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THE EMPTY MAIL GIG
THE EMPTY MAIL GIG
I was only a young fellow when these things began to happen among us, but I remember very well the morning when it first came out about the Bewick carrier. He was postman, too, but had got permission to keep a horse and cart so that he might make a good little bit by fetching parcels and orders from town. Town to us meant East Dene, and Bewick, to which Harry went, lay away to the east among the woods and hills. It was a lonesome place, Bewick, and, indeed, is still, though now they have got a r
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POACHER DAVIE
POACHER DAVIE
There was no more thought of school that day—neither on the part of Mr. Mustard nor of any of his scholars. All the world (but not his wife—by no means his wife) must needs go in search of Harry Foster and his probable murderer. It was the first real mystery ever known in Breckonside. Now the missing carrier and postman had no open enemies. He was a quiet, middle-aged man who had lived long in the village, a widower without children; no man's foe, not even his own; a steady, trustworthy, kindly
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THE BAILIFF OF DEEP MOAT GRANGE
THE BAILIFF OF DEEP MOAT GRANGE
Elsie and I cheered him. We would do what we could, which truly was not much. But I promised for my father, whose arm was long in Breckonside, reaching even to East Dene. But the poacher shook his head. "They will get poor Davie. They will put it on him—yes, for sure!" he repeated. And from this melancholy conclusion he was not to be moved. He offered to accompany us, however, on our search. And we were glad of that, because we were quite sure of his innocence, and in such a case the difference
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THE GOLDEN FARMER
THE GOLDEN FARMER
But that same night we got the full story, so far as she knew it, from Nance Edgar. It did not help us any in finding out what had become of poor Harry the carrier and his mail bags, but because it involved Elsie's father and mother I will admit that it interested me nearly as much. Nance Edgar was a weather-beaten woman of about fifty. She had lived nearly all her life in the fields, and was tanned like a leather schoolbag for carrying books. She was kindly, but you never could have told it on
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WE MEET DAFT JEREMY
WE MEET DAFT JEREMY
The next morning, bright and early, Elsie and I were up and out. Indeed, I was throwing up stones at her window when she was already dressed and out in the little back garden feeding the hens. Of course I know I should have tried to dissuade Elsie from going on such an errand. But I knew that would only make her all the keener to go. And, indeed, once she had taken a thing in her head she would go through with it in spite of everything. Poor Harry Foster and his fate was always in the background
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THICKER THAN WATER
THICKER THAN WATER
Now I do not deny that I was frightened out of my life by the sudden appearing of the Golden Farmer. But it was different with Elsie. Perhaps it ran in the blood. For, though most people in Breckonside were feared of my father and his long arm, I am not—no, nor ever could be. And so, in that moment of panic, it was given to Elsie to be able to speak serenely to her grandfather. Yet I could see that the little man was all in a fume of anger, and kept it badly down, too. "What are the two of you d
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FAMILY DISCIPLINE
FAMILY DISCIPLINE
As nobody had seen Deep Moat Grange since it had been taken over by Mr. Hobby Stennis and the crew he had gathered about him, it may be as well to describe it as I saw it—now that it is swept from off the face of the earth. The old, many-gabled, brick-built house was ivy-covered—in poor repair, but clean. Curious-looking, stocking-shaped contrivances cowled the chimneys, or such of them as were used. The Grange was set so deep in the woods that when the wind blew with any violence, and apparentl
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MISS APHRA'S CURATE
MISS APHRA'S CURATE
