diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:35:00 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:35:00 -0700 |
| commit | a39c5b74d9817a0b663bfd2568337eb02dc099ad (patch) | |
| tree | dafde3b1e2f6c626a07d8d432ac69f49f595f37a | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-0.txt | 707 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-8.txt | 1130 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 20338 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 820231 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/10707-h.htm | 1473 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 222055 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/cover_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 14338 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/frontis.jpg | bin | 0 -> 146090 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/frontis_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12417 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/illp40.jpg | bin | 0 -> 133901 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/illp40_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12244 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/illp53.jpg | bin | 0 -> 128847 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/illp53_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 11271 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/illp54.jpg | bin | 0 -> 110812 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707-h/illp54_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12767 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707.txt | 1130 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 10707.zip | bin | 0 -> 20317 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-8.txt | 1130 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 20338 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 820231 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/10707-h.htm | 1473 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 222055 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/cover_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 14338 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/frontis.jpg | bin | 0 -> 146090 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/frontis_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12417 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/illp40.jpg | bin | 0 -> 133901 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/illp40_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12244 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/illp53.jpg | bin | 0 -> 128847 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/illp53_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 11271 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/illp54.jpg | bin | 0 -> 110812 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707-h/illp54_th.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12767 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707.txt | 1130 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/10707.zip | bin | 0 -> 20317 bytes |
36 files changed, 8189 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10707-0.txt b/10707-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ea3e212 --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,707 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10707 *** + +"_I cannot tell how the truth may be: +I say the tale as 'twas said to me._" + + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +IDOLS +SEPTIMUS +THE USURPER +THE WHITE DOVE +THE BELOVED VAGABOND +THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE +AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA +A STUDY IN SHADOWS +SIMON THE JESTER +WHERE LOVE IS +DERELICTS + + + +[Illustration: "I HEARD IT. I FELT IT. It WAS LIKE THE BEATING OF +WINGS."] + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY +THE STORY OF THREE WISE MEN + +BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE + +ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL + + +1910 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." Frontispiece + +"I told you the place was uncanny." + +Instinctively they all knelt down. + +Carried with them an inalienable joy and possession into the great +world. + + + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY + + + +Three men who had gained great fame and honour throughout the world met +unexpectedly in front of the bookstall at Paddington Station. Like most +of the great ones of the earth they were personally acquainted, and they +exchanged surprised greetings. + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the eminent physicist, scowled at the two others +beneath his heavy black eyebrows. + +"I'm going to a God-forsaken place in Cornwall called Trehenna," said +he. + +"That's odd; so am I," croaked Professor Biggleswade. He was a little, +untidy man with round spectacles, a fringe of greyish beard and a weak, +rasping voice, and he knew more of Assyriology than any man, living or +dead. A flippant pupil once remarked that the Professor's face was +furnished with a Babylonic cuneiform in lieu of features. + +"People called Deverill, at Foulis Castle?" asked Sir Angus. + +"Yes," replied Professor Biggleswade. + +"How curious! I am going to the Deverills, too," said the third man. + +This man was the Right Honourable Viscount Doyne, the renowned Empire +Builder and Administrator, around whose solitary and remote life popular +imagination had woven many legends. He looked at the world through tired +grey eyes, and the heavy, drooping, blonde moustache seemed tired, too, +and had dragged down the tired face into deep furrows. He was smoking a +long black cigar. + +"I suppose we may as well travel down together," said Sir Angus, not +very cordially. + +Lord Doyne said courteously: "I have a reserved carriage. The railway +company is always good enough to place one at my disposal. It would give +me great pleasure if you would share it." + +The invitation was accepted, and the three men crossed the busy, crowded +platform to take their seats in the great express train. A porter, laden +with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way through +the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed his shoulder +fretfully. + +"Why the whole land should be turned into a bear garden on account of +this exploded superstition of Christmas is one of the anomalies of +modern civilization. Look at this insensate welter of fools travelling +in wild herds to disgusting places merely because it's Christmas!" + +"You seem to be travelling yourself, McCurdie," said Lord Doyne. + +"Yes--and why the devil I'm doing it, I've not the faintest notion," +replied Sir Angus. + +"It's going to be a beast of a journey," he remarked some moments later, +as the train carried them slowly out of the station. "The whole country +is under snow--and as far as I can understand we have to change twice +and wind up with a twenty-mile motor drive." + +He was an iron-faced, beetle-browed, stern man, and this morning he did +not seem to be in the best of tempers. Finding his companions inclined +to be sympathetic, he continued his lamentation. + +"And merely because it's Christmas I've had to shut up my laboratory and +give my young fools a holiday--just when I was in the midst of a most +important series of experiments." + +Professor Biggleswade, who had heard vaguely of and rather looked down +upon such new-fangled toys as radium and thorium and helium and +argon--for the latest astonishing developments in the theory of +radio-activity had brought Sir Angus McCurdie his world-wide fame--said +somewhat ironically: + +"If the experiments were so important, why didn't you lock yourself up +with your test tubes and electric batteries and finish them alone?" + +"Man!" said McCurdie, bending across the carriage, and speaking with a +curious intensity of voice, "d'ye know I'd give a hundred pounds to be +able to answer that question?" + +"What do you mean?" asked the Professor, startled. + +"I should like to know why I'm sitting in this damned train and going to +visit a couple of addle-headed society people whom I'm scarcely +acquainted with, when I might be at home in my own good company +furthering the progress of science." + +"I myself," said the Professor, "am not acquainted with them at all." + +It was Sir Angus McCurdie's turn to look surprised. + +"Then why are you spending Christmas with them?" + +"I reviewed a ridiculous blank-verse tragedy written by Deverill on the +Death of Sennacherib. Historically it was puerile. I said so in no +measured terms. He wrote a letter claiming to be a poet and not an +archæologist. I replied that the day had passed when poets could with +impunity commit the abominable crime of distorting history. He retorted +with some futile argument, and we went on exchanging letters, until his +invitation and my acceptance concluded the correspondence." + +McCurdie, still bending his black brows on him, asked him why he had not +declined. The Professor screwed up his face till it looked more like a +cuneiform than ever. He, too, found the question difficult to answer, +but he showed a bold front. + +"I felt it my duty," said he, "to teach that preposterous ignoramus +something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor and +would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and meaningless +annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers than among my +married sisters' numerous and nerve-racking families." + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the hard, metallic apostle of radio-activity, +glanced for a moment out of the window at the grey, frost-bitten fields. +Then he said: + +"I'm a widower. My wife died many years ago and, thank God, we had no +children. I generally spend Christmas alone." + +He looked out of the window again. Professor Biggleswade suddenly +remembered the popular story of the great scientist's antecedents, and +reflected that as McCurdie had once run, a barefoot urchin, through the +Glasgow mud, he was likely to have little kith or kin. He himself envied +McCurdie. He was always praying to be delivered from his sisters and +nephews and nieces, whose embarrassing demands no calculated coldness +could repress. + +"Children are the root of all evil," said he. "Happy the man who has his +quiver empty." + +Sir Angus McCurdie did not reply at once; when he spoke again it was +with reference to their prospective host. + +"I met Deverill," said he, "at the Royal Society's Soirée this year. One +of my assistants was demonstrating a peculiar property of thorium and +Deverill seemed interested. I asked him to come to my laboratory the +next day, and found he didn't know a damned thing about anything. That's +all the acquaintance I have with him." + +Lord Doyne, the great administrator, who had been wearily turning over +the pages of an illustrated weekly chiefly filled with flamboyant +photographs of obscure actresses, took his gold glasses from his nose +and the black cigar from his lips, and addressed his companions. + +"I've been considerably interested in your conversation," said he, "and +as you've been frank, I'll be frank too. I knew Mrs. Deverill's mother, +Lady Carstairs, very well years ago, and of course Mrs. Deverill when +she was a child. Deverill I came across once in Egypt--he had been sent +on a diplomatic mission to Teheran. As for our being invited on such +slight acquaintance, little Mrs. Deverill has the reputation of being +the only really successful celebrity hunter in England. She inherited +the faculty from her mother, who entertained the whole world. We're sure +to find archbishops, and eminent actors, and illustrious divorcées asked +to meet us. That's one thing. But why I, who loathe country house +parties and children and Christmas as much as Biggleswade, am going down +there to-day, I can no more explain than you can. It's a devilish odd +coincidence." + +The three men looked at one another. Suddenly McCurdie shivered and drew +his fur coat around him. + +"I'll thank you," said he, "to shut that window." + +"It is shut," said Doyne. + +"It's just uncanny," said McCurdie, looking from one to the other. + +"What?" asked Doyne. + +"Nothing, if you didn't feel it." + +"There did seem to be a sudden draught," said Professor Biggleswade. +"But as both window and door are shut, it could only be imaginary." + +"It wasn't imaginary," muttered McCurdie. + +Then he laughed harshly. "My