Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/99

 circumstances, dangerous! One day this last summer a couple of men, out of works, tramps, in fact, went there to Mortover Grange when she was alone in the house. They asked for the master. She told them he wasn't in, and ordered them off the premises. Instead of going they hung about, waiting to see Mortover. What does this woman do but fetch a gun and shoot at 'em! Only just missed one of them, too—he'd pellets through his hat. Of course they came to me with a fine tale. I went out to see her about it and found her utterly defiant—she said she was a lone woman in a lonely house, she'd ordered these fellows away, and when they wouldn't go she'd a right to shoot at them. What was more, she told me point-blank that she cared for neither magistrates nor police—she'd take good care to protect herself. A determined party, she is—and, from what I could see, master there."

"Any relation to Mortover?" asked Wedgwood.

"That I can't say—know nothing about her except what I've told you."

"You don't know anything about the history of this Mortover family, I suppose?"

"I do not—except that I've heard it's been settled there on that property for hundreds of years. But I know who could tell you every-