We had scarcely started our tea, and hunger was still keen upon Elsie, when there came a noise of calling, quite different from the howling of mad folk, or the mocking laughter or ugly whine of Jeremy. Miss Orrin poured out tea with a kind of grim aplomb . If I had been afraid that she meant to poison us—or at least Elsie, I was soon undeceived. The amount of tea that she poured down her own throat was astonishing in the extreme. There were, however, certainly several sorts of cake that she woul
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ELSIE'S VISITOR
ELSIE'S VISITOR
It was a night or two after our first and (for the time being) last visit to Deep Moat Grange. Elsie and I had arrived back at Nance's, our hands and even our arms laden with flowers. For Nance had been at home all day, and so Elsie and I had been taking a holiday—I from lessons, and Elsie from looking after the house. We had gone wandering over the long whinny knowes which stretch away to the south, till, from the top of Brom Beacon, one can see the ships crowding into the docks of East Dene an
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THE BROM-WATER MYSTERY
THE BROM-WATER MYSTERY
It is wonderful how soon a thing is forgotten, or at least put on a shelf in people's memories. Poor Harry Foster, for example! There was a man now—a man murdered in the discharge of his duty, if ever a man was. And after a month or two another man was travelling the same road with a new mail cart and new sacks of letters, as quiet as water going down a mill-lade. The only difference was that he started a while later in the morning than poor Harry, after it was daylight, in fact, so that the Bew
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THE IRON TRAPDOOR
THE IRON TRAPDOOR
The Hayfork Minister, who had laboured with equal determination to save the crop of a true-blue Presbyterian and to make me a good Churchman, evidently knew his way about the precincts of the Grange. He stepped through a gap in the hedge, jumped a half-dry ditch, and wound his way through the scattering brambles and underbrush as if he had been in his own garden plot. No coward, the Hayfork! It took me all my time to keep up with him, and I am a good jumper, too—nearly as good as Elsie. We went
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THE BRICKED PASSAGE
THE BRICKED PASSAGE
Now I don't know whether you have ever been up a drain pipe which just takes you, and no more. I suppose you have—in nightmares, after supping on cold boiled pork and greens, or some nice little digestible morsel like that. But really awake, and with the birds singing on the trees, the winds lightly scented with bog myrtle and pine and bracken breathing all about you—to be told to shove yourself up a built rabbit hole, not knowing what you may come on the next time you put out your hand!—Well, H
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MEYSIE'S BAIRNS
MEYSIE'S BAIRNS
At the time I had no idea how difficult this would be. But at any rate I wanted to find out for certain what it was that I had found. He could give me no other answer than that I would know in good time, and that in the meantime we were going to old Caleb Fergusson's for tea. Now I make no objections to tea at any time—that is, a proper sit-down, spread-table, country tea—not one of those agonies at which you do tricks with a cup of tea, a plate, the edge of a chair, and a snippet of bread. I kn
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BROWN PAINT—VARNISHED!
BROWN PAINT—VARNISHED!
We had a merry afternoon and laughed—eh, how we laughed! I heard all about the girls, how they had just been at school, and how Constantia had just come home, full up of all the perfections, and deportment, and the 'ologies, and how many men wanted to marry her—were dying to, in fact! That might be all right. It was Harriet who told me—though that does not make it any the more likely to be true (I am sorry to say). For I can see that that young woman was trying to take me in all the time. "But f
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THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES—A GIRL!
THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES—A GIRL!
