Fenton Hardy

“ The Hardy boys were quivering with excitement. They had found the whereabouts of their chums; they had learned the dismaying news that Fenton Hardy had been captured by his enemies; they had discovered the hiding place of the gang. All this had taken place in a few fleeting hours.
Their first problem was to release Chet and Biff. But at first glance that seemed impossible. For when Pete came back into the cave he flung a bunch of keys into the sand beside the fire and laughed harshly.
"They'll get tired bein' chained up to a rock after a few more days," he said. "They'll come through yet." ”

“ Fenton Hardy had also been watching for his chance, and he sprang through the darkness at Snackley. He collided heavily with the chief of the smugglers and they rolled on the floor in a desperate struggle.
It was impossible to distinguish friend from enemy in the darkness. Joe plunged into the midst of the surging figures and his fist smashed against the face of one of the smugglers, who gave a howl of pain. ”

“ They were wondering how Fenton Hardy was faring on his quest in New York and it was not until after Frank had drawn a reprimand from one of his teachers because he absent-mindedly answered, "Red wig," when asked to name the capital of Kansas that they settled down to work and tried to put the affair of the wig and the abandoned clothes from their minds.
Slim Robinson was at school that day, but after four o'clock he confided to the Hardy boys that he was leaving.
"It's no use," he said. "Father can't keep me in school any longer and it's up to me to pitch in and help the family. ”

“ Fenton Hardy looked steadily at his sons as he said this. "I have a lot of confidence in you," he went on. "It just requires a lot of hard work and keeping your eyes open. Mainly, it will keep the gang on the jump. They'll know we haven't given up the case and they'll be afraid to do anything. And now," he said, "you might tell me how you happen to have heard the names of Bart Dawson and Black Pepper before."
Frank and Joe then told their father of their meeting with Jadbury Wilson, the old miner who said he had once lived in Lucky Bottom. ”

“ As sons of Fenton Hardy, and as amateur detectives of some ability in their own right, the boys were frequently the butt of jesting remarks concerning their hobby, but they invariably took them in the spirit of good-natured raillery in which they were meant. ”

“ But the footsteps on the stairs had drawn nearer and it was followed by others. The smugglers were returning.
“Quick!” whispered Frank, as he flung the ropes aside.
“I—I can’t—hurry!” gasped out Fenton Hardy. “I’ve been here too—too long.” He could hardly utter the words. His face showed his exhaustion.
“But we’ve got to hurry, dad!” came excitedly from Frank. “See if you can’t make it.”
“I’ll—I’ll do my—my best,” returned his father.
“If those fellows come back let’s fight for it,” put in Joe desperately.
“You bet we’ll fight,” answered Frank in a voice that meant a great deal. ”

“ Still wondering how their father had known that the stranger was in the boat with them and wondering also why the police were on hand, the Hardy boys untied the ropes that bound their passenger's ankles, and helped him over the side. He was immediately seized by the officers, who proceeded to search his pockets.
"Here!" he protested. "What's all this about?"
"Well, Paul Blum," said Fenton Hardy, "you thought you'd made a getaway, didn't you?"
The man started. ”

“ Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman's daughter from a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her pocket--and kept them there, till they should be required for ministering to the needs of a coming family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exercised as to the character that should be given to the gathering. A sit-still party had its advantages; but an undisturbed position of ease in chairs and settles was apt to lead on the men to such an unconscionable deal of toping that they would sometimes fairly drink the house dry. ”

“ For my part, I don’t like the look o’ the man at all.’
‘But he’s in the house, my honey; and ’tis a wet night, and a christening. Daze it, what’s a cup of mead more or less? There’ll be plenty more next bee-burning.’
‘Very well—this time, then,’ she answered, looking wistfully at the barrel. ‘But what is the man’s calling, and where is he one of; that he should come in and join us like this?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll ask him again.’
The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the stranger in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by Mrs. Fennel. ”

“ As soon as they reached the car and horse Venn guessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the course of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and came to the weir alone.
The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the water, and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Being encumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
"Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve," he said hastily. "Run home with her, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who may be living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir." ”

“ Ah—I noticed when he attended you last time!"
"No, no," she said hastily. "'Tis Mr. Venn."
Clym's face suddenly became grave.
"There, now, you don't like him, and I wish I hadn't mentioned him!" she exclaimed almost petulantly. "And I shouldn't have done it, either, only he keeps on bothering me so till I don't know what to do!"
Clym looked at the heath. "I like Venn well enough," he answered at last. "He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is clever too, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But really, Thomasin, he is not quite—"
"Gentleman enough for me? ”

“ At any rate, the gentleman in cinder-gray never did his morning's work at Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at all, for business purposes, the genial comrade with whom he had passed an hour of relaxation in the lonely house on the coomb.
The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. ”

