“Can’t miss um road, sa—straight up da ribber till you come to de crossin’. Dar you take de road dat don’t lead to da leff—you soon see Moun’ Welc’m’, sa.”
“How far is it?”
“Bout sebben or eight mile, sa—reach dar long ’fore sun-down; pony go like de berry lightnin’. Sure you no keep to da left by da crossin’.”
Thus instructed, the young steerage-passenger took his departure from the ship—after bidding adieu to the friendly tars, who had treated him so handsomely during his irksome voyage.
With his gun, a single-barrelled fowling-piece, on his shoulder, he strode over the platform, and up the wooden wharf. Then detaching the pony from the wheel of the ox-waggon, to which it had been tied, he threw himself into the saddle, and trotted off along the road pointed out as the one that would conduct him to Mount Welcome.
The excitement produced by the sudden change from ship to shore—the stir of the streets through which he had to pass—the novel sights and sounds that at every step saluted his eyes and ears—hindered Herbert Vaughan from thinking of anything that concerned himself.
Only for a short time, however, was his mind thus distracted from dwelling on his own affairs. Before he had ridden far, the road—hitherto bordered by houses—entered under a dark canopy of forest foliage; and the young traveller, all at once, found himself surrounded by a perfect solitude.
Under the sombre shadow of the trees, his spirit soon returned to its former gloomy forebodings; and, riding more slowly over a stretch of the road where the ground was wet and boggy, he fell into a train of thoughts that were anything but pleasant.
The subject of his reflections may be easily guessed. He had not failed to notice—how could he?—the distinction made between himself and his fellow-voyager. While a splendid equipage had been waiting for the latter—and his landing had been made a sort of ovation, how different was the means of transport provided for him!
“By the memory of my father!” muttered he, as he rode on, “it is an insult I shall not overlook: an insult to him more than to myself. But for the fulfilment of his dying wish, I should not go one step farther and as he said this, he drew his rough roadster to a halt—as if half-resolved to put his hypothetic threat into practice.