father and mother came from Cromarty," he +said with apparent irrelevance. + +"That's the Highlands," said the Professor. + +"Ay," said McCurdie. + +Lord Doyne said nothing, but tugged at his moustache and looked out of +the window as the frozen meadows and bits of river and willows raced +past. A dead silence fell on them. McCurdie broke it with another laugh +and took a whiskey flask from his hand-bag. + +"Have a nip?" + +"Thanks, no," said the Professor. "I have to keep to a strict dietary, +and I only drink hot milk and water--and of that sparingly. I have some +in a thermos bottle." + +Lord Doyne also declining the whiskey, McCurdie swallowed a dram and +declared himself to be better. The Professor took from his bag a foreign +review in which a German sciolist had dared to question his +interpretation of a Hittite inscription. Over the man's ineptitude he +fell asleep and snored loudly. + +To escape from his immediate neighbourhood McCurdie went to the other +end of the seat and faced Lord Doyne, who had resumed his gold glasses +and his listless contemplation of obscure actresses. McCurdie lit a +pipe, Doyne another black cigar. The train thundered on. + +Presently they all lunched together in the restaurant car. The windows +steamed, but here and there through a wiped patch of pane a white world +was revealed. The snow was falling. As they passed through Westbury, +McCurdie looked mechanically for the famous white horse carved into the +chalk of the down; but it was not visible beneath the thick covering of +snow. + +"It'll be just like this all the way to Gehenna--Trehenna, I mean," said +McCurdie. + +Doyne nodded. He had done his life's work amid all extreme fiercenesses +of heat and cold, in burning droughts, in simoons and in icy +wildernesses, and a ray or two more of the pale sun or a flake or two +more of the gentle snow of England mattered to him but little. But +Biggleswade rubbed the pane with his table-napkin and gazed +apprehensively at the prospect. + +"If only this wretched train would stop," said he, "I would go back +again." + +And he thought how comfortable it would be to sneak home again to his +books and thus elude not only the Deverills, but the Christmas jollities +of his sisters' families, who would think him miles away. But the train +was timed not to stop till Plymouth, two hundred and thirty-five miles +from London, and thither was he being relentlessly carried. Then he +quarrelled with his food, which brought a certain consolation. + + * * * * * + +The train did stop, however, before Plymouth--indeed, before Exeter. An +accident on the line had dislocated the traffic. The express was held up +for an hour, and when it was permitted to proceed, instead of thundering +on, it went cautiously, subject to continual stoppings. It arrived at +Plymouth two hours late. The travellers learned that they had missed the +connection on which they had counted and that they could not reach +Trehenna till nearly ten o'clock. After weary waiting at Plymouth they +took their seats in the little, cold local train that was to carry them +another stage on their journey. Hot-water cans put in at Plymouth +mitigated to some extent the iciness of the compartment. But that only +lasted a comparatively short time, for soon they were set down at a +desolate, shelterless wayside junction, dumped in the midst of a hilly +snow-covered waste, where they went through another weary wait for +another dismal local train that was to carry them to Trehenna. And in +this train there were no hot-water cans, so that the compartment was as +cold as death. McCurdie fretted and shook his fist in the direction of +Trehenna. + +"And when we get there we have still a twenty miles' motor drive to +Foullis Castle. It's a fool name and we're fools to be going there." + +"I shall die of bronchitis," wailed Professor Biggleswade. + +"A man dies when it is appointed for him to die," said Lord Doyne, in +his tired way; and he went on smoking long black cigars. + +"It's not the dying that worries me," said McCurdie. "That's a mere +mechanical process which every organic being from a king to a +cauliflower has to pass through. It's the being forced against my will +and my reason to come on this accursed journey, which something tells me +will become more and more accursed as we go on, that is driving me to +distraction." + +"What will be, will be," said Doyne. + +"I can't see where the comfort of that reflection comes in," said +Biggleswade. + +"And yet you've travelled in the East," said Doyne. "I suppose you know +the Valley of the Tigris as well as any man living." + +"Yes," said the Professor. "I can say I dug my way from Tekrit to Bagdad +and left not a stone unexamined." + +"Perhaps, after all," Doyne remarked, "that's not quite the way to know +the East." + +"I never wanted to know the modern East," returned the Professor. "What +is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations that +have gone before?" + +McCurdie took a pull from his flask. + +"I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he. + +At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at +Trehenna. The guard opened the door and they stepped out on to the +snow-covered platform. An oil lamp hung from the tiny pent-house roof +that, structurally, was Trehenna Station. They looked around at the +silent gloom of white undulating moorland, and it seemed a place where +no man lived and only ghosts could have a bleak and unsheltered being. A +porter came up and helped the guard with the luggage. Then they realized +that the station was built on a small embankment, for, looking over the +railing, they saw below the two great lamps of a motor car. A fur-clad +chauffeur met them at the bottom of the stairs. He clapped his hands +together and informed them cheerily that he had been waiting for four +hours. It was the bitterest winter in these parts within the memory of +man, said he, and he himself had not seen snow there for five years. +Then he settled the three travellers in the great roomy touring car +covered with a Cape-cart hood, wrapped them up in many rugs and started. + +After a few moments, the huddling together of their bodies--for, the +Professor being a spare man, there was room for them all on the back +seat--the pile