Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1723 page)

Mrs. Fairbank doesn’t view the study of agricultural human nature with my relish. Her fidgety horse will not allow her a moment’s repose; she is beginning to lose her temper.

“We can’t go fourteen miles in this way,” she says. “Where is the nearer inn? Ask that brute in the field!”

I take a shilling from my pocket and hold it up in the sun. The shilling exercises magnetic virtues. The shilling draws the peasant slowly towards me from the middle of the field. I inform him that we want to put up the horses, and to hire a 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 a 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 a 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 a 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 a 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 a good one. “Marnin!” he says savagely — and turns his back on us, as if we had offended him. A curious product, this, of the growth of civilisation. If I didn’t see a church spire at Underbridge, I might suppose that we had lost ourselves on a savage island.

II.

Arriving at the town, we have 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 signboard is obliterated. The shutters over the long range of front windows are all closed. A 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 a 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 ostler 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 a 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 a 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 a dingy little stable, containing two stalls. In one stall a horse is munching his corn. In the other a man is lying asleep on the litter.

A worn, withered, woe-begone man in an ostler’s 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 a painful nervous contraction on one side of his mouth. I hear him breathing convulsively when I first look in; he shudders and sighs in his sleep. It is not a 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! he’s beginning again.”

I look and listen. The man stirs on his miserable bed. The man speaks, in a quick fierce whisper, through his clenched 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 towards 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.

“Light grey eyes” (we hear him say), “and a droop in the left eyelid — flaxen hair, with a gold-yellow streak in it — all right, mother! fair, white arms with a down on them — little, lady’s hand, with a reddish look round the finger-nails — the knife — the cursed knife — first on one side, then on the other — aha, you she-devil! where is the knife?”

He stops and grows restless on a sudden. We see him writhing on the straw. He throws up both his hands and gasps hysterically for breath. His eyes open suddenly. For a moment they look at nothing, with a vacant glitter in them — then they close again in deeper sleep. Is he dreaming still? Yes; but the dream seems to have taken a new course. When he speaks next, the tone is altered; the words are few — sadly and imploringly repeated over and over again. “Say you love me! I am so fond of
you.
Say you love me! say you love me!” He sinks into deeper and deeper sleep; faintly repeating those words. They die away on his lips. He speaks no more.

By this time, Mrs. Fairbank has got over her terror. She is devoured by curiosity now. The miserable creature on the straw has appealed to the imaginative side of her character. Her illimitable appetite for romance hungers and thirsts for more. She shakes me impatiently by the arm.

“Do you hear? There is a woman at the bottom of it, Percy! There is love and murder in it, Percy! Where are the people of the inn? Go into the yard, and call to them again.”

My wife belongs, on her mother’s side, to the South of France. The South of France breeds fine women with hot tempers. I say no more. Married men will understand my position. Single men may need to be told that there are occasions when we must not only love and honour — we must also obey — our wives.

I turn to the door to obey
my
wife, and find myself confronting a stranger who has stolen on us unawares. The stranger is a tiny, sleepy, rosy old man, with a vacant pudding-face, and a shining bald head. He wears drab breeches and gaiters, and a respectable square-tailed ancient black coat. I feel instinctively that here is the landlord of the inn.

“Good morning, sir,” says the rosy old man. “I’m a little hard of hearing. Was it you that was a-calling just now in the yard?”

Before I can answer, my wife interposes. She insists (in a shrill voice, adapted to our host’s hardness of hearing) on knowing who that unfortunate person is sleeping on the straw? “Where does he come from? Why does he say such dreadful things in his sleep? Is he married or single? Did he ever fall in love with a murderess? What sort of a looking woman was she? Did she really stab him or not? In short, dear Mr. Landlord, tell us the whole story!”

Dear Mr. Landlord waits drowsily until Mrs. Fairbank has quite done — then delivers himself of his reply as follows: —

“His name’s Francis Raven. He’s an Independent Methodist. He was forty-five year old last birthday. And he’s my ostler. That’s his story.”

My wife’s hot Southern temper finds its way to her foot, and expresses itself by a stamp on the stable yard.

