The Argosy — page 123: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

108 A Mystery. upon that a good cup of tea and some buttered toast, we began to think about getting home. When the phaeton came round, the Squire remarked that it was half an hour later than he had meant to start ; upon which, old Beele laid the fault of its looking late to the ungenial weather of the evening. We drove off. Dusk was approaching; the leaden skies looked dark and sullen, the wind, unpleasantly high all day, had increased to nearly a hurricane. It roared round our heads, it whistled wildly through the trees and hedges, it shook the very ears of Bob and Blister ; the few flakes of snow or sleet beginning then to fall were whirled about in the air like demons. It was an awful evening, no mistake about that; and a very unusual one for the middle of October. The Squire faced the storm as well as he could, his coat collar turned up, his cloth cap, kept for emergencies in a pocket of the carriage, tied down well on his ears. Mrs. Todhetley tied a knitted grey shawl right over her bonnet. We, in the back seat, had much ado to keep our hats on: I sat right behind the Squire, Tod behind Mrs. Todhetley. It was about the worst drive I remember. ‘The wild wind, keen as a knife, stung our faces, and seemed at times as if it had a mind to whirl us, carriage and horses and all, in the air, as it was whirling the sleet and snow. Tod stood up to speak to his father. ‘Shall I drive, sir?” he _ asked. ‘Perhaps you would be more sheltered if you sat here behind.” | Tod’s driving in those days was regarded by the Squire with remarkable disparagement, and Tod received only a sharp answer— which could not be heard for the wind. We got along somehow in the teeth of the storm. The route lay chiefly through by-ways, solitary and unfrequented, not in the good, open turnpike roads. For about a mile, midway between Pigeon Green and Timberdale, was an ultra dreary spot ; dreary in itself and dreary in its associations. It was called Dip Lane, possibly because the ground dipped there so much that it lay in a hollow; overgrown dark elm trees grew thickly on each side it, their branches nearly meeting overhead. In the brightest summer’s day the place was gloomy, so you may guess how it looked now. But the downward dip and the dark elm trees did not constitute all the dreariness of Dip Lane. Many years before, a murder had been committed there. ‘The Squire used to tell us of the commotion it caused, all the gentlemen for miles and miles round bestirring them- selves to search out the murderers. He himself was a little fellow of five or six years old, and could just remember what a talk it made. A wealthy farmer, belated, riding through the lane from market one dark night, was attacked and pulled from his horse. ‘The assailants beat him to death, rifled his pockets of a large sum, for he had been selling stock, and dragged him ¢hrough the hedge, making a large gap Gomichookssco m