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Vourteen mile. Gi oi а drap o zyder.
I translate (for my wifes benefit) from the Somersetshire language into the English language. We are fourteen miles from Farleigh Hall; and our friend in the field desires to be rewarded, for giving us that information, with а drop of cider. There is the peasant, painted by himself! Quite а bit of character, my dear! Quite а bit of character!
Mrs. Fairbank doesnt view the study of agricultural human nature with my relish. Her fidgety horse will not allow her а moments repose; she is beginning to lose her temper.
We cant go fourteen miles in this way, she says. Where is the nearest inn? Ask that brute in the field!
I take а shilling from my pocket and hold it up in the sun. The shilling exercises magnetic virtues. The shilling draws the peasant slowly toward me from the middle of the field. I inform him that we want to put up the horses and to hire а carriage to take us back to Farleigh Hall. Where can we do that? The peasant answers (with his eye on the shilling):
At Oonderbridge, to be zure. (At Underbridge, to be sure.)
Is it far to Underbridge?
The peasant repeats, Var to Oonderbridge? and laughs at the question. Hoo-hoo-hoo! (Underbridge is evidently close by if we could only find it.) Will you show us the way, my man? Will you gi oi а drap of zyder? I courteously bend my head, and point to the shilling. The agricultural intelligence exerts itself. The peasant joins our melancholy procession. My wife is а fine woman, but he never once looks at my wife and, more extraordinary still, he never even looks at the horses. His eyes are with his mind and his mind is on the shilling.
We reach the top of the hill and, behold on the other side, nestling in а valley, the shrine of our pilgrimage, the town of Underbridge! Here our guide claims his shilling, and leaves us to find out the inn for ourselves. I am constitutionally а polite man. I say Good morning at parting. The guide looks at me with the shilling between his teeth to make sure that it is а good one. Marnin! he says savagely and turns his back on us, as if we had offended him. А curious product, this, of the growth of civilization. If I didnt see а church spire at Underbridge, I might suppose that we had lost ourselves on а savage island.
II
Arriving at the town, we had no difficulty in finding the inn. The town is composed of one desolate street; and midway in that street stands the inn an ancient stone building sadly out of repair. The painting on the sign-board is obliterated. The shutters over the long range of front windows are all closed. А cock and his hens are the only living creatures at the door. Plainly, this is one of the old inns of the stage-coach period, ruined by the railway. We pass through the open arched doorway, and find no one to welcome us. We advance into the stable yard behind; I assist my wife to dismount and there we are in the position already disclosed to view at the opening of this narrative. No bell to ring. No human creature to answer when I call. I stand helpless, with the bridles of the horses in my hand. Mrs. Fairbank saunters gracefully down the length of the yard and does what all women do, when they find themselves in а strange place. She opens every door as she passes it, and peeps in. On my side, I have just recovered my breath, I am on the point of shouting for the hostler for the third and last time, when I hear Mrs. Fairbank suddenly call to me:
Percy! come here!
Her voice is eager and agitated. She has opened а last door at the end of the yard, and has started back from some sight which has suddenly met her view. I hitch the horses bridles on а rusty nail in the wall near me, and join my wife. She has turned pale, and catches me nervously by the arm.
Good heavens! she cries; look at that!
I look and what do I see? I see а dingy little stable, containing two stalls. In one stall а horse is munching his corn. In the other а man is lying asleep on the litter.
A worn, withered, woebegone man in а hostlers dress. His hollow wrinkled cheeks, his scanty grizzled hair, his dry yellow skin, tell their own tale of past sorrow or suffering. There is an ominous frown on his eyebrows there is а painful nervous contraction on the side of his mouth. I hear him breathing convulsively when I first look in; he shudders and sighs in his sleep. It is not а pleasant sight to see, and I turn round instinctively to the bright sunlight in the yard. My wife turns me back again in the direction of the stable door.
Wait! she says. Wait! he may do it again.
Do what again?
He was talking in his sleep, Percy, when I first looked in. He was dreaming some dreadful dream. Hush! hes beginning again.
I look and listen. The man stirs on his miserable bed. The man speaks in а quick, fierce whisper through his clinched teeth. Wake up! Wake up, there! Murder!
There is an interval of silence. He moves one lean arm slowly until it rests over his throat; he shudders, and turns on his straw; he raises his arm from his throat, and feebly stretches it out; his hand clutches at the straw on the side toward which he has turned; he seems to fancy that he is grasping at the edge of something. I see his lips begin to move again; I step softly into the stable; my wife follows me, with her hand fast clasped in mine. We both bend over him. He is talking once more in his sleep strange talk, mad talk, this time.