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Page 37
"Friday noon it were, sir," answered the woodman. "When I were on my way
home--dinner time. 'Cause I met the missis here, and I made bold to tell
her what I'd noticed. That there owd brig!--lor' bless yer, gentlemen!
it were black rotten i' the middle, theer where poor young maister he
fell through it. 'Ye mun hev' that seen to at once, missis,' I says.
'Sartin sure, 'tain't often as it's used,' I says, 'but surely sartin
'at if it ain't mended, or closed altogether,' I says, 'summun 'll be
going through and brekkin' their necks,' I says. An' reight, too,
gentlemen--forty feet it is down to that road. An' a mortal hard road,
an' all, paved wi' granite stone all t' way to t' stable-yard."
"You're sure it was Friday noon?" repeated Pratt.
"As sure as that I see you," answered the woodman. "An' Mrs. Mallathorpe
she said she'd hev it seen to. Dear-a-me!--it should ha' been closed!"
The old man shook his head and went off amongst the trees, and Pratt,
giving his vanishing figure a queer look, turned silently back along the
path, followed by Collingwood. At the point where the other path led to
the house, he glanced over his shoulder at the young barrister.
"If you keep straight on, Mr. Collingwood," he said, "you'll get
straight down to the village and the inn. I must go this way."
He went off rapidly, and Collingwood walked on through the plantation
towards the _Normandale Arms_--wondering, all the way, why Pratt was so
anxious to know exactly when it was that Mrs. Mallathorpe had been
warned about the old bridge.
CHAPTER XI
THE PREVALENT ATMOSPHERE
Until that afternoon Collingwood had never been in the village to which
he was now bending his steps; on that and his previous visits to the
Grange he had only passed the end of its one street. Now, descending
into it from the slopes of the park, he found it to be little more than
a hamlet--a church, a farmstead or two, a few cottages in their gardens,
all clustering about a narrow stream spanned by a high-arched bridge of
stone. The _Normandale Arms_, a roomy, old-fashioned place, stood at one
end of the bridge, and from the windows of the room into which
Collingwood was presently shown he could look out on the stream itself
and on the meadows beyond it. A peaceful, pretty, quiet place--but the
gloom which was heavy at the big house or the hill seemed to have spread
to everybody that he encountered.
"Bad job, this, sir!" said the landlord, an elderly, serious-faced man,
to whom Collingwood had made known his wants, and who had quickly formed
the opinion that his guest was of the legal profession. "And a queer
one, too! Odd thing, sir, that our old squire, and now the young one,
should both have met their deaths in what you might term violent
fashion."
"Accident--in both cases," remarked Collingwood.
The landlord nodded his head--and then shook it in a manner which seemed
to indicate that while he agreed with this proposition in one respect he
entertained some sort of doubt about it in others.
"Ay, well!" he answered. "Of course, a mill chimney falling, without
notice, as it were, and a bridge giving way--them's accidents, to be
sure. But it's a very strange thing about this foot-bridge, up yonder at
the Grange--very strange indeed! There's queer talk about it, already."
"What sort of talk?" asked Collingwood. Ever since the old woodman had
come up to him and Pratt, as they stood looking at the foot-bridge, he
had been aware of a curious sense of mystery, and the landlord's remark
tended to deepen it. "What are people talking about?"
"Nay--it's only one or two," replied the landlord. "There's been two men
in here since the affair happened that crossed that bridge Friday
afternoon--and both of 'em big, heavy men. According to what one can
learn that there bridge wasn't used much by the Grange people--it led to
nowhere in particular for them. But there is a right of way across that
part of the park, and these two men as I'm speaking of--they made use of
it on Friday--getting towards dark. I know 'em well--they'd both of 'em
weigh four times as much--together--as young Squire Mallathorpe, and yet
it didn't give way under them. And then--only a few hours later, as you
might say, down it goes with him!"
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