at which I request you not to laugh, but just reflect how old you were yourself when you first fell in love.

      The little flirt, she must have waited till she heard him coming out of his room, and then have pretended to be coming upstairs all in a hurry. He got a kiss or a dozen, though, and a lock of hair, I believe; but he hadn't much time to think about it, for Lord Ascot was calling out for him, and when he got into the hall, there was all the household to see him off. Everybody had a kind word for him; the old lady cried; Lord Saltire and the general shook hands; Lord Welter said it was a beastly sell; and Lord Ascot hummed and hawed, and told him to tell his father he had been a good boy. They were all sorry he was going, and he felt as though he was leaving old friends; but the carriage was there, and the rain was pouring down; and, with one last look at the group of faces, he was in the carriage and away.

      It was a terrible day, though he did not notice it at first. He was thinking how pleasant it was that the people were all so kind to him, just as kind as they were at home. He thought of Adelaide, and wondered whether she would ever think of him. He was rather glad that Welter was a naughty boy (not really naughty, you know), because she would be less likely to like him. And then he thought how glad the people at home would be to see him; and then he looked out of the window. He had left Lord Ascot's carriage and got into the train some time before this. Now he saw that the train was going very slowly, and nothing was visible through the driving rain. Then he tried to remember whether he had heard his father speak of Lord Saltire, and what he had heard about him; and thinking about this, the train stopped.—Swindon.

      He got out to go to the refreshment room, and began wondering what the noise was which prevented him from hearing any one when they spoke, and why the people looked scared, and talked in knots. Then he found that it was the wind in the roof; and some one told him that a chimney had been blown across the line, and they must wait till it was removed.

      All the day the brave engine fought westward against the wind, and two hours after time Charles found himself in the coach which would take him to Stonnington. The night crept on, and the coach crawled on its way through the terrible night, and Charles slept. In the cold pitiless morning, as they were going over a loftily exposed moor, the coach, though only going foot's pace, stood for a moment on two wheels, and then fell crashing over on to a heap of road-side stones, awaking Charles, who, being unhurt, lay still for a minute or so, with a faint impression of having been shaken in his sleep, and, after due reflection, made the brilliant discovery that the coach was upset.

      He opened the door over his head and jumped out. For an instant he was blinded by the stinging rain, but turned his back to it; and then, for the first time, he became aware that this was the most terrible gale of wind he had ever seen in his lifetime.

      He assisted the coachman and guard, and the solitary outside passenger, to lead the poor horses along the road. They fought on for about two hundred yards, and came to an alehouse, on the sight of which Charles knew that they were two stages short of where he thought they had been, for this was the Watershed Inn, and the rain from its roof ran partly into the Bristol Channel and partly into the British.

      After an hour's rest here Charles was summoned to join the coach in the valley below, and they crawled on again. It was a weary day over some very bleak country. They saw in one place a cottage unroofed on a moor, and the terrified family crouched down beneath the tottering walls. In the valleys great trees were down across the road, which were cross-cut and moved by country men, who told of oaks of three hundred years fallen in the night, and of corn stacks hurried before the blast like the leaves of autumn. Still, as each obstacle was removed, there was the guard up blowing his horn cheerily, and Charles was inside with a jump, and on they went.

      At last, at three o'clock, the coach drove under the gate of the "Chichester Arms," at Stonnington, and Charles, jumping out, was received by the establishment with the air of people who had done a clever thing, and were ready to take their meed of praise with humility. The handsome landlady took great credit to herself for Charles's arrival—so much so, that one would have thought she herself had singlehanded dragged the coach from Exeter. "She had been sure all along that Mr. Charles would come"—a speech which, with the cutting glance that accompanied it, goaded the landlord to retort in a voice wheezy with good living, and to remind her that she had said, not ten minutes before, that she was quite sure he wouldn't; whereupon the landlady loftily begged him not to expose himself before the servants. At which the landlord laughed, and choked himself; at which the landlady slapped him on the back, and laughed too; after which they went in.

      His father, the landlord told him, had sent his pony over, as he was afraid of a carriage on the moor to-day, and that, if he felt at all afraid to come on, he was to sleep where he was. Charles looked at the comfortable parlour and hesitated; but, happening to close his eyes an instant, he saw as plain as possible the library at home, and the flickering fire-light falling on the crimson and oak furniture, and his father listening for him through the roaring wind; and so he hesitated no longer, but said he would push on, and that he would wish to see his servant while he took dinner.

      The landlord eyed him admiringly with his head on one side, and proceeded to remark that corn was down another shilling; that Squire West had sold his chesnut mare for one hundred and twenty pounds; and that if he kept well under the walls going home he would be out of the wind; that his missis was took poorly in the night with spasms, and had been cured by two wine-glasses of peppermint; that a many chimney-pots was blown down, and that old Jim Baker had heard tell as a pig was blowed through a church window. After which he poked the fire and retired.

      Charles was hard at his dinner when his man came in. It was the oldest of the pad grooms—a man with grizzled hair, looking like a white terrier; and he stood before him smoothing his face with his hand.

      "Hallo, Michael," said Charley, "how came you to come?"

      "Master wouldn't send no other, sir. It's a awful day down there; there's above a hundred trees down along the road."

      "Shall we be able to get there?"

      "As much as we shall, sir."

      "Let us try. Terrible sea, I suppose?"

      "Awful to look at, sir. Mr. Mackworth and Mr. Cuthbert are down to look at it."

      "No craft ashore?"

      "None as yet. None of our boats is out. Yesterday morning a Pill boat, 52, stood in to see where she was, and beat out again, but that was before it came on so bad."

      So they started. They pushed rapidly out of the town, and up a narrow wooded valley which led to the moor which lay between them and Ravenshoe. For some time they were well enough sheltered, and made capital way, till the wood began to grow sparer, and the road to rise abruptly. Here the blast began to be more sensibly felt, and in a quarter of mile they had to leap three uprooted trees; before them they heard a rushing noise like the sea. It was the wind upon the moor.

      Creeping СКАЧАТЬ