Freaks on the Fells: Three Months' Rustication by R. M. Ballantyne (short story to read TXT) 📖

My bedroom was a small one, with little furniture in it. A small iron stove in the fire-place acted instead of a grate, and as I was accustomed to read late my father allowed me to light it in cold weather. It was blazing cheerfully when Jack left me, and the bright gleams of ruddy light that darted through the chinks of the door and fell on the opposite wall, threw the light of my solitary candle quite into the shade.

I have already remarked that the night was dark and dismal. In addition to that, it was stormy. The wind moaned drearily among the venerable elms that surrounded our quiet country residence, and ever and anon came in sharp, fitful gusts that caused the window-frames to rattle, and even shook the house, at times, to its foundation. Heavy drops of rain fell occasionally on the window-panes, and in a few minutes the storm broke forth in full violence.

As the old house had stood many such in years gone by, I did not give myself much concern about the gale; but pulled down the blind, placed my little table and books near the stove, and, drawing in my chair, sat down to think. How long I remained in this condition I cannot tell; but my reveries were broken by the large clock on the stairs striking twelve.

I started up, and clinching my hands exclaimed aloud, “No! I’ve made up my mind, I won’t run away!” Under the impulse of the feeling I threw open the door of the stove and heaped on fresh coals, muttering to myself; as I did so, “No, I won’t run away, I won’t run away; no, no, no, I won’t run a—”

I was checked suddenly by my eye falling a second time on that terrific African savage sending from his revolver a charge down the throat of that magnificent Bengal tiger, that would have blown the inside entirely out of any living creature smaller than an elephant. I sat down. I gazed at the picture. I read the account. I followed up the adventurous savage. My head reeled with excitement. A strange terrible heat seemed to dart like lightning through my veins, and the book began to flicker before my eyes. I became alarmed.

“Surely some terrible fever is seizing on me!” I exclaimed, and in the terror of the thought I started up and paced my room rapidly. But the fire increased, and my head swam. I meditated ringing the bell and alarming the household; but the thought of this quieted me, and gradually I became calmer.

It was at this moment that my former resolution returned upon me with tenfold violence. “I’ll submit to this no longer,” I growled between my teeth; “I will run away!”

The instant I said that, I felt as if I were imbued with a determination that nothing could shake. Jack’s reasoning never once came into my mind. I took down the knapsack that hung on a nail ready packed for the intended fishing expedition of the morrow. I buckled it on; put on my thickest shoes, and, seizing a stout cudgel, issued softly from my apartment, and tapped gently at Jack’s door.

“Come in!”

I entered, and was overwhelmed with surprise at finding my friend standing in the middle of the room accoutred for the road just like myself. He put his finger to his lips.

“Hush! Bob. I was on the point of going to your room to say that I’ve made up my mind to run away with you.”

I was staggered. I did not relish this unaccountable change. If I had persuaded him to go, it would have been all right; but to find him thus ready and eager was unnatural. I felt as if I were accountable for this change in his opinions and actions, and immediately, strange to say, experienced a tendency to dissuade him.

“But, Jack, you forget what you said to me some hours ago.”

“No, I don’t,” he answered, gloomily.

“Perhaps we’d better think over it again.”

“No, we won’t. Come, Bob, don’t show the white feather now. Don’t waste time. It’s about dawn. It’s too late to reason. You have tempted me, and I have given in.”

Saying this, he seized me by the collar and pushed me before him.

And now the mysterious events which I am about to relate began. The conduct of my friend Jack on this occasion was in itself a mystery. He was by nature the gentlest and most inoffensive of human beings, except when circumstances required him to act vigorously: then he was a lion—irresistible. Since the commencement of our acquaintance, which was of many years’ standing, he had never by word or look given me the slightest cause for anger; and yet here he was grasping me violently by the collar and pushing me forcibly before him.

I did not get angry. My conscience smote me. I said to myself; “Ah! this is the result of evil conduct. I have tempted Jack to act against his judgment; he is no longer what he was.”

Instead of melting under this feeling, I became hardened. I stepped out, and so dragged my friend after me down the back stairs which led to the lower part of the house, where the servants slept. Jack whispered, “All right,” and let go his hold.

