“By Heavens! I believe it is. It bears that way to a point. Ruardean’s more to the right. Yes, it must be Hollymead!”
Both talked excitedly, but no more words passed between them there and then. The next heard was the command—“March—double quick!” and down the hill to Drybrook went they at a gallop over the tiny stream, and up the long winding slope round the shoulder of Ruardean Hill—without halt or draw on bridle. There only poising for an instant, as they came within view of the village and saw the conflagration was not in, but wide away from it; the glare and sparks ascending over the spot where Hollymead House should be, but was no more.
As, continuing their gallop, they rode in through the park gates, it was to see a vast blazing pile, like a bonfire built by Titans—the fagots’ great beams heaped together confusedly—from which issued a hissing and crackling, with at intervals loud explosions, as from an ordnance magazine on fire.
Chapter Sixty Five.
Very Near an Encounter.
Mitcheldean lies at the foot of the steep façade already spoken of as forming a periphery to the elevated Forest district. The slope ascends direct from the western skirts of the little town; but outlying ridges also inclose it on the north, east, and south, so that even the tall spire of its church is invisible from any great distance. So situated, railways give it a wide berth; and few places better deserve the title “secluded.” The only sort of traveller who ever thinks of paying it a visit is the “commercial,” or some pedestrian tourist, crossing the Forest from the Severn side to view the more picturesque scenery of the Wye, with intention to make stoppage at the ancient hostelry of the Speech House, midway between.
In the days of the saddle and pack-horse, however, things were different with Mitcheldean. Being on one of the direct routes of travel from the metropolis to South Wales, and a gate of entry, as it were, to the Forest on its eastern side, it was then a place of considerable note; its people accustomed to all sorts of wayfarers passing daily, hourly through it.
Since the breaking out of the Rebellion these had been mostly of the military kind, though not confined to either party in the strife. One would march through to-day, the other to-morrow; so that, hearing the trample of hoofs, rarely could the townsmen tell whether Royalists or Parliamentarians were coming among them, till they saw their standards in the street.