UNCLE JASPER.
ByALICE KING.
I
made my way forward as quickly as I could, endeavouring, as I went, to make believe in my own mind that I was not much frightened, and did not very much dislike the whole situation—in fact, that it was rather an amusing and interesting one. But, after all, it was an extremely poor, thin make-belief indeed. The darkness grew thicker and thicker, the outlines of surrounding objects more and more indistinct; the wind rose higher and higher, and went sweeping by with a wild, dreary wail; the rain began to stream down as if a couple of rivers or more were being emptied from the sky on to the earth. I had brought no waterproof with me, I had only on a mantle of light summer cloth, and, as well may be supposed, I was soon enjoying the comfortable certainty that I was getting wet through as rapidly as I could. Yes, there was no denying it; it would decidedly be better to be in bed than here, even if I was expecting next morning the arrival of the ugliest ogre uncle that ever appeared in a fairy tale.
I felt a most real and lively inclination to sit down and cry; but as there were some small shreds of heroism still hanging about me, I did not do it—I persevered onward, instead. Things were, however, becoming most uncompromisingly worse and worse. Hitherto there had been at the side of the road fences of some kind, the dim outlines of which had been, in a certain degree, a guide to me; but now I had got out on to an open common, where there was nothing round me save an expanse of what seemed immeasurable darkness, and where the wind and the rain beat upon me more violently and pitilessly than ever. I soon became aware, too, of another very unpleasant fact: I had evidently got off the road, for I could feel the damp, spongy-ground of the common underneath my feet. I tried to find my way back to it, but all in vain; I seemed only to get into wetter and less solid ground.
It was so dark now, I was so completely enveloped in thickest blackness, that I could not have seen even a stone wall had it been in front of me; but it would have been some consolation, some reassurance, only to have felt it when I stretched out my hand before me; instead of that, however, when I extended my arm it went groping about helplessly in illimitable space. The storm appeared to be finding a cruel pleasure in playing me all sorts of unkind tricks, for now it flung the folds of my mantle over my head, and now it poured a waterspout down my back. The ground under my feet was growing every minute more swampy, and sometimes I sank in ankle deep; two or three times I found that, by way of a little change, I had stepped into a gutter, which caused a refreshing shower of muddy water to come splashing upward to meet and mingle in friendly amity with the raindrops that pelted down from above. The sprites of earth and air may possibly have found much satisfaction in this meeting, but most decidedly I did not, nor did my luckless petticoats and stockings.
All at once I found myself making a most undignified descent from an upright position; I had stumbled over some object which was lying in my way. There was no saving my untrustworthy feet; the next instant I was lying prostrate on the dripping grass, with my head in what seemed to be a shallow puddle. I was going to try to pick myself up again as quickly as I could, when there rose around me a series of long-drawn-out, horrid, incomprehensible sounds, each of which appeared to strike a rough note in a discordant gamut, while in among them there was a tumultuous, confused jangle of bells, as if a hundred tambourines were ringing together. Then there came a sensation of having my face swept with a drenched mop that was composed of very long, shaggy hair, and was passed and re-passed over my cheeks and forehead, and used my eyes and mouth in a most unpleasantly free-and-easy fashion, and after that I was trampled upon by a succession of small, but by no means airy feet—a process which it is far more agreeable to describe than to feel. This over, there followed a noise of scampering and rushing and hurrying across the common, until footsteps and bells all died away in the far distance, mingling with the chorus of the storm.
My head was so dizzy and bewildered after this adventure that I lay still for two or three minutes, utterly oblivious of all Miss Dolly’s well-instilled principles with regard to damp ground and rheumatism. When, however, I had recovered myself sufficiently slowly to rise to my feet, I began to realise what had happened. I had fallen in with one of the numerous herds of goats which we had often seen in our drives, and which, no doubt, frequented the common. I must have stumbled over one member of the flock as they lay huddled together, and this must have startled and aroused the whole band. Yes, it was all plain enough now. It was a horribly prosaic, unromantic incident, and a horribly uncomfortable one at the same time.
If ever a young lady made vows never again to run away from any of her relations—no, not even from a forty-seventh cousin—it was I, Beatrice Warmington, that night. On I went, wading through the heavy, marshy ground, shivering with external cold, yet at intervals hot with inward fear. There seemed no possible way out of my self-incurred difficulties. The darkness was as dense as ever, the storm as unrelenting. I had completely broken down, and was sobbing bitterly. What was to become of me? And the wind answered mockingly, “What?”
