Fields and hedgerows, and gentlemen’s residences with lawns and gardens, first on one side and then on another, but they only suggested hiding-places to me as I sat there wondering what would be the consequences if I were to slip over the back of the seat on to my box when Mr Solomon was not looking, and then over the back of the cart and escape.
The idea was too childish, but it kept coming again and again all through that dismal journey.
All at once, after an hour’s drive, I caught sight of a great white house among some trees, and as we passed it Mr Solomon slowly turned round to me and gave his head a jerk, which nearly shook off his hat. Then he poked it back straight with the handle of his whip, and I wondered what he meant; but realised directly after that he wished to draw my attention to that house as being probably the one to which we were bound, for a few minutes later, after driving for some distance by a high blank wall, he stuck the whip behind him, and the horse stopped of its own accord with its nose close to some great closed gates.
On either side of these was a brick pillar, with what looked like an enormous stone egg in an egg-cup on the top, while on the right-hand pillar there was painted a square white patch, in the centre of which was a black knob looking out of it like an eye.
I quite started, so wrapped was I in thought, when Mr Solomon spoke for the first time in a sharp decided way.
“Pop out and pull that bell,” he said, looking at it as if he wondered whether it would ring without being touched.
I hurriedly got down and pulled the knob, feeling ashamed the next moment for my act seemed to have awakened the sleepy place. There was a tremendous jangling of a great angry-voiced bell which sounded hollow and echoing all over the place; there was the rattling of chains, as half a dozen dogs seemed to have rushed out of their kennels, and they began baying furiously, with the result that the horse threw up his head and uttered a loud neigh. Then there was a trampling, as of some one in very heavy nailed boots over a paved yard, and after the rattling of bolts, the clang of a great iron bar, and the sharp click of a big lock, a sour-looking man drew back first one gate and then the other, each fold uttering a dissatisfied creak as if disliking to be disturbed.
The horse wanted no driving, but walked right into the yard and across to a large open shed, while five dogs—there were not six—barked and bayed at me, tugging at their chains. There was a large Newfoundland—this was before the days of Saint Bernards—a couple of spotted coach-dogs, a great hound of some kind with shortly cropped ears, and looking like a terrier grown out of knowledge, and a curly black retriever, each of which had a great green kennel, and they tugged so furiously at their chains that it seemed as if they would drag their houses across the yard in an attack upon the stranger.
“Get out!” shouted Mr Solomon as the sour-looking man closed and fastened the doors; but the dogs barked the more furiously. “Here, come along,” said Mr Solomon to me, and he took me up to the great furious-looking hound on whose neck, as I approached, I could see a brass collar studded with spikes, while as we closed up, his white teeth glistened, and I could see right into his great red mouth with its black gums.
“Hi, Nero!” cried Mr Solomon, as I began to feel extremely nervous. “Steady, boy. This is Grant. Now, Grant, make friends.”