“I don’t know. Perhaps a week; perhaps a fortnight. Good-bye.” And out I went.
Great heaven! as I recall the nod I gave him, I am amazed to think how full of the unexpected the future is. You shake a man by the hand and leave him, and by the time you meet him again, everything the least likely to occur has happened. Though you held him the most honest of living beings, he is committed for forgery; or though you thought him doomed to be a struggling man all his life, he has made a fortune on the Stock Exchange, and is surrounded by architects with plans for a mansion; or though you considered him a very ordinary-minded person, he has just acknowledged himself the author of a book the world has gone into ecstacies over. So shifting is this life, it is scarcely possible to turn your back upon the most familiar object, without finding it changed on looking at it again. It is a pantomime, but not a droll one. Harlequin Time does indeed frisk it merrily; but there is too much of the scythe about his rod, too much tragedy about the metamorphoses he works, to make us think him diverting.
It was a little after half-past twelve when I got into the train, and it was very nearly half-past two when I got out. Thistlewood Station was a little platform, backed by a diminutive shed, with a great hill running up behind it. I asked a porter the way to Mr. Hargrave’s house, and he directed me to a high road.
This high road was terribly dusty and dazzling to the eyes. There was not an inch of shade to right or left of it to protect me from the overpowering rays of the sun. Worst of all, for half a mile at least, it was a steep hill. I felt my face gradually turning to the colour of a boiled lobster as I toiled along, and deplored my want of foresight in not providing against this sweltering exertion, by asking my uncle to send his carriage to meet me.
On either side was a boundless extent of corn-fields, with never a sigh of air to disturb their yellowing heads. On reaching the summit of the hill, however, I was cheered by a very extensive view, not indeed comparable in beauty to that which was to be obtained from any of the hills about Updown, but exceedingly pretty, nevertheless. Far away down on the level plains were little white villages, shining amid groups of trees. A long line of railroad ruled the landscape, along which rolled a white cloud, that no doubt represented the train I had just quitted. The slate-coloured hills of the far-off horizon stood sharp and well-defined against the pale blue sky.
I trudged forward, gasping for air, and stopping frequently to press a handkerchief to my forehead, until I espied, at the extreme end of the road, a long wall bounding a perfect forest of trees. In a few minutes I had gained a gate surmounted by stone effigies. Close at hand was a lodge. I pulled the bell, and on a man presenting himself, inquired if this were Mr. Hargrave’s house? It was. The gate was opened, and I passed out of the broiling road into a deliciously cool avenue, with deep glades and sunny openings among the trees, under which I observed some young deer browsing. The whole place was alive with the pipings of birds. Such a babel of airy voices I never before heard.
I was stepping pretty briskly along the avenue, wondering what sort of reception I should get, and whether my uncle was as cheery and hearty a man in his own house as he was out of it, when I suddenly heard the word “Halt!” uttered in a loud, clear, imperious female voice.
I looked about me, being uncertain from which side of the avenue the voice had proceeded, and seeing nobody, was in the act of advancing again, when bang! went the report of a pistol, so close and so loud, that, for the moment, I actually believed myself shot, and pulled off my hat, feeling pretty sure that I should find a bullet hole in it.
“Good God!” I thought. “What is the meaning of this?”
A thin cloud of blue smoke curled up from a tree on the right, and, as I gazed with a stupefied air in that direction, the tall commanding figure of a woman stepped forward, and approached me.