Kabanata Kabanata 3 · ACROSS THE MOOR

. 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

out 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 up-stairs 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.