“ My dress is not silk, you see....Are we anywhere in a line between Mistover and the inn?"
"Well, yes; not far out."
"Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!"
She jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked the lantern and leaped down after her. "I'll take the baby, ma'am," he said. "You must be tired out by the weight."
Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn's hands. "Don't squeeze her, Diggory," she said, "or hurt her little arm; and keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain may not drop in her face." ”

“ Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited comer, who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched out his legs and his arms with the expansiveness of a person quite at home. ”

“ It was not, as he had expected, a woman, but a man. The reddleman put the ring of the lantern between his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar, and, holding on to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out into the strongest race, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and himself were carried down the stream. As soon as Venn found his feet dragging over the pebbles of the shallower part below he secured his footing and waded towards the brink. There, where the water stood at about the height of his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag forth the man. ”

“ While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennel's pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing on the party had occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fennel's concern about the growing fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with the ascent of a human figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs from the direction of the distant town. This personage strode on through the rain without a pause, following the little-worn path which, further on in its course, skirted the shepherd's cottage. ”

“ People will say bad things if they find out that a lady secretly meets a man who has ill-used another woman."
"I have not injured her—he was mine before he was hers! He came back—because—because he liked me best!" she said wildly. "But I lose all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!"
"I can keep secrets," said Venn gently. "You need not fear. I am the only man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing more to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to him that you hated living here—that Egdon Heath was a jail to you." ”

“ Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia, went away.
Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended the long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia’s emissary. He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young inn-keeper and ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of Ithuriel’s spear.
“The meeting is always at eight o’clock, at this place,” said Venn, “and here we are—we three.” ”

“ O, if I could live in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do my own doings, I'd give the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman, that would I."
"Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance shall be yours," urged her companion.
"Chance—'tis no chance," she said proudly. "What can a poor man like you offer me, indeed?—I am going indoors. I have nothing more to say. Don't your horses want feeding, or your reddlebags want mending, or don't you want to find buyers for your goods, that you stay idling here like this?"
Venn spoke not another word. ”

“ Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy figure, sauntering idly up and down. “Who is it?” he said.
“Mr. Venn,” said Thomasin.
“You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. He has been very kind to you first and last.”
“I will now,” she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through the wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.
“It is Mr. Venn, I think?” she inquired.
Venn started as if he had not seen her—artful man that he was—and said, “Yes.” ”

“ I hadn't gone home from work when he came up to the gate."
"I must see Venn--I wish I had known it before," said Clym anxiously. "I wonder why he has not come to tell me?"
"He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not be likely to know you wanted him."
"Christian," said Clym, "you must go and find Venn. I am otherwise engaged, or I would go myself. Find him at once, and tell him I want to speak to him."
"I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day," said Christian, looking dubiously round at the declining light; "but as to night-time, never is such a bad hand as I, Mister Yeobright." ”

“ Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and the business to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many ways congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions, had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon her who attracted him thither. To be in Thomasin’s heath, and near her, yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure left to him. ”

“ Yes, I am given up body and soul to the making of money. Money is all my dream."
"O Diggory, how wicked!" said Thomasin reproachfully, and looking at him in exact balance between taking his words seriously and judging them as said to tease her.
"Yes, 'tis rather a rum course," said Venn, in the bland tone of one comfortably resigned to sins he could no longer overcome.
"You, who used to be so nice!"
"Well, that's an argument I rather like, because what a man has once been he may be again." Thomasin blushed. "Except that it is rather harder now," Venn continued. ”

“ He has been to East Egdon to buy a horse."
"Did he wear a light wideawake?"
"Yes."
"Then I saw him at Throope Corner, leading one home," said Venn drily. "A beauty, with a white face and a mane as black as night. He will soon be here, no doubt." Rising and looking for a moment at the pure, sweet face of Thomasin, over which a shadow of sadness had passed since the time when he had last seen her, he ventured to add, "Mr. Wildeve seems to be often away at this time."
"O yes," cried Thomasin in what was intended to be a tone of gaiety. "Husbands will play the truant, you know. ”

“ The Figure against the Sky When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to its accustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached the barrow from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay. Had the reddleman been watching he might have recognized her as the woman who had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the approach of strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top, where the red coals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes in the corpse of day. ”

“ It had been posted three days before Marian left the Grange.
Gilbert now proceeded to inform Mr. Medler of his client's mysterious disappearance, and all the useless efforts that had been made to solve the mystery. The lawyer listened with an appearance of profound interest and astonishment, but made no remark till the story was quite finished.
"You are right, Mr. Fenton," he said at last. "It is a bad business, a very bad business. May I ask you what is the common opinion among people in that part of the world—in the immediate neighbourhood of the event, as to this poor lady's fate?" ”