The Shining Ebook

[Saran Bascas]

Thisebook tells the story of North America from the very beginning up to the twentieth century. Told in a pioneering narrative format, this book boldly includes the lives of the saints, who were indispensable figures in history.

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"Yes, haunted. Don't you remember, when I saw you three years ago,you told me about your place in the west with the ancient woodshanging all about it, and the wild, domed hills, and the ragged land?It has always remained a sort of enchanted picture in my mind as Isit at my desk and hear the traffic rattling in the Street in themidst of whirling London. But when did you come up?"

Vaughn had lit his pipe and sat in the elbow chair, fidgeting andglancing about him in a somewhat dazed and restless manner. Dyson hadwheeled round his chair when his visitor entered and sat with one armfondly reclining on the desk of his bureau, and touching the litterof manuscript.

"You are very kind, Vaughan, but London in September is hard toleave. Dor could not have designed anything more wonderfuland mystic than Oxford Street as I saw it the other evening; thesunset flaming, the blue haze transmuting the plain street into aroad 'far in the spiritual city.'"

"I should like you to come down though. You would enjoy roamingover our hills. Does this racket go on all day and night? It quitebewilders me; I wonder how you can work through it. I am sure youwould revel in the great peace of my old home among the woods."

Vaughan lit his pipe again, and looked anxiously at Dyson to seeif his inducements had had any effect, but the man of letters shookhis head, smiling, and vowed in his heart a firm allegiance to thestreets.

'Well, you may be right. Perhaps, after all, I was wrong to speakof the peace of the country. There, when a tragedy does occur, it islike a stone thrown into a pond; the circles of disturbance keep onwidening, and it seems as if the water would never be stillagain."

"Well, the fact is a girl disappeared in a way which seems highlymysterious. Her parents, people of the name of Trevor, are well-to-dofarmers, and their eldest daughter Annie was a sort of villagebeauty; she was really remarkably handsome. One afternoon she thoughtshe would go and see her aunt, a widow who farms her own land, and asthe two houses are only about five or six miles apart, she startedoff, telling her parents she would take the short cut over the hills.She never got to her aunt's, and she never was seen again. That'sputting it in a few words."

"No; the path the girl must have taken had no pitfalls of anydescription; it is just a track over wild, bare hillside, far, evenfrom a byroad. One may walk for miles without meeting a soul, but itis perfectly safe."

"No; but they seem quite at fault. What I am afraid of is thatAnnie Trevor must have fallen in with some scoundrels on her way.Castletown is a large seaport, you know, and some of the worst of theforeign sailors occasionally desert their ships and go on the trampup and down the country. Not many years ago a Spanish sailor namedGarcia murdered a whole family for the sake of plunder that was notworth sixpence. They are hardly human, some of these fellows, and Iam dreadfully afraid the poor girl must have come to an awfulend."

"No; there is certainly that; and of course country people arequick to notice anyone whose appearance and dress are a little out ofthe common. Still it seems as if my theory were the only possibleexplanation."

"No, I did not. What I have been telling you about happened amonth ago, but something which seems likely to affect me morepersonally has taken place within the last few days, and to be quiteplain, I came up to town with the idea that you might be able to helpme. You recollect that curious case you spoke to me about on our lastmeeting; something about a spectacle-maker."

"Oh, yes, I remember that. I know I was quite proud of my acumenat the time; even to this day the police have no idea why thosepeculiar yellow spectacles were wanted. But, Vaughan, you really lookquite put out; I hope there is nothing serious?"

"I am sure that you will laugh at me, but this is the story. Youmust know there is a path, a right of way, that goes through my land,and to be precise, close to the wall of the kitchen garden. It is notused by many people; a woodman now and again finds it useful, andfive or six children who go to school in the village pass twice aday. Well, a few days ago I was taking a walk about the place beforebreakfast, and I happened to stop to fill my pipe just by the largedoors in the garden wall. The wood, I must tell you, comes to withina few feet of the wall, and the track I spoke of runs right in theshadow of the trees. I thought the shelter from a brisk wind that wasblowing rather pleasant, and I stood there smoking with my eyes onthe ground. Then something caught my attention. Just under the wall,on the short grass; a number of small flints were arranged in apattern; something like this": and Mr. Vaughan caught at a pencil andpiece of paper, and dotted down a few strokes.

