HOUNDS PASTURE

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3308, 30 March 1926, Page 4

HOUNDS PASTURE

l/inceni- Cornier:

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

Thorroldan Priory, a grim old house at th e edge of the North Yorkshire moors is the centre of a grim and baffling mystery. A hound howls; a stranger arrives. This man, Mngerison, takes up his quarters in the place. Ho has some hold over Thorrold the master of the Priory. He presumes on this to tell Dorotny Thorrold, the old man’s grand daughter, that ho intends to make her his wife. Magerison proves, and forces Thorrold to admit, that John Barnaby who has worked as a servant in the Priory is in reality the next heir, and. Dorothy’s brother. / Looking for the hound Barnaby Is shot in the shoulder, by someone hiding in Hound’s Pacture, a neid in which a treasure, hidden by monks, is said to be buried. The wound turns out to have heen caused by a diamond, not a bullet! A duck shot in Hound’s Pasture has its crop filled with gems worth two thousand pounds. While examining them, Margerison is attacked —by a ghostly monk, says Dorotny, who saw the thing “materialise” behind him. He la knocked unconscious and the jewels are stolen. Dorothy now betrays her love for him. Together they resolve to solve the mystery. No on e is found in the locked room in which the attack was but, while searching, a spectral figure of a monk is scon. Magerison fires at it but it is not harmed! Dorothy, accidentally grips a carveu boss of oak and she and Magerison fall together through a secret aperture in the wall. Old Thorrold bursts open the study door and Igod, his confidential servant, and he, quarrel. Igod accuses his master of being—a murderer! Meanwhile Margerison and Dorothy Thorrold explore the place into which they fell on the opening of the secret panel. They find themselves in a deserted lead mine gallery beneath the Priory, igod and Thorrold, baffled by the pair’s disappearance, decide to join forces While they are talking Richard Leathley, Thorrold’s enemy, suddenly appears—seemingly from nowhere! Old Igod, the Master of Thorroldan and Leathley confer; Leathley traps himself—informing the two autocrats of the Priory that he is at their mercy. Meanwhile Magerison and Dorothy are busily exploring under the Priory, in the old lead mines. / Ihey find in a subterranean chamber the body—long dead—oi Thorrold, (the Master of Thorroldan, CHAPTER XX. IMPASSE. Confronted by the wreckage of all his long laid plans and confounded so greatly as now to be in the position of one suing for temporary peace instead of persisting in perpetual warfare, Leathley rockedi himself to and fro and moaned. "You murdered him Leathley!” The remorseless accusation of old Thorrold again was made. “And now you’re going to tell us why!” ‘An if so be ye doesnt’ opperi ithee gob i’ truth an nothin’ but truth”, Igod snarled th e threat, “Aa’ll limb thee, Leathley—Aa’ll limb thee wl' these ’ands o’ mine ,and t’ Lord o’ all just dealings ’ll help me t’ find And strength enow t’ do it!” Leathley looked up at last. , , "it—it was an accident, Thorrold”, he stated, unsteadily. "I swear it was an accident. . . his death!” ’ “Rather late in the day, don’t you think, (to plead that cause, Leathley? Thorrold’s grin was cruel. "Just thirty years too late I should imagine”.

The sneer goaded Leathley a little. For an instant he became his oldtime Implacable self; “Well, as his remains can never be found, my dear Thorrold,” he, in turn, grinned. “I really cannot see how such a point has any debatable value. . . He’s under some five hundred tons of tjtone and has been for a generation!” All of which would have proved a conversation as vastly intriguing as it would have been grimly amusing to the redoubtable Magerlson who, at that moment, away under the earth of Hound’s Pasture, was confronted by jtho mummified body of the long dead figure of mystery the tnree men in the study of Thorroldan Priory were talking about so guardedly. ... Thorrold thought about that statement for upwards of two minutes before he ventured a reply taking the* form of a leading question: “Under five hundred tons of stone, you say? Um-m-m —and, the treasure of Hound's Pasture lies there. . buried with him —eh?” "Probably!” What a loss you are to the race that came out of Judah! No Jew since ‘St'ill guarding yourself Leathley?, the rodoubltablc Shyloclt has shown one half the avarice and tenacity for gain that you have done, this thirty years gone by!”

