The Phantom Coach

[Fanslau]

He spoke with bitterness, and, having said thus, relapsed for some minutes
into silence. Presently he raised his head from his hands, and added, with an
altered voice and manner,
   'I, sir, paused, investigated, believed, and was not ashamed to state my
convictions to the world. I, too, was branded as a visionary, held up to
ridicule by my contemporaries, and hooted from that field of science in which I
had laboured with honour during all the best years of my life. These things
happened just three-and-twenty years ago. Since then, I
   have lived as you see me living now, and the world has forgotten me, as I
have forgotten the world. You have my history.'
   'It is a very sad one,' I murmured, scarcely knowing what to answer.
   'It is a very, common one,' he replied. 'I have only suffered for the truth,
as many a better and wiser man has suffered before me.
   He rose, as if desirous of ending the conversation, and went over to the
window

[Fanslau]

'It has ceased snowing,' he observed, as he dropped the curtain, and came
back to the fireside.
   'Ceased!' I exclaimed, starting eagerly to my feet. 'Oh, if it were only
possible-but no! it is hopeless. Even if I could find my way across the moor, I
could not walk twenty miles tonight.'
   'Walk twenty miles tonight!' repeated my host. 'What are you thinking of?'
   'Of my wife,' I replied, impatiently. 'Of my young wife, who does not know
that I have lost my way, and who is at this moment breaking her heart with
suspense and terror.'
   'Where is she?'

[Fanslau]

At Dwolding, twenty miles away.'
   'At Dwolding,' he echoed, thoughtfully. 'Yes, the distance, it is true, is
twenty miles; but-are you so very anxious to save the next six or eight hours?'
   'So very, very anxious, that I would give ten guineas at this moment for a
guide and a horse.'
   'Your wish can be gratified at a less costly rate,' said he, smiling. 'The
night mail from the north, which changes horses at Dwolding, passes within five
miles of this spot, and will be due at a certain cross-road in about an hour and
a quarter. If Jacob were to go with you across the moor, and put you into the
old coach-road, you could find your way, I suppose, to where it joins the new
one?'

[Fanslau]

'Easily-gladly.'
   He smiled again, rang the bell, gave the old servant his directions, and,
taking a bottle of whisky and a wineglass from the cupboard in which he kept his
chemicals, said:
   'The snow lies deep, and it will be difficult walking tonight on the moor. A
glass of usquebaugh before you start?'
   I would have declined the spirit, but he pressed it on me, and I drank it.
It went down my throat like liquid flame, and almost took my breath away.
   'It is strong,' he said; 'but it will help to keep out the cold. And now you
have no moments to spare. Good night!'

[Fanslau]

I thanked him for his hospitality, and would have shaken hands, but that he
had turned away before I could finish my sentence. In another minute I had
traversed the hall, Jacob had locked the outer door behind me, and we were out
on the wide white moor.
   Although the wind had fallen, it was still bitterly cold. Not a star
glimmered in the black vault overhead Not a sound, save the rapid crunching of
the snow beneath our feet, disturbed the heavy stillness of the night. Jacob,
not too well pleased With his mission, shambled on before in sullen silence, his
lantern in h~5 hand, and his shadow at his feet. I followed, with my gun over my
shoulder, as little inclined for conversation as himself. My thoughts were full
of my late host. His voice yet rang in my ears. His eloquence yet held my
imagination captive. I remember to this day, with surprise, how my over-excited
brain retained whole sentences and parts of sentences, troops of brilliant
images, and fragments of splendid reasoning, in the very words in which he had
uttered them. Musing thus over what I had heard, and striving to recall a lost
link here and there, I strode on at the heels of my guide, absorbed and
unobservant. Presently-at the end, as it seemed to me, of only a few minutes-he
came to a sudden halt, and said:

[Fanslau]

'Yon's your road. Keep the stone fence to your right hand, and you can't
fail of the way.
   'This, then, is the old coach-road?' Ay, 'tis the old coach-road.'
   'And how far do I go, before I reach the cross-roads?' 'Nigh upon three
mile.'
   I pulled out my purse, and he became more communicative.

[Fanslau]

The roads a fair road enough,' said he, 'for foot passengers; but 'twas over
steep and narrow for the northern traffic. You'll mind where the parapets broken
away, close again the sign-post It's never been mended since the accident,'
   'What accident?'
   'Eh, the night mail pitched right over into the valley below-a gude fifty
feet an' more-just at the worst bit o' road in the whole county.'

