Jane and the Man of the Cloth Read Free

before he could reply—for, in truth, help should be long in coming, did my father go in search of it. He is an elderly gentleman whose pace is slow on the smoothest of roads, and in the best of light; and I paled to think of him attempting the downs in the present hour.
    “Come along, Hibbs,” 1 called to the postboy, who stood muttering under his breath over the ruin of his harness. ‘To the Grange it is, as fast as our feet may carry us.”
    I SHALL PASS OVER IN SILENCE THE RIGOURS OF THAT DAMPENING walk; how endless it seemed, the lights of the Grange receding ever before us through the rain; how our ankles were turned, and our clothes snagged, and our legs thoroughly wearied, well before we came to the narrow track through the meadow that led to a neat gate, and a stone pathway running up to a massive oak door, lit only by a smoking lanthorn. High Down Grange—for so, I have learnt, is its full name—was at one time a modest farmhouse, though now turned country manor; the home of a gendeman, by all appearances, while maintaining still its purpose as a center of agricultural endeavour. The house was wrapt in quiet, despite the storm, the fierceness of which had driven all sensible folk within doors; and my relief was so great, upon gaining the stoop, that I nearly sank to my knees in gratitude.
    The baying of a dog—nay, several dogs—announced our arrival, and then the beasts themselves rounded the corner of the house like a pack of wolves, slavering for our throats. I confess that I screamed, and clutched at poor Hibbs, who thrust me behind him and menaced the curs with a stout cudgel—taken up some time past as a walking stick, but performing now a dearer service.
    “Jasper! Fang! You there, Beelzebub! Heel! Heel, I say!”
    The commanding voice came from the doorway, now streaming with light as the sturdy oak was unbarred. A lanthorn held high revealed a gendeman's face—though a countenance most harshly-drawn, under a windswept mop of black hair. The master of High Down, I presumed; and masterly enough with his dark brows heavy and knit, his eyes glowing and fierce, and his nose as sharply hooked as a bird of prey's. A man of middlish age, perhaps five-and-thirty, arrayed in knee breeches and a white shirt quite open at the collar, his stock being put aside as though he were in the act of retiring. His countenance was suffused with a most ungentlemanly rage—the violence of his great dogs, it seemed, being mirrored in the spirits of their master.
    “Who the Devil are you?” he cried, with a glower for the beasts, now cowering at his feet, and a glower for ourselves—and so Hibbs and I were welcomed to High Down Grange.
    “Miss Jane Austen, of Bath,” I replied, in a tone that betrayed a quaver.
    “Miss Jane Austen of Bath, and her merry man,” our host said caustically, with a look for poor Hibbs. “And what in God's name brings you out on such a night? Some unholy pilgrimage?” 5
    “A gentleman of better breeding and greater charity might have saved such questions for the comfort of his drawing-room,” I retorted, my patience thoroughly spent. The rain, though diminished to a fine drizzle, was still as wet; and its continued descent upon my drenched cap and shawl did nothing to improve my temper. “We are clearly driven to your door by the utmost extremity, sir, and if any alternative served, should never have troubled you longer—for you are undoubtedly lacking in the sensibilities of a true gentleman, and the assistance of a common labourer should be given with greater goodwill, I am sure.”
    “Undoubtedly,” he said, and though his lip curled cynically at the word, my tart rebuke appeared to soften him a little. His choler drained away, and I thought him about to speak in a more measured tone, when a small sound caused him to turn, and the rings of light emanating from the lamp he held shifted and welled like a tide of water across the darkened courtyard. I turned, and started in