Читать книгу The Haunted Baronet онлайн

4 страница из 49

“He hates it,” said the Doctor with another dark nod.

“And no wonder, if all’s true I’ve heard,” cried old Jack Amerald. “Didn’t he drown a woman and her child in the lake?”

“Hollo! my dear boy, don’t let them hear you say that; you’re all in the clouds.”

“By Jen!” exclaimed the landlord after an alarmed silence, with his mouth and eyes open, and his pipe in his hand, “why, sir, I pay rent for the house up there. I’m thankful — dear knows, I am thankful — we’re all to ourselves!”

Jack Amerald put his foot on the floor, leaving his wooden leg in its horizontal position, and looked round a little curiously.

“Well, if it wasn’t him, it was some one else. I’m sure it happened up at Mardykes. I took the bearings on the water myself from Glads Scaur to Mardykes Jetty, and from the George and Dragon sign down here — down to the white house under Forrick Fells. I could fix a buoy over the very spot. Some one here told me the bearings, I’d take my oath, where the body was seen; and yet no boat could ever come up with it; and that was queer, you know, so I clapt it down in my log.”