For some reason I could scarcely swallow a mouthful of the meal that was served for us, although it smelt most savory. As a special honor the landlord himself insisted upon waiting upon the table, and I shrewdly suspect, putting things together, that he was of a curious nature, and longed for a chance to listen to the conversation; but if this was his desire, it was not gratified, as the doctor and the lawyer were most reserved in his presence.
At last, however, we were on the move again, a fresh horse having been placed in the shafts of the old rattle-trap (upon the possession of which, by-the-way, I found that the doctor prided himself most mightily). Well, off we went at a tremendous pace, the new horse charging down the road in a clumsy, heedless fashion, and the chaise rocking behind him fit to capsize us.
The doctor at last succeeded in pulling the nag down to a steadier gait, and Mr. Edgerton, coughing and choking, came trotting up beside us through the trailing cloud of dust that, despite the damp, hung in our wake. For two miles we drove on in silence, and then turned from the main road into the lane that led to Marshwood. The old-fields on either hand were grown breast-high with brambles, and the lane wheel-rucks were almost hidden in the tall grass that swished softly and quietly under the box of the chaise.
Marshwood House was built partly of brick and partly of wood. The brick had come from England at the time when the colonies, because of the tax on industries mayhap, brought even their building material from over the water. It had once been very handsome, but during the Revolution the outbuildings had been destroyed, and the right wing of the house had fallen into sad decay. By the expenditure of some not inconsiderable sum, however, the whole estate could have been restored to the beauty it must once have possessed (but alas! that never has or never will happen, I suppose). Now, at the time of which I speak, ruin was writ on everything.
When the horses had been tied to two rusty staples driven into the trunk of an oak-tree that stood before the door, we all stepped up on to the piazza. The boards were sagged so badly that they had fallen away from the body of the house, and even the stone-work had crumbled along the foundations.
It appeared like the old place, and yet it was not; but there was the same hornets' nest that I had watched building up (ages and ages ago, it seemed to me); and there, hanging on a nail, was a fishing-rod with a rusty iron hook dangling from a bit of rotten fish-line. I had stood on tiptoe and put it there; now I could touch it with my elbow.
The lawyer had some difficulty in opening the door. However, at last he succeeded, and gave a sigh of relief as he saw that there were no traces of any one having preceded him.
"Come in, doctor," he said, cheerily, his voice echoing oddly down the empty hallway.
"Come on, John, my son," reiterated the physician to me.
I turned, before I crossed the threshold, and looked out over the sloping meadow and the stretch of yellow marsh to the blue-gray waters of the Chesapeake. The rain that had been threatening all the morning had begun to fall with that depressing, sun-filtered drizzle that promises hours of it.