A Fortnight of Folly

by Maurice Thompson; Hugh Conway

I.

As my old friend Phil Brand has asked me to do this, I suppose I must. Brand is a right good fellow and a clever fellow, but has plenty of crotchets of his own. The worst I know of him is that he insists upon having his own with people. With those who differ from him he is as obstinate as a mule. Anyhow, he has always had his own way with me. This custom, so far as I am concerned, commenced years ago when we were boys at school together, and I have never been able to shake off the bad habit of giving in to him. He has promised to see that my queen’s English is presentable: for, to tell the truth, I am more at home across country than across foolscap, and my fingers know the feel of the reins or the trigger better than that of the pen.

All the same I hope he won’t take too many liberties with my style, bad though it may be; for old Brand at times is apt to get—well, a bit prosy. To hear him on the subject of hard work and the sanctity thereof approaches the sublime!

What freak took me to the little God-forsaken village of Midcombe in the depth of winter is entirely between myself and my conscience. The cause having no bearing upon the matters I am asked to tell you about, is no one’s business but mine. I will only say that now I would not stay in such a place at such a time of the year for the sake of the prettiest girl in the world, let alone the bare chance of meeting her once or twice. But one’s ideas change. I am now a good bit older, ride some two stones heavier, and have been married ever so many years. Perhaps, after all, as I look back I can find some excuse for being such an ass as to endure for more than a fortnight all the discomforts heaped upon me in that little village inn.

A man who sojourns in such a hole as Midcombe must give some reason for doing so. My ostensible reason was hunting. I had a horse with me, and a second-rate subscription pack of slow-going mongrels did meet somewhere in the neighborhood, so no one could gainsay my explanation. But if hunting was my object, I got precious little of it. A few days after my arrival a bitter, biting frost set in—a frost as black as your hat and as hard as nails. Yet still I stayed on.

From private information received—no matter how, when or where—I knew that some people in the neighborhood had organized a party to go skating on a certain day at Lilymere, a fine sheet of water some distance from Midcombe. I guessed that some one whom I particularly desired to meet would be there, and as the skating at Lilymere was free to any one who chose to take the trouble of getting to such an out-of-the-way place, I hired a horse and an apology for a dog-cart, and at ten in the morning started to drive the twelve miles to the pond. I took no one with me. I had been to Lilymere once before, in bright summer weather, so fancied I knew the way well enough.

The sky when I started was cloudy; the wind was chopping round in a way which made the effete rustic old hostler predict a change of weather. He was right. Before I had driven two miles light snow began to fall, and by the time I reached a little wretched wayside inn, about a mile from the Mere, a film of white covered the whole country. I stabled my horse as well as I could, then taking my skates with me walked down to the pond.

Now, whether I had mistaken the day, or whether the threatening fall of snow had made certain people change their minds, I don’t know; but, to my annoyance and vexation, no skaters were to be seen, and moreover, the uncut, white surface told me that none had been on the pond that morning. Still hoping they might come in spite of the weather, I put on my skates and went outside-edging and grape-vining all over the place. But as there was no person in particular—in fact, no one at all—to note my powers, I soon got tired. It was, indeed, dreary, dreary work. But I waited and hoped until the snow came down so fast and furiously that I felt sure that waiting was in vain, and that I had driven to Lilymere for nothing.

Back I went to the little inn, utterly disgusted with things in general, and feeling that to break some one’s head would be a relief to me in my present state of mind. Of course a sensible man would at once have got his horse between the shafts and driven home. But whatever I may be now, in those days I was not a sensible man—Brand will, I know, cordially indorse this remark—the accommodation of the inn was not such as to induce one to linger within its precincts; but the fire was a right good one, and a drink, which I skilfully manufactured out of some hot beer, not to be despised, and proved warming to the body and soothing to the ruffled temper. So I lingered over the big fire until I began to feel hungry, and upon the landlady assuring me that she could cook a rasher, decided it would be wiser to stay where I was until the violence of the snowstorm was over; for coming down it was now, and no mistake.

And it kept on coming down. About half-past three, when I sorrowfully decided I was bound to make a move, it was snowing faster than ever. I harnessed my horse, and laughing at the old woman’s dismal prophecy that I should never get to Midcombe in such weather, gathered up the reins, and away I went along the white road.