Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/92

88 no sound beneath the sky. The peaceful landscape and the tranquil evening shed a benign influence upon Kuppins, and awakened the dormant poetry in that young lady's breast.

"Lor', Mr. Peters," she said, "it's hard to think in such a place as this, that gents of your purfession should be wanted. I do think now, if I was ever led to feel to want to take and murder somebody, which I hopes ain't likely—knowin' my duty to my neighbour better—I do think, somehow, this evening would come back to my mind, and I should hear them birds a-singing, and see that there sun a-sinking, till I shouldn't be able to do it, somehow."

Mr. Peters shakes his head dubiously: he is a benevolent man and a philanthropist; but he doesn't like his profession run down, and a murder and bread-and-cheese are inseparable things in his mind.

"And, do you know," continued Kuppins, "it seems to me as if, when this world is so beautiful and quiet, it's quite hard to think there's one wicked person in it to cast a shadow on its peace."

As Kuppins said this, she and Mr. Peters were startled by a shadow which came between them and the sinking sun—a distorted shadow thrown across the narrow road from the sharp outline of the figure of a man lying upon a hillock a little way above them. Now, there is not much to alarm the most timid person in the sight of a man asleep upon a summer's evening among heath and wild flowers; but something in this man's appearance startled Kuppins, who drew nearer to Mr. Peters, and held the "fondling," now fast asleep and muffled in a shawl, closer to her bosom. The man was lying on his back, with his face upturned to the evening sky, and his arms straight down at his sides. The sound of the wheels of Mr. Vorkins's trap did not awaken him; and even when Mr. Peters drew up with a sudden jerk, the sleeping man did not raise his head. Now, I don't know why Mr. Peters should stop, or why either he or Kuppins should feel any curiosity about this sleeping man; but they certainly did feel considerable curiosity. He was dressed rather shabbily, but still like a gentleman; and it was perhaps a strange thing for a gentleman to be sleeping so soundly in such a lonely spot as this. Then again, there was something in his attitude—a want of ease, a certain stiffness, which had a strange effect upon both Kuppins and Mr. Peters.

"I wish he'd move," said Kuppins; "he looks so awful quiet, lying there all so lonesome."

"Call to him, my girl," said Mr. Peters with his fingers.

Kuppins essayed a loud "Hilloa," but it was a dismal failure, on which Mr. Peters gave a long shrill whistle, which must surely have disturbed the peaceful dreams of the seven