Fool Errant Read Free Page A

there—you mustn’t go there!”
    â€œWhy not?”
    He walked beside the train, walked faster, began to run.
    â€œI heard—there’s no time—what’s your name?”
    He was being left behind. The engine snorted, and a great puff of steam came drifting back.
    â€œHugo Ross.”
    He seemed to be shouting it, but the wind took the words away. He heard her voice very faintly:
    â€œYou mustn’t .”
    The steam hid her. The train went on.
    Hugo turned and walked out of the station into the darkness. How astonishing! How extraordinary and astonishing! What on earth did she mean?
    He walked to the corner from which they had seen the train. Its row of lighted windows had for a moment lighted up the sloping field from which the embankment rose. Six foot of fog and two black humps rising out of it—barns or haystacks. He thought he would go and prospect.
    They were haystacks. Coldish comfort, but better than walking about all night. He sat down in the warmest spot he could find, leaned his back against the hay, and fumbled in an inside pocket.
    There came out the two halves of a flute, his pride and his despair, practised by stealth, often abandoned, and as often resumed. The secret passion which drove him to make music was outraged by his lack of skill. Yesterday’s exercise had been a teaser. He determined to get the better of it. For half an hour slow, melancholy notes followed one another into the fog.
    At the end of half an hour he stopped playing the exercise and began to copy the high clear notes of a girl’s laugh.

CHAPTER II
    At half-past nine next morning Hugo walked between the white gate-posts of Meade House and up the drive beneath the over-arching trees. The grounds were large and untidy. The house, when he came to it, was just such a house as he expected—square, flat, slate-roofed, and hung with leafless creepers. There were no curtains showing at the windows, and discoloured blinds hung unevenly, some up, some down, and one at least askew.
    Oddly enough, Hugo’s spirits rose. He was feeling quite horribly conscious of being unshaved, and it was a relief to find that the house did not set an exacting standard. As a matter of fact, no one would have suspected him of a night in a haystack. To their last thread Hugo’s clothes would keep their shape and look neat, whilst his fair hair and fresh complexion gave him the air of having just emerged from a cold bath. His daily shave was a rite, not a necessity.
    He rang the bell, and heard it clang far away in the recesses of the house. It had a hoarse, deep sound like a cracked gong.
    Almost at once a middle-aged woman opened the door. She had a smudged face and a dirty apron. She carried a pail of water which slopped over on the step and wetted Hugo’s shoe. He moved his foot and said politely,
    â€œI’ve come to see Mr. Minstrel.”
    The woman set down the pail of water and left him standing at the open door. A minute passed—two minutes—quite a number of minutes. Hugo thought how cold the house must be getting. On any other morning his courage would have been cooling too. If he had been paying a call, now, and they had left him like this at an open door, he would probably have wanted to run away, and he would probably have stammered dreadfully when he began to speak. On this morning, unshaven and breakfastless, he had a feeling of assurance which was delightfully new and very supporting. He could have whistled; he could have played the flute openly and without a blush.
    A door opened upstairs. Someone came running down into the hall—a man, large, young, with a blue chin, thick eyebrows, and a black moustache clipped short. He said, “Hullo!” in a tone of surprise; and Hugo said,
    â€œI’ve come to see Mr. Minstrel.”
    The dark young man stared. He had eyes rather like bull’s-eyes without the stripes; the comparison just passed through Hugo’s