“Now we must be cautious,” I said, in a low tone, as we proceeded to traverse the passage, on each side of which were the rooms occupied by the servants. We took off our shoes and advanced on tip-toe. At the far end of the passage we heard a sound like a trombone. That was the butler; we knew of his snoring propensities, and so were not alarmed. His door was open; so was his mouth—I could see that plainly, as I passed, by the dim light of a candle which he always burned at night. The butler was excessively fat. I merely mention this because it accounts for the fact of his not awaking when we unlocked the street door. Fat people are not easily wakened.

The lock of the door was an old-fashioned large one. It grated slightly as Jack turned the key; then at a certain point the key lost control over it, and it shot back with a report like a pistol-shot! My heart flew to my mouth, and almost choked me. The butler gave a double snort and turned in his bed as Jack and I darted round an angle of the wall and hid in a dark corner. The butler soon gave unquestionable evidence that he had not been thoroughly aroused, and we were about to issue from our place of concealment, when the door of our man-servant’s room opened, and he peeped out. Edwards—that was his name—was a stout young fellow, and we felt certain that he would not rest satisfied until he had found out the cause of the noise.

We were right. He stepped cautiously into the passage with a poker in his hand. My heart sank within me. Just at that moment a cat darted across the passage with its back and tail up, and its eyes glaring. Edwards flung the poker at it, missed the cat, and knocked over an old tin umbrella-stand, with which the poker made a hideous clatter on the stone floor of the passage.

“Ha! you brute! Wot? it’s you as is makin’ all that row, is it?”

“Oh, dear, Edwards, what’s happened?” cried a shrill voice from the other end of the passage—it was cook.

“Oh, nothin’, only the cat,” replied the man as he sauntered into the butler’s room. The butler seemed at that moment to have been smitten with a fit of apoplexy—we could see him from our dark corner;—he grew purple in the face, gasped once or twice, choked awfully, and then sat up in bed staring like a maniac.

“Oh! Jack,” I whispered in horror.

“Don’t be alarmed; it’s only his usual way of waking up. I’ve seen him do it often.”

“What noise is that? What’s going on down there?” cried a deep bass voice in the distance. It was my father. No one replied. Presently my father’s bedroom bell rang with extreme violence. Edwards rushed out of the butler’s room. The butler fell back, opened his mouth, and pretended to be asleep—snoring moderately. This of itself would have undeceived any one, for when the old hypocrite was really asleep he never snored moderately. The cook and housemaid uttered two little shrieks and slammed their respective doors, while the bell rang violently a second time.

“Now for it,” whispered Jack. He opened the back door softly, and we darted out. A streak of pale light on the horizon indicated the approach of day. We tried to close the door behind us, but we heard the butler choke, gasp, and shout at the top of his voice, “Hi! hallo!” At the same instant the old dinner-gong sent a peal of horrible sound through the house, and we took to flight filled with unutterable terror.

Oh, how we did run! We had scarcely cleared the offices and got fairly into the avenue when we heard Edwards shout as he started in pursuit.

We were both good runners, but Jack soon took the lead, and kept it by about five yards. Our feet scarcely touched the ground. I felt as if I had wings, so great was my terror. We reached the end of the avenue. The gate was full five feet high. To my inexpressible amazement, Jack went clear over it with one bound!

I have never been able to analyse my feelings and impulses on that occasion. I am, and always was, rather a poor jumper; yet, without hesitation, without even a doubt as to my ability to clear it, I went at that gate like an Irish hunter at a stone wall, and leaped fairly over it! The leap did not even check my pace for an instant. I remember, in the whirl and confusion of the moment, that I attributed my almost superhuman powers to terror; but the feeling that we were pursued again absorbed all my faculties.

We dashed on at a killing pace, and, strange to say, without feeling the slightest fatigue. Having cleared the avenue, we mounted the high ground in the neighbourhood, passed the church, entered the village, and went through it like a railway train; came out upon the road beyond, and reached a wooded part of the country where several roads and by-paths diverged from the highway. All this time Edwards kept close on our heels. He did not gain on us, but we felt that we did not distance him. “Down here!” cried Jack, doubling suddenly into a lane.

We passed a small bridge that crossed a mill-lake. Beyond, there was a farm-yard. The path-way was high, and