Mr. Ablethorpe appeared to have had a much better time of it with Miss Constantia than I had had with her sister—perhaps, because she was younger by some minutes, and was quite conscious of being pretty, so didn't need to be told. Yet, when you come to think of it, I had done a heap more for Harriet Caw, than the Hayfork Minister for her sister. Had I not rushed to defend her from no less a foe than Mad Jeremy? And there were precious few in the two parishes of Breckonside and Breckonton who wou
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MR. MUSTARD'S FIRST ASSISTANT
MR. MUSTARD'S FIRST ASSISTANT
Yes, I was surprised. But there were several other and greater surprises waiting me. I got one the very next day. I met Dan McConchie on his way home from school, at the dinner hour. He was kicking his bag before him in the way that was popular at our school, where all self-respecting boys brought their books in a strap. Girls had green baize bags and always swung them like pendulums as they talked. But boys, if they had to have bags, used them as footballs. This was what Dan was doing now. He s
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DREAR-NIGHTED DECEMBER
DREAR-NIGHTED DECEMBER
Then happened that event which in an hour, as it were, made a man out of a rather foolish boy. The postman comes twice to our doors during the day with letters—once for those from the neighbourhood of Breckonside, once for the mails that come in from London and all the countries of the world. Not that there were many of these, save now and then one or two for my father, about hams and flour. I used to annex the stamps, of course—generally from the United States they were, but once in a while fro
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THE HUNTERS OF MEN
THE HUNTERS OF MEN
In the village of Breckonside on that December morning was to be seen a sight the like of which I never looked upon. Doors were open all up and down the street. Every window was a yellow square of light. Frighted, white-faced women looked round curtains. Children in their scanty nightgowns clung on to stair rails, and tried to look out of the open front door without taking their feet off the first-floor landing. The men of the village mustered about the police office—not because of any help poor
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I HOOK MY FISH
I HOOK MY FISH
I had not fallen far. As is the wont of boys and cats, I was on my feet again in a moment. Something like a tall Lochaber axe—with the hook but without the axe part—had fallen on me, and the steel fetched me a sound clip over the bridge of the nose. Did you ever get a proper clout there when you were least expecting it? Well, if you have, you know how angry it makes you. I wanted somebody's blood. Hardly that, perhaps, for I had been decently brought up. But the thought of my mother, of my fathe
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CONCERNING ELSIE
CONCERNING ELSIE
Now, I liked Mr. Ablethorpe, but after he had wrestled like that with his conscience, just to tell me that he knew nothing about the matter—well, I could have gone back and felled him. Why, his old conscience couldn't have made more fuss if he had known all about the murder—the hiding of the body—of a score of bodies, indeed. But then, with consciences, a fellow like me can't tell. It's like love, or sea-sickness, or toothache. If a fellow has never had them, he's no judge of the sufferings of t
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A JACKDAW'S TAIL FEATHER
A JACKDAW'S TAIL FEATHER
One of the first mornings after the coming of the Caw girls—just as we were all sitting late over our breakfast, having waited for Constantia (Harriet was always on wing with the lark)—Grace Rigley came up the back stairs, shuffling her feet and rubbing her nose with her apron for manners, and told my mother that there was a gamekeeper man who was very anxious to see her down in the kitchen. "Go, Joseph!" said my mother. "See what he wants. I cannot be fashed with such things at such a time." Sh
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ELSIE'S DIARY
ELSIE'S DIARY
( Written in her French Exercise Book by Miss Elsie Stennis. ) I left home on Friday morning at about the usual time—perhaps five minutes sooner. It was a fine morning—wintry, bright, just enough snow underfoot to crisp the road, and enough tingle in the air to make the buds of the willows glitter with rime. I was reading as I walked. I always do on my way to school, having learned when quite a girl. It gets over the road. Besides, if you don't want particularly to see any one—that is a reason.
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WITHIN THE MONKS' OVEN
WITHIN THE MONKS' OVEN
The chamber into which Jeremy led me was small, but it had evidently been used for a sleeping-room before. A couch was placed in the corner. There were chairs and even a table. But I saw at the first glance that the window, placed high in the vaulted roof, was unglazed, but barred. "It is not precisely a palace, so to speak," said Jeremy, shaking his long snaky curls, and smiling his unctuous thin-lipped smile; "but in comparison wi' some—mercy me, but ye should be content. Ye will be braw and w
