lorn prospect before her when she set out to travel two hundred miles to seek a home with strangers.
In those days winters were really winters, and no mistake about them. The coldest, most biting of December winds kept company with the coach, insinuated itself down the travellers’ necks, got under their cloaks, sought out the weakest points in their overalls and wrappers, and attacked them savagely, while a heavy snow fell upon their backs and soaked them through. Perhaps the greatest sufferer from these discomforts was the young woman Hester, who, although kindly wrapped up in the guard’s extra coat, shivered with cold, and was very miserable; and so it was that at a halting-place some thirty miles off her destination the coachman descended from his box and opening the coach-door begged permission of a neatly tucked-up bundle of wrappers therein reclining to admit the poor frozen maid. A responsive grunt being taken for acquiescence, Hester was admitted accordingly, and fell asleep in the corner.
She awoke with a start just before day-break, to find that the bundle of wrappers had taken the form of a man, whose face—a very ugly one—was close to hers, with a pair of cold grey eyes fixed searchingly upon her.
“Oh, sir!” Hester cried.
“What makes you call out in your sleep?” the other traveller asked, sharply. “What makes you cry out ‘Murder!’ in your sleep?”
“I didn’t know I did, sir.”
“You did, and woke me. Don’t do so again.”
The ugly face retreating, the grey eyes closing, the wrappers re-adjusted, all became quiet, as before; but Hester trembling, she scarce knew why, kept a watch upon her companion, and, hardly breathing or moving a limb, sat bolt upright throughout the rest of the night.
CHAPTER II.
“Here’s the Pollards!” said the guard, opening the door about an hour after day-break. “And here’s the carriage, sir!”
Much to Hester’s surprise, her travelling companion took his place in the brougham waiting at the corner of the road. The driver bade her sit beside him on the box, and as they drove along informed her that the gentleman inside was Mr. Silas Gurdlestone—Mr. Ralph, the Master’s, brother; that Mr. Ralph, who lay dangerously ill, had sent for him, wishing to make an end to a sort of coolness which had existed between them ever since he, Mr. Ralph was married to his good lady, on whom, they did say, Mr. Silas was himself, before her marriage, a little sweet. Rogers (he was the driver) recollected when the master was about to be married how there had been a power of surmise and conjecture as to how Mr. Silas would like it; how, on the bridal morning, directly after leaving the church, he had disappeared, and how they next heard from him in some foreign country, where he said he intended to pass the remainder of his life. “Very strange man, Mr. Silas,” Rogers said, wagging his noddle solemnly, “very, very strange.”
The dullest place upon earth must surely have been the Pollards. It was a bare, ugly, red-brick building, having, on one side, a weedy and neglected garden, on the other, a large stagnant dyke, upon the banks of which, and inclining over the water, grew in fantastic shapes some dwarfish pollards, from which the house derived its name. This dwelling had long been the property of Mrs. Gurdlestone’s family; but, since her father’s death, had until lately remained untenanted. It was with the intention of renovating it and making it his country residence that Mr. Ralph had now come down with his wife and her sister, but he falling ill immediately upon his arrival the repairs and improvements had been for a while suspended. You may be sure the town-servants were dull enough here: indeed Jeames, yawning, was a sight to see and be frightened at, in such imminent peril of falling off did the top part of that gentleman’s head appear to be on these occasions. As for Hester, her recent grief, the breaking up of a happy home, her present friendless condition—all preyed upon her mind and, with the general melancholy of the place, combined to render her life a very sad and weary one. But there was soon other cause for anxiety.
Somehow Mr. Ralph grew worse and worse, in spite of doctors and physic. Night and day his wife watched by his bedside; Mr. Silas, too, was unremitting in his care for and attention to the invalid, often mixing and administering his medicines to him. One night there was a slight change for the better, and Mr. Silas had persuaded Mrs. Gurdlestone to go and seek a few hours’ repose whilst he took her place in the sick room. She, poor thing, fagged and jaded by long watching, with a little persuasion, consented, and then all the household retired to their respective chambers, except the watcher. Thus, for a while, the time passed silently, and then there broke upon the stillness of the sleeping house a loud continuous knocking at Mrs. Gurdlestone’s door. She came out, pale and anxious, in answer to the summons, and found Mr. Silas, trembling and violently excited, who cried out in a broken voice:
“He’s gone!—dead—of a sudden! I thought I heard his breath stop, and drew the curtain.”
The distracted woman hurried into the room. It was too true: he was indeed dead—his hands twisted in the bed-clothes, his eyes wide open, a strange look of dread and horror in his face, and quite cold!
Then the sleepers, awakened by the young widow’s piercing screams, came crowding, half dressed, to the spot, their white faces looking horrible in the flaring candle-light. The nearest doctor was summoned, and all sorts of remedies suggested—but in vain. Hester, while attending her fainting mistress, stooped to pick up something lying by the dead man’s bed.
“What is it?” Mr. Silas said, quietly, taking the object from her fingers.
It was but a straightened hair-pin. He pinched her slightly in pulling it away, and must have scratched himself with it, for there was a mark of blood upon her hand.
CHAPTER III.
