Читать книгу The Haunted Room: A Tale - A. L. O. E. - Страница 9

On the following day Emmie, escorted by Vibert and attended by Susan, started for her new home. Almost at the last moment Mr. Trevor found that important business would, for another day, delay his own departure; but all arrangements for the general move having been made, he would not defer it, preferring for the single night to sleep at a hotel in London.

The bustle of departure took from its pain; Emmie left her dear old home without a tear, though not without a sigh of regret. Vibert was in high spirits, for novelty has its charm, especially to a temperament such as his. Mr. Trevor had given to each of his sons a fishing-rod and a gun; and Vibert was already, in imagination, a first-rate angler and sportsman. It would have been difficult to have been dull in Vibert’s company during the journey. Sporting anecdotes, stories of adventures encountered by others, and anticipations of future ones of his own, interspersed with many a jest, amused not only Vibert’s sister, but their fellow-travellers in the same railway-carriage. The youth had none of his elder brother’s reserve, and took pleasure in attracting the notice of strangers, having a pleasant consciousness that in his case notice was likely to imply admiration also.

“That handsome lad seems to look on life as one long holiday, to be passed under unclouded sunshine,” thought a withered old gentleman, who looked as if all his days had been spent in a fog. “Poor boy! poor boy! he will soon be roused, by stern experience, from the pleasant dream in which he indulges now!”

About half-an-hour before sunset, the train in which the Trevors were making their journey approached the station of S – , the one at which they were to alight.

“Your new pony-chaise is to meet us, Emmie, so papa arranged,” observed Vibert; “but it must be a commodious chaise if it is to accommodate four persons, and all our lots of luggage. There are three boxes and a carpet-bag of mine in the van, besides I know not how many of yours. Then look here,” – Vibert glanced at the numerous et ceteras which showed that the young travellers had understood how to make themselves comfortable; “here’s a shawl, and a rug, and foot-warmer, a basket, a bag, three umbrellas, and a parasol, my hat-box, and a fishing-rod besides! Are all to be stowed away in the chaise? If so, it will need nice packing.”

“Bruce was to order a fly,” said Emmie.

“If he was to do it, he has done it,” observed Vibert; “one may count upon him as upon a church-clock. Now if I had had the arranging, I should have been so much taken up with trying the new pony-chaise, that I should have forgotten all about the old rattle-trap needed to carry the boxes. I wish that we had riding-horses. I shall never give papa peace till he buys me a hunter.”

The shrill railway whistle gave notice of approach to a station; the train slackened its speed, and then stopped; doors were flung open, and a number of passengers soon thronged the platform of S – .

“There is Bruce; he is looking out for us!” cried Emmie, as she stepped on the platform.

“Where is the pony-chaise?” asked Vibert, addressing his brother, who immediately joined the party. Susan was left to collect, as best she might, the numerous articles left in the railway-carriage.

“A lad is holding the pony just outside the station, and the fly is in waiting also,” was the answer of Bruce. “Where is the luggage, Vibert? the train only stops for five minutes at S – .”

“Susan will tell you all about it,” cried Vibert; “I’ve a bag and three boxes, one of them a gun-case, stowed away in the van. Mind that nothing is missing. Come, Emmie, I must get you out of the crowd,” and, drawing his sister’s arm within his own, Vibert rapidly made his way to the outside of the station, where a pretty basket-chaise, drawn by a white pony, was waiting.

“In with you, quick, Emmie!” cried Vibert, with the eager impatience of one about to effect an escape. No sooner had the young lady taken her seat than Vibert sprang in after her, seized the reins, caught up the whip, and calling to the lad who had acted as hostler, “My brother will pay you,” gave a sharp cut to the pony, which made the spirited little animal bound forward at a speed which raised a feeling of alarm in the timorous Emmie.

“Stop, Vibert, stop! you must not drive off; you must wait for Bruce!” she exclaimed.

“I’ll wait for no one!” cried Vibert, still briskly plying the whip. “Bruce would be wanting to drive; but this time he has lost the chance, – ha! ha! ha! There’s my brave little pony, does he not go at a spanking pace?”

“I wish that you would not drive so fast, it frightens me!” cried Emmie.

“Frightens you! nonsense, you little coward! Don’t you see that thick bank of clouds in which the sun is setting? We’ll have a thunderstorm soon, and that will frighten you more.”

“Oh, I hope and trust that the storm will not burst till we reach shelter!” cried Emmie, whose dread of thunder and lightning is already known to the reader.

“We are running a race with it, and we’ll be at the winning-post first!” exclaimed Vibert, who was enjoying the excitement, and who was rather amused than vexed to see his sister’s alarm.

“But, Vibert, you don’t even know the way to Myst Court! Oh, I wish that you had waited for Bruce!”

