NOVELETTE.

Lake County Press, Issue 2461, 16 January 1913, Page 7

NOVELETTE.

ROOI- DORNY

By Cecil Orde

"Wo are luck to get tins place, ana so cheaply. too, u.eK>, my wiie, as sne stood in tne inuuiuned wmduw in Horary or tue liuuae we niiu that aay icdten posbcsoiun of. i went across ana s.ooa by ner side. She certainly was ngm. i lie lowei ot Dorny stuud U-jfU un a snouicler 01 a majeaiic L-umUuiiand I ell, borne rive hundred leet aouve a winding, tmuulent river at the otner s.de ol wiiicn was a grouse moor and more muuntains.

Victoria iiad picked up some held glasses, ai.d was gazuig down me brown, foaming nver tnrougu tuem. '"What a giand pool Joun amongst the rocks in tne gorge tneie," sne sa u at last. "I am ture it must be a grand place lor salmon.''' "Tnat is Puol Dorny," I answered rather reluctantly. "'Lord Dorny st-p----ulates that, ais tenants do not fish thai pool. Why 1 don't know, and the agent fellow either couldn't or wouldn't say." "I feely like Eve when she wanted the apple in the Garden of Lden," laughed Victoria. "I immediate!} want to go and dangle my best fi\ in that pool." "I'm sure you do—l knew ' you would," I said. "Never mind, old lady, we ought to get a twenty-pound er or two without trying Pool Dorny. It's a horrid-looking place when you are near it. Black and sullen and a sort of churning eddy—one of the dale farmers told me it is believed to be bottomless, too. The rest of the river is far safer. I wish a fresh would come. Till it does there is nothing for it but night fishing in this clear mountain river."

"We'll start to-morrow night,-' Victoria, casting a last, longing look at Pool Dornv ns James, our one odd man (now promoted to my last dr?sssuit and the rank of butler), announced that dinner awaited us.

Three weeks had gone by, and found us much in love with the Towci of Dorny and the rest of our surroundings as ever. Its only drawback was its remoteless (18 miles away to the nearest town) from civilization, which had caused sundry of our servants to give notice. Our only near n< ighbours, Lady Dorny and her w ids. wed daughter, Mrs. Dorny, who lived together at the tiny dower-house, two miles away down&the dale—had called upon us, and we hked them, though they both gave an impression of people who lived under the shadow of a great grief which time had not as yet to any extent soothed. Our landlord, the dowager's step-son, v. as, we learned, abroad, and indeed now was hardly ever in England, partly "from want of means and parily from inclination.

Our only other visitor had been the dale doctor, a cheery medico and an excellent sportsman, who spei.r_hi\ won his way to our esteem.

, "Quite comfortable, eh?" he asked, - as" he sat in our liitle-used drawingroom, a personably sturdy figure in his tweed riding dress. "Like the place, Sir Richard?" "Yes," 1 recurnad. "Both Lady Quayie and myself like the placo tremendously. It realises our ideal, you know."

; s "The servants axe the only bo.re^". said Victoria. "We are thinking of importing Chinese. Ours all find it 50 deadly dull and quiet or something, and give notice." Dr. Nicholson's keen blue eyes cast a quick glance at her. "Yes?" he said, sympathetically. "And you like the fishing, Lady Quayie?" "The river is too low just now, laid Victoria. "We've been so busy settling in, we've 'done nothing as yet to speak of. By the way, Dr. Nicholson, why does Lord Dorny object to Pool Dorny being fished? I've seen a decent fish or two there." The doctor stroked his well-kept yeiiow moustache. "You are sure to hear of it if 1 don't tell you," he returned, slowly. "There is a tragedy connected with Pool Dorny, Lady Quayie. Lord Dorny, as you know, went out to tne wui in *South Ainca, leaving behind lun his young step-brother, as agent in charge of the estate. When he returned two years later, Mr. Dorny had married the girl to whom Lord Dorny had been betrothed when he saded. This was a great blow to him, and it was followed by the accidental death of Mr. Dorny, who was drowned while salmon fishing in Pool Dorny. Lord Dorny has lived abroad almost ever since, and I don't blame him. 1 don't wonder he doesn't wish 'Pool Dorny fished. That was four years ago now. The place is too lonely for tenants. They ail go very quickly— I hop« you and Sir Richard will stay." "iou needn't be afraid of that," 1 said, with an echo from Victoria. Victoriii and 1 had determined on an early supper that night instead of dinner, after which we intended to fish for sea-trout. James had been told he might come too, and, bearing rods and landing nets, he had slowly preceded us down the rocky path to the river.

