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Chapter III
ACROSS THE MOOR
She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock
had bought a lunchbasket at one of the stations and they
had some chicken and cold beef and bread and butter and
some hot tea. The rain seemed to be streaming down more
heavily than ever and everybody in the station wore wet
and glistening waterproofs. The guard lighted the lamps
in the carriage, and Mrs. Medlock cheered up very much
over her tea and chicken and beef. She ate a great deal
and afterward fell asleep herself, and Mary sat and stared
at her and watched her fine bonnet slip on one side until she
herself fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage,
lulled by the splashing of the rain against the windows.
It was quite dark when she awakened again. The train
had stopped at a station and Mrs. Medlock was shaking her.
"You have had a sleep!" she said. "It's time to open
your eyes! We're at Thwaite Station and we've got a long
drive before us."
Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open while
Mrs. Medlock collected her parcels. The little
girl did not offer to help her, because in India
native servants always picked up or carried things
and it seemed quite proper that other people should wait on one.
The station was a small one and nobody but themselves
seemed to be getting out of the train. The station-master
spoke to Mrs. Medlock in a rough, good-natured way,
pronouncing his words in a queer broad fashion which Mary
found out afterward was Yorkshire.
"I see tha's got back," he said. "An' tha's browt th'
young 'un with thee."
"Aye, that's her," answered Mrs. Medlock, speaking with
a Yorkshire accent herself and jerking her head over
her shoulder toward Mary. "How's thy Missus?"
"Well enow. Th' carriage is waitin' outside for thee."
A brougham stood on the road before the little
outside platform. Mary saw that it was a smart carriage
and that it was a smart footman who helped her in.
His long waterproof coat and the waterproof covering of his
hat were shining and dripping with rain as everything was,
the burly station-master included.
When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman,
and they drove off, the little girl found herself seated
in a comfortably cushioned corner, but she was not inclined
to go to sleep again. She sat and looked out of the window,
curious to see something of the road over which she
was being driven to the queer place Mrs. Medlock had
spoken of. She was not at all a timid child and she was
not exactly frightened, but she felt that there was no
knowing what might happen in a house with a hundred rooms
nearly all shut up--a house standing on the edge of a moor.
"What is a moor?" she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock.
"Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you'll see,"
the woman answered. "We've got to drive five miles across
Missel Moor before we get to the Manor. You won't see
much because it's a dark night, but you can see something."
Mary asked no more questions but waited in the darkness
of her corner, keeping her eyes on the window. The carriage
lamps cast rays of light a little distance ahead of them
and she caught glimpses of the things they passed.
After they had left the station they had driven through a
tiny village and she had seen whitewashed cottages and the
lights of a public house. Then they had passed a church
and a vicarage and a little shop-window or so in a cottage
with toys and sweets and odd things set our for sale.
Then they were on the highroad and she saw hedges and trees.
After that there seemed nothing different for a long
time--or at least it seemed a long time to her.
At last the horses began to go more slowly, as if they
were climbing up-hill, and presently there seemed to be
no more hedges and no more trees. She could see nothing,
in fact, but a dense darkness on either side. She leaned
forward and pressed her face against the window just
as the carriage gave a big jolt.
"Eh! We're on the moor now sure enough," said Mrs. Medlock.
The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a rough-looking
road which seemed to be cut through bushes and low-growing
things which ended in the great expanse of dark apparently
spread out before and around them. A wind was rising
and making a singular, wild, low, rushing sound.
"It's--it's not the sea, is it?" said Mary, looking round
at her companion.
"No, not it," answered Mrs. Medlock. "Nor it isn't fields
nor mountains, it's just miles and miles and miles of wild
land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom,
and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep."
"I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water
on it," said Mary. "It sounds like the sea just now."
"That's the wind blowing through the bushes," Mrs. Medlock said.
"It's a wild, dreary enough place to my mind, though there's
plenty that likes it--particularly when the heather's in bloom."
On and on they drove through the darkness, and though
the rain stopped, the wind rushed by and whistled and made
strange sounds. The road went up and down, and several
times the carriage passed over a little bridge beneath
which water rushed very fast with a great deal of noise.
Mary felt as if the drive would never come to an end
and that the wide, bleak moor was a wide expanse of black
ocean through which she was passing on a strip of dry land.
"I don't like it," she said to herself. "I don't like it,"
and she pinched her thin lips more tightly together.
The horses were climbing up a hilly piece of road
when she first caught sight of a light. Mrs. Medlock
saw it as soon as she did and drew a long sigh of relief.
"Eh, I am glad to see that bit o' light twinkling,"
she exclaimed. "It's the light in the lodge window.
We shall get a good cup of tea after a bit, at all events."
It was "after a bit," as she said, for when the carriage
passed through the park gates there was still two miles
of avenue to drive through and the trees (which nearly
met overhead) made it seem as if they were driving
through a long dark vault.
They drove out of the vault into a clear space
and stopped before an immensely long but low-built
house which seemed to ramble round a stone court.
At first Mary thought that there were no lights at all
in the windows, but as she got out of the carriage
she saw that one room in a corner upstairs showed a dull glow.
The entrance door was a huge one made of massive, curiously
shaped panels of oak studded with big iron nails and bound
with great iron bars. It opened into an enormous hall,
which was so dimly lighted that the faces in the portraits
on the walls and the figures in the suits of armor
made Mary feel that she did not want to look at them.
As she stood on the stone floor she looked a very small,
odd little black figure, and she felt as small and lost
and odd as she looked.
A neat, thin old man stood near the manservant who opened
the door for them.
"You are to take her to her room," he said in a husky voice.
"He doesn't want to see her. He's going to London
in the morning."
"Very well, Mr. Pitcher," Mrs. Medlock answered.
"So long as I know what's expected of me, I can manage."
"What's expected of you, Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Pitcher said,
"is that you make sure that he's not disturbed and that he
doesn't see what he doesn't want to see."
And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase
and down a long corridor and up a short flight
of steps and through another corridor and another,
until a door opened in a wall and she found herself
in a room with a fire in it and a supper on a table.
Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously:
"Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you'll
live--and you must keep to them. Don't you forget that!"
It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite
Manor and she had perhaps never felt quite so contrary
in all her life.
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