The Red Bicycle

an's son, who disliked work as much as he liked play, which was natural in a lad of thirteen, grumbled openly at the uncongenial task of drivi

he refused to trot, and although Neddy whipped her, coaxed her, and threatened her, Nelly tstill behaved as though she were attending a funeral. Mrs. Mellin did not mind. Throned amidst the bundles of linen, she peered through th

a dreary mansion which stood in a disorderly garden. "Maranath

cursing," explained her son, who, being a

n off your back," said his mother, wiping her large crimson face with a

self," murmured Neddy

ot the washing of the new gent as has come to live there, I'll say the name often enough. I'll be bound. But not you, Neddy.

d the door closed, there was a sinister look about the whole place which made the washerwoman shiver. In its wilderness of shrubs and long grass, girdled by gigantic elms, all sopping and dripping, the mansion loomed portentously through the mists. It looked like a house with an e

good out of Maranatha. Arter suicides you may paint a 'ouse, you may furnish a 'ouse, and you may advertise 'ouses till

?" asked Ned

on. I do 'ope as Mrs. Craver ain't 'eard. This will be news

ord. He was a slender boy with a wonderfully delicate complexion, curly golden hair, and innocent blue eyes, looking, on the whole,

he associated with the worst boys in the parish, smoked on the sly, and behaved like the unscrupulous young rascal he truly was. Yet, when necessary, Neddy coul

oo good to live. All the same she was on her guard against his wiles, and rebuked him sharply when she noticed that he was listening to her soliloquy. By the ti

have met at all had not Mrs. Craver been a notable housewife, who looked at both sides of a penny before parting with it, and who made shillings do the work of pounds. She scraped and screwed and pinched, and buzzed about the house from dawn till darkness like a busy bee, keeping her eye on everything and on everyone. According

her with more information than most people. Therefore, Mrs. Craver sent the general servant, who was her solitary factotum, into the wood-shed

epended on, with her silly tongue and blind eye." The washerwoman spoke as if the lady in

said Mrs. Craver, briskly. "Ha

ng constant when she should be working, and dressing above her station to which she 'ave been called. No, ma'am, never do I speak against Emily, though she did try t

aver had heard all about Miss Pyne's w

s startling, ma'am, as bombs and bloodshed don't come 'ere while we 'ave the King--long m

anat

give me the shudders, ma

, "and I asked the Rector about it. He says it is

me it was a

his age, Mrs. Mellin. Mr. Craver said that S

fifty years back lost his arm, as my mother told me; the family as come after him buried two children in a year; a suicide was the nex' pusson as lived there, and it stayed empty for years till M

istory. Well, and wh

aron

baronet take a furnished

ney after losing her all, advertised the 'ouse to be let furnished. But for two years it hev been standing as empty as my 'usband's 'ead, people fighting shy of its bad luck, as you mig

searched her memory. "I seem

rwoman, eagerly. "Anything as would make 'im 'i

ncy I have heard my son, Mr. Edwin, mention the name. I'll

." said Mrs. Mellin, hopefully, for, like all her class, she loved

is her

t eyes on her myself; but one as hev tole me ses as she's an old witch in looks,

repeated the name so as to remem

of it, ma'am. I do say as a baronet should be'ave as a baronet, an

. When did Sir

a'am. I wonder y

ring the n

as Emily Pyne would be before'and. I

don't often have a baro

find out all about

fact that she was encouraging the woman to gossip. "Learn to mind your own business, and don't pry into other people'

ose and took no notice of the

hile the washerwoman strained her ears to listen. "Sir Hector Wyke? Yes. He is a rich man,

'eart is broke, so he hev come down 'ere to pine away and die. 'E

wn for his health, and wishing to be quiet has only brought h

to look after them." said Mrs. Mellin doggedly. "Mark my words, ma'am, th

ragedies here, y

chard Jones beat his wife to death only five years back, and Mrs. Warner ran away with the purser of a ship as went to Chiner; while the children as

raver, also standing up to intim

d more years ago she was as lovely a gel as you ever see, but disappear she did, leaving nothing be'ind to tell her whereabouts, and no

pretty girl, but flighty and discontented. And as she was always fond of the theatre, I daresay she went on the stage. Of course, as she was twe

mightn't have gone play-acting after all. No, ma'am, some villain lured 'er away when she was parlourmaid in Maranatha with the wife of the gent

allowing that house to

nd taking 'og-'ead's of phy

ctor Wyke's washing and be thankful. Meanwhile,

there was scarcely a person in the place who was not discussed thoroughly. At the end of half-an-hour the Rector's wife was in full possession of all that had taken place in the parish during the week, and mentally arranged the facts so that she might report to her husband. Not that he wished to hear, being something of a book-worm. But Mrs. Craver always presented her seven-days' budget regularly, because she thought that it assisted him in his c

ty will 'appen at Maranatha. M