"Come mto the library and get those new casts," I said to Victoria as she struggled into a slip-on coat in the outer-hall. We made our way into the library, but on its threshhoid simultaneously we stopped. Standing in the deep recess of the muihoned window, gazing into the gathering northern twilign stood a young man, tall and slender, in the rough tweoj knickerbocker suit which all dalesmen, gentle and simple alike, seemed to wear. As we siood gazing there, spellbound, he turned, and we both saw his face, pale, handsome/with a slight, fair moustache, over all a deep, abiding sadness. .Then suddenly, as we stared, he was not; the window was empty, and we were alone in the room. 1 looked at victoria, who was slightly pale and excited! but otherwise calm. "Well, I'm jiggered!" I said helplessly, a: last "So am I," said Victoria. Get tne flies, Dicky." . . I got the flies off my writing table. and was quite ghid when we overtook James. , , It was a glorious summer s nignthere bv the river—here and there amongst." '-he bracken glow-worms twinkled with their faint radiance; present!v over a great foil top a glorious rose r*nd we reeled in. "Time we were starting homewards. I think." I said to Victoria. "Us no gool going on now the moon is rising." *'An right, ' .be returned, and we

silently tramped off towards our e«ric on the fell-side.

L'p and up wound the path, growing .steeper as we reached the rugged crags which bordered Fool Dorny and the dehie in winch the nver thundered, us eddy black and sullen in the heapy shadows where the iluud of silver moonl.ght could not reach. Suddenly Victoria laid ner hand on my arm. '•'Look!" she whispered.

I looked as she pointed—on a point I'ool lyuiijy, cieany kiihuuotted in th Tool Dorny, clearly silliouette din the white mooni-giii, sat a tweed-clad hgure, holding a long salmon-rod, a creci stung across his shoulders. ••A poacher!"! breathed, then the voice of jauics struck in. the bloke from the library/' he =aid. softly.

i swung round. ■'(Ju. so you v seen him too, have you.'''' i said. l,oi ukm y«r. Vcs sir," returneu me man quietly. "I've seen h-m a-star-iu' out of aiat there i.uiaiy wiuuci eveiy n-gnt wuen 1 ve gone in to Ugni -.ne lamp wuen you aay my lady nave oeen a-sittin' at deseit. Melauciioij K.iid of spectre 1 calls : im, too. lie don't never do nothink either but stare. It's 'im what's scared them siii\ gUla up «.0 uie Ouoe. 1 ue> ve l;uiu tales aoout tne ouicr tenants se«iii' tn.nga. Look, es Ouked it now. i'acti. o nonsense, 1 calls it.

lue pmnacie of rock was as empty as ean.e'r in tne evening tue Huraiv Window nad suddenly become. •'Dicky," said Victoria, the next day as 1 sat smoking and tying casts alter lunch, "we ready must go and return Lady Dorny's tail. Come with me. won't you, old boy?" "All right," I gioaned, and halfpast three saw-us lollowing Lady Dorny's neat parlourma.d across a hall filled with strange trophies of foreign lands, brought home by our wandering landlord. It was a bnglit, cheery room into which we were ushered —Lady Dorny was sitting m a deep window-seat, talking to a tall, dark man, on whose lace rested a settled gloom—-Dr. iNicuoiKOU at the otlier s.de of the room was chatting to Mrs. Dorny, the woman whose loss was said to have emijntered Lord Dorny. Halw-way across the room I paused, startled out of what manners 1 possessed. On a cabinet, in a great silver frame, stood a large photograph of a young man. It was a speaking, unmistakeable likeness of our'mysterious visitor in the library at the Tower of Dorny. With an effort I pulled myself together >n.l greeted Lady Dorny. who I suddenly realised was introducing- her companion to my wife. "This is my step-son, Dorny, who who has suddenly fallen from the clouds," she said. He is staying with us for the next few days." I don't know how the next half hour passed. I made mechanical conversation, and it was a relief when Victoria rose to-go. E>r. Nicholson came with us.

