Newspapers / Polk County News and … / Aug. 6, 1915, edition 1 / Page 2
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m JAMES LEONARD & COMPANY DA1I HOLLOW Real Estate Brokers TRYON, N. C. By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN (Copy riff hi, 1014, by Dodd, Mead & Company) SYNOPSIS. A cfirious crowd of neighbors invade the mysterious home of Judge Ostrander. county Judge and eccentric recluse, fol lowing a veiled woman who has g06 entrance through the gates of the nign double barriers surrounding the place. The woman has disappeared but the Judge is found in a cataleptic state. Bela, his servant, appears in a dying condition ana prevents entrance to a secret door. Beia dies. The Judge awakes. Miss Wefks explains to him what has occurred during his seizure. CHAPTER II Continued. "Let me hear her description, your honor." The judge, who had withdrawn Into the shadow, considered for a moment, then said: " , T cannot describe her features, for she was heavily veiled; neither can I describe her figure, except to say that ehe is tall and slender. But her dress I remember. She wore purple; not an old woman's purple, but a soft shade which did not take from her youth. The child did not seem to belong to her, though she held her tightly by the hand In age it appeared to be about six or that was the impression I received before " J The sergeant, who had been watch ing the speaker very closely, leaned forward with a hasty, inquiring glance expressive of something like conster nation. Was the judge falling again into unconsciousness? No; for the eyes which had gone blank had turned hie way again, and only a disconnected expression which fell from the Judge's lips showed that his mind had been wandering. - "It's not the same but another one; that's all." ' ' '..'' Inconsequent words, but the sergeant meant to remember them, for with their utterance a change passed over the Judge, and his manner, which had been constrained and hurried during his attempted description, became at once more natural and therefore more courteous. "Do you think you can find her with euch insufficient data? A woman dressed in purple, leading a little child?" "Judge, I not only feel sure that I can find her, but I think she is found already! Do you remember the old tavern on the Rushville road ? I be lieve tiey call it an Inn now, or some such fancy name." j The judge sat quiet, but the ser geant, who dared not peertoo closely, noticed a sudden constriction In the flngers'of the hand with which his host fingered a paper cutter lying on the table between them. "The one where " . "I respect your hesitation, Judge. Yes, the one run by the man you sen tenced" : A gesture had stopped him: He waited respectfully for the judge's next words. They came quickly and with stern and solemn emphasis. "For a hideous and , wholly unpro voked crime. Why do you mention it and and his tavern?" "Because of something I have lately heard in its connection. You know that the old house has been all made over since that time and run as a place of resort for automobilists In search of light refreshments. The proprie tor's name Is Yardley. We have noth ing against him; the place is highly respectable. But it harbors a boarder, a permanent one, I believe, who Uas occasioned no little comment. No one has ever seen her face; unless it is the landlord's wife. She has all her meals served in her room, and when she goes out she wears the purple dress and purple veil you've been talk ing about. Perhaps she's your visitor of today. Hadn't I better find out?" "Has she a child? Is she a mother?" "I haven't heard of any child, but Mrs. Yardley has seven." The judge's hand withdrew from the table and for an instant the room was so quiet that you could hear some far off clock ticking out the minutes. Then Judge Ostrander rose and In a peremp tory tone said: - "Tomorrow. After you hear from me again. Make no move tonight. Let me feel that all your energies are aevoted to securing my privacy." The sergeant, who had sprung! to hie feet at the same instant as the Judge, cast a last look about him, cu riosity burning in his heart and a sort of desperate desire to get all he could out. of his present opportunity. For he felt absolutely sure that he would never be allowed to enter this room again. But the arrangement of light was such as to hold in shadow all but the central portion of the room. With a sigh the sergeant dropped his eyes from the walls he could barely distin guish and, following Judge Ostrander's lead, passed with him under the torn folds of the curtain and through the narrow vestibule whose door was made of iron, into the room where, in a stronger blaze of light than they had left, lay the body of the dead negso awaiting the last rites. ' f. Would the judge pass this body, or turn away from it toward a door lead ing front? The ! sergeant had come in at the rear, but he greatly desired to to out front, as this would give him o much additional knowledge of the house. Unexpectedly to himself the i judge's intentions were In the direc-j tion of his own wishes. He was led front; and, entering an old-fashioned hall dimly lighted, passed a staircase and two closed doors, both of which gave him the impression of having been shut upon a past it had pleasured no one to revive in many years. 