text:
The Terriford Mystery/Chapter 1

N the star-powdered sky there hung a pale, golden moon. It was the 25th of May, and though the day had been warm and sunny, it was cold to-night, and even as early as ten o'clock most of the lights were extinguished in Terriford village.

But “the moon is the lovers' sun”: such was the conceit which a tall, loosely-built man had just propounded to the girl walking by his side on the field path which lay like a white ribbon across the four cornfields stretching between the Thatched House Farm and the well-kept demesne of the Thatched House.

The girl—Lucy Warren was her name, and she was parlour-maid at the Thatched House—made no answer. She could well have spared the moonlight. She knew that not only her clever, capable mother, but also all the gossips who made up her little world, would be shocked indeed did they see her walking, in this slow, familiar, loverlike way, with her mother's lodger, Guy Cheale.

Not that shrewd Mrs. Warren disliked her lodger. In spite of herself she had become very fond of him. He was such a queer, fantastic—had she known the word, she might have added cynical—young gentleman.

But though she liked him, and though his funny talk amused her, Mrs. Warren would have been wroth indeed had she known of the friendship between her lodger and her daughter. And the mother would have been right to feel wroth, for, while doing everything to make Lucy love him with that fresh, wonderful young love that only comes to a woman once, Guy Cheale never spoke to Lucy of marriage.

For the matter of that, how could he speak of marriage, being that melancholy thing, a penniless gentleman? A man whose lodging at the farm even was paid for by his sister, herself companion-housekeeper at the Thatched House. There were a dozen newspapers in London which would always print everything Guy Cheale chose to write, but he liked talking better than writing, and he was in very poor health.

Lucy hated to think that the man whom deep in her heart she had come passionately to love was too lazy—or was it really too ill?—to make a living. She disliked her lover's sister, Agatha Cheale, with a deep, instinctive, fierce dislike, and sometimes she smiled, though it was not a happy smile, at the thought of how angry Miss Cheale would be if she knew that Mr. Cheale and she, Lucy, were lovers.

“Not quite so quick, my pretty Lucy!”

Guy Cheale was panting painfully—and a rush of that pity which is akin to love filled Lucy Warren's heart.

“I mustn't be late,” she said nervously.

“You're not late, Lucy”—he held up his watch close to his eyes. “It's only twenty to ten,” and then he added, in that voice which he knew how to make at once so strangely tender, persuasive, and yes—mocking, “Let's go into our enchanted wood for five minutes, as you won't let me in to that drawing room of yours.”

“It ain't my drawing room, as you knows full well. If it was, you'd be welcome to come into it,” she exclaimed resentfully.

He guided her down the path leading to the wood, and then, once they were under the shelter of the trees, he clutched her to him with a strength which at once frightened and comforted her—for it seemed to prove that he could not be as ill as he was made out to be.

“Love and life,” he muttered, “the one's no good without the other!” He bent his head and their lips clung together in a long long kiss.

And then Guy Cheale was filled with a delicious sense of triumph and of exultation. He had won this proud sensitive creature at last—after a long, to him a breathless, exciting chase.

But all at once he felt her stiffen in his arms.

“Hush!” she whispered. “There's some one in the wood!”

He did not relax his almost terrible grip of her, as he too, listened intently.

Lucy was right; he could hear the light, stuffless sound of footsteps sinking into the dead leaves which still, on this spring night, lay thickly spread on the path.

“Only happy lovers like you and me,” he whispered huskily. “They're not troubling about us—why trouble about them?”

But the girl was frightened. “For God's sake, go away, Mr. Cheale!” she pleaded in a terrified whisper.

“One kiss more, Lucy. Only one kiss more”

But she lay inertly in his arms, all her senses absorbed in listening. How different from only fifty seconds ago!

“Lucy,” he whispered, “Lucy? We can't part like this, to-night—the first time my goddess has yielded me her lips.”

Though full of nervous terror, she was moved by the real feeling in his voice.

“I'll go and see who it is,” she muttered in his ear. “You stop where you are.”

“Promise to come back!”

For only answer she took up his thin right hand and laid it against her cheek; and then she crept quickly away, moving almost soundlessly along, for she knew every turn of the little wood.

At last she came back, panting a little.

“Who was it?” he whispered eagerly.

“I don't know. They're gone now. But I've not a minute left.”

He could hear by her voice that she was anxious, preoccupied, and with the strange, dangerous power he possessed of seeing into a woman's mind he knew that she had not told the truth—that she was well aware of the identity of those other haunters of the enchanted wood. But he had no wish to share her knowledge. The good folk of Terriford, who meant so much to Lucy Warren, meant less than nothing to Guy Cheale.

“You and that tiresome old cook go up to bed as soon as you come in, don't you?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes, we do,” she replied hesitatingly, knowing well, as she would have expressed it to herself, what he was after.

“If I give you twenty minutes,” he whispered caressingly, “it will be quite safe for you to let me into the drawing room, eh—little hawk?”

It was his supreme term of endearment—and once more she allowed him to take her into his arms, and press her with an almost terrible strength to his breast. But

“It's wrong,” she whispered, “it's wrong, Mr. Cheale. I ought never to have let you into the drawing room. 'Tain't mine to use that way.”

“That's why I like our doing it!” he chuckled.

And then with that queer touch of malicious triumph that fascinated her, he added: “What would sister Agatha say if walls could speak?”

“Don't you go saying that! Miss Cheale's never in the drawing room,” she exclaimed, affrighted at the very thought. “No one ever is—now that the mistress keeps upstairs.”

“No one but you and me, Psyche!” and then he took her face between his hands and lightly kissed it. “I won't stay long to-night, I promise—but we can't meet to-morrow, worse luck! Your uncle's spending the night at the farm.”

“Can't see what you fancy about Uncle Enoch”

“I like lawyers—they're such rascals! Why he was telling your mother all about Mrs. Garlett's will last Sunday”

“He never was?”

Lucy felt very much shocked. Even she knew that in doing such a thing her uncle, Enoch Bent, confidential clerk to Mr. Toogood, the leading lawyer of Grendon, was acting in a very dishonourable manner.

“Run along now,” exclaimed Guy Cheale, a touch of rasped impatience in his voice.

And then he seized her again in his arms—only to push her away. “I'll wait till we can kiss at ease—in the drawing room! Strange that hideous, early Victorian temple of respectability should shelter the love of two wild hawks like you and me—eh, Lucy?”

And then she left him and hurried through the wood, uncaring now of the sounds her light footsteps made. She knew she was late—it must be quite a bit after ten o'clock. But cookie was a kindly, good-natured, elderly woman, and didn't mind waiting up for a little while. But once, when Lucy had been half an hour late, Miss Cheale had caught her, and spoken to her very severely.

A quarter of an hour later Lucy, after tiptoeing down the silent house, opened the drawing-room door, and, after closing it with infinite precaution, passed through into the dark room. Then she turned and locked the door behind her.

The white dimity covers of the heavy, early Victorian furniture by which Mrs. Garlett, the invalid sleeping just above the drawing room, set such store, made luminous patches in the big L-shaped apartment, and somehow added to Lucy Warren's feeling of nervous unease.

Though the passionate, newly awakened side of her beating heart was burning to hear the tiny tap on the long French window which she knew would herald Guy Cheale's approach, there was another side of the girl which hated and was deeply ashamed of allowing a meeting with her lover here.

She felt that whom she saw, and even what she did, when out of doors, under the sky, was no one's business but her own—and perhaps, in a much lesser measure, her mother's. She would also have felt differently had she and Guy Cheale been able to meet alone in the servants' hall of the Thatched House. But the drawing room she felt to be ground sacred to Mrs. Garlett, so dear and precious indeed to the mistress of the Thatched House that it was never used now, not even on the rare occasions when Harry Garlett had a friend to dinner. Guy Cheale, however, had discovered that the drawing room, alone of all the ground-floor rooms of the spacious old house, had a French window opening into the garden, and he and Lucy Warren had already met there twice.

As Lucy stood in the dark room, listening intently, her nerves taut, her heart beating, there suddenly swept over her an awful prevision of evil, a sudden realization of her folly in allowing Guy Cheale to wile her heart away. She knew, alas! that he was spoiling her for the only life open to such as she—the life of an honest, commonplace, working man's wife.

She remembered to-night with an almost anguished vividness the first time she had ever seen Guy Cheale—last February, on her first “afternoon off” in the month. She had gone home to the Thatched House Farm to help her mother with the new gentleman lodger, and, being a girl of a proud independent nature, she had come prepared to dislike him, the more so that she hated his sister, Mrs. Garlett's strict, sarcastic young lady housekeeper. And then she had opened the door of the little farmhouse parlour, and seen the big, loosely built fair man who was to be “her fate.”

His keen, thin, large-boned face, alive with a kind of gay, plucky humour, large heavy-lidded gray eyes, and long, loose-limbed figure, were each and all so utterly unlike Miss Cheale that no one could have believed them to be what they were, brother and sister.

Guy Cheale had often reverted to the enchanted moment that had brought them first face to face; and he had told her again and again what she was never tired of hearing—how beautiful, how proud and how disdainful he had thought her.

But she knew nothing of the cruel hunting instinct which had prompted what had immediately followed her entry into the room.

“What is your name?” he had asked, and when she answered, “Lucy, sir. I'm Mrs. Warren's daughter,” he had got up and, gazing straight into her face, had uttered the strange, poignant words—“A dying man—for that's what I'm supposed to be, my pretty dear—ought to be given a certain license, eh?”

“License, sir?” she had repeated, falteringly.

“License in the way of love-making! I suppose you know, Lucy, that I'm said to be dying? And so I am—dying for a little love!”

That had been the beginning of it all. And though she had been, for quite a long while, what she termed to herself “standoffish,” they had become, in time, dear friends—meeting often in secret, as some dear friends are forced to do. It had not been easy for them to meet, even in secret; for there is no place in the world so full of a kind of shrewd, cruel scandal-mongering as is an English village, and it said much for the intelligence, not only of Guy Cheale, but also of Lucy Warren, that their names had never yet been connected the one with the other.

All the same, as is always the way with a man and a woman who are determined on meeting, they had seen each other almost daily. And now and again they had had a grand, a wonderful innings! Once Mrs. Warren had had to go away for a week and Lucy had been given some hours off each day in order that she might prepare the lunch and supper of her mother's lodger.