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THE BREAKING DAM
THE BREAKING DAM
( The Narrative continued by Joe Yarrow. ) I have given this part of Elsie's diary in full, as she wrote it out, both because she was so far from the truth as to what was happening above ground, and because her style of writing is so literary—far before mine, with words that I should have to look out in the dictionary. Why, of course, there was no end of a rumpage. The whole country rose. It is the third time that tells. You never saw anything like it. Farmers and their men flocked in from the f
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A LETTER FROM JOSEPH YARROW, SENIOR, TO HIS SON JOSEPH YARROW, JUNIOR
A LETTER FROM JOSEPH YARROW, SENIOR, TO HIS SON JOSEPH YARROW, JUNIOR
Dear Joe—Yours of the 10th received and contents noted. You ask me to tell you in writing what happened when, like a fool, I allowed myself to be caught and imprisoned by the other fools at Deep Moat Grange, at that time the property of the late Mr. H. Stennis. Nothing can be more generally useless than the practice of going back on old transactions, the gain of which has long gone to your banker, or the loss been written off. But as, on this occasion, you represent to me that a few notanda from
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COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
After that we had much intercourse. There was, indeed, little else to do, though now I know that the periods when I could get no answer were those in which the three sisters still in hiding were in the habit of visiting Elsie in company generally with Mad Jeremy. Little by little, however, Miss Stennis—well, after being addressed as "Dearest Joe" I suppose I may as well say "Elsie"—told me all about her position—the manner of her capture, and the liberty, comparative though it was, which she enj
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HARRIET CAW ON CLERICAL CELIBACY
HARRIET CAW ON CLERICAL CELIBACY
( Narrative continued by Joe Yarrow, Junior ) I have put my father's writing, just as it came from his hand, into this place. It will give a better idea of the uncertain condition of those two, sequestrated underground, than any mere description. I will now go on to tell how things were going at Breckonside. Our house in the village had a name. It was called "The Mount," but for the most part of people it was "Yarrow's." Just "Yarrow's." The house had, of course, a different entrance from the sh
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SATURDAY, THE TENTH OF FEBRUARY
SATURDAY, THE TENTH OF FEBRUARY
This was on the evening of Saturday, the tenth of February, a day never to be forgotten by me and by many more. I will try to place here in order the events which happened both at Deep Moat Grange and at Breckonside during the succeeding forty-eight hours. Of course, there is some part that can only be guessed at, and part is known solely by the maunderings of a criminal maniac. But still, I think, I have now got the whole pretty straight—as straight as it will ever be known on this side time. A
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THE CALLING OF ELSIE
THE CALLING OF ELSIE
Now, upon this very night of Saturday, the tenth of February, the same upon which Mr. Ablethorpe had come to see me, Elsie had lighted her candle early. Jeremy had been generous in the matter of lighting, though more than once he had proved himself forgetful of food. As the easiest manner of providing in quantity, he had brought up from Miss Orrin's store-room a complete box of candles, which he had opened for her in a summary manner with the back of his knife and the toe of his boot. Elsie was
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HOW ELSIE DANCED FOR HER LIFE
HOW ELSIE DANCED FOR HER LIFE
The white and gold walls of the drawing-room of Deep Moat Grange, though tarnished by time, and with spots of mould beginning to outline themselves again for want of Aphra Orrin's careful hand, gave back gaily enough the mellow glow of a hundred candles all of wax. "Dance, Elsie woman!" cried Mad Jeremy, emptying a tumbler at a gulp. "But first drink ye also, lassie. That will bring back your bonnie colour! What has come to ye, bairn? Ye are pale as a bit snaw-drap that sets its head through a w
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THE HERO PLAYS SECOND FIDDLE
THE HERO PLAYS SECOND FIDDLE
Now, while Elsie was dancing the hours away in desperate danger of her life and to the peril of her reason, Mr. Ablethorpe and I had not been idle. That is, so far as was within our power to act or our knowledge to foresee. He had allowed me to judge of the state of the rings which had been passed through the furnace. I was still uncertain of their portent till he produced an oval plaque with the mark V.R. upon it. It was of brass, and had doubtless formed part of the single leathern sack which
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"THERE'S NAE LUCK ABOOT THE HOOSE"
"THERE'S NAE LUCK ABOOT THE HOOSE"
