MATT A Story Of A Caravan By Robert Buchanan A New Edition, with a Frontispiece London: Chatto & Windus 1897 [Illustration: 0010] [Illustration: 0013] MATT CHAPTER I.--FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE CARAVAN. The afternoon was still very warm, but a grey mist, drifting from the Irish Channel and sailing eastward over the low-lying Island of Anglesea, was beginning to scatter a thin penetrating drizzle on the driver of the caravan. To right and left of the highway stretched a bleak and bare prospect of marshland and moorland, closed to the west by a sky of ever-deepening redness, and relieved here and there by black clumps of stunted woodland. Here and there peeped a solitary farmhouse, with outlying fields of swampy greenness, where lean and spectral cattle were lugubriously grazing; and ever and anon came a glimpse of some lonely lake or tarn, fringed all round with thick sedges, and dotted with water-lilies. The road was as desolate as the prospect, with not a living soul upon it, far as the eye could see. To all this, however, the driver of the caravan paid little attention, owing to the simple fact that he was fast asleep. He was roused by a sudden jolting and swaying of the clumsy vehicle, combined with a sound of splashing water, and opening his eyes sleepily, he perceived that the grey mare had turned aside from the centre of the road, and, having entered a stagnant pond on the roadside, was floundering and struggling in the mud thereof, with the caravan rocking behind her. At the same moment, a head was thrust round the back part of the vehicle, and an angry voice exclaimed-- “Tim, you scoundrel, where the devil are you driving to? Wake up, or I’ll break every bone in your skin.” Thus addressed, Tim woke himself with an effort, and looking round with an insinuating smile, replied-- “Begorra, Master Charles, I thought it was an earthquake entirely----Come out of that, now! Is it wanting to drownd yourself you are?--G-r-r-r! Sh! Aisy now, aisy!” The latter portion of the above sentence was addressed to the mare, which was at last persuaded to wade out of the cool mud, and return to the dusty track, where she stood quivering and panting. No sooner was the return to _terra firma_ accomplished than a light agile figure descended the steps at the back of the caravan, and ran round to the front. An excited colloquy, angry on the one side, and apologetic on the other, ensued, and did not cease, even when the driver, with a flick of his whip, put the caravan again in motion, while the other strode alongside on foot.