During those days—days on which he had insisted on helping her to do everything, even to the cooking of his meals in the big, comfortable farm kitchen, their friendship had grown apace. No man knew better the way to a woman's heart, and, posing then as her friend, and only as her friend, he had encouraged her to talk about everything and everybody that interested her—her employer, Harry Garlett, the famous county cricketer, his sickly wife, and even the country village gossip.

Even so, in defence of her heart, Lucy Warren had put up a good fight—a fight which, as the time went on, stimulated, excited, sometimes even maddened Guy Cheale. He found, with surprise and even discomfiture, that what he had begun in idle and ignoble sport, was becoming to him a matter of interest, even of importance.

This, perhaps, was why now, while Lucy Warren stood in the dark drawing room, her mind filled with tense, questioning memories, Guy Cheale, padding up and down the lawn like some huge, loose-limbed creature of the woods, was also asking himself intimate, searching questions.

He was already ruefully aware that this would probably be one of the last times that he and this poor girl whom he had forced to love him would meet, and it irked him to know how much he would miss her from out his strange, sinister life—the life which he knew was ebbing slowly but surely to a close. He had made love to many, many women, but this was the first time he had been thrown into close intimacy with a country girl of Lucy's class—that sturdy, self-respecting British yeoman class which has been for generations the backbone of the old country.

Very soon—how soon to a day not even Guy Cheale could tell—he would have left the Thatched Farm. And oh! how he would like to take Lucy with him, even for a little while. But, bad as he was, there was yet in him still a small leaven of good which forced him to admit that he owed Lucy Warren something for the love which, if passionate, was so pure and selfless. Sometimes, when he felt more ailing than usual, he would tell himself that when within sight of that mysterious bourne from which no traveller returns he would send for Lucy, marry her, and be nursed by her to the end.

But now, on this warm May night, he put painful thoughts away, and determined to extract the greatest possible enjoyment from what could only be, alas! the fleeting present.

Treading over the grass as lightly as might be, he leaped across the narrow gravel footpath which ran round the front of the house.

And then a most untoward thing happened! Unaware that Lucy had unlatched the hasp of the long French window, Guy Cheale leaned against it, panting, and fell forward into the room—his heavy boot crashing through one of the lower panes.

He uttered a stifled oath, then stood up and, walking forward, felt in the darkness for the terror-stricken girl. For a few minutes they stood together listening intently; then, reassured, he led her over to a couch and, throwing himself down on it, he clasped her to him closely.

His arms were round her, he was kissing her eagerly, thirstily, when all at once she gave a stifled cry—she had heard the handle turn in the locked door.

“I expect it's Miss Cheale,” she whispered. “She taxed me the other night with having a sweetheart I was ashamed of! Go away—quick! She'll get round to the window in a minute”

Guy Cheale leaped up and rushed across the room. Desperately he tried to find the awkward, old-fashioned catch, and just as the second door of the drawing-room—a door the existence of which Lucy had forgotten—was unlatched, and the electric light switched on, he flung open the window and disappeared into the dark garden.

But the figure which advanced slowly into the L-shaped room was not that of Agatha Cheale. Lucy, petrified with shame and fear, knew it for that of the invalid mistress of the Thatched House.

Clad in an old-fashioned white dressing-gown, her pallid face filled with mingled curiosity and fright, Mrs. Garlett looked like a wraith, and far more willingly would the girl, who stood before her with hanging head, have faced a real spirit.

For a long, breathless moment Mrs. Garlett, dazzled by the light, peered round her, looking this way and that. Then, “Lucy!” she exclaimed, in a tone of keen surprise and anger, and again, “Lucy?”

Turning slowly round, she called out to some one who apparently had remained in the passage outside.

“You can come in now, Miss Cheale. I was right and you were wrong. I did hear a noise upstairs—after all, my bedroom's just over here. It was Lucy Warren—in here with a man. He has just escaped through the window.”

And then Miss Cheale, the woman whom Lucy Warren hated, feared and, yes, despised, came into the room. She gave one swift glance of contempt and reprobation at the unhappy culprit, glanced at the open French window, and, turning to her employer, exclaimed:

“I will see Lucy to-morrow morning, Mrs. Garlett. Please come up to bed at once. You've done a very dangerous thing in coming down like this!”

The invalid lady allowed herself to be led, unresisting, away; and then, mechanically, Lucy went over to the window and stared out, her bosom heaving with sobs, and tears streaming from her eyes.

But no kindly, mocking, caressing whisper came to comfort and reassure her out of the darkness. By this time Guy Cheale must be well on his way back to the farm.

Turning slowly, she threaded her way through the white-shrouded furniture, unlocked the door nearest to her, and walked out, forgetting or uncaring that the electric light which had been turned on by Mrs. Garlett by the other door was still burning.

title: The Terriford Mystery/Chapter 1


text:
The Terriford Mystery/Chapter 2

T was twelve o'clock the next morning, and the sun was streaming into the pleasant downstairs rooms of the Thatched House. The only sign of last night's alarums and excursions was the broken window in the drawing room, and of that no one but the three closely concerned were aware, for early in the morning Miss Cheale had crept downstairs, put out the electric light, and locked both the doors.

But Mrs. Garlett had been thoroughly upset by what had happened in the night, and Miss Cheale had thought it well to telephone for the doctor.

“No good to herself—and no good to anybody else, poor soul!”

Dr. Maclean was uttering his thoughts aloud, as even the most discreet of physicians will sometimes do when with an intimate acquaintance. He was speaking of his patient, Mrs. Garlett, and addressing Agatha Cheale.

There were people in Grendon who envied Agatha Cheale her position as practical mistress of the charming old house. She was known to be distantly related to its master, Harry Garlett, and that made her position there less that of a dependent than it might have been. No one else used the pretty little sitting room where she and the doctor were now standing. But Dr. Maclean—shrewd Scot that he was—knew that Agatha Cheale was not to be envied, and that her job was both a difficult and a thankless one.

As he uttered his thoughts aloud, his kindly eyes became focussed on the woman before him. She was slight and dark, her abundant, wavy hair cut almost as short as a boy's. This morning the intensely bright eyes which were the most arresting feature of her face, and the only one she had in common with her fair-haired brother, had dark pouches under them.

Dr. Maclean told himself that she had made a mistake in giving up the busy, useful, interesting life of secretary to the boss of a London trading company.

He asked suddenly: “When are you going to have your holiday?”

“I don't know that I shall take a holiday.” She looked at him with a touch of tragic intensity. “I'm all right, really—though I don't sleep as well as I might.”

“Don't be angry with me for asking you a straight question.”

A wave of colour flooded her pale face. “I won't promise to answer it!”

“Why do you go on with this thankless job?” he said earnestly. “Within a week or two at most I could find a competent nurse who could manage Mrs. Garlett. Why should you waste your life over that cantankerous, disagreeable woman?”

And then Agatha Cheale said something which very much surprised Dr. Maclean.

“I am thinking of giving up the job in September. That's the real reason why I'm not going to take a holiday now. You see,” she hesitated perceptibly, “I'm afraid it will terribly upset Cousin Harry—my leaving here, I mean.”

“Of course it will upset him. Thanks to you, he can go off on his cricketing jaunts with a light heart. Master Harry's a man to be envied”

She turned and faced him. “With a wife like that?”

“He married her, after all!”

“Why did he marry her?”

Dr. Maclean hesitated a moment. Then he answered frankly: “Harry Garlett married Emily Jones because he was a simple, good-looking lad aged twenty-two, and she a clever, determined woman aged twenty-seven who was in love with him. Old Jones was a queer, suspicious creature—the Etna China Company was a one-man concern in his day. A business friend asked old Jones to give a young man in whom he was interested a job; and there came along that cheery young chap.”

“They've been married thirteen years to-day.”

“God bless my soul—so they have!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean. “But the war took a great chunk out of that, for Garlett joined up at once. I remember how surprised we all were. Somehow it didn't seem necessary then—not for a man with a stake in the world. But he was mad to go, and he was in France early in 'fifteen.”

“She says it was then that she fell ill.”

“She was always ailing—she's a thoroughly unhealthy woman,” Dr. Maclean spoke with abrupt decision. “I was looking at Dr. Prince's casebook the other day, and I came across her entry. She was an unhealthy child and an unhealthy girl—far too fussy about herself always. Well I remember her bringing me the War Office telegram with the news of that awful wound of Garlett's. But she wouldn't go to France, not she! Yet—” he hesitated—“in her own queer way she's absolutely devoted to him.”

Agatha Cheale said in a low voice, “None of us thought he could get over that wound.”

“Why, of course!” the doctor exclaimed. “You were there, Miss Cheale, in that French war hospital. But I suppose you'd known Harry Garlett long before then—as you're his cousin?”

He looked at her rather hard.

“I'd never met Cousin Harry till we met in that strange way in France,” she answered composedly.

“He told me once that he owed his life to you.”

“That, of course, is nonsense,” she said in a hard tone.

“He has plenty to be grateful to you for now.”

Agatha Cheale's usually pale face became suffused with dusky red. It was an overwhelming, an unbecoming blush, and, with a quickening of the pulse, Dr. Maclean told himself that this involuntary betrayal of deep feeling answered a question which he had half ashamedly often asked himself in the last year—was Agatha Cheale secretly attached to Harry Garlett? Was that the real reason she was spending her life, her intelligence, her undoubted cleverness, in looking after his sickly, tiresome wife?

Doctors know of many hidden tragedies, of many secret dramas in being, and this particular doctor knew more than most, for he had a very kindly heart. He felt glad that Mrs. Garlett's companion was leaving the Thatched House, though her doing so would throw a good deal of trouble on him.

After he had gone, Agatha Cheale went over to the win dow. There she pressed her forehead against the glass, and her eyes filled with bitter tears. For perhaps the thousandth time in the last few months she told herself that she would leave the Thatched House, forget Mrs. Garlett and her tire some exactions, and, above all, forget Harry Garlett.

Harry Garlett? She did not require to shut her eyes to visualize the tall, still young-looking man whom the sick woman upstairs called husband. Every feature, every distinctive line about his good-looking, oftener merry than sad, alert expression of face, was printed on the tablets of Agatha's tormented, unhappy heart.

Why was it that she, a proud woman, and, until she had met Harry Garlett, a cold woman, cared as she had come to care for this man? Garlett was not nearly as clever as many of the men with whom her work had brought her in contact during the war and since. The great surgeon whose favourite nurse she had become in the oddly managed, private war hospital, where all the square pegs had been forced into round holes, had shown her unmistakably that he was violently attracted by her dark, aloof beauty, but, far from being pleased, she had been bitterly distressed at what she had regarded as an insult.

