STRANGE GUESTS AT THE MANOR.
The coach jingled, jolted, and rumbled on, and Ashwoode lay back in the
crazy conveyance in a kind of stupefied apathy. The scene which had
just closed was, in his mind, a chaos of horrible confusion--a hideous,
stunning dream, whose incidents, as they floated through his passive
memory, seemed like unreal and terrific exaggerations, into whose
reality he wanted energy and power to inquire. Still before him sate a
breathing evidence of the truth of all these confused and horrible
recollections--the stalwart, ruffianly figure of the constable--with
his great red horny hands, and greasy cuffs, and the heavy coat
buttoned up to his unshorn chin--and the short, discoloured pipe,
protruding from the corner of his mouth--lounging back with half-closed
eyes, and the air of a man who had passed the night in wearisome vigils
among strife and riot, and who has acquired the compensating power of
dividing his faculties at all times pretty nearly between sleep and
waking--a kind of sottish, semi-existence--something between that of a
swine and a sloth. Over this figure the eyes of the young man vacantly
wandered, and thence to the cheerful fields and trees visible from the
window, and back again to the burly constable, until every seam and
button in his coat grew familiar to his mind as the oldest tenants of
his memory. Beside him, too, sate Chancey--his artful, cowardly
betrayer. Yet even against him he could not feel anger; all energy of
thought and feeling seemed lost to him; and nothing but a dull
ambiguous incredulity and a scared stupor were there in their stead.
On--on they rolled and rumbled, among pleasant fields and stately
hedge-rows, toward the ancestral dwelling of the miserable prisoner,
who sate like a lifeless effigy, yielding passively to every jolt and
movement of the carriage.
"I say, Grimes, were you ever out here before?" inquired Mr. Chancey.
"We'll soon be in the manor, driving up to Morley Court. It's a fine
place, I'm given to understand. I never was here but once before, long
as I know Sir Henry; but better late than never. Do you know this
place, Mr. Grimes?"
A negative grunt and a short nod relieved Mr. Grimes from the painful
necessity of removing his pipe for the purpose of uttering an
articulate answer.
"Oh, dear me, dear me," resumed Mr. Chancey, "but I'm uncommon hungry
and dry. I wish to God we were safe and sound in Sir Henry's house.
Grimes, are _you_ dry?"
Mr. Grimes removed his pipe, and spat upon the coach floor.
"Am I dhry?" said he. "About as dhry as a sprat in a tindher-box,
that's all. Is there much more to go?"
Chancey stretched his head out of the coach window.
"I see the old piers of the avenue," said he; "and God knows but it's I
that's glad we're near our journey's end. Now we're passing in--we're
in the avenue."
Mr. Grimes hereupon uttered a grunt of approbation; and pressing down
the ashes of his pipe with his thumb, he deposited that instrument in
his waistcoat pocket--whence, at the same time, he drew a small plug of
tobacco, which he inserted in his mouth, and rolled it about with his
tongue from time to time during the remainder of their progress.
"Sir Henry, we're arrived," said Chancey, admonishing the baronet with
his elbow--"we're at the hall-door at Morley Court. Sir Henry--dear me,
dear me, he's very abstracted, so he is. I say, Sir Henry, we're at
Morley Court."
Ashwoode looked vacantly in Chancey's face, and then upon the stately
door of the old house, and suddenly recollecting himself, he said with
strange alacrity,--
"Ay, ay--at Morley Court--so we are. Come, then, gentlemen, let us get
down."
Accordingly the three companions descended from the conveyance, and
entered the ancient dwelling-house together.
"Follow me, gentlemen," said Ashwoode, leading the way to a small,
oak-wainscoted parlour. "You shall have refreshments immediately."
He called the servant to the door, and continued addressing himself to
Chancey, and his no less refined companion.
"Order what you please, gentlemen--I can't think of these things just
now; and, sirrah, do you hear me, bring a large vessel of water--my
throat is literally scorched."
"Well, Mr. Chancey, what do you say?" said Grimes. "I'm for a couple of
bottles of sack, and a good pitcher of ale, to begin with, in the way
of liquor."
"Well, it wouldn't be that bad," said Chancey. "What meat have you on
the spit, my good man?"
"I don't exactly know, sir," replied the wondering domestic; "but I'll
inquire."
"And see, my good man," continued Chancey, "ask them whether there
isn't some cold roast beef in the buttery; and if so, bring it up in a
jiffy, for, I declare to G--d I'm uncommon hungry; and let the cook
send up a hot joint directly;--and do you mind, my honest man, light a
bit of a fire here, for it's rather chill, and put plenty of dry
sticks----"
"Give us the ale and the sack this instant minute, do you see," said
Mr. Grimes. "You may do the rest after."
"Yes, you may as well," resumed Chancey; "for indeed I'm lost with the
drooth myself."
"Cut your stick, saucepan," said Mr. Grimes, authoritatively; and the
servant departed in unfeigned astonishment to execute his various
commissions.
Ashwoode threw himself into a seat, and in silence endeavoured to
collect his thoughts. Faint, sick, and stunned, he nevertheless began
gradually to comprehend every particular of his position more and more
fully--until at length all the ghastly truth stood revealed to his
mind's eye in vivid and glaring distinctness. While Ashwoode was
engaged in his agreeable ruminations, Mr. Chancey and Mr. Grimes were
busily employed in discussing the substantial fare which his larder had
supplied, and pledging one another in copious libations of generous
liquor.