4 Beyond them was the great front door of colonial style, and workman ship, a fine specimen once, but greatly disfigured now by the bolts and bars which had been added to it in satis faction of the judge's ideas of security. Many years had passed since Judge. Ostrander had played the host; but he had not lost a sense of its obligations. It was for him to shoot the bolts and lift the bars; but he went about it so clumsily and with such evident aver sion to the task that the sergeant in stinctively sprang to help him. "I shall miss Bela at every turn," remarked the judge, turning with a sad smile as he finally pulled the door open. This is an unaccustomed effort for me. Excuse my awkwardness." Something in his attitude, something in the way he lifted his hand to push back a fallen lock from his forehead, Impressed Itself upon the sergeant's mind so vividly that he always re membered the judge as he appeared to him at that minute. Certainly there were but few men like him in the country, and none in his own town. Of a commanding personality by reason of his height, his features were of a cast to express his mental attributes and enforce attention, and the incongruity between his dominat ing figure and the apprehensions which he displayed in these multiplied and extraordinary, arrangements for per sonal security was forcible enough to arouse any man's interest. The sergeant was so occupied by the mystery of the man and the mystery of the house that they had passed the first gate (which the judge had un locked without much difficulty) before he realized that there still remained something of interest ifor him to see and to talk about later; The two dark openings on eitker side, raised ques tions which the most unimaginative mind would feel glad to hear explained. Ere the second gate swung open and he found himself again in the street he had built up more than one theory in explanation of this freak of parallel fences with the strip of gloom between. He would have felt the suggestion of the spot still more deeply had it been given him to see the anxious and hes itating figure which, immediately upon his departure entered this dark maze, and with feeling hands and cautious step wound its way from corner to corner now stopping abruptly to listen, now shrinking from some Imag inary presence a shadow avnong shadows till it stood again between the gates from which it had started. It was a picturesque addition to the of greatest activity. With the various bridges connecting the residence por tion with the lower business streets we have nothing to do. But there was a nearer one, of which the demands of this story necessitate a clear presenta tion. This bridge was called Long, and spanned the ravine and Its shallow stream of water not a quarter of a mile below the short road or lane we have just seen Judge Ostrander enter. Between it and this lane, a narrow path fan amid the trees and bushes bor dering the ravine. This path was sel dom used, but when it was it acted as a short cut to a certain part of the town mostly given over to factories. Indeed the road of which this bridge formed a part was called Factory on this account. Starting from the main highway a half-mile or so below Os trander lane, it ran diagonally back to the bridge, where it received a turn CHAPTER III. Across the Bridge. It was ten o'clock, not later, when the judge re-entered his front dcc-r. He was alone absolutely alone, as be had never been since that night long ago, when with the inner fenu com pleted and the gates all locbed, he turned to the great negro at His side and quietly said: "We are done with the worli Bela. Are yop satisfied to share this aolltude with me?" And. Bela had replied: "Night and day, your honor. And when you are not here when you are at court, to bear it alone." ' And now this faithful friend was dead, and it was he who must bear it alone alone! How could he face it I He sought for so answer, nor did he allow himself, to dwell for one minute on the thought. There was something else he must do first do this very night, if possible. Taking down his hat from the rack, he turned and went out again, this time carefully locking the door behind him, also the first gate. But he stopped to listen before lifting his hand to the second one. A sound of steady breathing, accom panied by a few impatUnt movements. came from the other side. A man was posted there within a foot of the gate. Noiselessly the judge recoiled and made his way around to the other set of gates. Here all was