Memories crowded thick upon her. She remembered cutting the bloodstained uniform off an unconscious form, and her thrill of surprise when she had read on his disc the most unusual name of Garlett—the second name by which she, herself, had been christened—she had never been able to discover why.

It was true, she had saved, not his life, but his bowling arm. And oh, how grateful he had been—then! At once they had fallen into the way, at first in joke, of calling each other “Cousin Harry” and “Cousin Agatha.” But there had been no love passages between them. He had at once told her that he was a married man, and very soon, also, she had come to understand that he was not “that sort.”

The war had been over some months when one day, by one of those chances which often deflect the whole of a human existence, they had run up against one another in a London street. She had asked him to come back to the modest rooms she occupied in Bloomsbury, and it was there that he had told her his wife was now a complete invalid, that she refused to have a nurse, and that it was difficult to get even a lady housekeeper who would satisfy her.

“Would you like me to try and find you some one?” she had asked. Eagerly he had caught at the suggestion, and that same night she had written and offered to come herself.

There had then taken place another interview between herself and the man who held for her so strong an attraction and appeal. It had been a rather emotional interview. Harry Garlett, filled with gratitude, had insisted that she should have a really large, some would have said an extravagant, salary, and she had revealed the existence of the clever, idle, sickly brother who was the ever-present burden and anxiety of her life.

It had been her suggestion that the people in the neighbourhood should be told that she and her employer were related. Her name was Agatha Garlett Cheale, after all. Surprised, he had yielded, reddening as he did so under his tan.

“I daresay you're right! They're a gossiping set of women in my part of the world.”

“Not more so than in other places,” and something had made her add: “They gossiped about us in the hospital, you know.”

“Did they? I didn't know that!” And he had looked amused—only amused.

Her first sight of Mrs. Garlett—how well she remembered it! “Poor Emily” had not been very gracious, though in time she had thawed. The sick woman realized the difference cool, competent Agatha Cheale made to the Thatched House, and to herself Mrs. Garlett grudgingly admitted that Miss Cheale's sense and discretion matched her more useful qualities.

To those ladies who were kind enough to call on her—and practically every lady in the neighbourhood considered it her duty to make acquaintance with Harry Garlett's cousin—Agatha explained that she never went out in the evening. So the delicate question as to whether she was or was not to be asked out to dinner with her employer was solved once for all, in the way every hostess had hoped it would be.

As Dr. Maclean walked quickly down the short avenue which led from the Thatched House to the carriage gate his mind was full of the woman he had just left.

He did not like Agatha Cheale, yet he did feel intensely sorry for her. For one thing she must be so lonely at times, for, with one exception, she had made no friends in either Terriford or Grendon.

The one person of whom she saw a good deal was clever, malicious Miss Prince. People had wondered more than once at the link between Miss Prince and Agatha Cheale, but there was nothing mysterious about it. Though Miss Prince was acquainted with every man, woman, and child in Terriford she led a somewhat solitary life in the Thatched Cottage, a pleasant little house which formed a kind of enclave in the Thatched House property. Thus propinquity had something to do with the friendship between the younger and the older woman.

There was one great difference, however, between them. Miss Prince was what some people call “churchy,” while Agatha Cheale never went to church at all, and on one occasion she had spoken to Dr. Maclean with a slightly contemptuous amusement of those who did.

The doctor was close to the wrought-iron gate giving into the road which led to his own house when, suddenly, he espied this very lady, Miss Prince, coming toward him. She held a basket in her hand, and he did not need to be told that it contained some dainty intended for Mrs. Garlett. Like so many sharp-tongued mortals, Miss Prince often did kind things, yet her opening remark was characteristic of her censorious attitude to her fellow creatures.

“It's a good thing that Harry Garlett's rather more at his factory just now. If it weren't for poor old Dodson, that Etna China business would have gone to pieces long ago! I never saw a man gad about as he does”

Without giving the doctor time to answer, she went on: “No change in poor Emily, I suppose?” She smiled disagreeably. “I expect you'd like to have ten other patients like her, Dr. Maclean?”

At once he carried the war into the enemy's country.

“Did Dr. Prince like that type of tiresome, cantankerous, impossible-to-please patient?”

“I know I was glad of them.”

“Very well for you who had the spending of the fees and none of the work!”

They generally sparred like this, jokingly in a sense, but with a sort of unpleasant edge to their banter.

“I don't suppose Emily will ever get better—till she dies of old age,” laughed Miss Prince.

“As a matter of fact, she's markedly less well than she was last year.”

Dr. Maclean didn't know what provoked him to say that, though it was true that he had thought Mrs. Garlett rather less well than usual these last few weeks.

“It's strange that everything in nature, having performed its work, dies, and that only we poor human beings linger on long after any usefulness we ever had in the world has gone,” said Miss Prince musingly.

“I don't believe that Mrs. Garlett was ever useful,” he said curtly.

“Oh, yes, she was! In her queer way Emily was a very devoted daughter to that horrid old father of hers. And she's made Harry Garlett.”

Again the spirit of contradiction seized him.

“I don't know what you mean,” he exclaimed. “Harry Garlett's the sort of chap who'd have got on far better as a bachelor than as a married man. His wife's money has ruined him—that's my view of it! There's a lot more in Garlett than people think. If he hadn't married that poor, sickly woman he might have done some real work in the world.”

“Dr. Maclean,” said Miss Prince abruptly, “I'm anxious about Agatha Cheale.”

“So am I, Miss Prince.”

He lowered his voice, for he didn't want some stray gardener's boy to overhear what he was about to say.

“You're her only friend hereabouts,” he went on. “Do you know that she's thinking of giving up her job? Mind you keep her up to that!”

She gave him a curious look.

“She'll never go—as long as Harry Garlett's here,” she said, almost in a whisper.

“Do you think Garlett will ask her to stay?”

“No, I don't. I think he's longing for her to go.”

He was taken aback. “Why d'you think that?”

“'He who will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay.'”

Dr. Maclean stared at Miss Prince distrustfully. What exactly did she mean by that enigmatic quotation?

“You're not a fool!” she said tartly. “Harry Garlett's not the first man who's made love to a woman—and then been sorry he had, eh?”

“You think there was a time when Garlett made love to Miss Cheale?”

Dr. Maclean's voice also fell almost to a whisper.

“I'm sure of it! She's never admitted it, mind you—don't run away with that idea.”

“I don't believe Harry Garlett has ever made love to Agatha Cheale,” said the doctor, definitely making up his mind. “I think he's an out-and-out white man.”

Miss Prince smiled a wry smile.

“I'm positive that something happened lately which changed their relations to one another. Harry's afraid of her—he avoids her.”

“I've never noticed anything of the kind,” said the other brusquely.

Miss Prince looked vexed; no gossip likes to be contradicted, and she proceeded to pay the doctor out.

“Your niece seems to be giving great satisfaction at the Etna factory,” she observed.

“I think she is—I hope she is! Jean's a good conscientious girl.”

“And so attractive, too! Every one was saying how pretty she looked at the cricket match. Times are changed since we were young, Dr. Maclean. What would my father have said if I'd insisted on being boxed up hour after hour with an old bachelor like Mr. Dodson—or an attractive young married man like Harry Garlett?”

The doctor felt annoyed. What a spiteful woman Miss Prince was, to be sure!

“I don't think she runs any risk with either of them.” He tried to speak jokingly, but failed.

“How about them?” she asked meaningly.

“Perhaps she'll become Mrs. Dodson,” he answered dryly. But as Mr. Dodson was sixty-four and Jean Bower twenty-one, that didn't seem very likely.

Lifting his hat, Dr. Maclean walked briskly on his way, telling himself that Miss Prince, like most clever people, was an extraordinary bundle of contradictions—kind, spiteful, generous, suspicious, affectionate and hard-hearted, and a mischief-maker all the time!

The subject of his thoughts hurried on toward the Thatched House. She was precise in all her ways, and she wanted to leave her little gift for Mrs. Garlett, enjoy a short talk with Agatha Cheale, and then get back to her midday meal by one o'clock.

“I'll see Miss Cheale just for a minute,” she said to the maid—not Lucy Warren—who opened the door. “I suppose she's in her sitting room?”

Without waiting for an answer Miss Prince went off, with her quick, decided step, through into the house she knew so well.

As the door opened, Agatha Cheale turned round quickly, filled with a sudden, unreasonable hope that it might be Harry Garlett. He had gone to the china factory this morning, though it was Saturday, and he had telephoned that he would be back to luncheon.

But she reminded herself bitterly that he never sought her out now. If he had anything to communicate to her connected with the running of the house, he always made a point of doing so at one of the rare meals they took together, in the presence of the parlour-maid, Lucy Warren.

“I've brought a few forced strawberries for poor Emily,” began Miss Prince, and then, lowering her voice perceptibly, she added: “I understand she's not so well as usual?”

The other looked at her surprised.

“I see no change,” she said indifferently.

And then Miss Prince became aware that the younger woman had been crying.

“Look here, Agatha,” she spoke with kindly authority. “It's time you had a change! You're badly in need of a holiday. It's all very well for Harry Garlett—his life's a perpetual holiday.”

“He's been working much harder than usual lately,” the other said quickly.

There came a gleam into Miss Prince's eye.

“I think there may be a reason for that,” she said rather mysteriously.

“Any special reason?” asked Agatha Cheale indifferently.

Miss Prince hesitated. This morning, at early celebration, she had resolved that she would make a real effort to cure herself of what she knew in her heart was her one outstanding fault—to herself she called it, quite rightly, sin—that of retailing malicious tittle-tattle. But somehow she felt strongly tempted to say just one word, and, as so often happens with those cursed with her peculiar temperament, she was half persuaded that in saying what she now deter mined to say she would be doing the right thing.

“Of course you know that Jean Bower, Mrs. Maclean's niece, has become secretary to the Etna China Company?”

“No, I didn't know it.” Agatha Cheale was more surprised than she chose to show.

“How very odd of them not to have told you! I mean, how odd of Harry, and how odd of Dr. Maclean. Why, she's been at the Etna factory for quite a month.”

“I thought the girl was well off.”

“When her father died it was found that he had only left fifteen hundred pounds. And though the Macleans have practically adopted her, she seems to have said she would much prefer to do some work than to be just idle; so Mrs. Maclean, hearing that a secretary was wanted at the Etna factory, managed to catch Harry Garlett at the office one day and asked if he would give Jean a trial. Of course he had to say 'yes.'”

“I suppose he had,” said Agatha Cheale slowly.

