Wyllard's Weird: A NovelBraddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Wyllard's Weird: A Novel
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth)
Murder -- Fiction; Mystery and detective stories
Twenty or thirty heads were thrust out of the windows. The train,
which to Dr. Menheniot's eye just now had seemed almost empty, was
now alive with people. The engine slackened speed, and stopped at
about a hundred yards from the scene of the catastrophe. A dozen men
of different ages and qualities leaped out of the train and clambered
down the embankment; among others Julian Wyllard, the Lord of the Manor
of Penmorval--a man of middle age, soberly attired, a tall stately
figure, a man of mark in this part of the country--before whom all gave
way; except little Dr. Menheniot, who hurried on ahead, intent upon
affording professional help, if such help could avail.
Julian Wyllard had been an athlete in his boyhood and youth. He
walked down the steep, rugged hillside more easily than many men
walk down Regent Street. At the bottom of the embankment every one
fell back involuntarily, as it were, and allowed Mr. Wyllard to head
the procession. They went as fast as it was possible to go over that
broken ground, trampling down the ferns and flowers, the tiny scarlet
strawberries, and crimson and orange fungi, as they went, every lip
breathless, every eye strained towards that one spot in the hollow
yonder where the doctor was hastening.
"No use, I fear," said Mr. Wyllard, as if answering the common thought.
"The poor creature must be quite dead."
"What, in mercy's name, made her do it?" speculated a burly farmer;
"was she frighted, do you think, by some ruffian in the train; or did
she want to make away with herself?"
The little cluster of passengers looked at one another curiously, as
if seeking among those rustic countenances for the face of a scoundrel
capable of assailing unprotected innocence. But if guilt were present
in that assembly, there was no outward indication of the diabolical
element. Almost every one there was known to the rest: small farmers,
a squire or two, the elderly lawyer from Camelford, the curate of
Wadebridge, a magistrate of Bodmin, a cornchandler and respectable
inhabitant of the same town. Assuredly not among these would one look
for that debased and savage humanity which is viler in its instincts
than the wild beasts of the jungle.
There might be other passengers lurking in the train, among those
loquacious women up yonder, who were all putting their heads out of
windows, straining their necks to get their share in the pity and the
terror of the tragedy down below.
Mr. Wyllard and his companions found little Dr. Menheniot on his knees
beside the piteous figure lying in a heap, like a limp rag, among ferns
and ground-ivy.
He had lifted the poor bruised head upon his arm, and he was looking
down at the dead face, the open eyes gazing in the set stare of a great
horror. Horror at the wretch who flung her down, or at that awful gulf
of death self-sought? Who could tell? Those blood-bedabbled lips were
mute for evermore, unless the dead could be conjured into speech.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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