The landlord turns himself sleepily round, and looks at the horses. “A fine pair of horses, them two in the yard. Do you want to put ‘em up in my stables?” I reply in the affirmative by a nod. The landlord, bent on making himself agreeable to my wife, addresses her once more. “I’m a-going to wake Francis Raven. He’s an Independent Methodist. He was forty-five year old last birthday. And he’s my ostler. That’s his story.”

Having issued this second edition of his interesting narrative, the landlord enters the stable. We follow him, to see how he will wake Francis Raven, and what will happen upon that. The stable broom stands in a corner; the landlord takes it — advances towards the sleeping ostler — and coolly stirs the man up with the broom as if he was a wild beast in a cage. Francis Raven starts to his feet with a cry of terror — looks at us wildly, with a horrid glare of suspicion in his eyes — recovers himself the next moment — and suddenly changes into a decent, quiet, respectable serving-man.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am. I beg your pardon, sir.”

The tone and manner in which he makes his apologies are both above his apparent station in life. I begin to catch the infection of Mrs. Fairbank’s interest in this man. We both follow him out into the yard, to see what he will do with the horses. The manner in which he lifts the injured leg of the lame horse tells me at once that he understands his business. Quickly and quietly, he leads the animals into an empty stable; quickly and quietly, he gets a bucket of hot water, and puts the lame horse’s leg into it. “The warm water will reduce the swelling, sir. I will bandage the leg afterwards.” All that he does, is done intelligently; all that he says, he says to the purpose. Nothing wild, nothing strange about him, now. Is this the same man whom we heard talking in his sleep? the same man who woke with that cry of terror and that horrid suspicion in his eyes? I determine to try him with one or two questions.

III.

“Not much to do here,” I say to the ostler.

“Very little to do, sir,” the ostler replies.

“Anybody staying in the house?”

“The house is quite empty, sir.”

“I thought you were all dead. I could make nobody hear me.”

“The landlord is very deaf, sir, and the waiter is out on an errand.”

“Yes; and
you
were fast asleep in the stable. Do you often take a nap in the daytime?”

The worn face of the ostler faintly flushes. His eyes look away from my eyes for the first time. Mrs. Fairbank furtively pinches my arm. Are we on the eve of a discovery at last? I repeat my question. The man has no civil alternative but to give me an answer. The answer is given in these words:

“I was tired out, sir. You wouldn’t have found me asleep in the daytime but for that.”

“Tired out, eh? You had been hard at work, I suppose?”

“No, sir.”

“What was it, then?”

He hesitates again, and answers unwillingly, “I was up all night.”

“Up all night? Anything going on in the town?”

“Nothing going on, sir.”

“Anybody ill?”

“Nobody ill, sir.”

That reply is the last. Try as I may, I can extract nothing more from him. He turns away and busies himself in attending to the horse’s leg. I leave the stable, to speak to the landlord about the carriage which is to take us back to Farleigh Hall. Mrs. Fairbank remains with the ostler, and favours me with a look at parting. The look says plainly,
“I
mean to find out why he was up all night. Leave him to Me.”

The ordering of the carriage is easily accomplished. The inn possesses one horse and one chaise. The landlord has a story to tell of the horse, and a story to tell of the chaise. They resemble the story of Francis Raven — with this exception, that the horse and chaise belong to no religious persuasion. “The horse will be nine year old next birthday. I’ve had the shay for four and twenty year. Mr. Max, of Underbridge, he bred the horse; and Mr. Pooley, of Yeovil, he built the shay. It’s my horse and my shay. And that’s
their
story!” Having relieved his mind of these details, the landlord proceeds to put the harness on the horse. By way of assisting him, I drag the chaise into the yard. Just as our preparations are completed, Mrs. Fairbank appears. A moment or two later the ostler follows her out. He has bandaged the horse’s leg, and is now ready to drive us to Farleigh Hall. I observe signs of agitation in his face and manner, which suggest that my wife has found her way into his confidence. I put the question to her privately in a corner of the yard. “Well? Have you found out why Francis Raven was up all night?”