Jean Bower's attractive, youthful personality had been impressed on her in the cricket pavilion during the great Australian match. She had envied the girl, not only her bright artless charm of manner, but also the warm affection the doctor and his wife had shown her.

“I hear old Dodson is quite bewitched by her, and that even Harry himself is at the factory a great deal more than he used to be,” went on Miss Prince.

“That isn't true about Cousin Harry.”

Agatha Cheale forced herself to smile, but in her heart she knew that Harry Garlett had gone to the factory oftener this last month than he had ever done since she first came to Terriford. As for old Dodson, he was just the kind of foolish old bachelor to be bewitched by a young girl. After being head clerk for a number of years, he had been made a partner, and now practically ran the prosperous business.

Miss Prince looked sharply at her friend.

“Why, just now you said he had been working hard lately?';

“I didn't mean at the factory.”

“It's all very well to be unconventional,” went on Miss Prince, “but human nature doesn't alter. For my part I think it's a mistake to mix up attractive girls with married men.”

“Mr. Dodson isn't a married man,” observed Agatha Cheale.

“Ho, but Harry Garlett is.”

The other made no answer, and Miss Prince suddenly exclaimed triumphantly, “Why, there they are!”

Agatha Cheale turned quickly round.

Yes, Miss Prince was right. Through the window could be seen two figures walking slowly across the meadow, to the right of which stretched the little wood.

“I should have thought that Harry would have had more sense! I don't wonder they're already beginning to be talked about,” observed Miss Prince.

“What a lot of disgusting people there are in Grendon,” said Agatha Cheale. There was a note of bitter scorn in her voice. “It's Saturday to-day. That's why they're walking back together. It's the first time they've done it.”

Miss Prince would have been not only surprised but deeply shocked had she been able to see into her friend's unhappy heart. Agatha Cheale, gazing out on those two who were just coming through the little gate which led from the cornfield into the garden of the Thatched House, had felt a surge of intolerable suspicion and jealousy sweep over her, and that though her reason told her that the suspicion, at any rate, was utterly uncalled-for and absurd.

Miss Prince looked at her wrist watch—one of her few concessions to modern ways.

“I must be going,” she exclaimed; “it's almost one o'clock.”

She had only just left the room when there came a knock at the door. “Come in!” called out Miss Cheale, and Lucy Warren appeared.

“You said you wanted to see me before lunch, miss.”

Though the girl was making a great effort to seem calm, her lips were trembling and her eyes were swollen with crying.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: The Terriford Mystery/Chapter 2


text:
The Terriford Mystery/Chapter 3

ATE that same evening, Dr. Maclean, his wife, and their adopted daughter, were all sitting together in the dining room of Bonnie Doon.

The Macleans had bought the charming old house soon after the doctor had taken over the practice of Miss Prince's father, and they had renamed it after Mrs. Maclean's birth-place.

To-night, his wife and niece being by the table, the doctor sat close to the fire smoking his pipe.

“Dr. Tasker popped in to tea to-day,” observed Mrs. Maclean. As her husband said nothing she went on: “He waited quite a long while in the hope of seeing you. I'm doubting, Jock, whether we've been quite fair to that young man. He spoke very handsomely of you—he did indeed.”

“I've no need of his praise,” said the doctor dryly.

“I didn't say you had. All the same I hope you'll not scold me for having asked him to supper to-morrow night. He says Sunday is such a dull day in Grendon.”

“I can't promise to stay in for him if I'm sent for,” said Dr. Maclean, in a voice which his wife thought somewhat tiresome.

There had been a time, not so very long ago, when it was she, rather than her husband, who had disliked the young medical man who had suddenly “put up his plate,” as the saying is, on the door of almost the last house in Grendon. But Dr. Tasker had spoken to her very pleasantly at the cricket match. He had made friends, too, with Jean, and so Mrs. Maclean was now prepared to take him, at any rate in a measure, to her kindly Scots heart.

For a few moments there was silence in the room. Dr. Maclean turned himself round, and his eyes rested with appreciative affection on the bent head of the girl who even in a few weeks had so much brightened and enlivened his own and his wife's childless home.

Jean's hair was the colour of spun gold, and she had a delicately clear skin, giving depth to her hazel eyes. But her generous-lipped mouth was too large for beauty, and her features were irregular. Yet she looked so happy-natured, intelligent, and healthy, that the general impression produced by her appearance was that of a pretty, as well as that of a very agreeable girl.

Perhaps she felt her uncle's grateful, kindly glance, for suddenly she looked up and smiled.

“Well, Uncle Jock?” she exclaimed, “a penny for your thoughts!”

“I wonder if I'd really better tell you my thoughts,” he answered rather soberly.

“Of course you must!” cried his wife.

She, too, put down her work for a moment on the table and looked at him.

“I'm thinking,” he said quietly, “that we won't be keeping our pretty Jean here for long. It's all very well her being boxed up every day in that china factory. There are always half Saturdays and Sundays, to say nothing of holidays, and young men will soon come courting at Bonnie Doon.”

Jean burst out laughing, but Mrs. Maclean felt vexed.

“Really, Jock,” she exclaimed, “what are you after saying now? I've no liking for that sort of joke.”

“He wouldn't say it if he thought it true,” said her niece merrily. “I've been much disappointed in Terriford as regards the supply of young men.”

“Bide a wee, bide a wee,” said the doctor dryly. “A young woman never knows when she's going to meet Mr. Right; he's a way of appearing in the most unlikely places.”

Again his wife looked at him severely. “Jock, I'm surprised at you!”

“You'd often be surprised if you could look straight into my mind, woman,” said the doctor waggishly, tapping his pipe against the side of the fireplace. And then, as her aunt was still looking annoyed, Jean tactfully changed the subject.

“I wish you would tell me what you think of Agatha Cheale, Uncle Jock?”

“I wonder what you think of her?” he parried.

“I hardly know her. I liked her the day of the cricket match.”

“Is that the only time you've seen her?” asked Mrs. Maclean.

“I saw her to-day,” said Jean slowly, “Mr. Garlett overtook me after I had started walking home the field way. He suggested I should go through his garden—and then such a horrid thing happened!”

“What happened?” asked the husband and wife together.

“We were going across the lawn when we suddenly heard the sound of crying. It was coming, it seems, from Miss Cheale's sitting room. Mr. Garlett thought it was a child who had hurt itself, and asked me to go into the house. And then we found that it was Lucy Warren who was crying—and that there was such a horrid scene going on! I've never seen any one look as angry as Miss Cheale looked. I thought her such a quiet person.”

Mrs. Maclean asked eagerly: “Why was she angry?”

“From what I could make out,” said Jean, “Mrs. Garlett heard the French window of the drawing room open in the middle of last night. She thought it was a burglar, and she insisted on going downstairs; so she and Miss Cheale went downstairs together, and there was Lucy Warren with a man! But he escaped by the window out into the garden before they could see who it was.”

“I don't wonder Miss Cheale was angry!” exclaimed Jean's aunt. “I can hardly believe such a tale of Lucy Warren. She's such a superior-looking girl, such a pet, too, of Miss Prince's. Miss Prince was saying to me the other day how sorry she was she had ever allowed Mrs. Garlett to have Lucy, but she felt the Thatched House situation was such a good one that she ought not to keep the girl from it.”

“Lucy will go back to her now. Miss Prince isn't the woman to let a good maid go begging,” observed Dr. Maclean. “They didn't say a word of all that to me this morning.” He added, “I couldn't think what had upset Mrs. Garlett.”

“When we came in, Miss Cheale was trying to get out of Lucy who the man was,” went on Jean eagerly. “But all she would say was that she didn't see why she shouldn't have a talk with a friend anywhere she chose. She actually appealed to Mr. Garlett to say if she wasn't right!”

“What did he say?” asked Mrs. Maclean.

“In a way he took Lucy's part, for he reminded Miss Cheale that the drawing room was never used. But of course that only made her more angry—in fact, she was shaking with rage, her face was livid.”

“It was foolish of him to interfere,” observed the doctor.

“Of course I slipped away as quickly as I could,” went on the girl, “but as I went down the passage I heard Lucy call out: 'I hate you, Miss Cheale! I hate Mrs. Garlett! I hate everybody in this house!' Oh, it was dreadful—and I felt so sorry for them all.”

Five hours later Jean Bower lay asleep in the big, comfortable bedroom which had been made so pretty for her by her kind aunt. The girl stirred uneasily, for she was dreaming a strange, a terrible, and most vivid dream.

She was at the Etna China factory taking down letters from the dictation of her employer, Mr. Garlett. Though she had been at the factory for a full month Jean had seen very little of the managing director. But they had made friends during their walk from Grendon to Terriford, and in her dream she was enjoying the change of taking down dictation from a man who knew exactly what he wanted to say instead of from weary-brained, hesitating old Mr. Dodson. And then, suddenly looking up, she saw that, pressed against the central pane of the window behind Mr. Garlett was a face convulsed with hatred—and the face was that of Agatha Cheale!

A feeling of icy terror crept over her, for the managing director's room was on the first floor of the building, far above the ground of the stone-paved courtyard round which the Etna China factory had been built close on seventy years ago.

With a stifled cry the girl awoke and sat up in bed, the horror of her nightmare still so vividly real that her teeth were chattering and her hands trembling in the darkness.

Then there gradually came to her the reassuring knowledge as to why she had dreamed that strange, unnatural dream. It was of course owing to her having seen Agatha Cheale, her face distorted with anger, dismissing Lucy Warren at the Thatched House yesterday morning!

But her feeling of reassurance and relief did not last long, for suddenly a stone came crashing in through the window nearest to her. Jumping out of bed she rushed across the room and threw up the lower sash of the window.

“Who's there?” she called out, and then, “What do you want?”

To her amazement it was Harry Garlett's voice that called back, “Please forgive me, Miss Bower. I've come for the doctor. My wife has been taken seriously ill. I rang the night bell, but could get no answer.”

“The night bell's gone wrong. I'll run and tell Uncle Jock at once”

Leaving the window open, she hustled on a dressing gown and ran down the passage.

“Uncle Jock!” she knocked on the door as hard as she could. “Mr. Garlett has come to fetch you, for Mrs. Garlett has been taken ill”

Mrs. Maclean opened the bedroom door. “Go back to bed, child; I'll see to Harry Garlett.”

Reluctantly the girl did as she was bid, for she had the natural desire of youth to be in the middle of anything exciting that is going on.

