CHAPTER V
THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN
It was full dusk when the London travellers did at last win away from the Rose Tavern. The evening was cold, the snow yet falling in slow, infrequent flakes. The merchants and their men, together with Master Anthony Mull, first took the road. Then followed Master Harry Carthew, straight and stern, upon a great roan mare. In the rear came on slowly old John Hardwick, his servant Will, and the physician Gilbert Aderhold. These three soon lost sight of the others, who, pushing on, came to the town, rest, and bed, ere they had made half the distance.
At last, very late, the place loomed before them. They passed through dark and winding streets, and found an inn which Master Hardwick knew. Together Will and Aderhold lifted the old man from his horse and helped him into the house and into a great bed, where he lay groaning through the night, the physician beside him speaking now and again a soothing and steadying word.
He could not travel the next day or the next. Finally Aderhold and Will wrung permission to hire a litter and two mules. On the third morning they placed Master Hardwick in the litter and all took the street leading to the road which should bring them in the afternoon to the Oak Grange. Going, they passed a second inn, and here Master Harry Carthew suddenly appeared beside them upon his great roan. It seemed that affairs had kept him likewise in this town, but that now he was bound in their direction.
The snow had passed into rain. The weather had moderated, the rain ceased, and this morning there was pure blue sky and divine sunlight. The latter bathed the unpaved streets, the timbered, projecting fronts of houses, guildhall and shops and marketplace, and the tower and body of a great and ancient abbey church. Beyond the church the ground sloped steeply to the river winding by beneath an arched bridge of stone. Above the town, commanding all, rose a castle, half-ruinous, half in repair. The streets were filled with people, cheerful in the morning air. Litter, mules, and horsemen moved slowly along. Honest Will drew a long breath. “Fegs! Who would live in the country that could live in a town?”
Aderhold was riding beside him, Carthew being ahead on his great roan mare. “Tell me something,” said the physician, “of the country to which we are going.”
“The country’s a good country enough,” said Will. “But the Oak Grange—Lord! the Grange is doleful and lonely—”