THE WITCH'S HEAD (Occult & Supernatural Thriller). Henry Rider Haggard

      Mr. de Talor gave a sigh of relief. "That's my view, too, Cardus. You are a shrewd man, and I am glad you jump with me. Damn Rastrick & Codley, say I!"

      "O yes, damn them by all means," answered the lawyer, with a smile, as he rose to show his client to the door.

      On the farther side of the passage was another door, with a glass top to it, which gave on to a room furnished after the ordinary fashion of a clerk's office. Opposite this door Mr. de Talor stopped to look at a man who was within, sitting at a table writing. The man was old, of large size, very powerfully built, and dressed with extreme neatness in hunting costume--boots, breeches, spurs and all. Over his large head grew tufts of coarse grey hair, which hung down in dishevelled locks about his face, giving him a wild appearance, that was added to by a curious distortion of the mouth. His left arm, too, hung almost helpless by his side.

      Mr. Cardus laughed as he followed his visitor's gaze. "A curious sort of clerk, eh?" he said. "Mad, dumb, and half-paralysed--not many lawyers could show such another."

      Mr. de Talor glanced at the object of their observation uneasily.

      "If he's so mad, how can he do clerk's work?" he asked.

      "O, he's only mad in a way; he copies beautifully."

      "He has quite lost his memory, I suppose?" said de Talor, with another uneasy glance.

      "Yes," answered Mr. Cardus, with a smile, "he has. Perhaps it is as well. He remembers nothing now but his delusions."

      Mr. de Talor looked relieved. "He has been with you many years now, hasn't he, Cardus?"

      "Yes, a great many."

      "Why did you bring him 'ere at all?"

      "Did I never tell you the story? Then if you care to step back into my office I will. It is not a long one. You remember when our friend"--he nodded towards the office--"kept the hounds, and they used to call him 'Hard-riding Atterleigh'?"

      "Yes, I remember, and ruined himself over them, like a fool."

      "And of course you remember Mary Atterleigh, his daughter, with whom we were all in love when we were young?"

      Mr. de Talor's broad cheek took a deeper shade of crimson as he nodded assent.

      "Then," went on Mr. Cardus, in a voice meant to be indifferent, but which now and again gave traces of emotion, "you will also remember that I was the fortunate man, and, with her father's consent, was engaged to be married to Mary Atterleigh so soon as I could show him that my income reached a certain sum." Here Mr. Cardus paused a moment, and then continued, "But I had to go to America about the great Norwich bank case, and it was a long job, and travelling was slow in those days. When I got back, Mary was--married to a man called Jones, a friend of yours, Mr. de Talor. He was staying at your house, Ceswick's Ness, when he met her. But perhaps you are better acquainted with that part of the tale than I am."

      Mr. de Talor was looking very uneasy again now.

      "No, I know nothing about it. Jones fell in love with her like the rest, and the next I heard of it was that they were to be married. It was rather rough on you, eh, Cardus? but, Lord, you shouldn't have been fool enough to trust her."

      Mr. Cardus smiled, a bitter smile. "Yes, it was a little rough, but that has nothing to do with my story. The marriage did not turn out well; a curious fatality pursued all who had any hand in it. Mary had two children; and then did the best thing she could do--died of shame and sorrow. Jones, who was rich, went fraudulently bankrupt, and ended by committing suicide. 'Hard-riding Atterleigh' flourished for a while. Then lost his money on horses and a ship-building speculation, and got a paralytic stroke that took away all his speech and most of his reason. I brought him here to save him from the madhouse."

      "That was kind of you, Cardus."

      "Oh no, he is worth his keep, and besides, he is poor Mary's father. He is under the fixed impression that I am the devil; but that does not matter."

      "You've got her children, too, eh?"

      "Yes, I have adopted them. The girl reminds me of her mother, though she will never have her mother's looks. The boy is like old Atterleigh. I do not care about the boy. But, thank God, they are neither of them like their father."

      "So you knew Jones?" said de Talor, sharply.

      "Yes, I met him after his marriage. Oddly enough, I was with him a few minutes before he destroyed himself. There, Mr. de Talor, I will not detain you any longer. I thought that you could perhaps tell me something of the details of Mary's marriage. The story has a fascination for me, its results upon my own life have been so far-reaching. I am sure that I am not at the bottom of it yet. Mary wrote to me when she was dying, and hinted at something that I cannot understand. There was somebody behind who arranged the matter, who assisted Jones' suit. Well, well, I shall find it all out in time, and whoever it is will no doubt pay the price of his wickedness, like the others. Providence has strange ways, Mr. de Talor, but in the end it is a terrible avenger. What! are you going? Queer talk for a lawyer's office, isn't it?"

      Here Mr. de Talor rose, looking pale, and, merely nodding to Mr. Cardus, left the room.

      The lawyer watched him till the door had closed, when suddenly his whole face changed. The white eyebrows drew close together, the delicate features worked, and in the soft eyes there shone a look of hate. He clenched his fists, and shook them towards the door.

      "You liar, you hound!" he said aloud. "God grant that I may live long enough to do to you as I have done to them! One a suicide, and one a paralytic madman; you--you shall be a beggar, if it takes me twenty years to make you so. Yes, that will hit you hardest. O Mary! Mary! dead and dishonoured through you, you scoundrel! O my darling, shall I ever find you again?"

      And this strange man dropped his head upon the desk before him, and groaned.

      CHAPTER III

       OLD DUM'S NESS

       Table of Content

      When Mr. Cardus came half an hour or so later to take his place at the dinner-table--for in those days they dined in the middle of the day at Dum's Ness--he was not in a good mood. The pool into which the records of an individual existence are ever gathering, which we call our past, will not often bear much stirring, even when its waters are not bitter. Certainly Mr. Cardus's would not. Yet that morning he had stirred it violently enough.

      In the long, oak-panelled room, used indifferently as a sitting and dining room, Mr. Cardus found "Hard-riding Atterleigh" and his grand-daughter, little Dorothy Jones. The old man was already seated at table, and Dorothy was busying herself cutting bread, looking as composed and grown-up as though she had been four-and-twenty instead of fourteen. She was a strange child, with her assured air and woman's ways and dress, her curious thoughtful face, and her large blue eyes that shone steadily as the light of a lamp. But just now the little face was more anxious than usual.

      "Reginald," she began, as soon as he was in the room (for by Mr. Cardus's wish she always called him by his Christian name), "I am sorry to tell you that there has been a sad disturbance."

      "What is it?" he asked, with a frown; "Jeremy again?" Mr. Cardus could be very stern where Jeremy was concerned.

      "Yes, I am afraid it is. The two boys----" but it was unnecessary for her to carry her explanations further, for at that moment the swing-door opened, and through it appeared the young gentlemen in question, driven in like sheep by the beady-eyed Grice. Ernest was leading, attempting the impossible feat of looking jaunty with a lump of raw beefsteak tied over one eye, and presenting a general appearance that suggested the idea of the colours of the rainbow in a state of decomposition.

      Behind him shuffled Jeremy, his matted locks still wet from being pumped on. But his wounds were either unsuited to the dreadful remedy of raw beefsteak, or he had adopted in preference an heroic one of his own, of which grease plentifully sprinkled with flour formed the basis.