"Come back for tea, supper, and fishing,' s said Victoria to him, an invtation eagerly accepted... "Look here, doctor," I said, as we climbed our steep drive. "Who is that photograph of in Lady Dorny's drawng-room? The one in the big silver frame on the cabinet?" Nicholson looked at me with a "luestionable glance . 'That is a very excellent likeness ct young Dorny—the young fellow who was drowned in Pool Dorny," he answered at last slowly." We were workng our way back up the river for a late supper; so far we had caught nothing, and I was spinning rather hopelessly with sand eel. "Try down the race tail there,"said Nicholson; "there is often a good fish lying there getting up steam to tackle the rapids s- n d eddies of Pool Dorny. Heavens, man! You've hooked the sea serpent this time!"

My rod bent and the lino flew hot from the screaming reel. "It's a thirty-pounder," I gasped, "and he's going up stream into Pool Dorny." It had all happened in a second. The big fish had seized my spinner and was off, up through the defile right into the churning maels;rom of Lord Dorny before 1 realised what had happened. I scrambled and -tumbled as best I might over the boulders after him, and after me, clutching a gaff, came Nicholson; Victoria was left hopelessly behind with James down the river. For a second the taut line slackened.

"Look out! He's boring," said Nicholson.

The big fish was going to sulk at the bottom, if Pool Dorny had a bottom. Yard after yard of line went out sheer down into the thunderous dacknest of that eddy, and I began to thmk that the dalesmen were right, and Pool Dorny was indeed bottomless, when suddenly the pressure slackened.

"Reel in," said Nicholson, sharply, and obediently I wound in the strong line. The salmon had apparently K"iven up the ghost, and remained a dead weight. I wondered if my line —it was extra strong Norwegian tackle—would stand the enormous strain. I wound and wound and wound, and at last on the foamflecked surface something- indefinite showed ; Nicholson caught at it in the half light with his gaff. "Gad—you've hooked up a dead sheep from the bottom!" he sa:d, pulling it in towards him in a kind of backwater out of the current. I felt very sick —I knew that it was no dead sheep that he was laying upon the rocks after hi* had killed the still entangled salmon. Some instinct told me what it was the fish had raked up from the bottomless pit of Pool Dorney . At Nicholson's feet lay -a heapmostly bones—over which he bent. "It's Dorny," he said, shuddering. "I know by his jaw. He broke it and I had a lot of work to do on I years ago. His skull has been shattered in on one side. Look! Here are pellets of lead. He was shot and chucked into the river. Nothing comes out of Pool Dorny that oncel goes in. The whirlpool sees to that. He's been in some cranny at the bottom all these years.l'll go and fetch Lord Dorny if you'll wait here." I sat there in the dusk with my teeth chattering till in twenty minutes or so he was hack with Lord Dorny —he had fetched him bv a short cut over the fields. The tall, dark man stood looking down on the heap on the rock for some minutes in silence. "It was an accident," he said at last. last, in a low. steady voice. i j came back from South Africa, and he ! had stolen my affianced wife—l felt j that —" His voice broke and he went 1 on after a few seconds with an effort: I "I felt it horribly. Then one night I I had been shooting over dogs up on

the moar, and come back alone with my gun. lie was fishing alone up here in Pool Dorny, and I said things to him i should not have said. He struck at me and my gun went off—it aas pure accident. He fell over into the pool, and though 1 watched all night he never come up. His rod and creel were found, and the scratches of his boot nails on the rocks, and it was said he had been accidentally aowned whilst fishing iu Pool Dorny. I went abroad and stayed there. The place is hateful to me. But as I live it was pure accident." I lis voice and manner carried conviction. "1 believe you," said Nicholson. '•And 1," 1 echoed. "I am going abroad again to morrow," said Lord Dorny at last; and I do not think I shall ever come back —1 hope not. Dorny I shall sell. That is if vou do not put the matter in the hands of the police." "No," said Nicholson, and again I echoed him. ''Let the past bury its dead." He .il'ted his cap and mine. Dorny held out his hand, which in turn we clasped, then strode off and was lost in the gathering night. His brother's remains, with Nicholson's help were interred without undue comment in the little churchyard down the dale. Lord Dorny has been iway now for several years on a shooting expedition, and we still hear no news of his return. I am the present owner of Dorny, and I have lever, since that night when I hooked the big salmon, seen the strange visitant in the library or on the rocks. id the servants have stopped giving notice. Victoria, therfore, is content, s am I, with Dorny, but v hj Pool Dorny.