Lone Hallowes

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1926, Page 6 (Supplement)

Lone Hallowes

BY

C. O. MARSKE

A CRY AND A DISCOVERY. The snow that had fallen for seven iivurs enwrapped Lone Ha Bowes from roof tree to foundation in its pure pall, and tlie wind was stilled. Then came the chanting. The dull quiet broke against the sound, and made it clearer. The pulsing of that lowly singing was more eeriely plain by contrast. {Squires of Hallowes Magna, the village down in the narrow dale below the olden monkish house of Lone Hallowes, Gregory Linthorpe turned to the younger of bis two guests and wearily smiled. "Perhaps you will change your mind now, Featonby,” he quietly said. "You hear the chanting for yourself. Explain it away, and Fin willing to withdraw all I’ve said about you and your confounded obstinacy. Fail, and, hang it all, I think you owe me an apology, don't you ?*’ Brian ’Featonby raised his head and his fingers twitched. He was pale. “You—you—certainly appear to have your case fairly well established! I admit I've never heard anything quite like it before. Even so, l*m neither withdrawing nor apologising until I've got to the bottom of it all. Ghostly monks at worship, eh? Not a bit of it! I'm sure that something of the nature of a practical joke lies at the ” The third man. Doctor Hinwell. broke in impatiently: "Damn it all, Brian, I reckon I’m quite a-s hard headed as you —as most; I'm not going to hold a brief for spectres nor supernatural voices, but I do think your'e slipping past the limits of the case in theorising in that fashion! How in the name of all that's sensible can you put it down to practical joking? Records, tradition, everything, tend to the end whi?h is. For four centuries that chanting has been heard by a score of generation». You can’t get away from that ev deuce; you must accept it!” “And, accepting it. what then?” Brian Featonby had regained his cynical composure. “You’ll l>e arced to the eventual admission of th? fact of Lone Hallowes being haunted by—by the monks who once inhabited it, when a Priory. ' Featonby appeared not to hear. He tinned to Squire Linthorpe. “And your opinion, sir?” Linthorpe irritably clawed at a cigar and pierced it. He lit it badly and got up from bis chair. His face looked drawn and was webbed by line. The chanting, soft and gentle as the lowing of far-away cattle coming across meadows when the winds are slow, pulsed still about his house, Lone Hallowes. “There are limits, as you have said, Doctor Hinwell, to thk strange case. You are my guests. Still I must speak iny mind; you asked for it, at least.

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Either you two youngsters forego your most excellent pragmatisms, also you let an old fool who chances to be just old enough to maintain diametrically opposite views, keep on holding them without opposition. Even the paradise of a fool, you know, ought to be sacrosanct.’’ Briar Featonby flushed and looked away. The tones that Linthorpe employed were chill, and Linthorpe’s niece Brenda had been at infinite pains to warn her lover against her uncle when his old voice grew cold. For all Linthorpe’s courtesy he was a difficult man with whom to remain on perfectly friendly terms. Featonby thought of Brenda and grew wary of his host. “I’m sorry, sir,” he cautiously began. "I’m sure I didn’t think you were so tenacious in the stand you take on this matter.” “Why should I not be?” Linthorpe was courteous yet, but remote, icily remote. “You must remember, Featonby, that I've lived here seventy years. The spirit of' Lone Hallowes, with all its powers for good or ill, is part of mine. I accept the evidence of my senses. I refuse to tinker or tamper with what lies outside. That sound of chanting has been heard, by someone, every Christmas since I can remember. Would you suggest I close my ears against it?” "Er, no, not at all!” Featonby saw he had gone too far. Old Gregory Linthorpe had taken umbrage. “I only suggest that, perhaps ” Linthorpe smiled and flung away his i newly lit cigar. • “I think it’s about time we sought out Brenda and the others, what?” Silently the three men left the study. Featonby subdued; Doctor Hinwell uncomfortable; old Gregory Linthorpe given over to dull rage against this “young cub of a Featonby, who wanted Brenda and hadn't the damn horse-sense to keep ‘an fait’ with her people. Ugh!” They left the booky room. Still the chanting called about Lone Hallowes, a dull and sobbing sound out in that night which was the Eve of Christinas. * * * # About eleven o’clock that self-same Christmas Eve a tremendous thing came to Lone Hallowes. Something moved about its corridors; something made sound in all its rooms. At first Brian Featonby. preparing for bed, heard, or thought he heard, a thinly harping music rising from below his ■ rooms. Wild and incredibly sad were i these strains. The twinge of strings to I lonely singing and the plunge of deep I notes into the quiet of the darkness. ! Each was terrible in its ghastly way. Featonby felt his hair becoming harsh; his scalp grew damp and his fingers clammy. ‘‘The—the place seems alive,” he growled to himself as he listened. “I I wonder now if there can be anything