Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Vacations -- Fiction
At first they moved slowly. The road was, by this time, thick with mud,
and there were little trenches of water on both sides. They bumped along
this for a little way. And then suddenly the aged man became seized, as
it were, by a devil. They were on the top of the hill; the wind blew
right across him, the rain lashed him to the skin. Suddenly he lifted up
his voice and sang. It was the sailor’s chanty that Maradick had heard
on the first day of his coming to Treliss; but now, through the closed
windows of the cab, it seemed to reach them in a shrill scream, like
some gull above their heads in the storm.
Wild exultation entered into the heart of the ancient man. He seemed to
be seized by the Furies. He lashed his horse wildly, the beast with all
its cranky legs and heaving ribs, darted madly forward, and the rain
came down in torrents.
The ancient man might have seemed, had there been a watcher to note, the
very spirit of the moor. His eyes were staring, his arms were raised
aloft; and so they went, bumping, jolting, tumbling along the white
road.
Inside the cab there was confusion. At the first movement Miss Minns had
been flung violently into Maradick’s lap. At first he clutched her
wildly. The bugles on her bonnet hit him sharply in the eyes, the nose,
the chin. She pinched his arm in the excitement of the moment. Then she
recovered herself.
“Oh! Mr. Maradick!” she began, “I——” but, in a second, she was seized
again and hurled against the door, so that Tony had to clutch her by the
skirt lest the boards should give and she should be hurled out into the
road. But the pace of the cab grew faster and faster. They were now all
four of them hurled violently from one side of the vehicle to the other.
First forward, then backwards, then on both sides at once, then all in a
tangled heap together in the middle; and the ancient man on the top of
the box, the water dripping from his hat in a torrent, screamed his
song.
Then terror suddenly entered into them all. It seemed to strike them all
at the same moment that there was danger. Maradick suddenly was afraid.
He was bruised, his collar was torn, he ached in every limb. He had a
curious impulse to seize Miss Minns and tear her to pieces, he was wild
with rage that she should be allowed to hit and strike him like that. He
began to mutter furiously. And the others felt it too. Janet was nearly
in tears; she clung to Tony and murmured, “Oh! stop him! stop him!”
And Tony, too. He cried, “We must get out of this! We must get out of
this!” and he dragged furiously at the windows, but they would not move;
and then his hand broke through the pane, and it began to bleed, there
was blood on the floor of the carriage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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