The Phantom Coach, by Amelia Edwards (1)

The Phantom Coach
AMELIA B. EDWARDS

The circumstances I am about to relate to you have truth to recommend them.
They happened to myself, and my recollection of them is as vivid as if they had
taken place only yesterday Twenty years, however, have gone by since that night.
During those twenty years I have told the story to but one other person. I tell
it now with a reluctance which I find it difficult to overcome. All I entreat,
meanwhile, is that you will abstain from forcing your own conclusions upon me. I
want nothing explained away I desire no arguments. My mind on this subject is
quite made up, and, having the testimony of my own senses to rely upon, I prefer
to abide by it.
Well! It was just twenty years ago, and within a day or two of the end of
the grouse season. I had been out all day with my gun, and had no sport to
speak of. The wind was due east; the month, December; the place, a bleak wide
moor in the far north of England. And I had lost my way It was not a pleasant
place in which to lose one's way, with the first feathery flakes of a coming
snowstorm just fluttering down upon the heather, and the leaden evening closing
in all around. I shaded my eyes with my hand, and stared anxiously into the
gathering darkness, where the purple moorland melted into a range of low hills,
some ten or twelve miles distant. Not the faintest smoke-wreath, not the tiniest
cultivated patch, or fence, or sheep-track, met my eyes in any direction. There
was nothing for it but to walk on, and take my chance of finding what shelter I
could, by the way So I shouldered my gun again, and pushed wearily forward; for
I had been on foot since an hour after daybreak, and had eaten nothing since
breakfast.
Meanwhile, the snow began to come down with ominous steadiness, and the wind
fell. After this, the cold became more intense, and the night came rapidly up.
As for me, my prospects darkened with the darkening sky, and my heart grew heavy
as I thought how my young wife was already watching for me through the window of
our little inn parlour, and thought of all the suffering in store for her
throughout this weary night. We had been married four months, and, having spent
our autumn in the Highlands, were now lodging in a remote little village
situated just on the verge of the great English moorlands. We were very much in
love, and, of course, very happy This morning, when we parted, she had implored
me to return before dusk, and I had promised her that I would. What would I not
have given to have kept my word!
Even now, weary as I was, I felt that with a supper, an hour's rest, and a
guide, I might still get back to her before midnight, if only guide and shelter
could be found.
And all this time, the snow fell and the night thickened. 1 stopped and
shouted every now and then, but my shouts seemed only to make the silence
deeper. Then a vague sense of uneasiness came upon me, and I began to remember
stories of travellers who had walked on and on in the falling snow until,
wearied out, they were fain to lie down and sleep their lives away Would it be
possible, I asked myself, to keep on thus through all the long dark night? Would
there not come a time when my limbs must fail, and my resolution give way? When
I, too, must sleep the sleep of death. Death! I shuddered. How hard to die just
now, when life lay all so bright before me! How hard for my darling, whose whole
loving heart but that thought was not to be borne! To banish it, I shouted
again, louder and longer, and then listened eagerly. Was my shout answered, or
did I only fancy that I heard a far-off cry? I halloed again, and again the echo
followed. Then a wavering speck of light came suddenly out of the dark,
shifting, disappearing, growing momentarily nearer and brighter. Running towards
it at full speed, I found myself, to my great joy, face to face with an old man
and a lantern.
'Thank God!' was the exclamation that burst involuntarily from my lips.
Blinking and frowning, he lifted his lantern and peered into my face.
'What for?' growled he, sulkily.
'Well-for you. I began to fear I should be lost in the snow.
'Eh, then, folks do get cast away hereabout fra' time to time, an' what's to
hinder you from bein' cast away likewise, if the Lord's so minded?'
'If the Lord is so minded that you and I shall be lost together, friend, we
must submit,' I replied; 'but I don't mean to be lost without you. How far am I
now from Dwolding?'
A gude twenty mile, more or less.' And the nearest village?'
'The nearest village is Wyke, an' that's twelve mile t'other side.'
'Where do you live, then?'
'Out yonder,' said he, with a vague jerk of the lantern.
'You're going home, I presume?'
'Maybe I am.'
'Then I'm going with you.'
The old man shook his head, and rubbed his nose reflectively with the handle
of the lantern.
'It ain't o' no use,' growled he. 'He 'ont let you in-not he.'
'We'll see about that,' I replied, briskly. 'Who is He?'
'The master.'
'Who is the master?'
'That's nowt to you,' was the unceremonious reply.
'Well, well; you lead the way, and I'll engage that the master shall give me
shelter and a supper tonight.'
'Eh, you can try him!' muttered my reluctant guide; and, still shaking his
head, he hobbled, gnome-like, away through the falling snow A large mass loomed
up presently out of the darkness, and a huge dog rushed out, barking furiously.
'Is this the house?' I asked.
'Ay, it's the house. Down, Bey!' And he fumbled in his pocket for the key.
I drew up close behind him, prepared to lose no chance of entrance, and saw
in the little circle of light shed by the lantern that the door was heavily
studded with iron nails, like the door of a prison. In another minute he had
turned the key and I had pushed past him into the house.