Thurston of Orchard Valley

y returned to take her pleasure in what she called the Old Country. It is a far cry from the snowy heights of the Pacific slope to the pleas

ut Mrs. Savine was a restless lady, and had grown tired of London within six weeks from the day she left Vancouver. She was an American, and took pains to impress the fact upon anybody who mistook

ong-suffering husband, as she stood in the vestibule of a fashionable hotel. "Say, we'll pull out to-day and catch

arted at a smart rap on his shoulder, and blinked at the angular lady

at's evidently not th

ways in so small a country, and finally, with a clerk's assistance, selected a train which would deposit her at Oxenholme, from which place the official suggested that she might find means of transport into the district in which, to the best of his belief, Coleridge and Wordsw

explained that the vegetables were never eaten in England at that m

produced in the immediate vicinity, and Mr

me. I'll sit right here unti

em in London, and hardly ate them at home," said Thomas Sa

n. I want those potatoes, and I'm

the hotel manager appeared to announce, with regrets, that it was unfortunately impossib

decided. "Tom, you go out and buy one of those twenty five cent guide-books which tell you all ab

lofty, and the roads were indifferent in the region traversed. To this the lady answered with some truth that the highest peak in Britai

en his niece went out with him to make arrangements for the trip. Helen smiled pleasantly

in some high-perched hostelry or trout-fisher's haunt. Helen realized that never before had she fully appreciated the beauty of England. Quite apart from its wonders o

urry from a bare hill shoulder and under the gray crags of Crosbie Fell. The hollows beneath them were lost in a woolly vapor, low-flying scud raked the bare ridges above, and even as they passed a black rift in the hillside the first heavy drops of rain fell

Savine. "Make those ponies rustle, and we'

if he was in an unusually good humor old Musker, the keeper, might take them in at Crosbie Ghyll. Thus it happened that just as the rain began in earnest, such a cavalcade as had probably never before passed its gloomy portals rode up to the gate of the dilapidated edifice. Some of the iron-bound barriers still lay moldering in

the rain, and the bare sweep of moss and moor, which had once stretched unbroken to the feet of the great ranges above the Solway shore. Inside the quadrangle, for the place had during the past century served as farm instead of hall, barn, cart-she

of the courtyard until it was opened by a bent-sh

nd it would be a favor if you could take us in to-night out of the

in twelve miles, where you'll get whatever you have been used to," he said. "I on

r mind, Matilda; he'll find out that you're an American in due time. We have

vine answered, "British Columbia," called "Margery!" A little weazened woman,

e master," said the man, and there was a whispering un

indow of a great stone-flagged room, darkly wainscoted, which apparently once had been the hall, and was now kitchen. There were a spotless cloth and neat cutlery on the table by the window; trout and bacon, hacked

s covered up, and it will be ill finding you sleeping quarters even. Nobody lives here beside ourselves, except when Mr. Forsyth comes do

e a mining tunnel on the fell. Was that one of the former owners? Being C

ve to hear about wicked barons and witches a

his knee. "If we may smoke in the great hearth there, just help yourself," said he. "My wif

loyal with feudal fealty to superiors he knew, quick to resent a stranger's assumption of authority. Thomas Savine, brown-faced, vigorous, a pleasant Colonial gentleman, smiled upon him good-n

ish Columbia?" Musker hazarded wi

len, bending forward a little. The old woman, reaching

"That was him when he was young. My

yet unlike, that of the gaunt and hungry man whom she had first seen sitting upon the fall

would tell us how and where you fou

f color in her face. "I-I hired him to do some work for me, and it was hard work-much harder than I fancied-

ere all hard and ill to beat, the Thurstons of Crosbie

rocured him a contract he carried out daringly, and when I last saw him he was no

wife's eyes were grateful as she fixed them on the speaker. "Ay! What Mr. Geoffrey sets his heart on

we don't wish to be unduly inquisitive, but-if you m

ting silent for a minute or two. Savine, rising under the arch of the great hearth, flung his cigar into the fire, a

anadian. "We were tired out before the rain ca

lative of the old place's owner, and, therefore, a kinswoman of Geoffrey Thurston.

ed blaze of the fire. Helen saw that the stranger was ruddy and blonde-frank by nature and impulsive, she imagined. The stranger no

aid. "Still, I may return to-morrow before you set out. Mrs. Forsyth will be pleased if she hears you have made these Ca

ncient building was filled with strange rumblings and the wailing of the blast when the old man concluded: "Mr. Geoffrey was too proud to turn a swindler, a

t. No woman born could twist Geoffrey Thurston from his path, and when she gave him bad counsel he turned his bac

ady?" asked Helen, with a

spite, and has rued it many times if the tales are true. She was down

indifference, asked no further questions. Mrs. Savine, however, made many inquiries, and Musker, w

tion of costly guns. There were also trout-rods hung upon the wall, and a few good sporting etchings, at all of which Musker glanced somewhat contemptuously. "These are Mr. For

pined away and died just above where we stand now in this very tower. That was another Geoffrey's sword; they hanged him high outside Lancaster jail. He was for Prince Charlie, and cut down single-handed two of King George's dragoons carrying a warrant for a friend's arrest when the Prince's cause was lost. His wife, she poisoned herself. Those are the spurs Ma

of those old things. That rusty iron lamp can't be much use to anybody, but it's quaint,

e laughed, and even Helen, who had appeared

hangs the dead men rise and come for it when midnight strikes. It is falling to pieces, but once when the

nely mosses seemed to swell it with their moaning. Helen shivered as she listened, for those clamorous voices of wind and rain carried her back in fancy to the old unhappy days of bloodshed and foray. The associations of the p

e who bred in us the grit to chase the whales in the Arctic, build our railroads through the snow-barred passes, an

in the house," the old caretaker assured the girl. "Musker has been telling you about the old Thurstons. He's main proud of them, but you needn't fear them-it's long since the last one wa

nstincts of his forbears strong within him. She considered that strength, courage, and resolution well became a man, but that gentleness and chivalrous respect for women were desirable attributes, too. The Thurstons, however, had taken to bloodshed as a pastime, and broken most of their wives' hearts until it seemed that they had brought

ently buried her ears in the pillow to shut out the clamor of the storm. After a sound n

h they'd come often. Main interested in my stories they were all of them, and it's double what any of the shooting f