Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/166

 to the old Why Not I cannot tell. None have passed the threshold since you left, only the Duchy men came and sealed the doors, making it felony to force them. And even these lawyer chaps know not where the right stands, for Maskew never paid a rent and died before he took possession; and Master Block's term is long expired, and now he is in hiding and an outlaw.

"But I am sorriest for Maskew's girl, who grows thin and pale as any lily. For when the soldiers brought the body back, the men stood at their doors and cursed the clay, and some of the fishwives spat at it; and old Mother Veitch, who kept house for him, swore he had never paid her a penny of wages, and that she was afeard to stop under the same roof with such an evil corpse. So out she goes from the Manor House, leaving that poor child alone in it with her dead father; and there were not wanting some to say it was all a judgment; and called to mind how Elzevir had been once left alone with his dead son at the Why Not. But in the village there was not a man that doubted that 'twas Block had sent Maskew to his account, nor did I doubt it either, till a tale got abroad that he was killed by a stray shot fired by the Posse from the cliff. And when they took the hue-and-cry papers to the Manor House for his lass, as next-of-kin, to sign the requisition, she would not set her name to it, saying that Block had never lifted hand against her father when they met at Moonfleet or on the road, and that she never would believe he was the man to let his anger sleep so long and then attack an enemy in cold blood. And as for thee, she knew thee for a trusty lad, who