that you and I will be very good friends indeed.”
“Thank you, uncle,” said Tom, huskily. “I mean to try.”
“I know that, or I wouldn’t have brought you home. There, there, look! quick! before it runs behind that fir clump, that’s the old madman’s windmill.”
Tom turned sharply to the window, and caught sight of a five-sailed windmill some five miles away, on a long wooded ridge.
“See it?”
“Yes, uncle; I just caught sight of it.”
“That’s right; and in five minutes, when we are out of the cutting, you can see Heatherleigh in the opening between the two fir-woods.”
“That’s your house, uncle?”
“Yes, my lad—that’s my house, where I carry on all my diabolical schemes, and perform my incantations, as old Mother Warboys says. You didn’t know what a wicked uncle you had.”
“No, sir,” said Tom, smiling.
“Oh, I’m a dreadful wretch; and you did not know either, that within five-and-thirty miles of London as the crow flies, there is as much ignorance and superstition as there was a couple of hundred years or so ago, when they burnt people for being witches and wizards, and the like. There, now look; you can just see Heatherleigh there. No; too late—it’s gone.”
Tom felt puzzled. One minute he was drawn strongly towards his uncle, the next he felt uneasy, for there was something peculiar about him. Then he grew more puzzled as to whether the eccentricity was real or assumed. But he soon had something else to think of, for five minutes after a run through a wild bit of Surrey, that looked gloriously attractive with its sandy cuttings, commons, and fir-trees, to a boy who had been shut up closely for months in London, his uncle suddenly cried, “Here we are!” and rose to get his umbrella and overcoat out of the rack.
“Let’s see, Tom,” he said; “six packages in the van, haven’t we? Mind that nothing is left behind.”
The train was slackening speed, and the next minute they were standing on the platform of a pretty attractive station, quite alone amongst the fir-trees. The station-master’s house was covered with roses and clematis, and he and the porters were evidently famous gardeners in their loneliness, for there was not a house near, the board up giving the name of the station as Furzebrough Road.
“Shall I take the luggage, sir?” said a man, touching his hat; and at the same moment Tom caught sight of a solitary fly standing outside the railings.
“Yes; six packages. By the way, Mr. Day, did a box come down for me?”
This to the station-master, who came up as the train glided off and disappeared in a tunnelled sandhill a hundred yards farther.
“Yes, sir; very heavy box, marked ‘Glass, with care.’ Take it with you?”
“Yes, and let it be with care. Here, I’ll come and pay the rates. Tom, my lad, see that the things are all got to the fly.”
Tom nodded; and as his uncle disappeared in the station-master’s office, he went to where the two porters were busy with a barrow and the luggage.
They were laughing and chatting with the flyman, and did not notice Tom’s approach, so that he winced as he heard one of the porters say—
“Always some fresh contrapshum or another. Regular old lunatic, that’s what he is.”
“What’s he going to do with that old mill?” said the other.
“Shoot the moon they—Is this all, sir?” said the flyman, who caught sight of Tom.
The boy nodded, and felt indignant as well as troubled, for he had learned a little about public opinion concerning his uncle.
“Be careful,” he said; “some of those things are glass.”
“All right, sir; we’ll be careful enough. Look alive, Jem. Where will you have the box as come down by’s mornin’s goods?”
“On the footboard. Won’t break us down, will it?”
“Tchah! not it. On’y about a hundredweight.”
By the time the luggage was stowed on and about the fly, Uncle Richard came out, and expressed his satisfaction.
“Rather a lonely place in winter, Tom,” he said, as he entered the stably-smelling old fly.
“Yes, but very beautiful,” replied Tom. “Have we far to go?”
“Three miles, my lad, to the village, and a quarter of a mile further to the house.”
It was a very slow ride, along sandy lanes, through which, as soon as there was the slightest suggestion of a hill, the horse walked; but everything looked lovely on this bright summer day. High banks where ferns clustered, plantations of fir, where brilliantly-plumaged pheasants looked up to see them pass, and every now and then rabbits scuttled up the steep sandy slopes, showing their white cottony tails before they disappeared amongst the bracken, or dived into a hole. Wild-flowers too dotted the sides of the lane, and as Tom sat gazing out of the window, drinking in the country sweets, his uncle nodded and smiled.
“Will it do, my boy?” he said.
“Do!” cried Tom, ecstatically; “it’s lovely!”
“Humph! yes. Sun shines—don’t rain.”
In due time they reached and passed through a pretty flowery village, dotted about by the sides of a green, and with several houses of a better class, all looking as if surrounded by large gardens and orchards. Then, all at once, Tom’s companion exclaimed—
“Here’s the mill!” and he had hardly glanced at the tall round brick tower, with its wooden movable cap, sails, and fan, all looking weather-beaten and dilapidated, when his uncle exclaimed—“Here we are!” and down on a slope, nearly hidden in trees, he saw the red-tiled gables of a very attractive old English house, at whose gate the fly stopped.
“Drive in, sir?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll have the boxes in the stable-yard. Pull up at the door first. But ring, and the gardener will come to help.”
The gate was swung back and the fly was led in, now, between two wide grassy borders, with the soft, sandy gravel making hardly a sound beneath the wheels. This drive wound in and out, so that a couple of minutes had elapsed before they came in sight of the front of the house, with its broad porch and verandah.
“Welcome to Heatherleigh, Tom—our home,” said his uncle. “Ah, here’s Mrs. Fidler.”
This was as a very grim, serious-looking, grey-haired woman appeared in the porch.
“Back again, Mrs. F.,” cried Uncle Richard cheerily. “Here, this is my nephew, who has come to stay. Get my telegram?”
“Oh yes, sir, and everything’s ready, sir.”
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