To Jean Bower Mrs. Garlett was still a mere name, for she had never seen the invalid. But already, though she had only been working on and off with him for a very short time, she had come to like the man every one called Harry Garlett. She was a simple, straightforward, old-fashioned girl. From her point of view all ordinary married people love one another, and she believed her employer to be exceptionally devoted to his ailing wife. There had been a note of extreme anxiety and urgency in the now familiar voice which had come up from the garden just now.

As Dr. MacLean hurried by Harry Garlett's side along the road leading to the Thatched House he felt a good deal disturbed. Though he had thought his patient more ailing than usual the day before, there had been nothing to indicate anything in the nature of a sudden seizure.

“D'you know exactly when your wife was taken ill?” he asked, aware that his companion's bedroom was in quite another part of the Thatched House, some way from the rooms occupied by the ailing woman and Agatha Cheale.

“She was taken ill early in the night. But Miss Cheale thought she'd be able to manage without calling me, and then, suddenly, Emily seemed to collapse! So I dressed and hurried along to fetch you.”

They walked on in silence till they turned in through the gate of the delightful garden which surrounded the house for which they were bound, and as they hastened up the avenue, Dr. Maclean noticed that there were no lights in any of the windows. Agatha Cheale had evidently not seen fit to rouse the servants.

The two men hurried together through the dark hall into the broad corridor which ran through the spacious old house; but at the foot of the staircase the master of the house hung back.

“I don't think I'll go up with you,” he exclaimed. “I'll wait in my study, Maclean. I can't do any good up there, and it unnerves me to see Emily suffer.”

“All right!” cried the doctor hastily; and he hastened on, familiar with every inch of the way, till he reached the upstairs corridor, which, unlike the lower part of the house, was brilliantly lighted.

All at once he started back—for from behind a big wardrobe there had suddenly emerged an odd-looking figure clad in a drab-coloured ulster.

“It's only me, sir.” The reassuring words were uttered in a frightened whisper; and with astonishment Dr. Maclean recognized Lucy Warren, the pretty parlour-maid who had got into such trouble the night before.

“Mrs. Garlett's been moaning something awful,” she murmured, “but she's left off now. You won't tell her that you've seen me, sir, will you?”

“Not if you'll go straight back to bed!”

The little incident made an unpleasant impression on the doctor. He told himself that the young woman might at least have gone and seen if she could do anything to help relieve her sick mistress.

And then, as he approached his patient's room, Dr. Maclean half-unconsciously slackened his footsteps and listened.

But no sound fell on his ear; indeed the silence brooding over the brilliantly lit corridor seemed almost uncanny.

Yet the bedroom door was ajar, and, hearing his footsteps, Agatha Cheale opened the door wide, and came out into the passage, a finger to her lips.

She was dressed in a big white coverall. It accentuated the intense pallor of her face and made her slender figure look thicker than usual.

“Mrs. Garlett is asleep now,” she whispered, “but she's been in awful pain, and I'm sorry I didn't send for you before. I've always been able to manage her in her previous night attacks, but this time she's been really very bad! I do hope—oh, I do hope, Dr. Maclean, that you won't think I was to blame not to send for you at once?”

She was so unlike her usual quiet sensible self that the doctor felt alarmed, in spite of himself.

“I don't suppose I could have done any good if I had come an hour ago,” he said soothingly. “I take it she overate herself last night?”

“She did indeed—that's what upset her, of course.”

As he moved toward the now open door he told himself, not for the first time, that it was strange that Agatha Cheale, in this one matter of diet, seemed powerless to control his patient. But there it was! Like so many people with delicate digestions, Mrs. Garlett had always had a fanciful, queer, greedy kind of appetite. Sometimes she would eat hardly anything for days together, and then she would grossly overeat herself.

“I suppose,” he said in a low voice, “that you've given her brandy?”

“Yes, I have—but it hasn't done her any good.”

Agatha Cheale still spoke in an agitated, almost hysterical, whisper.

And then, for no particular reason, though he remembered doing so afterwards, Dr. Maclean asked Agatha Cheale a casual question: “Has her husband seen her?”

“No, he thought it best to go off at once for you.”

At last, together, they walked through into the sick woman's room.

Mrs. Garlett's bedchamber was the largest in the house, and, like the drawing room below, was somewhat overcrowded with heavy early-Victorian mahogany furniture.

Coming out of the brightly lit corridor Dr. Maclean, for a moment, saw nothing, for the one electric lamp which was turned on was heavily shaded. But for the fact that he knew where every chair and table stood, he would have knocked into something.

“Do turn on another light,” he whispered rather crossly. “I can't see at all!”

Obediently she turned on the two naked lights hanging above the dressing-table, but the big curtained four-post bed in which the sick woman lay remained in deep shadow.

“Before I see her, tell me exactly what she ate last night,” said the doctor in a low voice.

Standing opposite Dr. Maclean, just under the two bright naked lights, Agatha Cheale, her face pale and strained, told her story.

“About seven last evening I went to see Miss Prince for a few minutes and, while I was away, from what I can make out Mr. Garlett came up to sit with Mrs. Garlett before dressing for dinner. Unfortunately some forced strawberries which Miss Prince had brought in the morning had been taken up and left in the corridor outside. Mr. Garlett seems to have brought them in here—I suppose to show them to Mrs. Garlett. She said she would like to eat some of them then, before her supper. He stupidly allowed her to do so, and she ate them all—a plateful—with probably a lot of sugar added. So of course I wasn't surprised when she called out to me about two hours ago that she felt ill!”

“Did she take anything after the strawberries?” asked the doctor.

“Of course she did. She began to feel hungry about 8.30 and then she had her supper—a nice bit of grilled fish and some stewed apples. But her supper didn't do her any good on the top of the strawberries”

“I don't suppose it did,” agreed the doctor dryly. “And now let me have a look at her”

As he took a step toward the bed Agatha Cheale suddenly put her right hand on his arm.

Surprised, he stopped, and she whispered hesitatingly: “I've been wondering—I suppose you wouldn't like to have a second opinion?”

He shook his head decidedly, secretly very much surprised that her nerve should so far have given way. What good could a second opinion do in a case of severe indigestion? Why, the idea was absurd! Then he reminded himself that Agatha Cheale was not a trained nurse—in spite of her war experiences.

He walked quickly across to the sick woman's four-post bed, lifted the heavy, stiff, silk-lined calendered chintz curtain, and then turned on the light in a reading lamp which stood on a small pedestal table.

Mrs. Garlett was lying on her back in the middle of the big bed, and Dr. Maclean, taking up the lamp, leant for a long, long moment over his patient.

Then he turned, with a blanched face, and still unconsciously holding the lamp in his hand, to the woman who stood waiting over by the dressing-table, the light beating down on her tired drawn face.

“She's not asleep—she's dead,” he said quietly.

“Dead! Not dead? Oh, don't say she's dead!”

Agatha Cheale's voice rose into a kind of shriek.

The doctor put the lamp down. He took her hand and held it firmly in his.

“Hush!” he exclaimed, kindly and yet authoritatively. “I'm sorry to have given you such a shock, Miss Cheale, but I'm not so surprised as you seem to be. Her heart was in a very bad state. You have nothing to reproach yourself with—you have been wonderfully good and patient with her, poor soul.”

“Can nothing be done?”

She was looking at him with an extraordinary expression of horror and of pleading on her face.

“Nothing,” he answered gravely.

There was a pause; the doctor dropped the hand he had been holding in so firm a clasp.

“Miss Prince's dish of strawberries killed this poor woman as surely as if she had taken a dose of poison,” he said grimly.

“You will never let Mr. Garlett know that, will you?” she whispered.

He made no answer, and perhaps she saw by his expression that he was telling himself that even the most sensible women are sometimes foolishly sentimental, for a little colour came back into her face.

“Shall I go down and tell him—or will you?” she asked, in a voice that had suddenly become composed.

“I'll tell him, of course.”

To his relief he saw her eyes become suffused with tears.

“We little thought yesterday morning that this would be the solution of your problem,” he said feelingly.

“It's a horrible, horrible solution!” she exclaimed violently.

Again Dr. Maclean made no answer, for he did not, could not, agree with her. To his mind, the death of Mrs. Garlett was bound to turn out a blessing, not only to the young woman who had tended her so faithfully, if unlovingly, for over a year, but also to the dead woman's husband.

Hard cases make bad law; Dr. Maclean was no advocate of easy divorce, but to his mind there was something intensely repellent in the marriage of a strong healthy man to a hopeless invalid. Deep down in his heart the honest Scotsman knew what would have happened to himself had he been in the shoes of Harry Garlett. He knew that his flesh and blood would not have borne such a difficult, unnatural situation, and he had long admired the young man's straight, simple, clean way of life. Thanks to that dish of early strawberries, Harry Garlett would now be able to remake his life on happy, natural lines.

Slightly ashamed of such thoughts coming at such a time, he glanced at the young woman before him. Would she now become the real mistress of this delightful house? The doctor suspected she would make a try for it. But he could not help hoping that the newly made widower would in time meet with a happier fate than marriage with this secretive and, he suspected, very jealous-natured woman. Dr. Maclean liked Harry Garlett well enough to hope that, after a decent interval, this now mournful house would be filled with gay, wholesome, girlish laughter, and the patter of little feet.

And while these secret thoughts were rushing through his brain Agatha Cheale was standing motionless, a look of stark terror on her bloodless face.

“Go into your room,” he said at last, “and try and get a little rest.”

Together they left the room of death, and the doctor quickly made his way downstairs through the still, silent house.

Rather unreasonably, it gave Dr. Maclean somewhat of a shock to find Harry Garlett comfortably stretched out in an easy chair, reading a novel. But as the doctor advanced into the room the master of the Thatched House leaped to his feet.

“Well!” he exclaimed, “I hope you've made her more comfortable, Maclean? I'm sorry to have dragged you out like this, but Miss Cheale was so very much upset and worried”

Then something in the gravity of the doctor's face pulled the speaker up short. He added quickly: “Isn't she so well? Would you like me to get Tasker?”

Dr. Maclean took a step forward; he put his hand on the younger man's shoulder:

“Garlett, I've a sad thing to break to you, man”

He waited a moment, then said quietly: “Your poor wife is dead—an obvious case of heart failure following an attack of acute indigestion.”

“Dead?”

As Harry Garlett repeated the word his face became deeply, deeply troubled. “She seemed so well, for her, last evening,” he said slowly.

The doctor answered in a low voice: “You should have resisted her wish for those strawberries.”

Harry Garlett looked puzzled.