of rugs, the serviceable and all but air-tight hood, +induced a pleasant warmth and a pleasant drowsiness. Where they were +being driven they knew not. The perfectly upholstered seat eased their +limbs, the easy swinging motion of the car soothed their spirits. They +felt that already they had reached the luxuriously appointed home which, +after all, they knew awaited them. McCurdie no longer railed, Professor +Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted the +stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight +it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world +to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. +McCurdie and Biggleswade fell into a doze. Lord Doyne chewed the end of +his cigar. The car sped on through an unseen wilderness. + +Suddenly there was a horrid jolt and a lurch and a leap and a rebound, +and then the car stood still, quivering like a ship that has been struck +by a heavy sea. The three men were pitched and tossed and thrown +sprawling over one another onto the bottom of the car. Biggleswade +screamed. McCurdie cursed. Doyne scrambled from the confusion of rugs +and limbs and, tearing open the side of the Cape-cart hood, jumped out. +The chauffeur had also just leaped from his seat. It was pitch dark save +for the great shaft of light down the snowy road cast by the acetylene +lamps. The snow had ceased falling. + +"What's gone wrong?" + +"It sounds like the axle," said the chauffeur ruefully. + +He unshipped a lamp and examined the car, which had wedged itself +against a great drift of snow on the off side. Meanwhile McCurdie and +Biggleswade had alighted. + +"Yes, it's the axle," said the chauffeur. + +"Then we're done," remarked Doyne. + +"I'm afraid so, my lord." + +"What's the matter? Can't we get on?" asked Biggleswade in his querulous +voice. + +McCurdie laughed. "How can we get on with a broken axle? The thing's as +useless as a man with a broken back. Gad, I was right. I said it was +going to be an infernal journey." + +The little Professor wrung his hands. "But what's to be done?" he cried. + +"Tramp it," said Lord Doyne, lighting a fresh cigar. + +"It's ten miles," said the chauffeur. + +"It would be the death of me," the Professor wailed. + +"I utterly refuse to walk ten miles through a Polar waste with a gouty +foot," McCurdie declared wrathfully. + +The chauffeur offered a solution of the difficulty. He would set out +alone for Foullis Castle--five miles farther on was an inn where he +could obtain a horse and trap--and would return for the three gentlemen +with another car. In the meanwhile they could take shelter in a little +house which they had just passed, some half mile up the road. This was +agreed to. The chauffeur went on cheerily enough with a lamp, and the +three travellers with another lamp started off in the opposite +direction. As far as they could see they were in a long, desolate +valley, a sort of No Man's Land, deathly silent. The eastern sky had +cleared somewhat, and they faced a loose rack through which one pale +star was dimly visible. + + * * * * * + +"I'm a man of science," said McCurdie as they trudged through the snow, +"and I dismiss the supernatural as contrary to reason; but I have +Highland blood in my veins that plays me exasperating tricks. My reason +tells me that this place is only a commonplace moor, yet it seems like a +Valley of Bones haunted by malignant spirits who have lured us here to +our destruction. There's something guiding us now. It's just uncanny." + +"Why on earth did we ever come?" croaked Biggleswade. + +Lord Doyne answered: "The Koran says, 'Nothing can befall us but what +God hath destined for us.' So why worry?" + +"Because I'm not a Mohammedan," retorted Biggleswade. + +"You might be worse," said Doyne. + +Presently the dim outline of the little house grew perceptible. A faint +light shone from the window. It stood unfenced by any kind of hedge or +railing a few feet away from the road in a little hollow beneath some +rising ground. As far as they could discern in the darkness when they +drew near, the house was a mean, dilapidated hovel. A guttering candle +stood on the inner sill of the small window and afforded a vague view +into a mean interior. Doyne held up the lamp so that its rays fell full +on the door. As he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips and he +hurried forward, followed by the others. A man's body lay huddled +together on the snow by the threshold. He was dressed like a peasant, in +old corduroy trousers and rough coat, and a handkerchief was knotted +round his neck. In his hand he grasped the neck of a broken bottle. +Doyne set the lamp on the ground and the three bent down together over +the man. Close by the neck lay the rest of the broken bottle, whose +contents had evidently run out into the snow. + +"Drunk?" asked Biggleswade. + +Doyne felt the man and laid his hand on his heart. + +"No," said he, "dead." + +McCurdie leaped to his full height. "I told you the place was uncanny!" +he cried. "It's fey." Then he hammered wildly at the door. + +There was no response. He hammered again till it rattled. This time a +faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was +heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth +chattering. + +"Did ye hear that, Doyne?" + + +[Illustration: I TOLD YOU THE PLACE WAS UNCANNY.] + + +"Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor. + +Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the +door-handle. It yielded, the door stood open, and the gust of cold wind +entering the house extinguished the candle within. They entered and +found themselves in a miserable stone-paved kitchen, furnished with +poverty-stricken meagreness--a wooden chair or two, a dirty table, some +broken crockery, old cooking utensils, a fly-blown missionary society +almanac, and a fireless grate. Doyne set the lamp on the table. + +"We must bring him in," said he. + +They returned to the threshold, and as they were bending over to grip +the dead man the same sound filled the air, but this time louder, more +intense, a cry of great agony. The sweat dripped from McCurdie's +forehead. They lifted the dead man and brought him into the room, and +after laying him on a dirty strip of carpet they did