There's a bit more to tell about this part, though you might not expect it. It always makes me shiver to think of. But I could not help it. Nobody could—and anyway, the thing has got to be told. It is about Mad Jeremy, and what befell him when he fled upward through the smoke and flame, clambering by the balusters, my father says, more like a monkey than any human man. And, by the way, I am not sure that he really was a man—except that a wild beast would not have been so clever, and the devil ev
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CONFESSION
CONFESSION
The ruins of Deep Moat Grange were black and cold—almost level with the ground, also. For the folk had pulled the house almost stone from stone, partly in anger, partly in their search for hidden treasure. Elsie was home again in the white cottage at the Bridge End, and my father was attending to his business quietly, as if nothing had happened. The authorities, of course, had made a great search among the subterranean passages of the monks' storehouses, without, however, discovering more than E
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JEREMY ORRIN, BREADWINNER
JEREMY ORRIN, BREADWINNER
"I had a younger brother, dear to me far above my life" (this was Aphra Orrin's beginning). "He was the youngest of all—left to me in guard by a father who feared in him the wild blood of my mother. For my father had married a gipsy girl whose beauty had taken him at a village merrymaking. In the Upper Ward they do not understand that kind of mésalliance in a schoolmaster. And so, for my mother's sake, he had to leave his schoolhouse, after fighting the battle against odds for many years. "He di
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THE WITNESSING OF MISER HOBBY
THE WITNESSING OF MISER HOBBY
" The Witnessing and last statement of Me, Howard Stennis, sometime weaver to my trade, afterwards laird of the lands of 'Deep Moat Grange,' near Breckonside—to which is added my last Will in my own handwriting . "I, HOWARD STENNIS, being of sound mind, and desiring that after my death nothing should be left uncertain, have decided to put on record all that has occurred. This I do, not in the least to exculpate myself, because what I have done, I have done calmly and with intention aforethought.
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THE HOUSE OF DEATH
THE HOUSE OF DEATH
( The last Testimony of Miser Hobby is continued and concluded ) "It was in the days after the disappearance of Henry Foster, the mail-post carrier between Bewick and Breckonside, that I became aware of the increasing madness of those whom I had so rashly taken under my roof and protection. The younger sisters, especially Honorine, thought nothing of standing on walls screaming like peacocks, flapping their arms, and declaring that they were winged angels, ready on a signal from on high to fly u
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I AM HEROIC
I AM HEROIC
You may be sure that I kept up with the crowd. It was a disagreeable crowd—Bewick Muir pitmen, and the navvies from the East Dene and Thorsby waterworks—they were making a new pipe-line through the Bewick Beck Valley, and the navvies were interested in poaching—so that was what had brought them so far from home. Only the few Breckonside people who had not left early knew anything bout Elsie. All that was known to the bulk of those present was that Hobby Stennis had amassed a great fortune by ent
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A FIT OF THE SULKS
A FIT OF THE SULKS
Jove, wasn't it just ripping to think that at last a chap could go where he liked, and do what he liked—all that horrid lot at the Grange being either dead or with the locksmith's fingers between them and the outside world! Ripping? Rather! It was like a new earth. All the same, you have no idea what a show place the ruined Grange became. Old Bailiff Ball stayed on and made a pretty penny by showing the people over. Especially the weaving-room, and where old Hobby sat, and the keyhole through wh
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THE THING THAT SCRATCHED
THE THING THAT SCRATCHED
Something living it was, and pretty active, too—no mistake about that. A dog? Possibly! But the next moment it stood erect on two feet like a man, and, turning slowly, peered all about. Then as suddenly it dropped down on all fours again and fell to the scraping. I could hear the sound distinctly in that lonesome place, where the water in the pond was too thick and heavy even to ripple, and where only the owl cried regularly once in five minutes. I could not have spoken if I had tried, and I did
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WANTED—A PENNY IN THE SLOT
WANTED—A PENNY IN THE SLOT
When I came to myself the moon had risen—risen good and high, too—for it showed well above the orchard wall where it was broken, and over the palisades with which Hobby Stennis had mended it with his own hand. Elsie was seated by me. She had opened up my coat, and undone my waistcoat and shirt at the neck. There was a pleasant coolness, and she was slopping about with a wet handkerchief—not very big, indeed, being one of her own, and better adapted for dabbing dry girls' eyes, than for recoverin
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