An unwonted gloom hung over Hampton Villa, mitigated at frequent intervals by the distant howls of a wild beast . Junior Hamptons bed lay empty , and was host to the scrutiny of a great many curious eyes , that were as sympathetic in their gaze as they were scandalous in their inquisitiveness . Lady Hampton , decked in her newly embroidered gown and her hair tied up in a shabby hurried bun, sat by a side of the bed , and quietly indulged in the one thing , that most women of her age and station , in hours of bereavement , or great joy , are sinfully adept at . Her female companions , as was the custom , had been willfully sympathetic , as only the female tongue can , but their reasons for hope had been as attenuated as a starving mendicant on a mission .
Junior Hampton had disappeared . Ofcourse , disappearance suggested itself as only a mildly euphemistic manner of description that hardly did justice to Miss Hampton anguished wails of loss and mourning. The footprints , sprayed over the carpet with inordinate excess , imprinted in mud , pointed towards a fate more dire for Junior . Junior was the youngest member of the Hampton household , and the Hampton’s only son . He had completed his fourteenth year of mortal life a week back , and had shown , in his otherwise insipid and uninspired existence , no inclination for the extraordinary . He had been most commonplace in his achievements , if one might call them so , and trite in his endeavors . The preceding night had bore no fore-warnings of Juniors growing acumen for the exceptional , whence he had gone to bed early , owing particularly to an overtly affectionate mother , who had felt it within her matriarchal responsibilities to lay her son to bed , before the rest of the family members could openly indulge in the scandals of the night . Sudden disappearance had seemed a miracle most beyond his common abilities , and certainly most ill-conceived . Sure , he had had some help in that end , and the footprints on the carpet pointed in direction of a wild-beast of considerable size and fervor , and of no less ferocity , as apparent from the breaking in , probably a wolf . And that bore hope , for a wolf was quite unheard of in Nottingham , and foxes were as wild as the beasts got in the local countryside . And it is to this end , that Miss Hampton’s companions tried draw her attention, in an attempt to dissuade her of her fatalistic forebodings .
Their clamorous lamentations were however disrupted by the mansions’s Valet , announcing the arrival of Lord Hampton . Lord Hampton was a man of about thirty , and had been romantic in his youth , and sorbet in his family life . Like all men , he had fallen in love when he was young , had had a stormy affair , fired by the rebellious indifference of youth , and had married the woman of his affections , only to realize the brevity of romance was purely premarital . So grave was his realization that it pushed him to greater endeavors of ambition, to being a self-made man as only great tragedy , and a rancorous family life could produce . Presently , he entered the room where his Missus sobbed and her ladies sympathized , accompanied by a dandy handsome gentleman of about nearly the same age as the villa’s owner , with a gun slung across his left shoulder , and bravado , across his face . Master Harbingson was a man as handsome as any to be seen in Nottingham , and was destined for greatness . He , by his own admissions , had displayed great bravery and considerable courage on the Eastern Frontier , and though signs of his courage remained largely unfound , most people believed him , for it was considered contrary to wont to contradict foreign tales of bravado and adventure . However , there remained those who doubted his claims to valour , disregarding them as concocted tales of an ostentatious pretender. And with the unwavering obsession of juvenile puerility , Huntington endeavoured to put to rest, all doubt that remained of his unbridled courage .
Lord Hampton , on surveying the congregation that had gathered in the room , and realizing that he was the bravest of the lot , felt disposed to give tongue to his sympathies.
‘I am sure we will find your son . Egad , a wild beast of the size you mention is pretty unheard of in this part of the country , and I can vouch with certainty that nothing has become of him , and we are sure to find him before long‘, affirmed the once subaltern , with a complete indifference for facts, which seemed to proclaim otherwise .
‘But what if something is to have already happened to him . The foot-prints are certainly of a wild beast ‘, prodded the Missus , with the foreboding desperation of an affectionate mother . However , her concern for the present affairs of her son , and the veracity of the facts she proclaimed were willfully ignored by Harbingson , as they proved to a considerable stumbling block in the furthering of his ambitions .Reason was a luxury his aspirations could ill-afford .
And as the ladies indulged in prognosticating and pontificating over Junior’s fate , the men made for the forests without much tarry . However , even with all haste and diligence they could summon into their mission , it was not before late afternoon that the party had their first glimpse of the forest . The old graveyard , at the eastern corridors of the forest , led to a narrow pathway ,which , over- time , had been paved by the jungle-folks and peasants , and which was presently deemed to be the shortest way through the forest ,to the centre of the jungle , from where the wild cries of Juniors assailant had emanated the previous night , and that early morning .
Lost in the vision of chance heroism , Harbingson missed the fork that the party had stumbled upon, and duly found himself adrift by quite a distance , and on a completely different trail . Harbingson possessed about him none of the airs of pessimism , that the obstinately ambitious are so often victim to , and was easily inveigled into interpreting it as an act of Providence , that it now rested on his shoulder , to rescue the Hampton’s missing and cast off all doubts that remained about his valour . But for all good-luck destiny had endowed him with , it had robbed him of morning light , as the sun had unwittingly set on the west horizon , and a darkness had descended upon Harbingson , that was as stifling in its silence as it was terrifying in its foreboding. However , as Providence had quite so often, during the course of the day , lead Harbinson towards his aspired goal of heroic recovery , the renewed wails of the beast in the distance , now led Harbingson towards the absconding assailant , and as evening descended , in all its darkness , and the moon rose high over the thickets of bushes and the clustered populace of poplars and oaks , of what was Nottingham forest , Harbingson had his first sighting of the beast as he reached an opening in the forest , where trees were few by count , and which surrounded a pull , the water of which presently served to satiate the thirst of the creature , that our young hero had sought through the entire length of the day . The sound of approaching hoofs had alerted the quadruped , which now faced Harbingson , and eyed him with the fearsome threatening gaze , typical of fully grown canines , when encountered out of the steely refines of their cages, and stomped the ground with a ferocity , that was , in all disguise meant to be disconcerting , and might have fully achieved the desired result , for a man less possessed and resolute than Huntington .As ever a man took his fate in his own hands , Huntington took the gun in his , and even in all its might , and wild ferocity , the beast , visibly , was hardly a match for Huntington’s Nickel plated , silver encrusted , wooden-barreled Winchester 37 , that had now gone of , amidst a thunderous noise , and bellows of smoke , emanating out of the nozzle of the 38 mm caliber , scaring off a few swallows perched at a nearby tree , and had left its victim clamouring for life . Harbingson might have rushed back to town , to proclaim the news of his latest conquest , but for the sudden , and unwitting transformation of the wild-beast , which previously , in every form and manner , had bore the strongest of resemblances to a wolf , and had by now , shed its thick blanket of grey fur for a paler complexion of the human skin , and threatened to continue in its way of metamorphosis , with its new found desire for human form , with evident changes in facial structure , so much so that it now looked more human than any wolf had ever dared to do before .
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