The Riddle of the Spinning Wheel. Hanshew Mary E.

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СКАЧАТЬ "perhaps you're right. Though I won't say that my experience has always been just that. However, the lady does not seem to find favour in your eyes. Mr. Ross Duggan I haven't met."

      "A fine upstanding gentleman, sair, wi' ne'er a mean bone in his body."

      "And Miss Duggan?"

      "A gentle, kind creature wi' a hearrt o' gold. She'd do nought to harrm anny one, sair, and I've proof o' that – bless her! Nor Miss McCall, either."

      "Miss McCall?"

      "Lady Paula's companion and handy maid, sair. A leddy, if I knaws one. Engaged to Mistair Tavish, I unnerstand – though 'tis not yet given out to the gran' folk. But the' have th' saft look in their e'e for one anaither. And 'tis juist that it means. A puir freeted creatur' wi' an e'e fer the ghost o' the Castle. She'll have a fine mon in Mistair Tavish, I assure ye. And now 'tis time ye saw yer rume, sair, or I'm no a guid host ye'll ken."

      So saying, Mr. Fairnish moved away from the bar reluctantly, as one stung by duty into doing something for which he had no relish, for bar and Fairnish were as synonymous as the Dawn and the Day – and almost as inseparable.

      Cleek watched him with upflung eyebrow and keen eye. Then he followed, and set a hand upon the garrulous fellow's sleeve.

      "Mr. Fairnish," he said quietly, "you've interested me immensely. My own fellow-folk, you know – what is it that Pope says? – 'The proper study of mankind is man.' Well, it's like that with me. Perhaps I'm over-curious – there are a lot of us like that in this world. But you mentioned a ghostly visitant of the Castle just now. You were speaking in jest, of course?"

      An imperceptible something passed like a shadow over Mr. Fairnish's rugged face. He gave a shiver.

      "In jest ye tak eet?" he said a trifle huskily. "Weel, 'tis in airnest that I spoke. For nevair a step near the grounds will ought o' th' countryside go at night. 'Tis a lang story, and I've no time to be tellin' it thee noo, sair, but here's a leetle. 'Tis a peasant-gairl that a Sair Andrew of the sixteenth century, I ken, abducted from her propair parents (they lived in the Lowlands, so I've heard tell), and brought to th' castle and locked up – for his ain pleasure! 'Tis a sorry tale, for the puir maid deed o' a broken hearrt an' a broken speerit, too, I tak' it, nigh on to twelve months latair, wi' a leetle one juist come ter gladden her sore hearrt."

      "Indeed? And what became of the child, then?"

      "No one knaws. 'Twas said 'twas stealed at night by the granfer and speerited awa'. And 'twas said th' de'il himsaif cam' an' claimed eet. No one knaws that parrt o' th' story, but there's a mony who says they du. Only the peasant-gairl hersaif haunts the Castle tu this day, sair, and stalks th' whole place over from top tu bottom, an' inside and out, a-lukin' fer her sheel."

      "Poor girl!" There was genuine sympathy in Cleek's low-toned voice, and at sound of it Mr. Fairnish spun round and looked at him, his own face brightening.

      "Then ye believe in eet?" he said. "Fer yer voice tells me so. And so du I – an' aiverybody in these parrts. And wi' a mon so harrd as Sair Andrew as laird, ye ken what a puir time the gel must have had long ago – wi' another of 'em th' same. You're a sympathetic gentleman at hearrt, sair, I knew it on sight uf ye, so ye'll be takin' a worrd of advice from me, and no be out in the grounds at nicht, when there's no mune. 'Tis said she twists the neck of every man she sees at nicht-time in the grounds after dark, as a revenge for what she suffered at the hands of one. Ugh! but it's a sorry tale and no prettier fer the telling, I ken… If ye come this way, sair, I'll introduce ye to my ain leddy, and she'll tak' unco' care o' ye."

