CHAPTER LII.
A NIGHT DRIVE.
PEOPLE who travel in the winter should remember it isn’t summer, and time themselves accordingly. Sir Moses was so anxious to see Monsieur Rougier off the premises, in order to stop any extra hospitality, that he delayed starting for Lundyfoote Castle until he saw him fairly mounted on the gift grey and out of the stable-yard; he then had the mare put to the dog-cart, and tried to make up for lost time by extra speed upon the road. But winter is an unfavourable season for expedition; if highways are improving, turnpikes are getting neglected, save in the matter of drawing the officers’ sinecure salaries, and, generally speaking, the nearer a turnpike is to a railway, the worse the turnpike is, as if to show the wonderful advantage of the former. So Sir Moses went flipping and flopping, and jipping and jerking, through Bedland and Hawksworth and Washingley-field, but scarcely reached the confines of his country when he ought to have been nearing the Castle. It was nearly four o’clock by the great gilt-lettered clock on the diminutive church in the pretty village of Tidswell, situated on the banks of the sparkling Lune, when he pulled up at the sign of the Hold-away Harriers to get his mare watered and fed. It is at these sort of places that the traveller gets the full benefit of country slowness and stupidity. Instead of the quick ostler, stepping smartly up to his horse’s head as he reins up, there is generally a hunt through the village for old Tom, or young Joe, or some worthy who is either too old or too idle to work. In this case it was old bow-legged, wiry Tom Brown, whose long experience of the road did not enable him to anticipate a person’s wants; so after a good stare at the driver, whom at first he thought was Mr. Meggison, the exciseman; then Mr. Puncheon, the brewer; and lastly, Mr. Mossman, Lord Polkaton’s ruler; he asked, with a bewildered scratch of his head, “What, de ye want her put oop?”
“Oop, yes,” replied Sir Moses; “what d’ye think I’m stopping for? Look alive; that’s a good fellow,” added he, throwing him the reins, as he prepared to descend from the vehicle.
“Oh, it’s you, Sir Moses, is it,” rejoined the now enlightened patriarch, “I didn’t know you without your red coat and cap;” so saying, he began to fumble at the harness, and, with the aid of the Baronet, presently had the mare out of the shafts. It then occurred to the old gentleman that he had forgotten the key of the stable. “A sink,” said he, with a dash of his disengaged hand, “I’ve left the key i’ the pocket o’ mar coat, down i’ Willy Wood’s shop, when ar was helpin’ to kill a pig—run, lad, doon to Willy Wood,” said he to a staring by-standing boy, “and get me mar coat,” adding to Sir Moses, as the lad slunk unwillingly away, “he’ll be back directly wi’ it.” So saying, he proceeded to lead the mare round to the stable at the back of the house.
When the coat came, then there was no pail; and when they got a pail, then the pump had gone dry; and when they got some water from the well, then the corn had to be brought from the top of the house; so, what with one delay and another, day was about done before Sir Moses got the mare out of the stable again. Night comes rapidly on in the short winter months, and as Sir Moses looked at the old-fashioned road leading over the steepest part of the opposite hill, he wished he was well on the far side of it. He then examined his lamps, and found there were no candles in them, just as he remembered that he had never been to Lundyfoote Castle on wheels, the few expeditions he had made there having been performed on horseback, by those nicks and cuts that fox-hunters are so famous at making and finding. “Ord dom it,” said he to himself, “I shall be getting benighted. Tell me,” continued he, addressing the old ostler, “do I go by Marshfield and Hengrove, or——”
“No, no, you’ve no business at noughter Marshfield nor Hengrove,” interrupted the sage; “veer way is straight oop to Crowfield-hall and Roundhill-green, then to Brackley Moor and Belton, and so on into the Sandywell-road at Langley. But if ar were you,” continued he, beginning to make confusion worse confounded, “ar would just gan through Squire Patterson’s Park here,” jerking his thumb to the left to indicate the direction in which it lay.
“Is it shorter?” demanded Sir Moses, re-ascending the vehicle.
“W-h-o-y no, it’s not shorter,” replied the man, “but it’s a better road rayther—less agin collar-like. When ye get to the new lodge ye mun mind turn to the right, and keep Whitecliffe Law to the left, and Lidney Mill to the right, you then pass Shimlow tilery, and make straight for Roundhill Green, and Brackley Moor, and then on to Belton, as ar toll’d ye afoor—ye can’t miss yeer way,” added he, thinking he could go it in the dark himself.
“Can’t I?” replied Sir Moses, drawing the reins. He then chucked the man a shilling, and touching the mare with the point of the whip, trotted across the bridge over the Lane, and was speedily brought up at a toll-bar on the far side.