"Marchmont Towers!" he cried to the postillion; "and a five–pound note if you get there in less than an hour."
He flung some money to the officials who had gathered about the door to witness his departure, and who had eagerly pressed forward to render him that assistance which, even in his weakness, he disdained.
These men looked gravely at each other as the carriage dashed off into the fog, blundering and reeling as it went along the narrow half–made road, that led from the desert patch of waste ground upon which the station was built into the high–street of Swampington.
"Marchmont Towers!" said one of the men, in a tone that seemed to imply that there was something ominous even in the name of the Lincolnshire mansion. "What does he want at Marchmont Towers, I wonder?"
"Why, don't you know who he is, mate?" responded the other man, contemptuously.
"No."
"He's Parson Arundel's nevy,––the young officer that some folks said ran away with the poor young miss oop at the Towers."
"My word! is he now? Why, I shouldn't ha' known him."
"No; he's a'most like the ghost of what he was, poor young chap. I've heerd as he was in that accident as happened last August on the Sou'–Western."
The railway official shrugged his shoulders.