The train stopped at a little rustic station, forty miles westward of Exeter, about an hour after midnight, a dreary building with an open platform, across which the wind blew and the snow drifted as John Treverton alighted, the one solitary passenger to be deposited at this out-of-the-way place. He knew that the house to which he had to go was some miles from the station, and he applied himself at once to the sleepy stationmaster to ascertain if there were any possibility of procuring a conveyance at that time of night.
“There’s a gig waiting for a gentleman from London,” the man answered, stifling a yawn, “I suppose you are the party, sir.”
“A gig from Treverton Manor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks, yes, I am the person that is expected. Civil, at any rate,” John Treverton added to himself, as he walked off to the gig, wrapped to the eyes in his great coat, and with a railway rug across his shoulder.
He found a gig, with a rough looking individual of the gardener species waiting for him in the snow.
“Here I am, my man,” he cried cheerily, “have you been waiting long?”
“No, sir. Miss Malcolm said as how you’d come by this train.”
“Miss Malcolm sent you for me then?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how is Mr. Treverton, tonight?”
“Mortal bad, sir. The doctors say as th’ old gentleman hasn’t many hours to live. And Miss Malcolm, she says to me, ‘Jacob, you’re to drive home as fast as th’ horse can go, for papa is very anxious to see Mr. John before he dies.’ She allus calls the old gentleman papa, you see, sir, he having adopted of her ten years ago, and brought her up as his own daughter like, ever since.”
They had jolted over the uneven stones of a narrow street, the high street of a small settlement which evidently called itself a town, for here, at a point where two narrow lanes branched off from the central thoroughfare, there stood a dilapidated old building of the town hall species, and a vaulted marketplace with iron railings, and closely-locked gates shutting in emptiness. John Treverton perceived dimly through the winter darkness an old stone church, and at least three Methodist chapels. Then, all in a moment, the town was gone, and the gig was rattling along a Devonshire lane, between high banks and still higher hedges, above which rose a world of hill and moor, that melted far off into the midnight sky.
“And your master is very fond of this young lady, Miss Malcolm?” John Treverton inquired presently, when the horse, after rattling along for a mile and a half at a tremendous pace, was slowly climbing a hill which seemed to lead nowhere in particular, for one could hardly imagine any definite end or aim in a lane that went undulating like a snake amidst a chaos of hills.
“Oncommon, sir. You see, she’s about the only thing he has ever cared for.”
“Is she as much liked by other people?”
“Well, yes, sir, in a general way Miss Malcolm is pretty well liked, but there is some as think her proud—think her a little set up as you may say, by Mr. Treverton’s making so much of her. She’s not one to make friends very easy; the young ladies in the village, Squire Carew’s daughters, and suchlike, haven’t taken to her as much as they might have done. I’ve heard my wife—as has been parlourmaid at the Manor for the last twenty years—say as much many a time. But Miss Malcolm is a pleasant spoken young lady, for all that, to those she likes, and my Susan has had no fault to find with her. You see all of us has our peculiarities, sir, and it ain’t to be supposed as Miss Malcolm would be without hers,” the man concluded in an argumentative tone.
“Humph,” muttered John Treverton, “a stuck-up young lady, I daresay—and a deep one into the bargain. Did you ever hear who she was—what her position was, and so on—when my cousin Jasper adopted her?” he asked aloud.
“No, sir. Mr. Treverton has kept that oncommon close. He’d been away from the Manor a twelvemonth when he brought her home without a word of warning to anyone in the house, and told his old housekeeper, as how he’d adopted this little girl—who was an orphan—the daughter of an old friend of his, and that’s all he ever said about her from that time to this. Miss Malcolm was about seven or eight year old at that time, as pretty a little girl as you could see—and she has grown up to be a beautiful young woman.”
Beautiful. Oh, this artful young person was beautiful, was she? John Treverton determined that her good looks should have no influence upon his opinions.
The man was quite willing to talk, but his companion asked no more questions. He felt indeed that he had already asked more than he was warranted in asking, and felt a little ashamed of himself for having done so. The rest of the drive therefore, passed for the most part in silence. The journey had seemed long to John Treverton, partly because of his own impatience, partly on account of the numerous ups and downs of that everlasting lane, but it was little more than half an hour after leaving the station when they entered a village street where there was not a glimmer of light at this hour, except one solitary lamp shining feebly before the door of the general shop and post office. This was the village of Hazlehurst, near which Hazlehurst Manor House was situated. They drove to the end of this quiet