“I never gave her any strawberries, Maclean. There are no strawberries yet—it's much too early.”

It was the doctor's turn to be surprised.

“I understood from Miss Cheale that you had shown your wife a dish of forced strawberries brought her by Miss Prince, and that then she had insisted on having them before her supper.”

“I never saw any strawberries, and I was only with her for a very few minutes.”

“Then one of the maids must have given them to her,” observed the doctor. “But if it hadn't been that dish of strawberries, it would have been something else. It's clear from the state she was in that anything might have caused her death.”

As if hardly knowing what he was doing, Harry Garlett sat down again.

“I—I can't believe it,” he muttered.

“As far as the poor soul could be made happy, you made her happy, Garlett,” said Dr. Maclean feelingly.

“I wonder if I did—I wonder if I did! You must have often thought it strange that I was away so much, Maclean. But honestly—it was poor Emily's own wish.”

He was speaking with deep emotion now, staring down at the floor.

“After I left the army, it took me some time to realize how really ailing she was, though, as you may remember, I did at that time stay at home a good deal. And then one day she sent me a note by hand to the factory”

He looked up. “That note, Maclean, was my order of release! I have kept it, and I should like you to see it some day. In it she said that she wanted me to be happy—that Dodson was quite up to looking after the business, and that she did not want me ever to feel that I couldn't do anything which would add to my innocent pleasure in life—because of her state.”

Dr. Maclean was more touched than he would have thought possible.

“Dear me,” he exclaimed, “that was very decent of her!”

“It was,” agreed the other, “it was indeed, Maclean. And she meant every word of what she wrote. It was only yesterday, our thirteenth wedding-day, that she said to me, 'I don't like your spending a week-end at home. It doesn't seem natural, my dear.' Thank God I did—thank God I did!”

“I think everything has gone very much better here this last year,” said the doctor thoughtfully.

“How d'you mean?”

“I mean because of Miss Cheale.”

The other did not answer for a moment, and then he said in a low voice:

“That's true in a way, though I don't think Emily liked Miss Cheale. I have at times regretted having agreed that she should come.”

“They weren't the kind of women who would naturally take to one another,” answered Dr. Maclean.

“And yet my wife quite liked that worthless brother of Miss Cheale's. He actually came to tea with her the other day.”

“Mrs. Garlett always liked men better than women,” said the doctor dryly. He had at once guessed the identity of Lucy Warren's drawing-room visitor, and it had amused him to picture “poor Emily's” wrath had she even dimly suspected the fact.

He added, after a pause: “Your wife was a generous sort, Garlett—I mean about money.”

“Yes, she was that, certainly.”

Both men remained silent for a moment. It was true that the poor woman now lying dead upstairs had always shown herself generous about money, though not, excepting to her husband, about anything else. But now was not the moment to recall her cantankerous and narrow outlook on life.

“Well,” said the doctor at last, “I must be going now. I'll leave a note in her letter-box for Miss Prince as I go by. It will be just as well for Agatha Cheale to have a friend with her this morning; she has had a terrible shock.”

“She must have had,” said Harry Garlett; but he did not speak with his usual hearty kindliness.

The doctor looked at him rather hard. Then he again put his hand on the younger man's shoulder.

“Look here, my friend, I know you've been a good husband to that poor soul. But you're still a young man, and a new chapter of your life has begun.”

“I don't feel like that,” muttered Harry Garlett in a low voice.

“Of course you don't! But still it's the truth.”

He added, measuring his words: “If I were you I should go away at once, as soon as the funeral is over, for a real holiday—such a holiday as you've never had. Don't come back here till Christmas! Dodson's getting a very old man; you'll soon either have to manage the business yourself or get another partner, so take a holiday while you can get one.”

title: The Terriford Mystery/Chapter 3


text:
Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/451

Rh Of all. Each seeks to save himself. Some naked cling upon the planks Of the broken ship and fight the floods, While others swimming seek the shore. But most, alas! a watery death By fate awaits. Then did the queen In mad despair her garments rend; Her comely locks she tore, and tears Fell streaming down her grieving cheeks. At last, with hope of safety gone, With wrath inflamed, by woes o'ercome, "Dost thou, O son, make this return," She cried, "for that great boon I gave? Such death I merit, I confess, Who bore such monstrous child as thou, Who gave to thee the light of day, And in my madness raised thee high To Caesar's name and Caesar's throne. Oh, rise from deepest Acheron, My murdered husband, feast thine eyes Upon my righteous punishment; For I brought death to thee, poor soul, And to thy son. See, see, I come, Deep down to meet thy grieving shade; And there, as I have merited, Shall I unburied lie, o'erwhelmed By the raging sea." E'en as she spoke, The lapping waves broke o'er her lips, And deep she plunged below. Anon She rises from the briny depths, And, stung by fear of death, she strives With frenzied hands to conquer fate; But, spent with fruitless toil at last, She yields and waits the end. But lo, In hearts which in trembling silence watch, Faith triumphs over deadly fear, And to their mistress, spent and wan With fruitless buffetings, they dare To lend their aid with cheering words


text:
Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/452

434 And helping hands. But what avails To escape the grasp of the savage sea? By the sword of the son is she doomed to die, Whose monstrous deed posterity Will scarce believe. With rage and grief Inflamed, he raves that still she lives, His mother, snatched from the wild sea's jaws, And doubles crime on impious crime. Bent on his wretched mother's death, He brooks no tarrying of fate. His willing creatures work his will, And in the hapless woman's breast The fatal sword is plunged; but she To that fell minister of death Appeals with dying tongue: "Nay here, Here rather strike the murderous blow, Here sheathe thy sword, deep in the womb Which such a monster bore." So spake the dying queen, her words And groans commingling. So at last Through gaping wounds her spirit fled In grief and agony.

Seneca [alone]: Why hast thou, potent Fate, with flattering looks, Exalted me, contented with my lot, That so from this great height I might descend With heavier fall, and wider prospect see Of deadly fears? Ah, better was I, hid Far from the stinging lash of envy's tongue, Amid the lonely crags of Corsica. There was my spirit free to act at will, Was master of itself, had time to think And meditate at length each favorite theme. Oh, what delight, than which none greater is, Of all that mother nature hath produced, To watch the heavens, the bright sun's sacred rounds, The heavenly movements and the changing night,


text:
Page:Alexander Pope (Leslie).djvu/141

 Hill did not detect this specimen of what Pope somewhere calls "pretty genteel equivocation." He was reconciled to Pope, and taught the poor poet by experience that his friendship was worse than his enmity. He wrote him letters of criticism; he forced poor Pope to negotiate for him with managers and to bring distinguished friends to the performances of his dreary plays; nay, to read through, or to say that he had read through, one of them in manuscript four times, and make corrections mixed with elaborate eulogy. No doubt Pope came to regard a letter from Hill with terror, though Hill compared him to Horace and Juvenal, and hoped that he would live till the virtues which his spirit would propagate became as general as the esteem of his genius. In short. Hill, who was a florid flatterer, is so complimentary that we are not surprised to find him telling Richardson, after Pope's death, that the poet's popularity was due to a certain "bladdery swell of management." "But," he concludes, "rest his memory in in peace! It will very rarely be disturbed by that time he himself is ashes."

The war raged for some time. Dennis, Smedley, Moore-Smythe, Welsted, and others, retorted by various pamphlets, the names of which were published by Pope in an appendix to future editions of the "Dunciad," by way of proving that his own blows had told. Lady Mary was credited, perhaps unjustly, with an abusive performance called a "Pop upon Pope," relating how Pope had been soundly whipped by a couple of his victims—of course a pure fiction. Some such vengeance, however, was seriously threatene4. As Pope was dining one day at Lord Bathurst's, the servant brought in the agreeable message that a young man was waiting for Mr. Pope in the lane outside, and that the young man's

title: Page:Alexander Pope (Leslie).djvu/141


text:
Page:Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica - with preliminary dissertations on the history of the sciences - illustrated by engravings (IA gri 33125011196181).pdf/828

 other species of aquatic birds, are indigenous to the lakes and rivers. Formerly bees were much attended to, but at present they are neglected.

The roads in general are bad; and, what is extraordinary, the turnpikes are the worst, and the cross roads the best. A canal has been cut from Coal Island to Armagh, but it is little used.

The principal manufacture is that of linen, which forms the chief employment of the inhabitants; and the annual average value of which is estimated at L. 300,000. This manufacture is very extensively carried on in the vicinity of the city of Armagh. Bleachfields are numerous on the banks of the Callen. Woollen goods are made only for home consumption.

This County returns two representatives to the Imperial Parliament; and the city of Armagh one. lt is in the north-east Circuit; the Assizes are generally held in the middle of July.

The mountainous parts of Armagh are entirely inhabited by Roman Catholics; and it is estimated, that one half of the inhabitants in the other parts are of the same persuasion: so that the Protestants cannot constitute more than one third of the population. Of the other dissenters from the established religion, the Presbyterians and Burghers are the most numerous.

The number of houses, according to the last returns, is 22,900: of which 18,794 have only one hearth; 784 two hearths; 217 three hearths; 105 four hearths; 75 five hearths; 31 six hearths; 28 seven hearths; 21 eight hearths; 15 nine hearths; 8 ten hearths; and 23 more than ten; and four of them forty-four hearths. The population, reckoning 5½ inhabitants to a house, will be about 130,000; which gives 78 people to an Irish square mile. There are rather more than eight Irish acres to a house.

In some districts of this County, hunting is a favourite amusement with the weavers; the hounds are not kept in packs, but distributed over the County, one being generally kept in each cabin. On the day appointed for the chace, the looms are deserted. In a County where the land in general is parcelled out into such small divisions, it would not be practicable for the gentlemen to pursue this diversion on horseback; and therefore the game is relinquished to the weavers. The dog they employ on these occasions is a dwarf fox-hound, in a degree similar, either to the English beagle, or the southern slow-hound, still used in the hilly districts of Sussex and Kent. The farmers of Armagh are noted for their fondness for jockeying, in all the arts and tricks of which they are expert to a very criminal degree.

The school in the city of Armagh is one of the royal foundations of Charles I., and is very well endowed; for, according to the report of the Commissioners of the Board of Education, the lands which belong to it contain 1530 acres, English measure, besides about 100 acres of bog. They are situate in the County, between the towns of Newry and Armagh. In the year 1804 the gross annual rent was L. 1144, 10s. 5½d. There are generally upwards of 100 boys educated at it. The schoolhouse was built by Lord Rokeby, better known by the name of Primate Robinson.

