Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 305: New Series, Saturday, November 3, 1849Various
History
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 305: New Series, Saturday, November 3, 1849
Various
Periodicals
When they arrived at the house, the coachman dismounted and rung
the bell; and Mr Smith, seeing the door open, let down the window
of the coach, although half-choked with the wind and rain that
entered, and prepared to make a rush with his wife across the
tempest-swept _trottoir_.
'Nae Mr Archibald at number so-and-so!' bawled the coachman.
'I say he is there,' cried Mr Smith in a rage: 'the servant has
deceived you--ring again!'
'It's nae use ringing,' said the coachman, speaking against the
storm; 'there's nae Mr Archibald there--I ken mysel!'
'Is it possible that I can have made a mistake in the number? Hark
ye, friend, try somewhere else. I know of my own knowledge that Mr
Archibald is in this street, and you must find him!'--and he shut
down the window exhausted.
It was not difficult to find Mr Archibald, for his house was almost
directly opposite; and the tea-drinkers at length, to their great
satisfaction, found themselves on a landing-place, with an open
door before them.
As Mr Smith paused for an instant on the threshold, he threw a
strange searching glance round the hall, and then, turning to the
servant, asked her if she had actually said that Mr Archibald lived
there? The girl repeated the statement.
'Then come along, my dear,' said he to his wife; 'places look so
different in the gaslight!' And striding through the hall, the
servant in surprise walking backwards before them, they went into
the drawing-room at the further end. The girl had opened the door
of the room for them by the instinct of habit; but no sooner did
she see them seated, than she ran at full speed to her mistress.
'Come ben, mem,' said she; 'come ben, I tell you, this moment!
There are twa strange folks wha ha'e marched in out o' the street
into the very drawing-room, without either with your leave or by
your leave, and sutten themselves doon on the sophy, as if the
house was their ain!' Mrs Archibald got up in surprise, and even
some little trepidation.
'Did they not mention who they were, or what was their pleasure?'
'Not a word, mem: they didna even speer if the maister or you was
at hame, but tramped in the moment they saw the door open.'
Mrs Archibald, who was a newly-married lady, wondered who such
visitors could be on such a night, and wished her husband was at
home; but telling the girl to keep close behind her, she at length
set forth to encounter them.
Mr and Mrs Smith in the meantime were speculating in a low voice,
in the fashion of man and wife, on their adventure.
'This is doubtless the drawing-room, my dear,' said Mr Smith,
looking round: 'it must have been the dining-room I saw in the
forenoon.'
'I wish we saw a fire in the meantime, my dear,' replied Mrs
Smith--'that I do! Do these people think it is not cold enough for
one? And such a night!--wind, rain, and utter darkness! A clergyman
forsooth! and a clergyman's wife!'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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