J. S. Fletcher

“ Sometimes I sat for a long time, smoking my pipe on the edge of the headlands, staring at the blue of the water, the curl of the waves on the brown sands, conscious most of the compelling silence, and only dimly aware of the calling of the sea-birds on the cliffs. ”

“ Middlebrook!" he exclaimed in quick, almost deprecating fashion. "A very dull and out-of-the-way place to which to bring one used to London; but we'll do our best—you've had a convoy across the park, I see," he added with a glance at his niece. "That's right!"
"As charming a one as her surroundings are delightful, Mr. Raven," I said, assuming an intentionally old-fashioned manner. "If I am treated with the same consideration I have already received, I shall be loth to bring my task to an end!"
"Mr. Middlebrook is a bit of a tease, Uncle Francis," said my guide. ”

“ It was very certain that Quick wanted to come across the tombs of the dead and gone Netherfields, however, for whatever purpose—certain, too, that there was another man who had the same wish. That complicated matters, and it deepened the mystery. Why did two men—seafaring men, both of them—arrive in this out-of-the-way spot about the same time, unknown to each other, but each apparently bent on the same object? ”

“ I'm sure Uncle Francis is expecting a venerable, dry-as-dust sort of man."
"I hope he won't be disappointed," I said. "But I never told him I was dry as dust, or snuffy, or bald——"
"It's your reputation," she said quickly. "People don't expect to find such learning in ordinary young men in tweed suits." ”

“ I ain't never heard it!"
"And he's a native," declared the landlord. "Born and bred and brought up here. Wasn't you, Jim?"
"Never been away from it," assented Jim, with a short laugh. "Never been farther north than Belford, south than Warkworth, west than Whittingham. And as for east, I reckon you can't get much further that way than where we are now."
"Not unless you take to the water, you can't," said Claigue. "No—we ain't heard of no Netherfields hereabouts." ”

“ I nodded an affirmative, silently watching him, and wondering what this desire on the part of two men to find the graves of the Netherfields might mean. And the landlord evidently shared my wonder, for presently he plumped his customer with a direct question.
"You seem very anxious to find these Netherfield gravestones," he remarked, with good-humoured inquisitiveness. "And so, apparently, does another man. ”