The County of Armagh is celebrated both in civil and religious antiquity. In the early annals of Irish history, it is mentioned as the seat of their monarchs. Turgesnis, the first Norwegian Prince that obtained a footing in this kingdom, established his capital here. A tribe of Danes, called Ostmen, for a considerable time afterwards, formed the chief inhabitants of the County. Most of the present inhabitants are descended from the Scotch. See Wakefield’s Ireland. Barton’s Natural History of Lough Neagh. Statistical Survey of Armagh, by Sir Charles Coote.

ARMY. See the Encyclopædia under that head, and in this Supplement. ARNAUD RONSIL, son of an eminent surgeon, at Paris, and some time Professor of surgery in the College of St Côsme. On account of an accident that occurred while he was practising midwifery, he removed from Paris to London, where he acquired great repute by his operations, and his writings on surgical subjects. Before his time, the treatment of hernia had been but imperfectly understood; and the surgeons of this country are indebted to the observations of Arnaud for many of those improvements which have since rendered their practice so successful in this branch of the art. The following is a list of his principal works: 1. Traité des Hernies ou Descentes, 2 vols. 12mo. Paris, 1749. 2. Observations on Aneurysms. London, 1750. 3. Instructions on the Diseases of the Bladder and Urethra. London; 1763. 4. A Dissertation on Hermaphrodites. London, 1750. These were afterwards collected, and published, with additions, under the title of Mémoires de Chirurgie, avec quelques Rémarques sur l’etat de la Medicine, et de la Chirurgie en France, et en Angleterre, 2 vols. 4to. London, 1768. 5. Remarks on the Use of the Extract of Lead of Goulard. London, 1776. Arnaud died in 1774.

 ARRAN. See in the Encyclopædia, and in this Supplement. ARREOYS. Among the more singular Secret Societies which mankind have formed, is one in Otaheite and the neighbouring Islands, for the destruction of their own species, called Arreoy, Arehoe, or Earowie; and it is not a little remarkable, that it should subsist among tribes distinguished for courteousness and humanity. We read in the older authors, that there is an absolute prohibition against the females of Formosa rearing children before the age of thirty-six, though if does not appear that there is any limitation as to the age at which their espousals may take place. But, in the event of pregnancy, it is necessary, that abortion should follow, which is accomplished by the aid of the Priestesses of the Island. Among the Arreoys, however, extirpation of the infant being constitutes the leading feature of their ordinances.

Whether Mendana, Quiros, and the earlier navigators of the South Pacific Ocean, discovered this society, does not appear; it has, at any rate, been reserved for those of later date to unfold its principles and peculiarities; though, indeed, its constitution is still enveloped in much mystery, the members being bound to the strictest secrecy.

Rh


text:
Page:Alexander Pope (Leslie).djvu/142

 name was Dennis. He was the son of the critic, and prepared to avenge his father's wrongs; but Bathurst persuaded him to retire, without the glory of thrashing a cripple. Reports of such possibilities were circulated, and Pope thought it prudent to walk out with his big Danish dog Bounce, and a pair of pistols. Spence tried to persuade the little man not to go out alone, but Pope declared that he would not go a step out of his way for such villains, and that it was better to die than to live in fear of them. He continued, indeed, to give fresh provocation. A weekly paper, called the Grub-street Journal, was started in January, 1730, and continued to appear till the end of 1737. It included a continuous series of epigrams and abuse, in the Scriblerian vein, and aimed against the heroes of the Dunciad, amongst whom poor James Moore-Smythe seems to have had the largest share of abuse. It was impossible, however, for Pope, busied as he was in literature and society, and constantly out of health, to be the efficient editor of such a performance; but though he denied having any concern in it, it is equally out of the question that any one really unconnected with Pope should have taken up the huge burden of his quarrels in this fashion. Though he concealed, and on occasions denied his connexion, he no doubt inspired the editors and contributed articles to its pages, especially during its early years. It is a singular fact—or rather, it would have been singular, had Pope been a man of less abnormal character—that he should have devoted so much energy to this paltry subterranean warfare against the objects of his complex antipathies. Pope was so anxious for concealment, that he kept his secret even from his friendly legal adviser Fortescue; and Fortescue innocently requested Pope to get up evidence

title: Page:Alexander Pope (Leslie).djvu/142


text:
Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/58

 cracked his whip, started on the road, the brown horse galloped ahead for it knew everything that was going on.

The grey dog still gripped the man's throat, thinking every moment that if he could detain the man, it would be an advantage to the good man and little boy, and would save his friend. But the man, tired of wrestling, took a large knife from his pocket and plunged it deep into the breast of the faithful dog. The dog whimpered piteously and fell heavily to the ground. His clouded eyes still saw, far off in the distance, a tiny spot that kept growing smaller and smaller; that was the wagon which was carrying little Benjamin to freedom.

Great joy filled the dog's heart. He wagged his bushy tail once more. Then he died.

The blond man and little Benjamin waited a long time in vain for the grey dog. Benjamin wept bitterly, and his new friend comforted him: "The brave dog will come running back. All is well with him."

But tho Benjamin was safe, he was always sad when he thought of his friend. But he did not know that the little grey dog had died for him, paying his debt of gratitude to Benjamin with his life.

52


text: Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/59


text:
Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/60

 "Why Didn't I Ever Get An Egg," Asked Paul


text:
Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/61

Once upon a time there was a little boy, who had neither father nor mother, who lived in the poorhouse in a little village. He was the only child in the whole house; all the others were broken-down old people who were always gloomy and cranky, who liked best to sit quietly in the sun, and who would become angry whenever the little boy, while at play, would bump against them or make too much noise.

A sad life it was for little Paul. He never heard a kind word, no one loved him, and no one petted or comforted him whenever he was unhappy. Instead of that he was scolded every day and often he was even spanked. One peculiarity of his particularly irritated the supervisors of the poorhouse: at every occasion he used to ask, "Why?" always wanting to know the cause for everything.

"You mustn't always ask why," angrily declared the stout Matron who was in charge of the poorhouse. "Everything is as it is, and therefore it is right."

"But why have I no parents like the other children of the village have?" insisted little Paul.

"Because they are dead."

"Why did they die?"

"Because the good Lord willed it so."

"Why did the Lord will it so?"

"Keep quiet, you good-for-nothing! Leave me alone with your eternal questions." The fat woman was quite red with anger, because she knew no answer to Paul's questions, and nothing angers ignorant persons more than to be forced to say, "I don't know." 55


text:
Page:Alexander Pope (Leslie).djvu/143

 to support a charge of libel against his own organ. The evidence which Pope collected—in defence of a quack-doctor, Ward—was not, as we may suppose, very valuable. Two volumes of the Grub-street Journal were printed in 1737, and a fragment or two was admitted by Pope into his works. It is said, in the preface to the collected pieces, that the journal was killed by the growing popularity of the Gentleman's Magazine, which is accused of living by plunder. But in truth the reader will infer that, if the selection includes the best pieces, the journal may well have died from congenital weakness.

The Dunciad was yet to go through a transformation, and to lead to a new quarrel; and though this happened at a much later period, it will be most convenient to complete the story here. Pope had formed an alliance with Warburton, of which I shall presently have to speak; and it was under Warburton's influence that he resolved to add a fourth book to the Dunciad. This supplement seems to have been really made up of fragments provided for another scheme. The Essay on Man—to be presently mentioned—was to be followed by a kind of poetical essay upon the nature and limits of the human understanding, and a satire upon the misapplication of the serious faculties. It was a design manifestly beyond the author's powers; and even the fragment which is turned into the fourth book of the Dunciad takes him plainly out of his depth. He was no philosopher, and therefore an incompetent assailant of the abuses of philosophy. The fourth book consists chiefly of ridicule upon pedagogues who teach words instead of things; upon the unlucky "virtuosos" who care for old medals, plants, and butterflies—pursuits which afforded

title: Page:Alexander Pope (Leslie).djvu/143


text:
Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/62

But no one was able to keep little Paul quiet. He looked right up into the angry red face and asked further, "Why are you so impatient with me?"

Slap! and he got a box on the ears. He began to cry, ran away, and while running asked, "Why do you hit me?"

He came to the chicken yard. There stood a big hen with many-colored feathers, cackling aloud, proudly strutting. "I have laid an egg! I have laid an egg!" And from all sides of the yard there sounded in chorus: "I have laid an egg! I have laid an egg!" The rooster, however, was angry because the hens were so proud of having done something which he could not do, and cried scornfully, "I am the rooster, you are only hens!" Along came Mary, the little blond servant of the poorhouse, gathered the eggs carefully into her blue apron, and carried them into the house. 56


text:
Page:The Crowne of all Homers Workes - Chapman (1624).djvu/36

Rh


text:
Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/453

Rh The moon's full orb with wandering stars begirt, The far-effulgent glory of the sky! And is it growing old, this structure vast, Doomed to return to groping nothingness? Then must that final doomsday be at hand, That shall by heaven's fall o'erwhelm a race So impious, that thus the world may see A newer race of men, a better stock, Which once the golden reign of Saturn knew. Then virgin Justice, holy child of heaven, In mercy ruled the world; the race of men Knew naught of war, the trumpet's savage blare, The clang of arms; not yet were cities hedged With ponderous walls; the way was free to all, And free to all the use of everything. The earth, untilled, spread wide her fertile lap, The happy mother of a pious stock. Then rose another race of sterner mold; Another yet to curious arts inclined, But pious still; a fourth of restless mood, Which lusted to pursue the savage beasts, To draw the fishes from their sheltering waves With net or slender pole, to snare the birds, To force the headstrong bullocks to endure The bondage of the yoke, to plow the earth Which never yet had felt the share's deep wound, And which in pain and grief now hid her fruits Within her sacred bosom's safer hold. Now deep within the bowels of the earth Did that debased, unfilial age intrude; And thence it dug the deadly iron and gold, And soon it armed its savage hands for war. It fixed the bounds of realms, constructed towns, Fought for its own abodes, or threat'ning strove To plunder those of others as a prize. Then did abandoned Justice, heavenly maid, In terror flee the earth, the bestial ways Of men, their hands with bloody slaughter stained, And, fixed in heaven, now shines among the stars.


text:
Page:Tragedies of Seneca (1907) Miller.djvu/454

436 Then lust of war increased, and greed for gold, Throughout the world; and luxury arose, That deadliest of evils, luring pest, To whose fell powers new strength and force were given By custom long observed, and precedent Of evil into worser evil led. This flood of vice, through many ages dammed, In ours has burst its bounds and overflowed. By this dire age we're fairly overwhelmed— An age when crime sits regnant on the throne, Impiety stalks raging, unrestrained; Foul lust, with all unbridled power, is queen, And luxury long since with greedy hands Has snatched the boundless riches of the world, That she with equal greed may squander them. [Enter Nero, followed by a Prefect.] But see, with frenzied step and savage mien, The prince approaches. How I fear his will. Nero [to Prefect]: Speed my commands: send forth a messenger Who straight shall bring me here the severed heads Of Plautus and of Sulla. Prefect: Good, my lord; Without delay I'll speed me to the camp. [Exit.] Seneca: One should not rashly judge against his friends. Nero: Let him be just whose heart is free from fear. Seneca: But mercy is a sovereign cure for fear. Nero: A ruler's part is to destroy his foes. Seneca: A ruler's better part, to save his friends. Nero: A mild old man's advice is fit for boys. Seneca: Still more does hot young manhood need the rein— Nero: I deem that at this age we're wise enough. Seneca: That on thy deed the heavenly gods may smile. Nero: Thou fool, shall I fear gods myself can make? Seneca: Fear this the more, that so great power is thine. Nero: My royal fortune grants all things to me. Seneca: But trust her cautiously; she may deceive. Nero: A fool is he who does not what he may. Seneca: To do, not what he may, but ought, wins praise.


text: Page:กม ร ๕ - ๒๔๕๑.pdf/315

title: Page:กม ร ๕ - ๒๔๕๑.pdf/315


text:
Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/63

 "Where do all your eggs go to?" Paul asked the speckled Hen.