"You see," he went on, "there were, I should think, twelve littlestones neatly arranged in lines, and spaced at equal distances, as Ihave shown it on the paper. They were pointed stones, and the pointswere very carefully directed one way."

"Yes," said Dyson, without much interest, "no doubt the childrenyou have mentioned had been playing there on their way from school.Children, as you know, are very fond of making such devices withoyster shells or flints or flowers, or with whatever comes in theirway."

"So I thought; I just noticed these flints were arranged in a sortof pattern and then went on. But the next morning I was taking thesame round, which, as a matter of fact, is habitual with me, andagain I saw at the same spot a device in flints. This time it wasreally a curious pattern; something like the spokes of a wheel, allmeeting at a common centre, and this centre formed by a device whichlooked like a bowl; all, you understand done in flints."

"Well, I thought I would set the matter at rest. The children passthe gate every evening at half-past five, and I walked by at six, andfound the device just as I had left it in the morning. The next day Iwas up and about at a quarter to seven, and I found the whole thinghad been changed. There was a pyramid outlined in flints upon thegrass. The children I saw going by an hour and a half later, and theyran past the spot without glancing to right or left. In the evening Iwatched them going home, and this morning when I got to the gate atsix o'clock there was a thing like a half moon waiting for me."

"Yes; that is right. But do you know it has made me feel veryuneasy? I suppose it seems absurd, but I can't help thinking thatsome kind of signalling is going on under my nose, and that sort ofthing is disquieting."

"Oh, perfectly. The plate is preserved in a strong room; thebutler, an old family servant, alone knows where the key is kept.There is nothing wrong there. Still, everybody is aware that I have alot of old silver, and all country folks are given to gossip. In thatway information may have got abroad in very undesirablequarters."

"Yes, but I confess there seems something a little unsatisfactoryin the burglar theory. Who is signalling to whom? I cannot see my wayto accepting such an explanation. What put the plate into your headin connection with these flints signs, or whatever one may callthem?"

"It was the figure of the Bowl," said Vaughan. "I happen topossess a very large and very valuable Charles II punch-bowl. Thechasing is really exquisite, and the thing is worth a lot of money.The sign I described to you was exactly the same shape as mypunch-bowl."

"Ah, you will think that queerer. As it happens, this punch-bowlof mine, together with a set of rare old ladles, is kept in amahogany chest of a pyramidal shape. The four sides slope upwards,the narrow towards the top."

"Ah, there is no reference that I can make out of these two.Still, you see I have some excuse for curiosity at all events. Ishould be very vexed to lose any of the old plate; nearly all thepieces have been in the family for generations. And I cannot get itout of my head that some scoundrels mean to rob me, and arecommunicating with one another every night."

"Certainly," he said, after a moment's pause, "you have somecurious neighbours in your country. I hardly think they can harbourany designs on your punch-bowl. Do you know this is a flint arrowheadof vast antiquity, and not only that, but an arrow-head of a uniquekind? I have seen specimens from all parts of the world, but thereare features about this thing that are quite peculiar." He laid downhis pipe, and took out a book from a drawer.

Vaughan's ancestor had built on the lower slope of a great hill,in the shelter of a deep and ancient wood that gathered on threesides about the house, and on the fourth side, the southwest, theland fell gently away and sank to the valley, where a brook wound inand out in mystic esses, and the dark and gleaming alders tracked thestream's course to the eye. On the terrace in the sheltered place nowind blew, and far beyond, the trees were still. Only one sound brokein upon the silence, and Dyson heard the noise of the brook singingfar below, the song of clear and shining water rippling over thestones, whispering and murmuring as it sank to dark deep pools.

Across the stream, just below the house, rose a grey stone bridge,vaulted and buttressed, a fragment of the Middle Ages, and thenbeyond the bridge the hills rose again, vast and rounded likebastions, covered here and there with dark woods and thickets ofundergrowth, but the heights were all bare of trees, showing onlygrey turf and patches of bracken, touched here and there with thegold of fading fronds; Dyson looked to the north and south, and stillhe saw the wall of the hills, and the ancient woods, and the streamdrawn in and out between them; all grey and dim with morning mistbeneath a grey sky in a hushed and haunted air.

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