The House 'Round the Corner. Louis Tracy

Elmdale faced south, and its earth was fertile.

      Armathwaite sat in the dog-cart while James Walker ran up the strip of flower-laden garden, and peered in through a low doorway. In later days, the singular fact was borne in on Armathwaite that had his companion adopted any other method of making known his business—had he, for instance, shouted to Mrs. Jackson or her daughter, Betty, and asked for the keys of the Grange—the whole course of his subsequent life would unquestionably have been altered. A loose stone under the foot of an emperor's horse may change the map of the world. In this instance, a remarkable, and, in some respects, unique series of events arose solely from the fact that Walker, junior, was of active habit, and alighted from the vehicle in preference to announcing his wishes for others to hear; because Betty Jackson, at that moment, was plucking gooseberries in the back garden, and knew nothing of what was going on until a country maid's belated wit failed completely to stem the tide of circumstance.

      Armathwaite caught scraps of a brief but seemingly heated argument going on inside the cottage. It was couched in the Yorkshire dialect, which he understood, to some extent, but could not speak. Then Walker, a gallant figure in straw hat, gray coat, red waistcoat with gilded buttons, breeches and gaiters and brown boots, strutted into sight. He was red-faced and laughing, and a bundle of keys jingled in one hand.

      "Mrs. Jackson's as bad as any of 'em," he cried, springing to his seat and taking the reins from a clip on the dash-board. "Made such a to-do about anyone looking over the house. Asked if you'd heard of the ghost, too. And, blow me, if she didn't pretend she'd mislaid the keys! We wouldn't have got 'em for a deuce of a time if I hadn't twigged 'em hanging on a nail, and grabbed 'em. Then she gave me my name for nothing, I can assure you."

      "Yet you recommended her for the post of housekeeper," said Armathwaite, smiling.

      "Yes, sir. She's a rare good cook, and tidy, too. Can't make out what's come over her. She was fair scared to death."

      Walker's statement as to Mrs. Jackson's behavior was by no means highly colored. Before he reached the dog-cart, the old woman had hurried into the back garden.

      "Betty!" she shrilled. "Betty, where are you?"

      A head in a poke-bonnet rose above a clump of tall gooseberry bushes, and a voice answered:

      "Yes, mother, what is it?"

      "Run, girl, run! What's to be done? Mr. Walker has brought a man to look at the house."

      "What house?"

      "The Grange, to be sure."

      "Oh, mother!"

      Betty ran quickly enough now. She was a strongly-built, apple-cheeked lass; but there was a glint of fear in her eyes, and the faces of both mother and daughter had gone gray under the tan of moor air and much work in the open.

      "Whatever can we do?" cried Mrs. Jackson, with the hopeless distress of a woman overwhelmed by some unforeseen and tragic occurrence. "That impudent young Walker came and snatched at the keys before I could stop him. And they've gone there, the pair of 'em! There they are now—halfway up the hill."

      All this, of course, was couched in "broad Yorkshire," which, however, need not enter into the record. The two gazed at the men in the dog-cart, who were partly visible above a yew hedge, since the by-road in which the Grange was situated turned up the hill by the gable of Mrs. Jackson's cottage.

      "Oh, mother!" said the girl, in awe-stricken accents, "why didn't you hide 'em?"

      "How was I to hide 'em? I was knocked all of a heap. Who'd have thought of anyone coming here to-day, of all days in the year?"

      "Who's that with him?" Betty almost sobbed.

      "The man who's going over the house, of course."

      "Oh, dear! If only I'd known! I'd have taken the keys and gone with them."

      "What good would that have done?"

      "I might have humbugged them into waiting a minute or two. I'd have thought of some excuse. But don't worry too much, mother. Maybe they'll give the least little look round, and come away again."

      "And maybe they won't," cried Mrs. Jackson angrily, for she was recovering from her fright, and her daughter's implied reproach was irritating. "I did my best, and it can't be helped now, no matter what happens. Run after them, Betty, and offer to help. You may manage something, even now."

      The girl needed no second bidding. She was through the cottage and out in the road in a jiffy. But she had lost a minute or more already, and the sturdy galloway was climbing a steep hill quickly. When she reached a garden gate to which the reins were tied, the front door of the Grange stood open, and the visitors were inside.

      "Oh, dear!" she breathed, in a heart-broken way. "Oh, dear! If only mother had called me sooner! Now, it's too late! And I promised that no one should know. Well, I must do my best. Just a bit of luck, and I may pull things straight yet!"

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

SHOWING HOW EVEN A HOUSE MAY HAVE A WAY OF ITS OWN

       Table of Contents

      While Walker was fiddling with the lock, not being quite sure as to the right key, Armathwaite had eyed the southern landscape. Elmdale was six hundred feet above sea level, and the Grange stood fully a hundred feet higher than the village, so a far-flung panorama of tillage, pasture, and woodland provided a delightful picture on that glorious June day. To the north, he knew, stretched miles of wild moor, and the heather began where the spacious garden ended. A glance at the map in the Walkers' office had shown that this bleak waste was crossed by mere tracks, marked in the dotted lines which motorists abhor. Indeed, the very road leading to the house was not macadamized beyond the gate; two years of disuse had converted even the stone-covered portion into a sort of meadow, because grass, the sulkiest of vegetables in a well-tended lawn, will grow luxuriantly on a granite wall if left alone.

      Truly, Elmdale seemed to be at the end of the world—the world of Yorkshire, at any rate—and Robert Armathwaite found its aspect pleasing. A lock clicked; he turned, and entered a domain he was now fully resolved to make his own.

      "Well, I'm blest!" said Walker, speaking in a surprised way; "anyone 'ud think the place hadn't been empty an hour, let alone two years, not countin' Mrs. Wilkins's couple of nights. I wonder who left these clothes, and hats, and things!"

      He had good reason for a certain stare of bewilderment.

      The door, which was stoutly built, with a pane of sheet glass in the upper half, opened straight into a spacious, oak-paneled hall. Left and right were a dining-room and a drawing-room, each containing two windows. Behind the dining-room a wide staircase gave access to the upper floors, and a flood of rich and variously-tinted light from a long arched window glowed on the dark panels below, and glistened on the polished mahogany case of a grandfather's clock which faced the foot of the stairs. The wall opposite the entrance was pierced by a half-open door, through which could be seen laden bookshelves reaching up eight feet or more. Another door, beyond the stairway, showed the only possible means of approach to the kitchen and domestic offices.

      There were no pictures in the hall, but some antique plates and dishes of blue china were ranged on a shelf above the wainscot, and a narrow table and four straight-backed chairs, all of oak, were in tasteful keeping with the surroundings. On each side of the dining-room door were double rows of hooks, and on these hung the garments which had caught the agent's eye.

      A bowler hat, a frayed panama, a cap, a couple of overcoats, even a lady's hat and mackintosh, lent an air of occupancy to the house, which was not diminished by the presence of several sticks and umbrellas in a couple of Chinese porcelain stands. Walker took down the panama. It was dust-laden, and the inner