Quill's Window

an away with and married Edwar

ere many, his fields were vast stretches of green and gold; his granaries, his cribs and his m

ore than a song and yet were of vast dimensions. They were of English stock. (Another branch of the family, closely related, remains English to this day, its men sitting sometime in Parliament and always in the councils of the nation, far removed in every way from the Windoms

e was known from one end of the county to the other as "the man who has been across the Atlantic Ocean." The dauntless English bride had come unafraid to a land she had be

ow world in which the farmer of that day spent his entire life. Not that he was uncouth to begin with,-far from it. He had been irritatingly fastidious from boyhood up. His thoughts had wandered afar on frequent journeys, and when they came back to take up the dull occupation they had abandoned temporarily, they were broader than when they went out to gather wo

ts" the day she entered the ugly old farmhouse on the ridge. They were no longer considered members of the family; t

t long in transporting the general housework "girl" into a totally unexampled state of astonishment. This "girl,"-aged forty-five and a prominent member of the Methodist Church,-announced to everybody in the community except to Mrs. Windom herself that she was going to leave. She did not leave. The calm serenity of the new mistre

" doing all the washing and ironing, milking, sweeping and so on, and not getting to bed till nine or ten o'clock at night,-to say nothing of family dinners on Sunday and the preacher in every now and then, and all that. Moreover, Mrs. Windom herself never looked bedraggled. She took care of her hair, wore good clothes, wen

es a shimmering white, and there were green window shutters and green window boxes filled with geraniums. The front yard was kept mowed, and there were great flo

y went frequently to the "opera house" at the county seat, ten miles up the river; they did not wait for summer to come with its circus, as all the other farmers were content to do; whenever there

nd his aunts were never so happy as when wishing for the good old days when his father was alive and running the farm as it should be run! If David had married some good, sensible, thrifty, hard-working farmer's daughter,-Well, it might not have meant an improvement in the crops but it certainly would have spared him the expense of a tennis court, and theatre-going, and absolutely unnecessary trips to C

for years and years. It appeared to be a Windom custom. And here was this fair-haired outsider from across the sea breaking in with a girl! They could not believe it possible. David,-a great, strong, perfect speci

whatever to do, except to take care of the baby while the unnatural mother tinkered with the flower-beds, took long walks a

cerely, earnestly in the end, for she had triumphed over prejudice, narrow-mindedness, and a certain form of malice. The whole district wa

stern and sometimes forbidding. She had taken with her the one great thing she had brought into his life: ineffable buoyancy. He no longer played, for there was no one with whom he would play; he no longer sang, for the music h

sunshine, the same heart of iron, and the blue in her eyes was like the blue of the darkening

eges. He believed in the free school with its broadening influence, its commingling of the sexes in the search for learning, and in the divine right of woman to develop her mind through the channels that lead ultimately and inevitably to superiority of man. He believed that the girl trained and edu

if he developed his muscles by hard work and allowed the brain to take care of itself. Young Crown was a good-looking fellow of twenty-three, clean-minded, ambitious, dogged in work and dogged in play. He had "made" the football team in his sophomore year.

eply, madly in love with each other. Separation seemed unendurable. She was willing to go into the wilderness with him, willing to endure the hardships and the discomforts of life in a construction camp up

er see his child dead than the wife of Nick Crown's son,-Nick Crown, a drunken rascal who had bee

icipation of this great and daring event, and made off toward the city at a break-neck, reckless speed. They were married before midnight, and the next day saw them on their way to the Far West. But not before Alix had despatched a messenger to her father, telling him of her act and asking his forgiveness for the sake of the love she bore him.

nd part of the winter

lix cam

ner cold and repellent. His tenants, his labourers, his neighbours, fearing him, rarely broke in upon his reserve. Only his animals loved him and were glad to see him,-his dogs, his horses, even his cattle. He loved

return of Alix Crown and her husband. They came out of the bleak, unfriendly night and knocked at David Windom's door. There were lights in his sitting-room windows; through them they could see the logs blazing in the big fireplace, beside which sat the lonely, brooding figure of Alix's fa

he fire and looked uneasily toward the door opening onto the hall. Then came a rapping at the front door. The collie growled softly as he moved toward th

then that his daug

the room. The rapping was repeated, louder, heavier than before. He turned slowly, retraced his steps to the fireplace and took from its rack in the corner a great iron

, at whose feet rested two huge "telescope satchels." The light from within fell dimly upon the white

enly. "Oh, my daddy! Let me co

he indistinct face of the man beyond. He wanted

the blow, nor was he even prepared to dodge. The iron rod crashed down upon his head. His legs crumpled up; he drop

into the night. The body of Edward Crown was lying where it had fallen. It was covered by a thin blanket of snow. For a long time he stood gazing down upon the lifeless shape. The snow cut hi

n there?" she asked, i

itless, utterly wi

w back from her in a sort of horror,-horror tha

isted, her voice rising t

d look after him, didn't I? Go back, Alix,-that's a good girl.

f. She went on in the same dull, whispered monotone. "I begged him to let me come alone. I begged him to let me see you first. But he would come. He brought me all the way from the West and he-he was not afraid of you. You ha

It is done. Come,-there is nothing you can do. Come back into the house. I will carry him in-and wake somebody. Tomorrow th

collie was whining in the corner. Windom sat down in the big armchair before the fire, still holding the girl

