FullReads

Some half a mile beyond the borders of the wood the lights of the ‘Green Dragon’ hove in sight, and running close beside them, very faint in the dying dusk, the pale ribbon of the Great North Road. It was the back of the post-house that was presented to Nance Holdaway; and as she continued to draw near and the night to fall more completely, she became aware of an unusual brightness and bustle. A post-chaise stood in the yard, its lamps already lighted: light shone hospitably in the windows and from the open door; moving lights and shadows testified to the activity of servants bearing lanterns. The clank of pails, the stamping of hoofs on the firm causeway, the jingle of harness, and, last of all, the energetic hissing of a groom, began to fall upon her ear. By the stir you would have thought the mail was at the door, but it was still too early in the night. The down mail was not due at the ‘Green Dragon’ for hard upon an hour; the up mail from Scotland not before two in the black morning.

Nance entered the yard somewhat dazzled. Sam, the tall ostler, was polishing a curb-chain wit sand; the lantern at his feet letting up spouts of candle-light through the holes with which its conical roof was peppered.

‘Hey, miss,’ said he jocularly, ‘you won’t look at me any more, now you have gentry at the castle.’

Her cheeks burned with anger.

‘That’s my lord’s chay,’ the man continued, nodding at the chaise, ‘Lord Windermoor’s. Came all in a fluster–dinner, bowl of punch, and put the horses to. For all the world like a runaway match, my dear–bar the bride. He brought Mr. Archer in the chay with him.’

‘Is that Holdaway?’ cried the landlord from the lighted entry, where he stood shading his eyes.

‘Only me, sir,’ answered Nance.

‘O, you, Miss Nance,’ he said. ‘Well, come in quick, my pretty. My lord is waiting for your uncle.’

And he ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot and lighted by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table finishing a bowl of punch. One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling utterance. This was my Lord Windermoor. In his companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair. Her glance but lighted on him, and she flushed, for in that second she made sure that she had twice betrayed herself–betrayed by the involuntary flash of her black eyes her secret impatience to behold this new companion, and, what was far worse, betrayed her disappointment in the realisation of her dreams. He, meanwhile, as if unconscious, continued to regard her with unmoved decorum.

‘O, a man of wood,’ thought Nance.

‘What–what?’ said his lordship. ‘Who is this?’

‘If you please, my lord, I am Holdaway’s niece,’ replied Nance, with a curtsey.

‘Should have been here himself,’ observed his lordship. ‘Well, you tell Holdaway that I’m aground, not a stiver–not a stiver. I’m running from the beagles–going abroad, tell Holdaway. And he need look for no more wages: glad of ’em myself, if I could get ’em. He can live in the castle if he likes, or go to the devil. O, and here is Mr. Archer; and I recommend him to take him in–a friend of mine–and Mr. Archer will pay, as I wrote. And I regard that in the light of a precious good thing for Holdaway, let me tell you, and a set-off against the wages.’

‘But O, my lord!’ cried Nance, ‘we live upon the wages, and what are we to do without?’

‘What am I to do?–what am I to do?’ replied Lord Windermoor with some exasperation. ‘I have no wages. And there is Mr. Archer. And if Holdaway doesn’t like it, he can go to the devil, and you with him!–and you with him!’