"Oh yes, miss," the driver answered confidently, and further informed them that the car they had met, had just returned from their own destination (being translated), the Black Nest Farm, having there deposited a traveller who had taken the middle course of leaving the railway at the intermediate stoppage between Llanfar and Llanfair. Other three-quarters of an hour and they pulled up at last before a house which the darkness prevented their seeing more of than that it was long and low. They stumbled up the rough garden path, and in answer to their knock, the door was opened by a tidy, clean-looking old woman, with a flickering candle in her hand, evidently surprised at their appearance. She had, she said, quite given up thoughts of their coming that night, and feared the fire in the sitting-room was out. Thankful to have reached the Black Nest at last, a chilly room seemed a smaller evil than the two girls would have considered it at home; and after all, things were not so bad, for the fire in the little farmhouse parlour, to which their landlady conducted them, was not quite out, and a little judicious coaxing soon brought it round.
Their hostess's and their own first idea was of course tea. What a blessing, by the way, it is that British womankind in general, high and low, rich and poor, old and young, have this one taste in common! Refreshed by the homely meal speedily set before them, Helen and Edith proceeded, under the guidance of the old woman (apparently the only inhabitant of the house), and the flickering candle, to inspect their sleeping apartment. The result was not eminently satisfactory, for it struck them as gloomy, ill-ventilated, and a long way from their parlour, though but few rooms appeared to intervene between the two. This puzzled them at the time, but was afterwards explained by the fact that Black Nest Farm-house had originally consisted of two one-storeyed cottages standing at some yards distance from each other, and which, on becoming the property of one owner, had been united by a long passage; which arrangement was looked upon in the neighbourhood as a triumph of architectural ingenuity. On returning to their sitting-room Helen's eye fell on a door beside their own which she had not before noticed, and she inquired if that was a bedroom. To which the old woman replied in the affirmative, but added that they could not have it, as it and a small sitting-room opening out of it were engaged by a "strange gentleman". And besides this, she added, the bedroom was not so desirable for ladies, having a second, or rather third door to the outside of the house. The only other room they could have was so small that she did not think they would like it, but they should see for themselves, and so saying she turned towards a recess in the passage. Helen followed her, but the flickering candle suddenly throwing light in a new direction, she gave a little exclamation of alarm at what appeared at the first moment to be a very ugly grinning portrait high up on the wall.
"It's only the clock, miss," said the old woman. "Though, to be sure, it is quare," and as she spoke she threw the light more fully upon the object that had startled Helen, which she now perceived to be a very antique clock, standing high in a dark wooden case, and with the face she had seen, peeping at you as it were from behind the dial-plate. An ugly, coarsely painted face, with a disagreeably mocking expression it seemed to Helen; nor was it the only repulsive feature in this very remarkable clock, for the artist appeared to have outdone himself in the grotesquely hideous devices at the bottom of the dial. Death's heads, cross-bones, and other equally unpleasant objects of various kinds, curiously intermingled with a condensed solar system, in which sun, moon and stars appeared jumbled together haphazard. The general object of the whole evidently being to bring before the spectator the ghastly side of his future, and to read him a wholesome, but certainly not attractive, homily on the shortness of life, and the speed with which time was ticking away. Helen felt half fascinated by its hideousness.
"Dear me, what a very curious clock!" she ejaculated, and the old woman repeated, with a little inward chuckle at what she evidently considered the admiration drawn forth by her heirloom:—
"Yes, sure it is quare."
An uncanny object it certainly was, and Helen felt relieved that the room in its immediate vicinity was so small as to be out of the question for the accommodation of her sister and herself. Re-entering the sitting-room she found poor Edith looking so utterly worn-out that she proposed that they should at once go to bed; which they accordingly did, followed by the old woman with offers of assistance. Passing the door of "the strange gentleman's" room, they heard sounds of some one moving inside, and Edith sleepily remarked that she wondered what could have brought a gentleman to an outlandish place like the Black Nest, unless, like themselves, he came to take views in the neighbourhood. Helen pricked up her ears at this and inquired of Mrs. Jones if their fellow-lodger was an artist. Mrs. Jones thought not, but seemed unwilling to pursue the topic of the strange gentleman further. In rather a forced manner she changed the subject by inquiring if the young ladies would like to hire her pony while there, as it was rough walking, and her grandson Griffith, the only other inhabitant of the cottage, a little lad of twelve, could lead it for them, and show them the way whenever they chose. Helen gladly closed with the offer.
"Dear me, Mrs. Jones," she exclaimed "how very lonely you must be living here with no one but a little boy. Have you no near neighbours?"
"None nearer than three miles ma'am, for the farm-men live at a distance, save old Thomas in the last cottage you passed, but he is bed-ridden. My widow daughter, Griffith's mother, was with me till she took ill, two winters ago, and died before the doctor could get to her. Yes, it is lonesome like in winter to be sure. It's not often that gentry like you, miss, care to be in these parts so late in the year."
Further inquiries elicited that the nearest church was a good five miles off, that there was no doctor nearer than Llanfar, that the butcher only came in the winter once a fortnight and that irregularly; in consequence of which the Black Nesters had often to depend upon their own scanty resources, the roads being almost impassable in stormy weather.
"Don't you think it feels rather dreary, Helen?" said Edith, as she was falling asleep.