their best to +straighten the stiff limbs. Biggleswade put on the table a bundle which +he had picked up outside. It contained some poor provisions--a loaf, a +piece of fat bacon, and a paper of tea. As far as they could guess (and +as they learned later they guessed rightly) the man was the master of +the house, who, coming home blind drunk from some distant inn, had +fallen at his own threshold and got frozen to death. As they could not +unclasp his fingers from the broken bottleneck they had to let him +clutch it as a dead warrior clutches the hilt of his broken sword. + +Then suddenly the whole place was rent with another and yet another +long, soul-piercing moan of anguish. + +"There's a second room," said Doyne, pointing to a door. "The sound +comes from there." He opened the door, peeped in, and then, returning +for the lamp, disappeared, leaving McCurdie and Biggleswade in the pitch +darkness, with the dead man on the floor. + +"For heaven's sake, give me a drop of whiskey," said the Professor, "or +I shall faint." + +Presently the door opened and Lord Doyne appeared in the shaft of light. +He beckoned to his companions. + +"It is a woman in childbirth," he said in his even, tired voice. "We +must aid her. She appears unconscious. Does either of you know anything +about such things?" + +They shook their heads, and the three looked at each other in dismay. +Masters of knowledge that had won them world-wide fame and honour, they +stood helpless, abashed before this, the commonest phenomenon of nature. + +"My wife had no child," said McCurdie. + +"I've avoided women all my life," said Biggleswade. + +"And I've been too busy to think of them. God forgive me," said Doyne. + + * * * * * + +The history of the next two hours was one that none of the three men +ever cared to touch upon. They did things blindly, instinctively, as men +do when they come face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they +knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled. +Doyne accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his +suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering +back beneath rugs and travelling bags which could supply clean linen and +needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find +nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman's +strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that +nameless hovel, with death on the hearthstone and death and life +hovering over the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain +and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never +yet stood before so great a mystery. + +With the first wail of the newly born infant a last convulsive shudder +passed through the frame of the unconscious mother. Then three or four +short gasps for breath, and the spirit passed away. She was dead. +Professor Biggleswade threw a corner of the sheet over her face, for he +could not bear to see it. + +They washed and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have +done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a +cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of +Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then they +wrapped him up warm in some of their own woollen undergarments, and took +him into the kitchen and placed him on a bed made of their fur coats in +front of the fire. As the last piece of fuel was exhausted they took one +of the wooden chairs and broke it up and cast it into the blaze. And +then they raised the dead man from the strip of carpet and carried him +into the bedroom and laid him reverently by the side of his dead wife, +after which they left the dead in darkness and returned to the living. +And the three grave men stood over the wisp of flesh that had been born +a male into the world. Then, their task being accomplished, reaction +came, and even Doyne, who had seen death in many lands, turned faint. +But the others, losing control of their nerves, shook like men stricken +with palsy. + +Suddenly McCurdie cried in a high pitched voice, "My God! Don't you feel +it?" and clutched Doyne by the arm. An expression of terror appeared on +his iron features. + +"There! It's here with us." + +Little Professor Biggleswade sat on a corner of the table and wiped his +forehead. + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." + +"It's the fourth time," said McCurdie. "The first time was just before I +accepted the Deverills' invitation. The second in the railway carriage +this afternoon. The third on the way here. This is the fourth." + +Biggleswade plucked nervously at the fringe of whisker under his jaws +and said faintly, "It's the fourth time up to now. I thought it was +fancy." + +"I have felt it, too," said Doyne. "It is the Angel of Death." And he +pointed to the room where the dead man and woman lay. + +"For God's sake let us get away from this," cried Biggleswade. + +"And leave the child to die, like the others?" said Doyne. + +"We must see it through," said McCurdie. + + * * * * * + +A silence fell upon them as they sat round in the blaze with the +new-born babe wrapped in its odd swaddling clothes asleep on the pile of +fur coats, and it lasted until Sir Angus McCurdie looked at his watch. + +"Good Lord," said he, "it's twelve o'clock." + +"Christmas morning," said Biggleswade. + +"A strange Christmas," mused Doyne. + +McCurdie put up his hand. "There it is again! The beating of wings." And +they listened like men spellbound. McCurdie kept his hand uplifted, and +gazed over their heads at the wall, and his gaze was that of a man in a +trance, and he spoke: + +"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given--" + +Doyne sprang from his chair, which fell behind him with a crash. + +"Man--what the devil are you saying?" + +Then McCurdie rose and met Biggleswade's eyes staring at him through the +great round spectacles, and Biggleswade turned and met the eyes of +Doyne. A pulsation like the beating of wings stirred the air. + +The three wise men shivered with a queer exaltation. Something strange, +mystical, dynamic had happened. It was as if scales had fallen from +their eyes and they saw with a new vision. They stood together humbly, +divested of all their greatness, touching one another in the instinctive +fashion of children, as if seeking mutual protection, and they looked, +with one accord, irresistibly compelled, at the child. + +At last McCurdie unbent his black brows and said hoarsely: + +"It was not the Angel of Death, Doyne, but another Messenger that drew +us here." + +The tiredness seemed to pass away from the great administrator's face, +and he nodded his head with the calm of a man who has come to the quiet +heart of a perplexing mystery. + +"It's true," he murmured. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is +given. Unto the three of us." + +Biggleswade took off his great round spectacles and wiped them. + +"Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar. But where are the gold, frankincense and +myrrh?" + +"In our hearts, man," said McCurdie. + +The babe cried and stretched its tiny limbs. + + +[Illustration: INSTINCTIVELY THEY ALL KNELT DOWN.] + + +Instinctively they all knelt down together to discover, if possible, and +administer ignorantly to, its wants. The scene had the appearance of an +adoration. + + * * * * * + +Then these three wise, lonely, childless men who, in furtherance of +their own greatness, had cut themselves adrift from the sweet and simple +things of life and from the kindly ways of their brethren, and had grown +old in unhappy and profitless wisdom, knew that an inscrutable +Providence had led them, as it had led three Wise Men of old, on a +Christmas morning long ago, to a nativity which should give them a new +wisdom, a new link with humanity, a new spiritual outlook, a new hope. + +And, when their watch was ended, they wrapped up the babe with precious +care, and carried him with them, an inalienable joy and possession, into +the great world. + + +[Illustration: CARRIED WITH THEM AN INALIENABLE JOY AND POSSESSION INTO +THE GREAT WORLD.] + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10707 *** diff --git a/10707-8.txt b/10707-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d99336 --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1130 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Christmas Mystery + The Story of Three Wise Men + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: January 13, 2004 [EBook #10707] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +"_I cannot tell how the truth may be: +I say the tale as 'twas said to me._" + + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +IDOLS +SEPTIMUS +THE USURPER +THE WHITE DOVE +THE BELOVED VAGABOND +THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE +AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA +A STUDY IN SHADOWS +SIMON THE JESTER +WHERE LOVE IS +DERELICTS + + + +[Illustration: "I HEARD IT. I FELT IT. It WAS LIKE THE BEATING OF +WINGS."] + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY +THE STORY OF THREE WISE MEN + +BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE + +ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL + + +1910 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." Frontispiece + +"I told you the place was uncanny." + +Instinctively they all knelt down. + +Carried with them an inalienable joy and possession into the great +world. + + + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY + + + +Three men who had gained great fame and honour throughout the world met +unexpectedly in front of the bookstall at Paddington Station. Like most +of the great ones of the earth they were personally acquainted, and they +exchanged surprised greetings. + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the eminent physicist, scowled at the two others +beneath his heavy black eyebrows. + +"I'm going to a God-forsaken place in Cornwall called Trehenna," said +he. + +"That's odd; so am I," croaked Professor Biggleswade. He was a little, +untidy man with round spectacles, a fringe of greyish beard and a weak, +rasping voice, and he knew more of Assyriology than any man, living or +dead. A flippant pupil once remarked that the Professor's face was +furnished with a Babylonic cuneiform in lieu of features. + +"People called Deverill, at Foulis Castle?" asked Sir Angus. + +"Yes," replied Professor Biggleswade. + +"How curious! I am going to the Deverills, too," said the third man. + +This man was the Right Honourable Viscount Doyne, the renowned Empire +Builder and Administrator, around whose solitary and remote life popular +imagination had woven many legends. He looked at the world through tired +grey eyes, and the heavy, drooping, blonde moustache seemed tired, too, +and had dragged down the tired face into deep furrows. He was smoking a +long black cigar. + +"I suppose we may as well travel down together," said Sir Angus, not +very cordially. + +Lord Doyne said courteously: "I have a reserved carriage. The railway +company is always good enough to place one at my disposal. It would give +me great pleasure if you would share it." + +The invitation was accepted, and the three men crossed the busy, crowded +platform to take their seats in the great express train. A porter, laden +with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way through +the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed his shoulder +fretfully. + +"Why the whole land should be turned into a bear garden on account of +this exploded superstition of Christmas is one of the anomalies of +modern civilization. Look at this insensate welter of fools travelling +in wild herds to disgusting places merely because it's Christmas!" + +"You seem to be travelling yourself, McCurdie," said Lord Doyne. + +"Yes--and why the devil I'm doing it, I've not the faintest notion," +replied Sir Angus. + +"It's going to be a beast of a journey," he remarked some moments later, +as the train carried them slowly out of the station. "The whole country +is under snow--and as far as I can understand we have to change twice +and wind up with a twenty-mile motor drive." + +He was an iron-faced, beetle-browed, stern man, and this morning he did +not seem to be in the best of tempers. Finding his companions inclined +to be sympathetic, he continued his lamentation. + +"And merely because it's Christmas I've had to shut up my laboratory and +give my young fools a holiday--just when I was in the midst of a most +important series of experiments." + +Professor Biggleswade, who had