quiet enough, and, sliding quickly out, he cast a hasty glance up and down the lane, and, seeing nothing more alarming than the back of a second officer loung ing at the corner, pulled the gate quietly to and locked it. - He was well down the road toward the ravine before the officer turned. The time has now come for giving yon a clearer idea of this especial neighborhood. Judge Ostrander's house, situated at the juncture of an unimportant road with the main high way, had in .,, its rear- three small houses, two of them let and one still unrented. Farther on, but on the op posite side of the way, stood a very old dwelling, in which there lived and presumably worked a solitary woman, the sole and final survivor of a large family. Beyond was the ravine, cut ting across the road and terminating it. This 5 ravine merits some inscription,. ground to raise them slowly but with town through which it cut at the point Ideep meaning, to something which rose from the brow oi tne am in siam and curious outline not explainable in Itself, but clear enough to one who had seen its shape by daylight. Judge Ostrander had .thus seen it many times in the past, and knew just where to look for the one remaining chimney and solitary gable of a house struck many years before by lightning and left a grinning shell to mock the eye of all who walked this path or crossed this bridge. Black amid blackness, with just the contrast of its straight lines to the curve of natural objects about it, it commanded the bluff, summoning up memories of an evil race cut short in a moment by an outraged Providence, and Judge Ostrander, marking it, found himself muttering aloud as he dragged himself slowly away: "Why should Time, so destructive elsewhere, leave one stone upon another of this accursed ruin?" When he had reached the middle of the bridge he stopped short to look back at Dark Hollow and utter in a smothered groan, which would not be repressed, a name which by all the rights of the spot should have been Algernon's, but was not. The utterance of thie name seemed to startle him, for, with a shuddering look around, he hastily traversed the rest of the bridge and took the turn about the hill to where Factory road branched off toward the town. Here he stopped again and for the first time revealed the true nature of his desti nation. For when he moved on again it was to take the road along the bluff. and not the one leading directly into town This mean a speedy passing by the lightning-struck house. He knew, of course, snd evidently shrank from the ordeal, for once up the hill and on the level stretch above, he resolutely for bore to cast a glance at its dilapidated fence and decaved Kate posts. Had he not done this had his eyes fol owed the long line of the path lead ing from these toppling posts to the face of the ruin, he would have been witness to a strange sight. For gleam lng through the demolished heart of it between the chimney on the one side and the broken line of the gable on the other could be seen the half circle of the moon suddenly released from the clouds which had hitherto enshrouded It A weird sight, to be seen only when all conditions favored. It was to bJ! seen here tonight; but the judge's eye was bent another way, and he passed an, unnoting The ground yas high along this bluff? almost flft feet above the level of the city upon which he had just turned his back. Of stony formation and much expose?, to the elements, it had been considered an undesirable site by builders, anj not a house was to be seen between the broken shell of the one he had just eft, and the long. low, brilliantly lllunjnated structure ahead, for which ht was evidently making. The pant of a dozqn motors, the shouting of various farewells and then the sudden rushing fortt of a long line of automobiles proclaimed that the fete of the day was about over and that peace and order wo aid soon pre vail again in Claymore inn Without waiting for the final one to pass, the judge slid arounc! to the rear and peered in at the kitchen door. 1 Three women were at work in this busiest of scenes, and the three wom en's heads came simultaneously to gether. There was reason for their whispers. His figure, his head, his face were all unusual, and at that mo ment highly expressive, and coming as he did out of - the .darkness, his presence had an uncanny effect upon their simple minds. They had been laughing before; they ceased to laugh now. Why? (TO BE CONTINUED.) Cast a Hasty Glance Up and Down the Lane. which sent it south and east - again toward the lower town. A high bluff rose at this point, which made the far ther side of the ravine much more im posing than the one on thd near side, where the slope was gradual. This path, and even the bridge itself, were almost wholly unllghted. They were seldom Ufied at nlglrt seldom used at any time. But it was by this route the judge elected to go into town; not for the