don’t know nothin’ about that, Master Johnnie.”
“But all I want to know is, could he have died many years before I was born?”
“Why, I don’t believe so. No, I’m sartin sure not.”
We walked on in a thoughtful silence. Some minutes later, just as we reached the turnpike Sukey suddenly said: “My dad broke the law. There now, I didn’t ought to have told you that and I shan’t say no more.”
I stored this away to think about later for by now my mind was on the ’pike and my disappointment in finding that there was no vehicle upon it in sight in either direction.
We continued along it for about half a mile with the wall of the park on the left, and in that time only a couple of waggons and a light chaise passed us.
“Time to turn off, Master Johnnie,” Sukey said sorrowfully as we reached the turning to Hougham.
“Mayn’t we wait a little?” I asked.
At that instant I thought I heard a metallic wailing note in the distance.
“Oh listen, Sukey,” I exclaimed. “Here comes something.”
“We must hurry, Master Johnnie,” she protested.
The road ran up a long slope to a bend about a mile away, and I fixed my eyes upon that point. Suddenly something appeared there. Even before I could construe what I was looking at I heard the clattering of horses’ hooves — more of them and faster than I had ever heard before. Now I could make out the coach and team as they came thundering towards us at full gallop. I saw the blinkered heads of the horses, raised and rearing backwards and pulled to one side as if they were reluctant to advance, and yet at the same time their great fore-legs were always thrusting forward as if to pull the road towards them. I saw the cloaked figure of the driver on the box holding his long whip before him, and then the body of the vehicle itself, gleaming and painted bright red. At that moment Sukey clutched me and pulled me back with sudden violence onto the wide grass verge.
Now it was almost upon us and the thunder of the hooves and the great metal-clad wheels on the hard surface of the road grew and grew until it seemed to be pounding and clattering inside my head. Then the horses were 44 THE
HUFFAMS
passing us, their huge heads and rolling eyes seeming only inches from us, their coats gleaming wet with sweat, and after them the great lurching monster of the coach itself, with the face of the inside passengers briefly glimpsed through the windows, and the driver and the outsides huddling together against the wind on the top.
In an instant it was gone, and from beneath Sukey’s arm I looked at its swaying back as it bounced across the uneven surface of the road.
We were both silent for a moment, and then I said: “Did you see, Sukey? That was the York to London coach. The Arrow.”
“Was it, boy?” Sukey said, her face still flushed with excitement. “How do you know?”
“It had it written on the side in big golden writing,” I told her proudly, for Sukey, of course, did not know her letters. “Though of course,” I added regretfully, “it wasn’t the Royal Mail.”
“What am I thinking of !” she exclaimed suddenly. “We must be gettin’ on.”
So we hurried down the lane with the high wall of the demesne still on our left. It was badly delapidated so that in places we could easily look down into the park as it sloped towards the bottom of the valley where we saw a line of thick bushes and trees marking the course of a hidden stream until it broadened out into an expanse of grey water which was the lake.
We skirted Stoke Mompesson with its broad high street with rows of handsome cottages on either side, and then another half a mile further, a straggling group of rough-cast hovels on our right marked the beginning of the village that was our goal. And a very squalid hamlet it was in comparison to Melthorpe, looking to me like an extended version of Silver-street, made up of mean one-story houses built of furze-branches, mud and mortar, and in
“But all I want to know is, could he have died many years before I was born?”
“Why, I don’t believe so. No, I’m sartin sure not.”
We walked on in a thoughtful silence. Some minutes later, just as we reached the turnpike Sukey suddenly said: “My dad broke the law. There now, I didn’t ought to have told you that and I shan’t say no more.”
I stored this away to think about later for by now my mind was on the ’pike and my disappointment in finding that there was no vehicle upon it in sight in either direction.
We continued along it for about half a mile with the wall of the park on the left, and in that time only a couple of waggons and a light chaise passed us.
“Time to turn off, Master Johnnie,” Sukey said sorrowfully as we reached the turning to Hougham.
“Mayn’t we wait a little?” I asked.
At that instant I thought I heard a metallic wailing note in the distance.
“Oh listen, Sukey,” I exclaimed. “Here comes something.”
“We must hurry, Master Johnnie,” she protested.
The road ran up a long slope to a bend about a mile away, and I fixed my eyes upon that point. Suddenly something appeared there. Even before I could construe what I was looking at I heard the clattering of horses’ hooves — more of them and faster than I had ever heard before. Now I could make out the coach and team as they came thundering towards us at full gallop. I saw the blinkered heads of the horses, raised and rearing backwards and pulled to one side as if they were reluctant to advance, and yet at the same time their great fore-legs were always thrusting forward as if to pull the road towards them. I saw the cloaked figure of the driver on the box holding his long whip before him, and then the body of the vehicle itself, gleaming and painted bright red. At that moment Sukey clutched me and pulled me back with sudden violence onto the wide grass verge.
Now it was almost upon us and the thunder of the hooves and the great metal-clad wheels on the hard surface of the road grew and grew until it seemed to be pounding and clattering inside my head. Then the horses were 44 THE
HUFFAMS
passing us, their huge heads and rolling eyes seeming only inches from us, their coats gleaming wet with sweat, and after them the great lurching monster of the coach itself, with the face of the inside passengers briefly glimpsed through the windows, and the driver and the outsides huddling together against the wind on the top.
In an instant it was gone, and from beneath Sukey’s arm I looked at its swaying back as it bounced across the uneven surface of the road.
We were both silent for a moment, and then I said: “Did you see, Sukey? That was the York to London coach. The Arrow.”
“Was it, boy?” Sukey said, her face still flushed with excitement. “How do you know?”
“It had it written on the side in big golden writing,” I told her proudly, for Sukey, of course, did not know her letters. “Though of course,” I added regretfully, “it wasn’t the Royal Mail.”
“What am I thinking of !” she exclaimed suddenly. “We must be gettin’ on.”
So we hurried down the lane with the high wall of the demesne still on our left. It was badly delapidated so that in places we could easily look down into the park as it sloped towards the bottom of the valley where we saw a line of thick bushes and trees marking the course of a hidden stream until it broadened out into an expanse of grey water which was the lake.
We skirted Stoke Mompesson with its broad high street with rows of handsome cottages on either side, and then another half a mile further, a straggling group of rough-cast hovels on our right marked the beginning of the village that was our goal. And a very squalid hamlet it was in comparison to Melthorpe, looking to me like an extended version of Silver-street, made up of mean one-story houses built of furze-branches, mud and mortar, and in
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