ANGLEWOOD MANOR
Early the next morning our three travelers were astir.
They met in the neat parlor, where the air was delicious with the
fragrance of fresh white, pink and blue hyacinths that filled the flower
pots in the broad window.
They sat around the table, on which was arranged a breakfast that quite
equaled in excellence the tea of the evening before.
Jonah waited on the party.
“Is that elegant and commodious equipage which brought us here yesterday
the best thing in the way of a carriage that the White Cow can turn
out?” inquired Mr. Force, as he sipped his coffee.
“Beg pardon, maister?” said the man, with a puzzled look.
“Can’t you trot out a better trap than that old hurdle on wheels which
jolted us from the railway station yesterday?” demanded Wynnette.
“Beg pardon, ma’am?” said the man, with a bewildered look.
“We wish to know if you have not a better carriage than the one in which
we came here,” Le tried to explain.
“Naw, maister, t’ Whoit Coo hev naw much demand fo’ ’m. T’ gentry do
most come and go in their own, and send t’ same for or call t’ friends
in visiting,” the man replied, in a tone of apology.
“Very well. Have the cart at the door as soon as it can be brought here,
and bring me my bill.”
“Yes, maister.”
They all got up from the table.
“Papa,” said Wynnette, who was too well inclined to take the initiative
in most matters, “papa, I think if we can get our business done at the
manor to-day, we had better come back here to take supper and to sleep.
It seems to me that it would be much nicer than to stop at Angleton.”
“Wait until you see Angleton before you decide, my dear. You may find
the ‘Anglesea Arms’ as attractive as this inn,” replied the squire, who
was drawing on his railway duster—a needless operation, since there was
no more dust on the moor than could have been found on the sea.
“‘The Anglesea Arms,’ papa? No, thank you. The name is enough for me. I
would rather sit in the old cart all day and eat bread and cheese, and
sleep in the cart all night, gypsy fashion, than take rest or
refreshment at the Anglesea Arms,” exclaimed Wynnette.
“But, my dear, you are unjust. The inn has nothing to do with the man,
beyond the accident of having been on the land of his ancestors
centuries ago, and handed down the name from generation to generation.”
“Can’t help it, papa! I should feel—disgraced—there if I were to find
myself by any accident under the roof of the—Anglesea Arms.”
“Whe-ew-ew! Poor, old inn,” whistled Mr. Force.
Oh, no doubt he ought to have lectured his wilful little daughter; but
he did not. He was a child-spoiler, a chickpecked papa.
By this time they were ready to start.
Jonah brought the bill.
Mr. Force paid it, and gave the waiter half a crown.
Wynnette pulled his sleeve and whispered:
“Papa, give me half a sov. to tip the chambermaid. It’s the regular
thing, you know. I mean, papa, dear, that it is usual for ladies to
offer some such modest recognition of such young persons’ services.”
“What, my dear, have you no money?” inquired her father, looking at her
in some surprise.
“‘Oh, sir, you see me here,
A most poor woman, though a queen,’”
sighed Wynnette, in a very humble air, as she held out her open hand.
The squire poured into her palm some loose silver and one piece of
gold—the whole not amounting to so much as five dollars.
Wynnette thanked him and skipped out of the parlor to find Hetty.
She found her waiting just outside the door. Hetty was a very good girl
in her way; but she profited by the traditions of her class, and
generally was to be found waiting when ladies were leaving the inn.
Wynnette pressed the half sovereign into the hand of the girl. Wynnette
was a generous and extravagant little wretch, without the slightest idea
of the value of money, and therefore likely, in some opinions, to come
to poverty.
This half sovereign was about four times as much as the maid ever got
from the richest of the inn’s guests; and she courtesied about four
times as often in return.
“Small favors gratefully acknowledged, large ones in proportion,” seemed
to be her just and simple rule.
“Come, Wynnette. Come, my dear,” called her father, who was already in
the hall waiting for her.
In another minute the whole party were in the dilapidated carryall, and
the driver turned the horse’s head eastward into an almost invisible
roadway over the moor.
It was a splendid June morning. The sky was of a deep, clear sapphire
blue so seldom seen even on the sunniest days in England. The moor took
a darker shade of color from the sky, and the heather with which it was
thickly overgrown seemed of a deep, intense green. The ground rolled in
hills and dales, gradually rising higher and higher toward the range of
mountains on the eastern horizon, where the highest ridges were capped
with soft, snow-white clouds. As the sun rose higher, these clouds, as
well as the mountain sides, became tinted with the most delicate and
beautiful hues of rose, azure, emerald and gold, melting into each other
and forming the loveliest varieties of color, light and shade.
Yet in the vast solitude of the moor no human being or human dwelling
was to be seen.
The first sign of habitation was a thin spire which seemed to rise in
mid distance before them.
“What is that?” inquired Mr. Force of the driver.
“Thet, maister, be the steeple of old Anglewood Church.”
“Are we so near the manor, then?”
“Naw, sir. It be better’n three mulls off yet. You would naw see it,
only for the air is so clear the day.”
Wynnette craned her neck to look forward. But there was nothing to be
seen but the thin spire, as if drawn with pen and ink from the dark blue
heath to the deep blue sky.
As they went on, the spire became a steeple, and the steeple a tower,
and the tower a church.
As yet nothing but the church—darkly outlined against the background of
hills—was visible. They were now on the top of one of the rolling hills,
and could see it clearly.
“Is that church in the village of Angleton or in the manor of
Anglewood?” inquired Mr. Force of the driver.
“It be on t’ manor, maister. The village it be nearer t’ us, but being
in t’ hollow you can’t see it yet.”
“Ah!”
They went down the hill and through the hollow, came up the side of
another higher hill, and then looked down on the village of Angleton in
the vale at its foot.