pleasure of the walk, as was very apparent from the ex treme depression of his manner, but from some Inward necessity which drove him on. against his wishes, pos sibly against hie secret misgivings. He had met no one in his short walk down the lane, but for all that he paused before entering the path just mentioned, to glance back and see if he were being watched or followed. When satisfied that he was not he looked up from the solitary waste where he stood, to the cheerless heav ens and sighed; then forward into the mass of impenetrable shadow that he must yet traverse and shuddered as many another had shuddered ere be ginning this walk. For it was near the end of this path, In full sight of the bridge he must cross, that his friend, Algernon Etheridge, had been set upon and murdered so many years before; and the shadow of this ancient crime still lingered over the spot Determined not to stop or to cast one faltering look to right or left, he hurried on . with his eyes fixed upon the ground and every nerve braced to resist the influence of the place and its undying memories. But withv the striking of his foot against the boards of the bridge nature was too much f of him, and his resolve vanished. In stead of hastening on he stopped, and, having stopped, paused long enough to take in all the features of the scene and any changes which .time might have wrought. He even forced his shrinking eyes to turn and gaze upon the exact spot where his beloved . Al gernon had been found, with his sight less eyes turned to the sky. This latter place, singular in that it lay open to the opposite bank without the mask of bush or tree to hide it, was in Immediate proximity to the end of the bridge he had attempted to cross. It bore the name of Dark Hol low, and hollow and dark it looked in the universal gloom. But the power of Its associations was upon him, and be fore he knew it he was retracing his steps as though drawn by a magnet ism he could not resist, till he stood within this hollow and possibly on the very foot of ground from the mere memory of which he had recoiled for years.': ,: A moment of contemplation a sigh, euch as only escapes the bursting heart in moments of extreme grief or desola tion and he tore Ms eyes from the Not Taught to Spell in Austria. The search for information on the pronunciation of some of the strange ly spelled towns Involved In the Euro pean situation has brought some facts that throw light on the public policies pursued by the Austrians toward! those , subject to them. In this city. lately, a well appearing, well-to-dosub-ject of Austria-Hungary - was ap proached by a man, who wanted some or tnese jawpreaKing. words pro nounced for him. The' Austrian did not seem to be an ignorant man. He spoke good English, but he confessed that he could give no help. "I might recognize the name of the town if 1 heard it spoken," he said, "but I can not identify it by the spelling. You see, w& are - not taught to spell - at home, and I know nothing that will help." Philadelphia Record. "Noblesse Oblige." r None of us have a right to look with contempt upon those who have re ceived less than , ourselves. The old motto of chivalry, "noblesse oblige," should be the motto of all who by money or f social position - or some special talent have an advan tage over their fellows. , Those who acknowledge the obligation thereby prove their nobilit. Property of all Descriptions Bought and Sold for Cash or on Commission. Renting Loans and Insurance. Permanent advertisement. Finger Luxnber Co, Dealers m Building Material a Bw; thing necessary to build a home Phone L Landrum. 8. C SwannV Livery At F1brB Barn. TRYON, NORTH CAROLINA addle and Driving Horses. Backs meet all trains. Baggage and f&Epreaa looked after with Special Car Phone GtabU, 108; Residence, S3B Dr. C. B. Simmons DENTIST Office Over Drug Store Wednesday and Thursday of each week. , TYRON. North Carolina Associated with Dr. J. T. Montgom ery, Spartanburg, S.C. Pace & Ward OLD ORIGINAL EAT MARKET Successors to THOMPSON A PACE Freeh Meats, Ham, Bacon, 8ausagt and Fresh Fish. Phone No. 7 for Quick Free Delivery Give Us a Trial. SALUDA. North, Carolina. E. W. BARBER SALUDA, N. C Agent for 5 best rmrBorkw 11 tak contracts for petting. pruJ and spraying fruit tre. Have Z! fine undereloped orchard land rery low prices. 3 bearing appi eharda for sale. Write for list and prices. Phone 50 L. Henderson CONTRACTOR and BUILDER. JOB WORK AND1 REPAIRS. Saluda, North Carolina H. L. GAPPS NOTARY PUBLIC LEGAL BLANKS FOIt SALE. Offices with Q. C. Sonner & Co, Saluda, N. C. W. L. Thompson General Contractor and Builder All Work Guaranteed. Office in E. B. Goelet Bldg, SALUDA. N. C. 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Polk County News and The Tryon Bee (Tryon, N.C.)
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Aug. 6, 1915, edition 1
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