There was no animosity now on Thorrold's pa lit nor was there any emotion betrayed by his level and dispassionate tones. He seemed to bo lost in tlie rarer atmosphere of abstractions: mundanity had ceased, for him, to he a factor sufficiently powerful to intrude. He was cogitating on the amazing l complexity or a nature that, was so soured and warped and weaned from all humanity ny the acquisitive urge to possess a tiny hoard of glittering stones —and, or course their equivalent wealth —that it could be easily inclined toward death; invulnerable hofor c scorn but reticent and truculent at puce berora

the slightest touch on that one ana all-absorbing passion /that influenced it. Leathley had not spent a sleepless night in thirty years, for all that something very akin to murder had lain on his soul. . . now, it was ah changed and it was Leathley who ,vould know the restless Insomnia of inxiety in the future. For thos e who nad been onco afraid oi him were now ,to a certain extent, his masters and were beginning to (think of the treasure of Hound's Pasture more chan, previously, they had thought on the preservation of their own freedom (and their lives) when it was lhajt his very name was a menace to them. . . . "Probably”, once more he uttered the non-committal word. "Well”, Thorrold sighed, "since, a» w'o have determined a state of impasse has been reached—since neither .god nor I fear you in the slightes/t since you stand, Leathley sclf-con-.essed as the instrument, in part or .n whole, of that man’s death. . , . ■vc’ll And a penance, I think, for you understand?” "I—l’m damned if I do!” “You (think I talk in riddles—eh?” “Talk —you can talk as you domn' vvell like Thorrold, but you can’t act —no more than —than I can! You’re . jght; we are in a state of impasse. . you'll stick to your muttons and I’ll kick to mine, thank you!” “Meaning?” e “That you ought to bo thanking all the gods of chance that be that you’ve got across these thirty years .vtthout the hangman’s noose getting about your neck —justly or unjustly, i’horrold,” he snarled and grinned again, coarsely, “or a charge of snot from the back of the wall, from my gun, knocking the daylight through vou. . . without bothering about tut ;.reaaur e of Hound’s Pasture. That’s aline, by all rights—and mine it snail be: You keep off the grass, Thorrold you’ve toldj me once to-night you've no need of money. . . I have!" “Oh, I don’t want the treasure”.

.Leathiey’s sullen face lighted up. ”Y’ you mean it?” Thorrold nodded —but, old Igod smiled sardonically to a shadow. “You’ll let me have—have a clear field then?”

“So far as Hound's Pasture itseir is concerned —yes! What lies beneath it is ,0$ course, quite another matter”.

Leathiey’s smirk of satisfaction aded.

“Well, for over a quarter of a century you’ve made a pretty fait income by wild-fowling in the Pasture, carry on; I’v© no objections. But you see, the lad who stopped the missile you fired a|t me —John Barnabj who lies upstairs now with bis shoul-. der smashed to a pulp by yoUr murderous designs —gets the treasure from beneath Hound's Pasture— aye, if I have to spend my all to have U dug over inch by inch and down aa deep as a coal-mine.”

Leathley staggered and looked, incredulous, from Thorrold’s calm eyes (io the mocking and wary orbs of old Igod. “Barnaby—John Barnaby. . .a a damned cowman. . . genei«l servant to —to the whole of the Priory . . . he’s to have the treasure — V’ “ As he is entitled to it: yes!”

“Entijtled to it?” "Certainly, my luckless Mr. Leathley—entitled to it. Ah—l forgot to tell you, you see, that John Barnaby has thrown up his recent —Cr —pursuit of cow-keeping for another and a much more lucrative one. . ."

Leathley gasped and looked wild. ”... I —er —forgot to toll you that my recently acknowledge grandson—John Barnaby Thorrold —being the heir to this esltate, is entitled to all ”

But, Leathley, with a roar like a wild beast, sprang forward at tnat and Thorrold’s mocking words gurgled away as a whijte light flashed before hi* eyes and a stunning blow crashed at his temple. (To Be Continued.)