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Page 39
"'Well it is a nasty night and it will be nastier before it's over;'
an opinion instantly endorsed by a sudden swoop of wind that rushed
by at that moment, slamming the door behind him and awakening over my
head a lugubrious groaning as from the twisting boughs of some old
tree, that was almost threatening in its character.
"'You had better go in,' said he, 'the rain will come next.'
"I at once leaped from my horse and pushing open the door with main
strength, entered the house. Another man met me on the threshold who
merely pointing over his shoulder to a lighted room in his rear,
passed out without a word, to help the somewhat younger man, who had
first appeared, in putting up my horse. I at once accepted his
silent invitation and stepped into the room before me. Instantly I
found myself confronted by the rather startling vision of a young
girl of a unique and haunting style of beauty, who rising at my
approach now stood with her eyes on my face and her hands resting on
the deal table before which she had been sitting, in an attitude
expressive of mingled surprise and alarm. To see a woman in that
place was not so strange; but such a woman! Even in the first casual
glance I gave her, I at once acknowledged to myself her extraordinary
power. Not the slightness of her form, the palor of her countenance,
or the fairness of the locks of golden red hair that fell in two long
braids over her bosom, could for a moment counteract the effect of
her dark glance or the vivid almost unearthly force of her
expression. It was as if you saw a flame upstarting before you, waving
tremulously here and there, but burning and resistless in its white
heat. I took off my hat with deference.
"A shudder passed over her, but she made no effort to return my
acknowledgement. As we cast our eyes dilating with horror, down some
horrible pit upon whose verge we suddenly find ourselves, she allowed
her gaze for a moment to dwell upon my face, then with a sudden
lifting of her hand, pointed towards the door as if to bid me
depart--when it swung open with that shrill rushing of wind that
involuntarily awakes a shudder within you, and the two men entered and
came stamping up to my side. Instantly her hand sunk, not feebly as
with fear, but calmly as if at the bidding of her will, and without
waiting for them to speak, she turned away and quietly left the room.
As the door closed upon her I noticed that she wore a calico frock
and that her face did not own one perfect feature.
"'Go after Luttra and tell her to make up the bed in the northwest
room,' said the elder of the two in deep gutteral tones unmistakably
German in their accent, to the other who stood shaking the wet off his
coat into the leaping flames of a small wood fire that burned on the
hearth before us.
"'O, she'll do without my bothering,' was the sullen return. 'I'm wet
through.'
"The elder man, a large powerfully framed fellow of some fifty years
or so, frowned. It was an evil frown, and the younger one seemed to
feel it. He immediately tossed his coat onto a chair and left the
room.
"'Boys are so obstropolous now-a-days,' remarked his companion to me
with what he evidently intended for a conciliatory nod. 'In my time
they were broke in, did what they were told and asked no questions.'
"I smiled to myself at his calling the broad shouldered six-footer who
had just left us a boy, but merely remarking, 'He is your son is he
not!' seated myself before the blaze which shot up a tongue of white
flame at my approach, that irresistibly recalled to my fancy the
appearance of the girl who had gone out a moment before.
"'O, yes, he is my son, and that girl you saw here was my daughter; I
keep this inn and they help me, but it is a slow way to live, I can
tell you. Travel on these roads is slim.'
"'I should think likely,' I returned, remembering the half dozen or so
hills up which I had clambered since I took to my horse. 'How far are
we from Pentonville?'
"'O, two or three miles,' he replied, but in a hurried kind of a way.
'Not far in the daytime but a regular journey in a night like this?'
"'Yes,' said I, as the house shook under a fresh gust; 'it is
fortunate I have a place in which to put up.'
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