heard vaguely of and rather looked down +upon such new-fangled toys as radium and thorium and helium and +argon--for the latest astonishing developments in the theory of +radio-activity had brought Sir Angus McCurdie his world-wide fame--said +somewhat ironically: + +"If the experiments were so important, why didn't you lock yourself up +with your test tubes and electric batteries and finish them alone?" + +"Man!" said McCurdie, bending across the carriage, and speaking with a +curious intensity of voice, "d'ye know I'd give a hundred pounds to be +able to answer that question?" + +"What do you mean?" asked the Professor, startled. + +"I should like to know why I'm sitting in this damned train and going to +visit a couple of addle-headed society people whom I'm scarcely +acquainted with, when I might be at home in my own good company +furthering the progress of science." + +"I myself," said the Professor, "am not acquainted with them at all." + +It was Sir Angus McCurdie's turn to look surprised. + +"Then why are you spending Christmas with them?" + +"I reviewed a ridiculous blank-verse tragedy written by Deverill on the +Death of Sennacherib. Historically it was puerile. I said so in no +measured terms. He wrote a letter claiming to be a poet and not an +archæologist. I replied that the day had passed when poets could with +impunity commit the abominable crime of distorting history. He retorted +with some futile argument, and we went on exchanging letters, until his +invitation and my acceptance concluded the correspondence." + +McCurdie, still bending his black brows on him, asked him why he had not +declined. The Professor screwed up his face till it looked more like a +cuneiform than ever. He, too, found the question difficult to answer, +but he showed a bold front. + +"I felt it my duty," said he, "to teach that preposterous ignoramus +something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor and +would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and meaningless +annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers than among my +married sisters' numerous and nerve-racking families." + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the hard, metallic apostle of radio-activity, +glanced for a moment out of the window at the grey, frost-bitten fields. +Then he said: + +"I'm a widower. My wife died many years ago and, thank God, we had no +children. I generally spend Christmas alone." + +He looked out of the window again. Professor Biggleswade suddenly +remembered the popular story of the great scientist's antecedents, and +reflected that as McCurdie had once run, a barefoot urchin, through the +Glasgow mud, he was likely to have little kith or kin. He himself envied +McCurdie. He was always praying to be delivered from his sisters and +nephews and nieces, whose embarrassing demands no calculated coldness +could repress. + +"Children are the root of all evil," said he. "Happy the man who has his +quiver empty." + +Sir Angus McCurdie did not reply at once; when he spoke again it was +with reference to their prospective host. + +"I met Deverill," said he, "at the Royal Society's Soirée this year. One +of my assistants was demonstrating a peculiar property of thorium and +Deverill seemed interested. I asked him to come to my laboratory the +next day, and found he didn't know a damned thing about anything. That's +all the acquaintance I have with him." + +Lord Doyne, the great administrator, who had been wearily turning over +the pages of an illustrated weekly chiefly filled with flamboyant +photographs of obscure actresses, took his gold glasses from his nose +and the black cigar from his lips, and addressed his companions. + +"I've been considerably interested in your conversation," said he, "and +as you've been frank, I'll be frank too. I knew Mrs. Deverill's mother, +Lady Carstairs, very well years ago, and of course Mrs. Deverill when +she was a child. Deverill I came across once in Egypt--he had been sent +on a diplomatic mission to Teheran. As for our being invited on such +slight acquaintance, little Mrs. Deverill has the reputation of being +the only really successful celebrity hunter in England. She inherited +the faculty from her mother, who entertained the whole world. We're sure +to find archbishops, and eminent actors, and illustrious divorcées asked +to meet us. That's one thing. But why I, who loathe country house +parties and children and Christmas as much as Biggleswade, am going down +there to-day, I can no more explain than you can. It's a devilish odd +coincidence." + +The three men looked at one another. Suddenly McCurdie shivered and drew +his fur coat around him. + +"I'll thank you," said he, "to shut that window." + +"It is shut," said Doyne. + +"It's just uncanny," said McCurdie, looking from one to the other. + +"What?" asked Doyne. + +"Nothing, if you didn't feel it." + +"There did seem to be a sudden draught," said Professor Biggleswade. +"But as both window and door are shut, it could only be imaginary." + +"It wasn't imaginary," muttered McCurdie. + +Then he laughed harshly. "My father and mother came from Cromarty," he +said with apparent irrelevance. + +"That's the Highlands," said the Professor. + +"Ay," said McCurdie. + +Lord Doyne said nothing, but tugged at his moustache and looked out of +the window as the frozen meadows and bits of river and willows raced +past. A dead silence fell on them. McCurdie broke it with another laugh +and took a whiskey flask from his hand-bag. + +"Have a nip?" + +"Thanks, no," said the Professor. "I have to keep to a strict dietary, +and I only drink hot milk and water--and of that sparingly. I have some +in a thermos bottle." + +Lord Doyne also declining the whiskey, McCurdie swallowed a dram and +declared himself to be better. The Professor took from his bag a foreign +review in which a German sciolist had dared to question his +interpretation of a Hittite inscription. Over the man's ineptitude he +fell asleep and snored loudly. + +To escape from his immediate neighbourhood McCurdie went to the other +end of the seat and faced Lord Doyne, who had resumed his gold glasses +and his listless contemplation of obscure actresses. McCurdie lit a +pipe, Doyne another black cigar. The train thundered