“You forget that I have taken everything, and come to you with all my wants supplied. So now, dear Martha, let me hear it all.”
“I'll tell ye all about it. I was younger and stronger, mind, than I am now, by twenty years and more. 'Tis a short time to look back on, but a good while passing, and leaves many a gap and change, and many a scar and wrinkle.”
There was a palpable tremble always in Mrs. Tansey's voice, in the thin hand she extended towards him, and in the head from which her old eyes glittered glassily on him.
“The road is very lonely by night—the loneliest road in all England. When it passes ten o'clock, you might listen till cock-crow for a footfall. Well, I, and Thomas Ridley, and Anne Haslett, was all the people at Mortlake just then, the family being in the North, except Master Harry. He went to a race across country, that was run that day; and he told me, laughing, he would not ask me to throw an old shoe after him, as he stood sure to win two thousand pounds. And away he went, little thinking, him and me, how our next meetin' would be. At that time old Tom Clinton—ye'll mind Clinton?”
“To be sure I do,” acquiesced David Arden.
“Well, Tom was in the gatehouse then; after he died, his daughter's husband got it, ye know. And when he had outstayed his time by two hours—for he was going northwards in the morning, and told me he'd be surely back before ten—I began to grow frightened, and I put on my bonnet and cloak, and down I runs to the gatehouse, and knocks up Tom Clinton. It was nigh twelve o'clock then. When Tom came to the door, having dressed in haste, I said, ‘Tom, which way will Master Harry return? he's not been since.’ And says Tom, ‘If he's comin' straight from the course, he'll come down from the country; but if he's dinin' instead in London, he'll come up the Islington way.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘go you, Tom, to the turn o' the road, and look and listen for sight or sound, and bring me word.’ I don't know what was frightenin' me. He was often later, and I never minded; but something that night was on my mind, like a warning, for I couldn't get the fear out o' my heart. Well, who comes ridin' back but Dick Wallock, the groom, that had drove away with him in the gig in the mornin'; and glad I was to see his face at the gate. It was bright moonlight, and says I, ‘Dick, how is Master Harry? Is all well with him?’ So he tells me, ay, all was well, and he goin' to drive the gig out himself from town. He was at a place—you'll mind the name of it—where it turned out they played cards and dice, and won and lost like—like fools, or worse, as some o' them no doubt was. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘go you up, as he told you, with the horse, and I'll stay here till he comes back, if it wasn't till daybreak.’ For all the time, ye see, my heart misgave me that there was summat bad to happen; and when Tom Clinton came back, says I, ‘Tom, you go in, and get to your room, and let me sit down in your kitchen; and I'll let him in when he comes, for I can't go up to the house, nor close an eye, till he comes.’ Well, it was a full hour after, and I was sittin' in the kitchen window that looks out on the road, starin' wide awake, and lookin', now one way and now another, up and down, when I hears the clink of a footfall on the stones, and a tall, ill-favoured man walks slowly by, and turns his face toward the window as he passed.”
“You saw him distinctly, then?” said David.
“As plain as ever I saw you. An ill-favoured fellow in a light drab great coat wi' a cape to it. He looked white wi' fear, and wild big eyes, and a high hooked nose—a tall chap wi' his hands in his pockets, and a low-crowned hat on. He went on slow, till a whistle sounded, and then he ran down the road a bit toward the signal.”
“That was toward the Islington side?”
“Ay, Sir, and I grew more uneasy. I was scared wi' the sight o' such a man at that time o' night, in that lonesome place, and the whistlin' and runnin'.”