Noughts and Crosses: Stories, Studies and SketchesQuiller-Couch, Arthur
General
Noughts and Crosses: Stories, Studies and Sketches
Quiller-Couch, Arthur
Manners and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
Then the man and the woman were aware, and grew afraid. They saw
only a limitless plain of grey about them, and heard a murmur as of
the sea rolling around it.
"This gaol is too big," whispered Eve, and they took hands. The man
trembled. Together they moved into the fog, seeking an outlet.
At the end of an hour or so they stumbled on a seat, and sat down for
awhile to share the bread and sausage, and drink the gin. Eve was
tired out and would have slept, but the man shook her by the
shoulder.
"For God's sake don't leave me to face this alone. Can you sing?"
She began "_When other lips_ . . ." in a whisper which gradually
developed into a reedy soprano. She had forgotten half the words,
but Adam lit a pipe and listened appreciatively.
"Tell you what," he said at the close; "you'll be able to pick up a
little on the road with your singing. We'll tramp west to-morrow,
and pass ourselves off for man and wife. Likely we'll get some farm
work, down in the country. Let's get out of this."
They joined hands and started off again, unable to see a foot before
them in the blackness. So it happened next morning that the
park-keeper, coming at his usual hour to unlock the gates, found a
man and a woman inside with their white faces pressed against the
railings, through which they glared like caged beasts. He set them
free, and they ran out, for his paradise was too big.
Now, facing west, they tramped for two days on the Bath road, leaving
the fog behind them, and drew near Reading. It was a clear night as
they approached it, and the sky studded with stars that twinkled
frostily. Eleven o'clock sounded from a tower ahead. On the
outskirts of the town they were passing an ugly modern villa with a
large garden before it, when an old gentleman came briskly up the
road and turned in at the gate.
Adam swung round on his heel and followed him up the path, begging.
Eve hung by the gate.
"No," said the old gentleman, fitting his latchkey into the door,
"I have no work to offer. Eh?--Is that your wife by the gate?
Hungry?"
Adam whispered a lie in his ear.
"Poor woman, and to be on the road, in such a state, at this hour!
Well, you shall share my supper before you search for a lodging.
Come inside," he called out to Eve, "and be careful of the step.
It's a high one."
He led them in, past the ground-floor rooms and up a flight of
stairs. After pausing on the landing and waiting a long time for Eve
to take breath, he began to ascend another flight.
"Are we going to have supper on the leads?" Adam wondered.
They followed the old gentleman up to the attics and into a kind of
tower, where was a small room with two tables spread, the one with a
supper, the other with papers, charts, and mathematical instruments.
"Here," said their guide, "is bread, a cold chicken, and a bottle of
whisky. I beg you to excuse me while you eat. The fact is, I dabble
in astronomy. My telescope is on the roof above, and to-night every
moment is precious."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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