Sax Rohmer

“ But things is different; things is wrong. Ain't they, Martin?" he asked, with a mischievous glance at the stolid host.
"Things is," agreed Martin.
"Best part of Park be shut up," declared Hawkins. "Horses gone, carriages gone, everybody gone; only me and my old woman."
"There must be house servants," I interjected.
"My old woman!" cried Hawkins triumphantly; "same as I'm tellin' you!"
"You mean that Lady Coverly lives alone in the place with only—er, Mrs. Hawkins to look after her?"
It was Martin the landlord who answered my question. ”

“ Might I ask the nature of the gift?"
"Aye, to be sure," answered Hawkins, standing half in shadow on the step of the bar-parlor, rifle on shoulder, where I thought he made a very wild figure. "Brought it here, he did. All of us see it. ”

“ Martin, the landlord, growled. It occurred to me that he regarded the other with a certain disfavor.
"This 'ere country," continued the game-keeper, vaguely waving his arm around, "is a blighted spot. A blighted spot, ain't it, Martin?"
Martin growled, whilst the game-keeper studied him covertly.
"Since Sir Burnham went to his long rest these 'ere parts ain't knowed themselves. I'm tellin' you, sir. Ain't knowed 'emselves. It's all that quiet, winter and summer alike. The Park all shut up; and the Park was the Park in them days—warn't it, Martin?" ”

“ There were long billowing hills and vales, much of their surface densely wooded, but with wide spaces under cultivation and even greater tracts of a sort of heath-land very wild in aspect and conjuring up pictures of outlaws' camps and the clash of battling feudal days. ”