



Produced by Charles Bowen from page images published as
a serial on page 2 in the Cheshire Observer starting 18
January 1902
(http://newspapers.library.wales/view/4281236/4281238) and
ending with 26 April 1902 as provided on the internet by
Welsh Newspapers Online.











Transcriber's Notes: 1. Transcribed from page images published as a
serial on page 2 in the Cheshire Observer starting 18 January 1902
(http://newspapers.library.wales/view/4281236/4281238) and ending with
26 April 1902 as provided on the internet by Welsh Newspapers Online.






THE TURNPIKE HOUSE.



By FERGUS HUME, Author of "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," "The Crimson
Cryptogram," "The Golden Idol," "Aladdin in London," "The Dwarf's
Chamber," etc.




CHAPTER I.
THE CONVICT'S RETURN.


It stood where four roads met--a square building of two storeys, with
white-washed walls and a high slate roof. The fence, and the once trim
garden, had vanished with the turnpike gate; and a jungle of gooseberry
bushes, interspersed with brambles, shut off the house from the roads.
And only by courtesy could these be so-called, for time and neglect had
almost obliterated them.

On all sides stretched a flat expanse of reaped fields, bleak-looking
and barren in the waning November twilight. Mists gathered thickly over
ditch and hedge and stubbled furrow a constant dripping could be heard
in the clumps of trees looming here and there in the fog.

Through the kitchen-garden jungle a narrow, crooked path led up to the
door where two rough stones ascended to a broken threshold. Indeed, the
whole house appeared ragged in its poverty. Many of the windows were
stuffed up with rags; walls, cracked and askew, exuded green slime;
moss interspersed with lichen, filled in the crevices of the slates
upon the roof. A dog would scarcely have sought such a kennel, yet a
dim light in the left-hand window of the lower storey shewed that this
kennel was inhabited. There sat within--a woman and a child.

The outer decay but typified the poverty of the interior. Plaster had
fallen from walls and ceiling, and both were cracked in all directions.
No carpet covered the warped floor, and the pinched fire in the rusty
grate gave but scanty warmth to the small apartment. A deal table,
without a cloth, two deal chairs, and a three-legged stool--these
formed the sole furniture. On the blistered black mantelshelf a few
cups and saucers of thick delf ranged themselves, and their gay pinks
and blues were the only cheerful note in the prevailing misery.

The elder of these two outcasts sat by the bare table; a tallow candle
of the cheapest description stuck in a bottle shed a feeble tight, by
which she sewed furiously at a flannel shirt. Stab, click, click, stab,
she toiled in mad haste as though working for a wager. Intent on her
labour, she had no looks to spare for the ten-year-old boy who crouched
by the fire; not that he heeded her neglect, for a brown toy horse took
up all his attention, and he was perfectly happy in managing what was,
to him, an unruly steed.

From the likeness between these two, the most casual observer would
have pronounced them mother and son. She had once been beautiful,
this slender woman, with her fair hair and blue eyes, but trouble and
destitution had robbed her of a delicate loveliness which could have
thriven only under congenial circumstances. In those faded eyes, now
feverishly glittering, there lurked and expression of dread telling
of a mind ill at ease. Dainty garments would have well become her
fairness, but she was clothed, rather than dressed, in a black stuff
gown without even a linen collar to relieve its lustreless aspect.
Poverty had made her careless of her appearance, heedless of the
respect due to herself, and her sole aim, apparently, was the speedy
completion of the shirt at which she incessantly wrought.

The boy was a small copy of his mother, with the same fair hair and
blue eyes but his face had more colour, his figure was more rounded,
and he was clothed with a care which shewed the forethought and the
love of a mother even in the direst poverty.

After some twenty minutes of silence, broken only by the clicking of
the needle and the low chatter of the child, signs of exhaustion began
to show themselves in the worker. Before long, big, hot tears fell on
the grey flannel, and she opened her mouth with an hysterical gasp.
Slowly and more slowly did the seamstress ply her needle, until at
last, with a strangled sob, she flung back her head. "Oh, Heavens!"
was her moan, and it seemed to be wrung from the very depths of her
suffering heart. The child, with a nervous cry, looked up, trembling
violently.

"What is it mother? Is father coming?"

"No, thank Heaven!" said the mother, fiercely. "Do you want him?"

So white did the boy's face become that his eyes shewed black as pitch
balls. The question seemed to strike him like a blow, and he hurled
himself forward to bury his head in the woman's lap. "Don't--don't let
him come!" he sobbed, with unrestrained passion.

"Why do you speak of him, then?" cried the mother, angrily, just as
she might have addressed a person of her own age. "Never mention your
father, Gilbert. He has gone out of your life--out of mine. He is dead
to you--and to me."

"I am glad," sobbed the boy, shaking with nervous excitement. "