It had never occurred to the thoughtless lad that he might be driving in a wrong direction; so long as the pony went as fast as Vibert wished, he had taken it for granted that Myst Court would soon be reached. The station had been left far behind; the road was lonesome and wild; only one solitary boy was in sight; he was engaged in picking up boughs and twigs which a recent gale had blown down from the trees which bordered the way.

“We’ll ask yonder bare-footed bundle of rags to direct us,” said Vibert, and he drew up the panting pony when he reached the spot where the boy was standing.

“I say, young one, which is the way to Myst Court?” asked Vibert in a tone of command.

The boy stared at him, as if unaccustomed to the sight of strangers.

“Are we on the right road to the large house where Mrs. Myers used to live?” inquired Emmie.

“Ay, ay, but you’ll have to turn down yon lane just by the stile there,” said the urchin, pointing with his brown finger, and grinning as if a chaise with a lady in it were a rare and curious sight.

“I don’t believe that the rustic could have told us whether to turn to left or right,” said Vibert, as he whipped on the pony. “If he’s a fair specimen of my father’s tenants, we shall feel as if we had dropped down on the Fiji Islands.”

The direction given by the finger was, however, perfectly clear, and the Trevors were soon driving along a picturesque lane, where trees, still gay with autumnal tints, overarched the narrow way, and with their brown and golden leaves carpeted the sod beneath them.

“What a pretty rural lane!” exclaimed Emmie, as the chaise first turned off from the high-road; but admiration was soon forgotten in discomfort and fear. The lane was apparently not intended as a thoroughfare for carriages, at least in the season of winter. The ground was miry and boggy, and the pony with difficulty dragged the chaise. There were violent jerks when one side or other dropped into one of the deep ruts left by the wheels of the last cart that had passed that way. Vibert plied the whip more vigorously than before, and silenced his sister’s remonstrances by remarking how darkly the clouds were gathering in the evening sky. Young Trevor was but an inexperienced driver, and ever and anon the chaise was jolted violently over some loose stones, or driven so near to the hedge that Emmie had to bend sideways to avoid being struck by straggling bramble or branch. She mentally resolved never again to trust herself to Vibert’s driving.

“Will this lane never come to an end?” exclaimed Emmie, as the first heavy drop from an overshadowing mass of dark cloud fell on her knee. She was but imperfectly protected from rain; for Vibert, in his haste to dash off from the station before his brother could join him, had never thought of taking with him either umbrella or shawl for his sister.

“Here comes the rain with a vengeance, and this stupid beast flounders in the mud as if it were dragging a cannon instead of a chaise,” cried Vibert. “These country lanes drive one out of all patience! Ha! there’s the rumbling of distant thunder!”

“Oh! I trust that we shall reach home soon,” exclaimed Emmie, who, exposed to the heavy downpour, shivered alike from cold and from fear.

“I suspect that we shall never reach home at all by this lane,” said Vibert. “Take my word for it, that little wretch has directed us wrong; I have a great mind to turn the pony round, and get back to the high-road.”

“You can’t turn, the lane is too narrow; you would land us in the hedge!” exclaimed Emmie, who thought that the attempt would inevitably lead to an upset of the chaise. On struggled the steaming pony, down poured the pattering rain; Vibert, almost blinded by the shower and the gathering darkness, could scarcely see the road before him.

“The longest lane has a turning, – there is an opening before us at last!” exclaimed the young driver, as a turn in the winding road brought a highway to view. “We shall reach Myst Court like two drowned rats. Why on earth did you not bring an umbrella, Emmie? I could not think of everything at once.” Vibert had, indeed, thought but of himself.

The want of an umbrella was to Emmie by no means the worst part of her troubles; she was afraid that her brother had indeed been misdirected, and that they might be lost and benighted in a part of the country where they as yet were strangers, exposed to the perils of a thunderstorm, from which the nervous girl shrank with instinctive terror. Emmie had never hitherto even attempted to overcome her fear; and though her uncle’s words now recurred to her mind, the idea of encountering a thunderstorm after nightfall, without even a roof to protect her, put to flight any good resolutions that those words might have roused in her mind.

“There was a flash!” exclaimed Emmie, starting and putting her hands before her eyes. She pressed closer to her brother as if for protection.

“We shall have more soon; the storm comes nearer,” was the little comforting reply of Vibert. As he ended the sentence, the thunder-clap followed the flash. The pony pricked up his ears, and quickened his pace.

“I am glad that we are out of this miserable mouse-hole at last,” cried Vibert, pulling the left rein sharply as the light vehicle emerged from the narrow, miry lane into the broad and comparatively smooth highway.

At this moment the darkening landscape was suddenly lighted up by a flash intensely bright, followed almost immediately by a peal over the travellers’ heads. The terrified Emmie shrieked, and, losing all presence of mind, caught hold of her brother’s arm. The sharp turning out of the lane, the pony’s start at the flash, and the sudden grasp on the driver’s arm, acting together, had the effect which might have been expected. Down went pony and chaise, down went driver and lady, precipitated into the ditch which bordered the high-road.