When the ostler had affirmed that it was dark, he had said no more than the truth. The brown film which had begun to creep over the heavens before sunset, had increased and thickened, until it pervaded the heavens like a pall of smoke, shutting out the stars and blackening the landscape. It was neither cloud nor fog, but seemed rather a new quality in the air, depriving it of its transparency. Such mysterious darkenings have been not infrequent in the history of the English climate, and are called by various names and assigned to various causes, without being thereby greatly elucidated. Be the shadow what and why it might, Tom rode into the midst of it and put his horse to a gallop, though it was scarcely possible to see one side of the road from the other. He felt no anxiety about losing his way, any more than if he had been a planet with a foreordained and inevitable orbit. The silence through which he rode was as complete as the darkness; he seemed to be the only living and moving thing in the world. But the flurry of the dissipation he had been through, and the preoccupation of his purpose, made him feel so much alive that he felt no sense of loneliness.
It had been his intention to take the usual route through Kew and Richmond; but at Brentford Bridge he mistook his way, and crossing the river there, he was soon plunging through the obscurity that overhung the Isleworth side of the river. If he perceived his mistake, it did not disconcert him; all roads must lead to the Rome whither he was bound. Sometimes the leaves of low-lying branches brushed his face; sometimes his horse’s hoofs resounded over the hollowness of a little bridge; once a bird, startled from its sleep in a wayside thicket, uttered a penetrating note before replacing its head beneath its wing. By-and-by the horse stumbled at some inequality of the road and nearly lost its footing. Tom reined him in sharply, and in the momentary pause and stillness that ensued, he fancied he distinguished a faint, intermittent noise along the road before him. He put his horse to a walk, pressed his hand over his breast, to make sure that the letter was safe in its place, and peered through the darkness ahead for the first glimpse of the approaching horseman, whom he made sure was near. But he was almost within reach of him before he was aware, and had turf been under foot instead of stony road, the two might have passed each other without knowing it.
“Hullo!” cried Tom.
“Hullo, there!” responded a voice, sharp but firm; “who are you?”
“I’m Tom Bendibow. You’re Charles Grantley, ain’t you?”
“You have good eyes, sir,” answered the other, bringing his horse close alongside of Tom’s, and bending over to look him in the face.
“It’s ears and instinct with me to-night,” was Tom’s reply. “That’s all right, then. I came out to meet you. I have a letter for you from your daughter.”
“Do you ride on, Mr. Bendibow, or shall you return with me?” inquired the other, after a pause.
“I’ll go with you,” said Tom, and turning his horse, the two rode onward together side by side.