"To the city," she cackled.

"Who eats them there?"

"The rich people, the rich people." Thus spoke the hen proudly, as though it were a special honor for her.

"Why don't I ever have an egg?" complained Paul. "I am always so hungry, you know."

"Because you are a poor Have-nothing." And the hen spread her plumage with dignity, and cocked her eye defiantly at Paul over her crooked beak.

"But why am I a poor Have-nothing?"

Now the hen became angry as had the stout Matron, and raged: "Get off with you! You make me tired with your questions."

Disappointed, Paul slipped quietly away. The garden door stood open, and he stepped out onto the road, strolling along aimlessly until he came to the entrance of a cowshed. The shed belonged to a rich farmer.

Many sleek cows, white and reddish brown, stood in a row and gazed before them with large, soft eyes. Paul, feeling very hungry, stepped up to the most friendly looking cow, and begged, "Dear Cow, will you give me some of your milk to drink?"

"I dare not do that," replied the Cow. "The milk belongs to the farmer."

The little boy looked with astonishment at the Cow, then over the entire shed, slowly counting the animals: "One, two, three." Upon reaching twelve he stopped, for although there were many more cows, he stopped because the counting was too hard for him. In the poorhouse he was taught to be gentle and obedient, but nothing else. "Twelve cows," he said thoughtfully. "Is it possible that the farmer can drink the milk of twelve cows?" 57


text:
Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/64

 "Oh no," the friendly Cow informed him. "He sells the milk in the city."

Paul remembered the words of the speckled hen, and he asked, "Do the poor children there get any of the milk?"

"Good gracious, Paul," sighed the Cow, "how stupid and inexperienced you still are! From the milk they make delicious whipped cream, which then goes on cakes and puddings, and these are bought by rich people."

"Why not by the poor—don't they like to eat good cakes?"

"You shouldn't ask me so many questions, little boy," replied the Cow. "I am only a dumb Cow, and do not know what to answer you. Besides, you had better go away. This is the time when the farmer comes to the barn, and should he see you it might mean a good beating for you."

Paul stroked the shining hide of the friendly Cow, and pursued his way. On and on he went, until he reached a great big wheat field thru which the wind was blowing. It looked like softly moving golden waves. The ears sang with soft voices, sounding very sad, and Paul distinguished the words: "Soon the reapers will be here with their scythes, z-z, and will cut us down, z-z-z. Then the people will bake us into fine white bread, z-z-z."

"Who eats the white bread?" asked Paul, who had never in his life tasted a piece of white bread.

"The rich people, the rich people," sang the ears of wheat, swaying to the rhythm of the wind.

"Ah, again the rich people!" exclaimed Paul. "Does everything in this world belong to the rich people?"

"Everything, everything," buzzed the ears.

"Why?"

This question seemed to amuse the ears very much and almost doubling with laughter, they sang, "How silly, how stupid you are!" 58


text:
Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/65

 However, they failed to answer Paul's question. Paul was near to tears; he stamped angrily on the ground with his foot, and cried loudly, "I demand an answer to my questions. Is there no one to give me an answer?"

Just then a Porcupine crept slowly across the road and said, "The wisest creature I know of is the Owl who lives in the great oak forest. Why don't you go to her, you question mark."

"Can't you tell me why ?"

The Porcupine did not permit Paul to finish; impatiently he drew in his head, shot out his quills, until he looked like a ball covered with spikes.

"I do not associate with people," he said, and his voice became as sharp as his quills. "They are too stupid for me. Go to the Owl, but be sure not to irritate her or she will gouge her eyes at you."

Night fell, sending out its black shadows, and covered all the land. It was dark in the forest and Paul became somewhat uneasy, yet this mysterious forest seemed more pleasant to him than the terrible poorhouse, and he walked on further.

The further he went the thicker and closer were the trees. Soon there was no longer a path; but Paul pushed on over the soft carpet of green moss. The fragrance of the forest was pleasant. Beneath the tall trees grew delicious strawberries and the little boy picked them and refreshed himself as he went along.

At last he came to a great oak, and saw the owl perched on one of the branchsbranches [sic]. The Owl wore a large pair of spectacles and studied attentively a green sheet which she held in her claws.

Paul halted beneath the tree and shouted, "Mrs. Owl! Mrs. Owl!"

But the Owl was so deeply absorbed in her studies, that she did not hear, and only after he had repeated his call several times did 59


text:
Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/66

 she look down. Uttering an angry cry, she glared down at Paul with fierce round eyes.

"Well, what is it you want?" she asked. "How dare you disturb me in my studies?"

"Excuse me, Mrs. Owl," begged Paul. "The Porcupine sent me to you. He told me that you are the wisest creature he knows of. Surely, you will be able to answer my questions."

"What matter the opinions of the Porcupine to me? What have I to do with your questions?" growled the Owl. "Why should I waste my precious time on such a stupid child as you? You know very well that I can see only at night and the summer nights are so short that I have hardly time enough for my studies. I, too, think over all kinds of questions. One in particular has bothered me for countless years; I have grown old and grey over it, and yet no science in the world has helped me to solve it." The Owl sighed deeply and her countenance became sorrowful.

"And just what is this question of yours?" Paul inquired anxiously.

"Do you think, perhaps, that YOU can answer it, you young saucebox?" sneered the Owl. Around this question hang all the other questions of the world; it is: Why are all people so stupid?"

"Are all people really so stupid?" asked Paul, astonished.

"Yes, and if you don't know that, why do you disturb me? Is it because you have never seen anything that you are so idiotic?"

"Very little," replied the little boy shamefacedly. "You ought to know, dear Mrs. Owl, that I live in a poorhouse, where there are only old folks, and naturally they are all wise."

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed the owl. It sounded most awful in the dark forest. "Ha, ha, ha! You are certainly another splendid example of the stupidity of mankind. So it is in the poorhouse that all 60


text: Page:The Crowne of all Homers Workes - Chapman (1624).djvu/37


text:
Page:The Crowne of all Homers Workes - Chapman (1624).djvu/38

Rh


text: Page:กม ร ๕ - ๒๔๕๑.pdf/316

title: Page:กม ร ๕ - ๒๔๕๑.pdf/316


text: Page:The Crowne of all Homers Workes - Chapman (1624).djvu/39


text:
Page:The Book of Cats.djvu/103

Rh

(And I should rather think she did, too, if the artist may be believed who depicts her simultaneously seizing one rat with her teeth, and two others with each of her fore paws.)

(And he is represented staring tremendously at a box, apparently four feet by two-and-a-half, and two-and-a-quarter high, marked "R. W.," and chock full of guineas.)

The poem here concludes with a beautiful picture of a gentleman and a lady sitting on chairs of state. I am not quite certain whether this is intended to represent King Henry and his Queen, or Lord and Lady Whittington; as far as the portrait

title: Page:The Book of Cats.djvu/103


text:
Page:The Book of Cats.djvu/104

84 goes, I should say that the gentleman was Charles the First.

In 1857 an advertisement appeared in several newspapers of a person who was willing to buy any number of live Cats for exportation. They were probably wanted for New Zealand; but it is not every emigrating Puss that is as lucky as Dick Whittington's (which, of course, by the way, never existed at all.) As a contrast to the successful career of the Cat described above, let me tell you, in almost the same words in which it is amusingly told in a magazine article, the story of a Cat who went "some strange countries for to see."

During the bold campaign of Mr. Williams the Missionary in Polynesia, a favourite Cat was taken on shore by one of the teacher's wives at their first visit to the island of Rarotonga. But Tom, not liking the aspect of his new acquaintance, fled to the mountains. Under the influence of the apostles of the new religion, a priest named Tiaki had destroyed his idol. His house was situated at a distance from the settlement, and at midnight, while he was lying asleep on his mat, his wife, who was sitting awake by his side, musing upon the strange events of the day, beheld, with consternation, two fires glittering in the doorway, and heard with sur-

title: Page:The Book of Cats.djvu/104


text: Author:Henry Lawes

title: Author:Henry Lawes


text:
Page:The Harveian oration delivered at the Royal College of Physicians June 26, 1889 (IA b22361285).pdf/22

 change, might have been afforded us had we been in total ignorance of all that Harvey has written on the circulation of the blood and the motion of the heart; and the same may be said of much that has been done relating to the morbid states of many internal organs. If we go back to the time of Cullen, it clearly was regarded as something against which it was well to warn the student. That physician wrote the following memorable words in the year 1784:—

‘The knowledge of the circulation did indeed necessarily lead to the consideration as well as to a clearer view of the organic system in animal bodies, which again led to the application of the mechanical philosophy towards explaining the phenomena of the animal economy, and it was applied accordingly, and continued till very lately to be the fashionable mode of reasoning on the subject.

‘Such reasoning, indeed, must still in several respects continue to be applied, but it would be easy to show that it neither could, nor ever can be applied to any great extent in explaining the


text: Author:Robert Cooke (1768-1814)

title: Author:Robert Cooke (1768-1814)