CHAPTER III
    ACROSS THE MOOR
   

4.    She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock
5.    had bought a lunchbasket at one of the stations and they
6.    had some chicken and cold beef and bread and butter and
7.    some hot tea. The rain seemed to be streaming down more
8.    heavily than ever and everybody in the station wore wet
9.    and glistening waterproofs. The guard lighted the lamps
10.    in the carriage, and Mrs. Medlock cheered up very much
11.    over her tea and chicken and beef. She ate a great deal
12.    and afterward fell asleep herself, and Mary sat and stared
13.    at her and watched her fine bonnet slip on one side until she
14.    herself fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage,
15.    lulled by the splashing of the rain against the windows.
16.    It was quite dark when she awakened again. The train
17.    had stopped at a station and Mrs. Medlock was shaking her.
18.    "You have had a sleep!" she said. "It's time to open
19.    your eyes! We're at Thwaite Station and we've got a long
20.    drive before us."
21.    Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open while
22.    Mrs. Medlock collected her parcels. The little
23.    girl did not offer to help her, because in India
24.    native servants always picked up or carried things
25.    and it seemed quite proper that other people should wait on one.
26.    The station was a small one and nobody but themselves
27.    seemed to be getting out of the train. The station-master
28.    spoke to Mrs. Medlock in a rough, good-natured way,
29.    pronouncing his words in a queer broad fashion which Mary
30.    found out afterward was Yorkshire.
31.    "I see tha's got back," he said. "An' tha's browt th'
32.    young 'un with thee."
33.    "Aye, that's her," answered Mrs. Medlock, speaking with
34.    a Yorkshire accent herself and jerking her head over
35.    her shoulder toward Mary. "How's thy Missus?"
36.    "Well enow. Th' carriage is waitin' outside for thee."
37.    A brougham stood on the road before the little
38.    outside platform. Mary saw that it was a smart carriage
39.    and that it was a smart footman who helped her in.
40.    His long waterproof coat and the waterproof covering of his
41.    hat were shining and dripping with rain as everything was,
42.    the burly station-master included.
43.    When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman,
44.    and they drove off, the little girlfound herself seated
45.    in a comfortably cushioned corner, but she was not inclined
46.    to go to sleep again. She sat and looked out of the window,
47.    curious to see something of the road over which she
48.    was being driven to the queer place Mrs. Medlock had
49.    spoken of. She was not at all a timid child and she was
50.    not exactly frightened, but she felt that there was no
51.    knowing what might happen in a house with a hundred rooms
52.    nearly all shut up--a house standing on the edge of a moor.
53.    "What is a moor?" she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock.
54.    "Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you'll see,"
55.    the woman answered. "We've got to drive five miles across
56.    Missel Moor before we get to the Manor. You won't see
57.    much because it's a dark night, but you can see something."
58.    Mary asked no more questions but waited in the darkness
59.    of her corner, keeping her eyes on the window. The carriage
60.    lamps cast rays of light a little distance ahead of them
61.    and she caught glimpses of the things they passed.
62.    After they had left the station they had driven through a
63.    tiny village and she had seen whitewashed cottages and the
64.    lights of a public house. Then they had passed a church
65.    and a vicarage and a little shop-window or so in a cottage
66.    with toys and sweets and odd things set our for sale.
67.    Then they were on the highroad and she saw hedges and trees.
68.    After that there seemed nothing different for a long
69.    time--or at least it seemed a long time to her.
70.    At last the horses began to go more slowly, as if they
71.    were climbing up-hill, and presently there seemed to be
72.    no more hedges and no more trees. She could see nothing,
73.    in fact, but a dense darkness on either side. She leaned
74.    forward and pressed her face against the window just
75.    as the carriage gave a big jolt.
76.    "Eh! We're on the moor now sure enough," said Mrs. Medlock.
77.    The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a rough-looking
78.    road which seemed to be cut through bushes and low-growing
79.    things which ended in the great expanse of dark apparently
80.    spread out before and around them. A wind was rising
81.    and making a singular, wild, low, rushing sound.
82.    "It's--it's not the sea, is it?" said Mary, looking round
83.    at her companion.
84.    "No, not it," answered Mrs. Medlock. "Nor it isn't fields
85.    nor mountains, it's just miles and miles and miles of wild
86.    land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom,
87.    and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep."
88.    "I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water
89.    on it," said Mary. "It sounds like the sea just now."
90.    "That's the wind blowing through the bushes," Mrs. Medlock said.
91.    "It's a wild, dreary enough place to my mind, though there's
92.    plenty that likes it--particularly when the heather's in bloom."
93.    On and on they drove through the darkness, and though
94.    the rain stopped, the wind rushed by and whistled and made
95.    strange sounds. The road went up and down, and several
96.    times the carriage passed over a little bridge beneath
97.    which water rushed very fast with a great deal of noise.
98.    Mary felt as if the drive would never come to an end
99.    and that the wide, bleak moor was a wide expanse of black
100.    ocean through which she was passing on a strip of dry land.
101.    "I don't like it," she said to herself. "I don't like it,"
102.    and she pinched her thin lips more tightly together.
103.    The horses were climbing up a hilly piece of road
104.    when she first caught sight of a light. Mrs. Medlock
105.    saw it as soon as she did and drew a long sigh of relief.
106.    "Eh, I am glad to see that bit o' light twinkling,"
107.    she exclaimed. "It's the light in the lodge window.
108.    We shall get a good cup of tea after a bit, at all events."
109.    It was "after a bit," as she said, for when the carriage
110.    passed through the park gates there was still two miles
111.    of avenue to drive through and the trees (which nearly
112.    met overhead) made it seem as if they were driving
113.    through a long dark vault.
114.    They drove out of the vault into a clear space
115.    and stopped before an immensely long but low-built
116.    house which seemed to ramble round a stone court.
117.    At first Mary thought that there were no lights at all
118.    in the windows, but as she got out of the carriage
119.    she saw that one room in a corner upstairs showed a dull glow.
120.    The entrance door was a huge one made of massive, curiously
121.    shaped panels of oak studded with big iron nails and bound
122.    with great iron bars. It opened into an enormous hall,
123.    which was so dimly lighted that the faces in the portraits
124.    on the walls and the figures in the suits of armor
125.    made Mary feel that she did not want to look at them.
126.    As she stood on the stone floor she looked a very small,
127.    odd little black figure, and she felt as small and lost
128.    and odd as she looked.
129.    A neat, thin old man stood near the manservant who opened
130.    the door for them.
131.    "You are to take her to her room," he said in a husky voice.
132.    "He doesn't want to see her. He's going to London
133.    in the morning."
134.    "Very well, Mr. Pitcher," Mrs. Medlock answered.
135.    "So long as I know what's expected of me, I can manage."
136.    "What's expected of you, Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Pitcher said,
137.    "is that you make sure that he's not disturbed and that he
138.    doesn't see what he doesn't want to see."
139.    And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase
140.    and down a long corridor and up a short flight
141.    of steps and through another corridor and another,
142.    until a door opened in a wall and she found herself
143.    in a room with a fire in it and a supper on a table.
144.    Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously:
145.    "Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you'll
146.    live--and you must keep to them. Don't you forget that!"
147.    It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite
148.    Manor and she had perhaps never felt quite so contrary
in all her life.

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