Sir David ladled out into fresh glasses from the dregs of the jorum.
“A toast!” said he, the leaping candle-light making a shifting grotesque1 of his wholesome2 young face. “Here’s to the memory of the last tenant3 o’ ‘Delsrop,’ and the health of the new one!”
“With all my heart. How was the beggar called? He hath entailed4 me a legacy5 of weeds. Was he the gallows6-bird?”
“Great heavens!” he exclaimed.
“You little expected that,” said he. “But there’s a reservation I’ll own to. They strung him up after he was dead.”
He went into a fit of laughter over the other’s astonished expression.
“I see you are unacquainted with the tale,” he said. “’Tis a tattered9 old boggart of the past that the neighbourhood has years-long ceased to throw stones at. But, you’ll pardon me, Tuke. What the devil induced you to invest in those ragged10 acres yonder?”
“I didn’t. I succeeded to them.”
“Direct?”
“Certainly.”
He had hesitated in answering. The little man gazed at him inquisitively11.
“You are—you are not in mourning,” he said.
“For my father? Scarcely. He died in ’80. A widow even may be excused for doffing12 black in twenty years.”
“I see. You are an absentee landlord. Fie, sir! We hold you responsible thereby13 for many a pretty ghost tale.”
“Twenty years,” he murmured. “Why, then, your father must have stepped straight into old Turk’s shoes.”
“The former tenant? Was that his name?”
“Turk—yes.”
“Well,” he said at last—sucking at the stem of his “church-warden” as if he were a baby ravenous19 for its “comforter”—“it fair upsets me, it does.”
“What does?”
Mr. Tuke was silent. Had he spoken, and the truth, he could only have echoed the other’s wonder. As it was, his mouth was tied to an adequate explanation.
Blythewood blew away the problem with a cloud of smoke.
“We’ve got you at last, anyhow,” he said. “And that’s nine points of the law. I’ll wager21 you don’t know, sir, whence your house gets its name.”
“I can’t take you. You’re right.”
“’Tis the short for Devil’s-rope,—that’s what it is; the cursed bind-weed that will honeycomb a county from an inch of root if you give it rein22. The story goes that, when they dug the foundations, it lay thick in the soil as macaroni in a dish.”
“That’s odd enough; and an ominous23 name for the last tenant by your showing. What was his history that you make a secret of?”
“Tut! ’tis no secret. Did you hear that?—the wind ’ll blow the casement24 in. ’Tis no secret; but I was only a lad of five when they found him hanging on the downs, and so can give you little but the fruits of hearsay25.”
“And what are they?”
“As dry as apple-johns by this date. Fill your glass. The fellow’s name was Turk, I say; and he looked his name.—Zounds! ’tis like his ghost ravenin’ with fury to get the grip of us.—He must ’a been an ugly beggar; for I can remember him plain as plain for all I was only five years old when he was found swingin’.”
“What was he like?”
“Like? Like a gurgoyle on a church—a face to sweat o’ nights with thinking on. A murderous-looking caitiff, sir, with red stubble under his jasey and a bloody26 long tuck at his side. Yet I can mind me of a look in his eyes—or in one of ’em; for t’other was fixed in his head and chalky like a boiled cod’s—that wasn’t all of the rest. ’Twas fear, or sufferin’—or compound of both; and it lessened27 the fright I stood in of meetin’ him.”
“Was he always there—at ‘Delsrop,’ I mean, in your early memory of it?”
“Save us, no. The place belonged to the Woodruffs up to ’77, when it came into the market. The new owner wasn’t in possession—no, not a year. He turned up sudden—was there on a day, with his black-bodin’ face; and nobody knew where he’d come from or what was his business in life. They didn’t find out then or afterwards. He kept himself to himself; received no visitors and wanted none; lived his days solitary28, shut up like a miser29; and didn’t so much as weed the gravel30 of his drive.”
“And so disappeared?”
“Disappeared? Not he. He was a landmark31 to every traveller for months to come. I mind the mornin’ well—ah! even through this lapse32 of time—that young Peterson, our landreeve, rode over to ‘Chatters,’ with a face like whey, and said as how Mr. Turk had been found murdered and hangin’ in the chains on Stockbridge downs.”
