Part 21 (1/2)
”I suppose I may call on them,” said Harry. ”They were kind to me when I was a boy, and I liked cousin Mary, as we called her.”
”Yes, there can be no objection to your going,” answered Algernon.
”They will not consider it necessary to return your visit, and will look upon it as a kindness.”
The young men had been riding on further than they had intended, and being engaged in conversation while pa.s.sing along lanes with high hedges on either side, they had not observed a storm gathering in the sky.
Emerging from the lanes Harry invited his brother to take a gallop across the wide extended downs spread out before them, and thus they did not observe till they turned the thunder clouds sweeping up rapidly towards them.
”We shall get wet jackets, I suspect, before we reach home,” observed Harry.
”I hope not,” answered his brother, ”for I have been especially charged to avoid the damp and cold, and I feel somewhat heated. I wish there was some place where we could get shelter.”
”I am very sorry that I led you on, for I see no shed or cottage anywhere,” said Harry, gazing round; ”and I am afraid we shall have the rain down upon us before many minutes. Our shortest way to the nearest house at Hurlston will, I suspect, be across the downs. Come along, there is no time to spare.”
They put their horses into a gallop. The downs though at a distance appearing to be level, were intercepted by several deep ravines, and the young men had not gone far before they were compelled to turn inland by coming to one of the most rugged and wild of these ravines, the side of which was too steep to allow them to ride down it.
A little further Harry observed a place which he thought they could descend without difficulty, and thus save some distance. As he reached the bottom, followed by Algernon, he saw nestling under a rock on one side a hut built party of rough stones, and partly of the planks of some wreck cast on sh.o.r.e. At the same moment a bright flash of lightning darted from the clouds, followed by a cras.h.i.+ng peal of thunder, when immediately down came the rain.
”We may, at all events, find shelter in yonder hut,” said Harry, ”though it seems scarcely large enough to admit our horses, but I will hold them while you go inside.”
They made their way down the ravine, when Algernon dismounting pushed open the door and ran in, while Harry leading the horses followed him.
At the further end of the hut a woman was seated on a stool before the wood fire blazing on the hearth, over which she bent, apparently engaged in watching the contents of an iron pot boiling on it.
”Who dares intrude unbidden into my mansion,” she shrieked out in a wild unearthly tone, which made Algernon start back.
Her long grey hair hung down on either side of her colourless face, from which beamed forth a pair of wild eyes, glowing with the fire of madness. Her dress being of the same sombre hue as was everything in the hut, had as Algernon entered prevented him from observing her till she turned her face full upon him.
She rose as she spoke, confronting the two young men. ”Who are you?”
she repeated; ”speak, or begone, and trouble me not.”
”I beg your pardon for entering without leave,” said Algernon; ”but the rain is coming down so heavily that we should have been wet through in another minute, and there is no other shelter at hand.”
”That's no answer to my question,” she exclaimed. ”What care I for rain or storm; let the lightning flash and the thunder roar, and do its worst. Go your way, I say, and leave me to my solitude.”
”My brother would suffer should he get wet,” said Harry, stepping in.
”And I must beg you, my good lady, not to be annoyed if we remain till the storm is over; it will probably pa.s.s away in half an hour, and we beg not to interrupt you in what you are about.”
”You are fair spoken, young sir, but you have not answered my question.
Who are you, I ask again?”
”We are the sons of Sir Ralph Castleton, and we discovered your hut by chance, while looking for a place to obtain shelter from the rain.”
”Sp.a.w.n of the viper, how dare ye come hither to seek for shelter beneath my roof?” exclaimed the woman in a voice which made the young men start, so shrill and fierce did it sound, high above the roar of the thunder, the howling of the wind, and the pattering of the rain.
”A fit time ye have chosen to come and mock at me; but I have powers at my command to overwhelm you in a moment. See, the heavens fight on my side.”
As she spoke a bright flash of lightning darted down the glen, which, with the cras.h.i.+ng peal of thunder that followed, made the horses snort and plunge so violently, that Harry had no little difficulty in holding them, and was drawn out from the doorway in which he had been standing.