[Fanslau]

Horrible! Were many lives lost?'
   'All. Four were found dead, and t'other two died next morning.'
   'How long is it since this happened?'
   'Just nine year.'
   'Near the sign-post, you say? I will bear it in mind. Good night.'
   'Gude night, sir, and thankee.' Jacob pocketed his half-crown, made a faint
pretence of touching his hat, and trudged back by the way he had come.

[Fanslau]

I watched the light of his lantern till it quite disappeared, and then
turned to pursue my way alone. This was no longer matter of the slightest
difficulty, for, despite the dead darkness overhead, the line of stone fence
showed distinctly enough against the pale gleam of the snow How silent it seemed
now, with only my footsteps to listen to; how silent and how solitary! A strange
disagreeable sense of loneliness stole over me. I walked faster. I hummed a
fragment of a tune. I cast up enormous sums in my head, and accumulated them at
compound interest. I did my best, in short, to forget the startling speculations
to which I had but just been listening, and, to some extent, I succeeded.

[Fanslau]

Meanwhile the night air seemed to become colder and colder, and though I
walked fast I found it impossible to keep myself warm. My feet were like ice. I
lost sensation in my hands, and grasped my gun mechanically I even breathed with
difficulty, as though, instead of traversing a quiet north country highway, I
were scaling the uppermost heights of some gigantic Alp. This last symptom
became presently so distressing, that I was forced to stop for a few minutes,
and lean against the stone fence. As I did so, I chanced to look back up the
road, and there, to my infinite relief, I saw a distant point of light, like the
gleam of an approaching lantern. I at first concluded that Jacob had retraced
his steps and followed me; but even as the conjecture presented itself, a second
light flashed into sight-a light evidently parallel with the first, and
approaching at the same rate of motion. It needed no second thought to show me
that these must be the carriage-lamps of some private vehicle, though it seemed
strange that any private vehicle should take a road professedly disused and
dangerous.

[Fanslau]

There could be no doubt, however, of the fact, for the lamps grew larger and
brighter every moment, and I even fancied I could already see the dark outline
of the carriage between them. It was coming up very fast, and quite noiselessly,
the snow being nearly a foot deep under the wheels.
   And now the body of the vehicle became distinctly visible behind the lamps.
It looked strangely lofty. A sudden suspicion flashed upon me. Was it possible
that I had passed the cross-roads in the dark without observing the sign-post,
and could this be the very coach which I had come to meet?

[Fanslau]

No need to ask myself that question a second time, for here it came round
the bend of the road, guard and driver, one outside passenger, and four steaming
greys, all wrapped in a soft haze of light, through which the lamps blazed out,
like a pair of fiery meteors.
   I jumped forward, waved my hat, and shouted. The mail came down at full
speed, and passed me. For a moment I feared that I had not been seen or heard,
but it was only for a moment. The coachman pulled up; the guard, muffled to the
eyes in capes and comforters, and apparently sound asleep in the rumble, neither
answered my hail nor made the slightest effort to dismount; the outside
passenger did not even turn his head. I opened the door for myself, and looked
in. There were but three travellers inside, so I stepped in, shut the door,
slipped into the vacant corner and congratulated myself on my good fortune

[Fanslau]

The atmosphere of the coach seemed, if possible, colder than that of the
outer air, and was pervaded by a singularly damp and disagreeable smell. I
looked round at my fellow-passengers. They were all three, men, and all silent.
They did not seem to be asleep, but each leaned back in his corner of the
vehicle, as if absorbed in his own reflections. I attempted to open a
conversation.
   'How intensely cold it is tonight,' I said, addressing my opposite
neighbour.

[Fanslau]

He lifted his head, looked at me, but made no reply.
   'The winter,' I added, 'seems to have begun in earnest.'
   Although the corner, in which he sat was so dim that I could distinguish
none of his features very clearly, I saw that his eyes were still turned full
upon me. And yet he answered never a word.

[Fanslau]

At any other time I should have felt, and perhaps expressed, some annoyance,
but at the moment I felt too ill to do either. The icy coldness of the night air
had struck a chill to my very marrow, and the strange smell inside the coach was
affecting me with an intolerable nausea. I shivered from head to foot, and,
turning to my left-hand neighbour, asked if he had any objection to an open
window?
   He neither spoke nor stirred.