Alix had promised not to send her father to the gallows. She was almost in a stupor after the complete physical and mental collapse,

details. The light had been extinguished and the doors silently closed by the slayer. The stiffening body of Edward Crown out in the snow

crime, his brain was searching for the means to dispose of the body of Edward

s to engage a vehicle to transport them from the city to the farm, nor the money to secure lodging for the night in the cheapest hotel. Alix's pride stood in the way of an appeal to her husband's father or to any one of his friends for assistance. It was she who i

re, was aware o

ut evasive answer: "It is something I cannot discuss at present," leaving the world to arrive at the obvious conclusion that Alix's husband had abandoned her. And presently people, from sheer delicacy, would cease to inquire. No

overcoat and cap, his riding boots and gloves. Stealing out to the rear of the house, he found a lantern and secured it to his person by means of a strap. A few minutes later he was ready to start of

ur silence, my child, from this m

how about my husban

Why do you p

your duty,-do your hear?-your duty to spare the living. Remem

"'Blood is thicker th

I

eration added strength to his powerful frame. As if his burden were a sack of meal, he strode swiftly down the walk, through the gate and across the gravel road. The night was as black as ink, yet he went unerringly to the pasture gate a few rods down the road. Unlatch

ing, dogged, straining every ounce of his prodigious strength, he struggled upward, afraid to stop for rest, afraid to lower his burden. The sides and the flat summit of the rock were full of treacherous fissures, but he knew them well. He had climbed the sides of Quill's Window scores of times as a boy, to sit at the top and gaze off over the small world below, t

time he studied closely the grey, still face of the youth he had slain. The skull was crushed. There was frozen blood down the back of the head and neck-He started up in sudden consternati

snow down there in the pit,-a foot or more of it. After a few minutes of vigorous clawing, a hole in the side of the fissure wa

l boy, after the venturesome youngster had gone down into the cave and, unable to climb out again, had been the cause of an all-day search by his distracted parent and every neighbour for miles around. The elder Windom had blocked the bottom of the hole with a huge boulder, shorn from the

b. When he climbed out a second time, Edward Crown was at the bottom of the hole and the wet, foul leaves again hid the opening. Tomorrow night, and the night afte

d smote his ears-the sound of footsteps. For many seconds he held his breath, terror clutching his throat. He WAS being followed! Some one was shuffling down the rock behind him. The collie! He had forgotten the dog. But even as he drew in the deep breath of r

od! A

bearing the form of his daughter,-tenderly, ca

, she had witnessed the ghastly interment, and sh

she died. Coming out of a stupor just before

rn for what I have done for you, father. You have killed my Edward. I loved him with all my soul. I do not care to live. But my child must go on living, I suppose. My child and his. She is his daughter. I cannot expect you to love her, but I do expect you to take care of her. You say that blood is thicker than water. You are right. I cannot find it in my heart to betray you. You may tell the world whatever story you like about Edward. He is dead, and I shall soon be dead. You can hurt neither of us, no matter what yo

He was alone in the roo

ad taken good care of her daughter, he had given her everything in his power to give, and he had worshipped

x was shorn of the romantic notion that one day her missing father would appear in the flesh, out of the silences, to claim her as his own. From earliest childhood, her imagination had dealt with all manner of dramatic situations; she had existed in the glamour of uncertainty; she had looked upon herself as a character worthy of a place in some gri

d before her, pleading and penitent, only to be turned away with the scorn he so richly deserved. She even pictured him as rich and powerful, possessed of everything except the one great boon which she

ud in his presence by the shocked and incredulous lawyer, and afterwards printed word for word in the newspapers at the old man's command, changed the whole course of life for her. In fact, her nature underwent a sharp but subtle change. There was nothing left to her of the old life, no thought, no purpose, no fancy

love of either. They did not belong in her life except through the sheerest imagination. Her grandfather was the only real thing she had had in life, and she had adored him. He had killed two people who were as nothing to her, but he had

d fine and true. And then he had come to take her from them, back to the land of her birth, because, he said, he wanted her to be like her mother, the second Alix,-an American woman. She recalled his bitter antipathy to co-educational institutions and his unyielding resolve that she should complete h

I'll be damned well satisfied with my chance of

ntire estate, real and personal, was left to his granddaughter, Alix Crown, to have

lowing close upon the publication of David Windom's confession, large numbers of people were urged by morbid curiosity to visit the strange burial-place of Edward and Alix Crown. The top of Quil

the south. The old house was closed, the window shutters nailed up, the doors barred, and all signs of occupancy removed. It was said that he never put foot inside the yard after his ha

ks,-a substantial house of brick with a steep red tile roof, white window casements, and a wide brick terrace guarded by a low ivy-draped wall. English ivy swathed the two corners of the house facing the road, mounting h

rural hamlet of less than six hundred inhabitants. Its one claim to distinction was the venerable but still active ferry that laboured back and forth across the river. Of secondary

n became more and more startling. She had his dark, smiling eyes; his wavy brown hair; her very manner of speech was like his. To David Windom, she was the re-incarnation of the youth he had slain. Out of her eyes seemed to look the soul of Edward Crown. He could not stand it. She became an obsession, a curious source o

me to him, after four years, there was no trace of Edward Crown in her voice or manner of speaking.

n a score of Windoms lie. With them lies all that was mortal of