Herman Cyril McNeile

“ Well, the years went on, and Mary grew from a girl into a woman. And the promise as she'd given as a little 'un became a certainty. She was lovelier even than her mother had been, for there was a touch of the Philimore in her—in the way she stood, and in the way she looked at you. And in addition to her looks Mary stood to be a pretty considerable heiress. Old Trevenna—her grandfather—was ailing, and he had no kith nor kin but her. And if, as most of us thought, John Philimore was dead, then Oastbury became hers on her twenty-first birthday. ”

“ Always keeps too long on that tack. However, sir, as I was saying, John Philimore disappeared. From time to time there came news of him in different corners of the earth—and it wasn't good news. With a wild set he'd got in, and he was the wildest of the lot. From South Africa, from Australia, from over in America we heard of him at intervals—but only indirectly. He never wrote to his father, or to his sister—and it fair broke his mother's heart. For John was just the apple of her eye. ”

“ George was pretty near off his head about it all; seemed to think he'd got some hold over Mary—this man with the scar. And sure enough two or three times when I seed her, she seemed to have a hunted look in her sweet eyes. ”

“ Tall, upstanding, strong as a giant—they don't breed 'em nowadays. There wasn't a man on the countryside could touch him at any sport, or at swimming. Why, I can remember seeing him swim out with a life-line to a barque in distress in the October gales of 1868. Bit before your time, I reckon—but there's been no gales in these parts like 'em since.
"He lived up at Oastbury Farm, which had been his grandfather's and his great-grandfather's before him. Aye—and longer than that. Traced direct back from father to son for nigh on four hundred years was Oastbury with the Philimores. ”

“ A hard lot the Philimores—and always have been.
"And so for the first time Oastbury passed into the hands of a woman—John's sister, Ruth; though, of course, it was John's whenever he chose to return. If he'd been able to, the old man would have cut him out, and left it away from him—but he couldn't. But until John did return it was Ruth's, who went on living there with the innocent cause of all the trouble, who had been called Mary after her mother. She was twelve years old when her grandfather died, and even then gave promise of being as lovely as her mother. Of her father she knew nothing ”

“ George—who had a proper pride in himself—was well-nigh crying with shame and mortification at having been made to look such a fool before us all. And, of course, a thing like that was bound to get around, if only as a measure indicating the stranger's strength. But as the days went on it was forgotten in the much more important affairs that were happening up at Oastbury. It had us all beat; we couldn't make head nor tail of 'em.
"For this stranger pretty well lived up there, and what Mary Philimore or her aunt could see in him was beyond us. He still kept on his room here ”

“ I added sarcastically.
"That's just where you're wrong," he remarked triumphantly. "Why in that very chair you're sitting in a man was shot through the heart. Plugged as clean as a whistle, and rolled off the chair up against that table your beer is standing on, stone dead. ”

“ Not that things weren't going well, but a lad is apt to be a bit fazed over his first.
"A boy it would be—of course; for generations now the eldest child born to the Philimores had been a boy. And a rare fine specimen, too—with such parents. John's mother looked out the lace christening robe and all the old fal-lals the women like fiddling round with at such times. And at last Mary's time came, and it was a girl—as fine a child, so I heard tell, as any one would have wished for. But it was a girl.
"Well, sir—I don't profess to account for it ”

“ That's what he wanted to do—leave Oastbury to his daughter—all tied up and secure. Went to Exeter, he did, to a big lawyer there, to see about it. But it couldn't be done. From eldest child to eldest child it's got to go—be it male or female. And so whatever John Philimore has done, he can't do his daughter out of Oastbury.'
"I tell you, sir, I was beginning to dislike this man, and I spoke a bit short. ”

“ Shot through the heart—plugged clean.
"Well, sir, that's the story. John Philimore was shot through the groin; maybe you noticed he still limps. And young George, he married Mary. That shows we don't always sleep here."
Copyright, 1924, H. C. McNeile
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. ”