      "Thanks."

      Cleek swung into step behind him and mounted the wide shallow oak stairs of the place to the tune of Mr. Fairnish's deep-pitched voice calling for "Mary! Mary!" In the fullness of time "Mary" appeared, and resolved herself into a buxom, high-bosomed, rosy-cheeked Highland lass, whom Mr. Fairnish had taken to wife (the second for him) last January. She appeared almost as garrulous as her husband, and while she showed Cleek his room – a long, low-ceiled bedroom overlooking the Castle and with windows across one end of it – she regaled him with tid-bits of gossip of neighbouring parts, and incidentally added to his already plentifully filled store of knowledge of the "Castle-folk" the fact that Miss Duggan herself was secretly engaged to a Captain Macdonald – one of the poorest land-owners of those parts – who, because of his poverty, was forbidden the house by Sir Andrew, and promptly sent about his business.

      "A harrd mon," she said, as her husband had done, standing in the frame of the open doorway with arms akimbo, and looking the true Scots lassie she undoubtedly was. "And sich a nice gentleman, tu – that Captain Macdonald. Reel gentry, Mr. Deland, sair. I've often thocht what a peety it was tu see 'em pulled apart like thaat. Ye'll be wanting some hot water, sair, I ken."

      "Thanks. I'd like some, certainly. And my man – "

      "He's made himself at home already," she responded, beaming at him. "And he's in my keetchen th' noo, eatin' an airly lunch. He towld me ye'd come fer the fishin', sair. We've a-mony come fer that to these parrts. That'll be all, I tak' it?"

      "That'll be all."

      At which the good woman withdrew her tongue and herself, and left Cleek a trifle dazed by the positive fount of garrulity at which he had been drinking this past half-hour, and a good deal interested in the Castle-folk to boot.

      He walked to the window and stood looking out of it at the magnificence of Aygon Castle that rose like some dream-palace before his admiring eyes. And as he looked he counted the windows across that part of the building which faced upon the village.

      The fourth from the left. Well, she'd possibly never need to signal, and yet – one never knew. And there was a ghost, too, and a horny-fisted and hard-hearted landlord, just as the penny novelettes would have had it. Quite interesting; quite. But the arrival of hot water set every other thought but that of cleanliness out of his head, and he gave himself up to his ablutions like a schoolboy on holiday.

      CHAPTER IV

      THE MORNING CALL

      No red light showed itself at Miss Duggan's window that night – though Cleek sat up until the soft fingers of the dawn were wreathing the sky with lavender veils and the face of the morning peeped through, like some goddess stepped down from Olympus to smile upon her lesser fellows. And it was then, and then only, that he sought his bed and the comfort of cool sheets at last.

      Dollops, knowing his plan, did not disturb him. And so it came about that the clock upon the mantel had chimed out ten before he opened an eye and looked about him, sleep still dimming his vision and making the unfamiliar room doubly strange.

      "What the – how the – Gad! if it isn't ten o'clock, and I've been sleeping like a noodle ever since dawn," he said, springing out of bed and donning dressing-gown and slippers to have a first glimpse out of the window at that "fairy sight" which Mr. Fairnish had promised him with his cup of tea. "Well, she is a beauty and no mistake! Good morning to you, fair Palace of the Mists. What secrets are locked away in your breast this morning, I wonder? Well, the night has passed tranquilly enough to be sure, and that poor girl's terrors are stilled for the present twelve hours, at any rate. I'll call there after breakfast and scrape acquaintance with the lot of 'em, and judge if Mr. Robert Fairnish is as good an observer as he is a talker."

      And directly after breakfast that was exactly what he did do. Dollops, armed with fishing-tackle and rods, received his marching orders in full sight and sound of the inn's proprietor, knowing full well that within five minutes of that time all that he had said and done would be ablaze over the village, if he knew aught of that garrulous tongue of his.

      "Be СКАЧАТЬ