“Hanging?”
“Aye! There they’d strung him up that did the deed; for he’d been stabbed first—nigh a dozen angry wounds that had sucked at the steel like mouths—and then set to dangle33 for a jest to the daws.”
“They never did, sir—they never did. To this day the man’s fate is locked up in the mystery of his life.”
“But at the inquest——”
“None was held. ’Twas an odd thing, you’ll say; and a cursed odd thing it was. But none was held for all that. Men’s minds were disorganized at that time, ’tis said. There was the French and Spanish coalition35, and dark trouble about a possible descent on the coast—like as there is now. Who was to think of one murdered land-loper, that nobody knew or claimed, when all eyes were turned to the sea? Anyhow, there he swung and rotted, to the huge scandal of the neighbourhood, till he and his head parted company and came to the ground.”
“But there must have been legatees—executors—lawyers interested, at the very least?”
“They never put in a claim, then. The fellow was here, and gone, and narry a sign. ’Twas a queer business.”
“Well, heaven rest his bones at the last!”
“I’ll give you Amen to that. You are its deputy for one of them by all account.”
“Eh! What d’ye say?”
“’Tis a tale hereabouts that Whimple’s mad sister has the creature’s skull36 in keepin’—that for months she hovered37 like a crow under the gallows, and picked it up at last when it fell.”
“Good God! She has—or had. I’ve seen it.”
“Ah! A pretty plaything for a maid. Well, that’s Mr. Turk’s story, as I know it.”
The listener sat for some moments in a profound and bewildered silence. Vaguely38, through his brain, like faint harmonics, ran the words of the lawyer Creel and his own question to which they had been an answer: “When did it come to him?” “That I may answer you. It was in the year ’79.”
So his father had himself slipped into possession of this mysterious estate at the very time that ghastly scarecrow was tossing in the wind. How then was it, that he had not caused inquiry39 to be made as to the fate of his predecessor—had not set bloodhounds on the track of the assassins—had not even allotted40 the poor remains41 some decent burial?
For the first time a little mist of darkness gathered in his heart—a suspicion born of the unaccountable secrecy42 that was the main condition of his inheritance.
Presently he looked up with a troubled face.
“Then Whimple and his sister,” he said, “were early put in charge of the deserted43 place?—but they were, of course. The fellow told me so himself.”
“Aye, aye,” said Sir David. “He was only a lad of eighteen when he first came—a great weedy gawk with scared eyes.”
“Twenty years haven’t improved upon that. My God! what an existence!”
“Well, sir, it may suit a being or not. We ain’t all built for coal-porters. The measure of a man’s work is his willingness to it; and Dennis is no Jackalent for all his diffidence. He knows a spavin from a thrush; and I’ll tell ye somethin’ more—he can put rhymes together equal to Milton or Mr. Pye.”
“Umph!” said the other.
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1
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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2
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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3
tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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4
entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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5
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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6
gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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7
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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8
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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9
tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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10
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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11
inquisitively
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| 过分好奇地； 好问地 | |
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12
doffing
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| n.下筒，落纱v.脱去，（尤指）脱帽( doff的现在分词 ) | |
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13
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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14
jocosely
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| adv.说玩笑地，诙谐地 | |
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15
ruminative
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| adj.沉思的，默想的，爱反复思考的 | |
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16
engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17
retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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18
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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19
ravenous
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| adj.极饿的，贪婪的 | |
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20
wrack
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| v.折磨；n.海草 | |
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21
wager
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| n.赌注；vt.押注，打赌 | |
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22
rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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23
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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24
casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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25
hearsay
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| n.谣传，风闻 | |
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26
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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27
lessened
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| 减少的，减弱的 | |
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28
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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29
miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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30
gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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31
landmark
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| n.陆标，划时代的事，地界标 | |
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32
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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33
dangle
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| v.(使)悬荡，(使)悬垂 | |
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34
rogues
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| n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 )；无赖；调皮捣蛋的人；离群的野兽 | |
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35
coalition
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| n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合 | |
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36
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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37
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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38
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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39
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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40
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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42
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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43
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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