Dead Man Riding Read Online Free PDF Page B

scared.
    â€˜We can’t get one.’
    Kit said, ‘There’s a fly in the pub yard but they won’t hire it to us. They say there’s something wrong with the axle. Alan offered them a sovereign if somebody would just drive us a few miles to his uncle’s place, but they weren’t interested.’
    From Alan’s expression, he wished Kit hadn’t told us that.
    Imogen asked, ‘So what do we do now?’
    It was about seven o’clock by then, three hours or so of daylight left. I think we were all waiting for Meredith to make a suggestion but he just stood there, politely interested.
    â€˜We could walk,’ I said.
    I’d brought a map with me and had been looking at it while we were waiting. Studholme Hall was marked, no more than five or six miles away by country lanes. Five or six miles uphill as it happened, but it was no good depressing them even more. Midge asked what we should do about all the luggage.
    â€˜We’ll have to leave most of it here and have it collected tomorrow. We can put the things we shall need for overnight in the rucksacks.’
    It took some time for us all to root out our hiking boots and get essential things packed into the three rucksacks we had among the seven of us. All the time the sun was sliding down the sky and our chances of getting under a roof before it was dark were going with it. That didn’t worry me or Midge – who’d led a tomboy life with her brothers – but I could see Imogen was unhappy. There was a point in the repacking when one of the men’s shaving kits and her nightdress and washbag were lying jumbled together on the platform and she gave me a look of pure panic. Then Nathan found a flat wagon at the end of the platform and we loaded all the rest of our luggage on to it and pushed and pulled it under a lean-to shelter by the ticket office, with a note in block capitals saying it was to await collection. By that time a group of boys around nine or ten years old had gathered by the railings separating the platform from the station yard and were watching us, not offering to help. I said to Meredith, who happened to be next to me on the cart handle, ‘Those boys worry me.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜When a boy passes up a chance to earn a shilling, there’s something odd going on.’
    At last we were organised with Kit, Nathan and myself carrying the rucksacks. Alan had tried to take mine from me, but I wouldn’t let him. The road from the station passed between terraces of workers’ cottages on the outskirts of the small town. There were strings of faded red, white and blue flags looped across the street and a poster in the corner shop window announced ‘Mafeking Relieved’ with a portrait of Colonel Robert Baden-Powell. It had happened six or seven weeks before, and if we’d had more energy the signs of celebration might have sparked off a discussion. In our group, all of us had our doubts about the Boer War but with most of the country in a patriotic frenzy you had to be careful about how and where you voiced your opinions. I had a cousin serving with the cavalry in South Africa and hated to think of him risking his life in what seemed to me a piece of imperial bullying. By the look of it, this part of the country was solidly behind Queen, Government and Empire. Some of the families along the street probably had sons in the army. It seemed a sociable place if you lived there. People were out on their front steps, chatting to each other and enjoying the evening. The boys who’d been watching us back at the station had fallen in behind us, still at a distance. It was natural that we’d attract attention but odd that none of the people on the doorsteps answered when we said good evening to them. One man even turned away and went inside.
    â€˜Don’t seem to care for strangers round here,’ Nathan said.
    Just after we passed the last house in the terrace the