On the top of the next hill stood the Old Church of Anglewood in full
view.
The driver stopped his horse while they looked at the village in the
vale and the church on the hill beyond.
“Wull I drive to the Anglesea Arms, maister?” inquired the driver, as he
set his horse in motion again.
“No,” replied the squire, in deference to Wynnette. He had “won his
spurs elsewhere,” no doubt, but the chickpecked papa was a little afraid
of his baby. “No; but I want to stop at the village for a few minutes.
Is there a newspaper published at Angleton?”
“Yes, sir. T’ Angleton _’Wertiser_ it be,” replied the man.
“Very well, then. Drive to the office of that paper.”
“Yes, maister.”
They were now descending a steep road, between low stone walls, leading
down into the main street of the village and past the one public house,
the one general store, the doctor’s office and surgery, the lawyer’s
office, and finally the printing and publishing office of the Angleton
_Advertiser_.
It was a two-storied stone building, evidently a dwelling house as well
as a printing office; for there were two doors—one apparently a private
door, leading into a narrow hall; the other the public door, broad and
rough, and leading into the business rooms. Besides the upper windows
were hung with Norfolk lace curtains and adorned with pots of geraniums,
while the lower windows were shaded with dust and draped with cobwebs,
and sustained above them the broad signboard—Angleton _Advertiser_.
When the carriage drew up before this building the three travelers
alighted and went in.
The driver of the vehicle remained in his seat in charge.
The party of three found themselves in a very dingy room, with a counter
on their right hand, at the nearest end of which a man stood writing at
a desk. At the furthest end a boy stood folding and wrapping papers.
“Is this the office of the Angleton _Advertiser_?” needlessly inquired
Mr. Force of the gentleman behind the desk.
“It is. What can I have the pleasure of doing for you, sir?” inquired
the latter.
“You are the proprietor?” half asserted, half inquired the squire.
“Proprietor, editor, printer and publisher,” answered the man, reaching
behind him and taking from a shelf a copy of his paper, which he offered
to his visitor, saying: “Out to-day, sir; and there’s my name.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Force, spreading the paper before him, and looking first
at the prospectus for the name of his new acquaintance.
“Can I be of any service to you, sir?” inquired the proprietor.
“Well, Mr. Purdy, I would like to have a few minutes talk with you, if
you are not too busy.”
“I am directing papers for the mail, but I am not pressed for time, as
the mail does not go until to-night.”
“Thank you,” said the squire, as a mere form, for there did not appear
to be any particular cause for gratitude. And he drew from his breast
pocket a certain copy of the Angleton _Advertiser_ and handed it to the
man, saying again: “Thank you, Mr. Purdy. My name is Force. I only wish
to ask you—and I hope without offense—what is the meaning of the
obituary notice of a living man that is published in the first column of
this paper?”
Purdy took the paper in a slow and dazed manner, and looked at the
column which Mr. Force pointed out to him.
And as he looked he stared and stared.
“I—I—don’t understand!” he said at last, looking from the paper up to
the face of his strange visitor.
“Neither do I understand, Mr. Purdy; but if we put our heads together
perhaps we may be able to do so,” replied Abel Force.
The printer turned the paper over and over, in and out, up and down,
and, lastly, back to the front page; and then he stared at the obituary
notice of his landlord.
“What do you make of it?” inquired Abel Force.
“I can’t make anything of it. But I think it will make a lunatic of me!
This is certainly my paper! I know my paper as well as I know my
children. This is certainly my paper—though it is an old one—and this is
the obituary notice of Col. Anglesea, who was alive and well at that
very time, and is so at this present, as I think.”
“How do you account for that?”
“I can’t account for it! If I weren’t a sound man, and a sober man, and
a wide-awake one, I should think I was drunk, or dreaming, or deranged.
It is quite beyond me, Mr. Force. This is my paper—I see it, and know
it—and this is an obituary notice of a living man that I never put in
there! I see and know that as well! But how to reconcile these two
contradictory facts, I don’t know. How did you come by that paper, if
you please?”
“It was sent to me by mail!”
“Well, well, well!”
“Have you a file of the Angleton _Advertiser_?”
“Of course I have, sir.”
“Let us look at it, then, and compare this paper with the paper of that
same date on the file.”
“Why, that is a good idea. And I shall only have to look at the copy of
August 20th in last year’s file. I’ll do it at once.”
The editor turned and took down a roller full of papers from the two
wooden pins on the wall behind him, and laid it upon the counter and
began to turn over the sheets.
“Here it is!” exclaimed Purdy, pulling out a paper and spreading it out
on the counter. “August 20th—and appears to be a facsimile of the one
you brought here, sir. Now let us lay them on the board side by side and
compare them.”
He took the file and hung it up again on the wall, to make room on the
counter. Then he spread out the two papers side by side, with their
first pages uppermost.
As he did so the boy who had been folding and wrapping papers at the
other end of the counter left his work and crept toward the two men.
“Oh! see this!” exclaimed the proprietor—“see this! The two papers are
facsimile in every letter and line, except in two places! See this! The
first column on the first page of the paper from the file is occupied by
the report of an agricultural fair at Middlemoor, and the same column in
the same edition of the paper, in the copy you brought, is filled with
the obituary of Col. Anglesea! And here! In the list of deaths on
another page, the first paragraph in this paper from the file is a
notice of the death of the Rev. Mr. Orton, our old vicar; and in the
copy of the same paper that you brought me the same space is taken up
with the notice of the death of Col. Anglesea. This is a very great
mystery!”
“Perhaps if you could recall all the incidents of the day on which this
paper was issued we might come to some solution of the problem,”
suggested Mr. Force.
“I don’t know that I could,” replied Purdy.
“Father,” said the boy—“father, I remember something queer about that
very day—I do.”