My situation appeared to me, in truth, to be growing one of real danger. I was becoming so weary that I did not think I could drag my tired limbs much further; a half-stupor was creeping over my brain, and my senses were beginning to be partially numbed and blunted with terror and fatigue. It seemed to me that I must soon sink down and glide into unconsciousness. I heard in the wind the voice of Lily calling me, half sadly, half reproachfully; and with the thought of Lily came the thought of prayer. But prayer had never been to me what it was to Lily; I could not lean on it as she would have done in my situation. I strove to get hold of words which would tell of my sorrow for my rebellious wilfulness, which would be a cry to my Father above; but they slipped away from my lips, and would not come when I wanted them, as they would have come like helpful angels to Lily.
I was now evidently beginning to descend a slope of some sort; I could tell that from the feeling of the ground as I trod it. The earth I was walking upon appeared to be less swampy than it had hitherto been, but it was more slippery. Before long this slipperiness became something that there was no contending against; my feet lost all power of stopping themselves; I was sliding swiftly downward, as if I was upon ice. Whither was I going? The question flashed confusedly through my bewildered brain in the midst of the storm and the darkness, and still I flew forward at always increasing speed. All my senses began to float into a dim whirlpool, and I could scarcely take firm hold of any distinct idea.
Suddenly there was a sensation of extreme coldness up as high as my waist, and at the same time a consciousness that my involuntary downward flight had ceased; I was standing still again at last, but where was I standing? I stretched out my hand, and bent forward; I could feel water round me. Now that I was at last still, I could collect in some measure my shattered intelligence; I reflected for some moments, and came to the conclusion that I must have slid down the sloping side of the common, rendered especially slippery by the rain, and must have landed in some stream which ran at the bottom of the declivity.
I was wet up to my waist, but at least I was off the common at last; I groped about cautiously with my hands, keeping my feet firm where they stood. I soon found the bank of the stream, which must, I felt certain, be but a shallow and a narrow one; I made a spring in the direction in which my hands had gone, and was quickly, with a great feeling of thankfulness which thrilled from heart to brain, standing once more on solid ground that was neither swampy nor slippery.
I had apparently now reached again some road; it was still too dark for me to distinguish anything, but the wind and the rain were less violent here than they had been on the open common. This made a small improvement in my condition, but still there seemed no more hope than there had been before, of my getting out of my difficulties. I moved onward, it is true, but it was quite without there being any distinct notion in my mind of any end or object in my proceeding forward. However, anything was better than standing shivering there by the stream; movement would, at least, keep me warm.
ON THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE.
ON THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE.
ON THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE.
I had advanced thus some little distance, when my further course was impeded by some object in front of me. I extended my hand, and what it touched was a cold iron bar; I moved my arm from side to side, and still it was iron bars with which my inquiring fingers came in contact. It must be an iron paling of some kind, I thought, and then began, while I lent wearily against the bars, to ask myself vaguely what kind of places are generally enclosed within such a fence.
While these questions passed through my mind, the bars suddenly began to give way before the pressure of my whole weight, which I was supporting upon them; the circumstance nearly caused me another fall, but I saved myself just in time. Then I made a discovery that sent a gleam of indistinct hope flashing through me; what I had been leaning against was an iron gate, I could feel its fastening now quite clearly, and hear the little click it made as I moved it up and down with my finger. Did not the existence of such a gate warrant the notion that some house must be near at hand? The gates into fields are not generally like this gate, I argued.
I advanced some steps, and then I became aware of another fact; I was certainly standing underneath trees; I could hear the wind in their branches, could feel the raindrops that dripped from them. I was pausing in doubt and new uncertainty, considering what I might infer from this, when, borne on the wind, there reached me a sound which was like the sound of voices. My heart gave a great leap, all my senses went into the sense of hearing; I listened as eagerly as if I had been catching the rarest notes of music; yes, voices were decidedly drawing nearer and nearer to me, and with the voices there approached a glimmer of light.
“If we can’t get in by the glass door, we shall by the store-room window.”
Such were the words that reached my ears, spoken in a man’s voice in French.
“We’ll get in quick enough if we can only reach the house,” said another man’s voice, in the same language, and a very rough, harsh voice it was this time, too.
“We must be very quiet and silent in our movements,” rejoined the first speaker.
“Not even the old dog shall catch a sound of us—no, not even if he is sleeping with one eye open,” replied the other.
“There must be a house, then, close in this neighbourhood,” I thought, “and this must be the way up to it, and surely, surely,” and now a great terror seized me, “these must be burglars who are going to break into it.”
An agony of fear, worse than any by far that I had experienced on the lonely common, now took possession of me, as I heard the steps of the two men drawing nearer and nearer. I went on one side and held my breath, hoping that, in the darkness, they would pass me unnoticed; but I must have made some sound that betrayed me, for the next instant a hand was on my arm, and I heard a voice in my ear.
(To be concluded.)