"They were down in the sou'-west country, which they little knew; and
were anighing Winchester city, or should 'a' been. But they got muzzed on
the ungodly downs, and before they guessed, they was off the track. My
good hat! there they was, as lost in the snow as three nutshells
a-sinkin' into a hasty pudden. Well, they wandered round; pretty
confident at first, but getting madder and madder as every sense of their
bearings slipped from them. And the bitter cold took their vitals, so as
they saw nothing but a great winding sheet stretched abroad for to wrap
their dead carcasses in.
"At last my grandfather he stopt and pulled hisself together with an
awful face, and says he: 'We're Christmas pie for the carrying-on crows
if we don't prove ourselves human. Let's fetch out our pipes and blow our
trouble into 'em.' So they stood together, like as if they was before a
house, and they played 'Kate of Aberdare' mighty dismal and flat, for
their fingers froze to the keys.
"Now, I tell you, they hadn't climbed over the first stave, when there
come a skirl of wind and spindrift of snow as almost took them off of
their feet; and, on the going down of it, Jem Sloke, as played the
hautboy, dropped the reed from his mouth, and called out, 'Sakes alive!
if we fools ain't been standin' outside a gentleman's gate all the time,
and not knowin' it!'
"You might 'a' knocked the three of 'em down wi' a barley straw, as they
stared and stared, and then fell into a low, enjoyin' laugh. For they was
standin' not six fut from a tall iron gate in a stone wall, and behind
these was a great house showin' out dim, with the winders all lighted up.
"'Lord!' chuckled my grandfather, 'to think o' the tricks o' this
vagarious country! But, as we're here, we'll go on and give 'em a taste
of our quality.'
"They put new heart into the next movement, as you may guess; and they
hadn't fair started on it, when the door of the house swung open, and
down the shaft of light that shot out as far as the gate there come a
smiling young gal, with a tray of glasses in her hands.
"Now she come to the bars; and she took and put a glass through, not
sayin' nothin', but invitin' some one to drink with a silent laugh.
"Did any one take that glass? Of course he did, you'll be thinkin'; and
you'll be thinkin' wrong. Not a man of the three moved. They was struck
like as stone, and their lips was gone the colour of sloe berries. Not a
man took the glass. For why? The moment the gal presented it, each saw
the face of a thing lookin' out of the winder over the porch, and the
face was hidjus beyond words, and the shadder of it, with the light
behind, stretched out and reached to the gal, and made her hidjus, too.
"At last my grandfather give a groan and put out his hand; and, as he did
it, the face went, and the gal was beautiful to see agen.
"'Death and the devil!' said he. 'It's one or both, either way; and I
prefer 'em hot to cold!'
"He drank off half the glass, smacked his lips, and stood staring a
moment.
"'Dear, dear!' said the gal, in a voice like falling water, 'you've drunk
blood, sir!'
"My grandfather gave a yell, slapped the rest of the liquor in the faces
of his friends, and threw the cup agen the bars. It broke with a noise
like thunder, and at that he up'd with his hands and fell full length
into the snow."
There was a pause. The little man by the door was twisting nervously in
his chair.
"He came to--of course, he came to?" said he at length.
"He come to," said the banjo solemnly, "in the bitter break of dawn; that
is, he come to as much of hisself as he ever was after. He give a
squiggle and lifted his head; and there was he and his friends a-lyin' on
the snow of the high downs."
"And the house and the gal?"
"Narry a sign of either, sir, but just the sky and the white stretch; and
one other thing."
"And what was that?"
"A stain of red sunk in where the cup had spilt."
There was a second pause, and the banjo blew into the bowl of his pipe.
"They cleared out of that neighbourhood double quick, you'll bet," said
he. "But my grandfather was never the same man agen. His face took
purple, while his friends' only remained splashed with red, same as birth
marks; and, I tell you, if he ever ventur'd upon 'Kate of Aberdare,' his
cheeks swelled up to the reed of his clarinet, like as a blue plum on a
stalk. And forty year after, he died of what they call solution of blood
to the brain."
"And you can't have better proof than that," said the little man.
"That's what _I_ say," said the banjo. "Next player, gentlemen, please."