on. + +Presently they all lunched together in the restaurant car. The windows +steamed, but here and there through a wiped patch of pane a white world +was revealed. The snow was falling. As they passed through Westbury, +McCurdie looked mechanically for the famous white horse carved into the +chalk of the down; but it was not visible beneath the thick covering of +snow. + +"It'll be just like this all the way to Gehenna--Trehenna, I mean," said +McCurdie. + +Doyne nodded. He had done his life's work amid all extreme fiercenesses +of heat and cold, in burning droughts, in simoons and in icy +wildernesses, and a ray or two more of the pale sun or a flake or two +more of the gentle snow of England mattered to him but little. But +Biggleswade rubbed the pane with his table-napkin and gazed +apprehensively at the prospect. + +"If only this wretched train would stop," said he, "I would go back +again." + +And he thought how comfortable it would be to sneak home again to his +books and thus elude not only the Deverills, but the Christmas jollities +of his sisters' families, who would think him miles away. But the train +was timed not to stop till Plymouth, two hundred and thirty-five miles +from London, and thither was he being relentlessly carried. Then he +quarrelled with his food, which brought a certain consolation. + + * * * * * + +The train did stop, however, before Plymouth--indeed, before Exeter. An +accident on the line had dislocated the traffic. The express was held up +for an hour, and when it was permitted to proceed, instead of thundering +on, it went cautiously, subject to continual stoppings. It arrived at +Plymouth two hours late. The travellers learned that they had missed the +connection on which they had counted and that they could not reach +Trehenna till nearly ten o'clock. After weary waiting at Plymouth they +took their seats in the little, cold local train that was to carry them +another stage on their journey. Hot-water cans put in at Plymouth +mitigated to some extent the iciness of the compartment. But that only +lasted a comparatively short time, for soon they were set down at a +desolate, shelterless wayside junction, dumped in the midst of a hilly +snow-covered waste, where they went through another weary wait for +another dismal local train that was to carry them to Trehenna. And in +this train there were no hot-water cans, so that the compartment was as +cold as death. McCurdie fretted and shook his fist in the direction of +Trehenna. + +"And when we get there we have still a twenty miles' motor drive to +Foullis Castle. It's a fool name and we're fools to be going there." + +"I shall die of bronchitis," wailed Professor Biggleswade. + +"A man dies when it is appointed for him to die," said Lord Doyne, in +his tired way; and he went on smoking long black cigars. + +"It's not the dying that worries me," said McCurdie. "That's a mere +mechanical process which every organic being from a king to a +cauliflower has to pass through. It's the being forced against my will +and my reason to come on this accursed journey, which something tells me +will become more and more accursed as we go on, that is driving me to +distraction." + +"What will be, will be," said Doyne. + +"I can't see where the comfort of that reflection comes in," said +Biggleswade. + +"And yet you've travelled in the East," said Doyne. "I suppose you know +the Valley of the Tigris as well as any man living." + +"Yes," said the Professor. "I can say I dug my way from Tekrit to Bagdad +and left not a stone unexamined." + +"Perhaps, after all," Doyne remarked, "that's not quite the way to know +the East." + +"I never wanted to know the modern East," returned the Professor. "What +is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations that +have gone before?" + +McCurdie took a pull from his flask. + +"I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he. + +At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at +Trehenna. The guard opened the door and they stepped out on to the +snow-covered platform. An oil lamp hung from the tiny pent-house roof +that, structurally, was Trehenna Station. They looked around at the +silent gloom of white undulating moorland, and it seemed a place where +no man lived and only ghosts could have a bleak and unsheltered being. A +porter came up and helped the guard with the luggage. Then they realized +that the station was built on a small embankment, for, looking over the +railing, they saw below the two great lamps of a motor car. A fur-clad +chauffeur met them at the bottom of the stairs. He clapped his hands +together and informed them cheerily that he had been waiting for four +hours. It was the bitterest winter in these parts within the memory of +man, said he, and he himself had not seen snow there for five years. +Then he settled the three travellers in the great roomy touring car +covered with a Cape-cart hood, wrapped them up in many rugs and started. + +After a few moments, the huddling together of their bodies--for, the +Professor being a spare man, there was room for them all on the back +seat--the pile of rugs, the serviceable and all but air-tight hood, +induced a pleasant warmth and a pleasant drowsiness. Where they were +being driven they knew not. The perfectly upholstered seat eased their +limbs, the easy swinging motion of the car soothed their spirits. They +felt that already they had reached the luxuriously appointed home which, +after all, they knew awaited them. McCurdie no longer railed, Professor +Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted the +stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight +it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world +to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. +McCurdie and Biggleswade fell into a doze. Lord Doyne chewed the end of +his cigar. The car sped on through an unseen wilderness. + +Suddenly there was a horrid jolt and a lurch and a leap and a rebound, +and then the car stood still, quivering like a ship that has been struck +by a heavy sea. The three men were pitched and tossed and thrown +sprawling over one another onto the bottom of the car. Biggleswade +screamed. McCurdie cursed. Doyne scrambled from the confusion of rugs +and limbs and, tearing open the side of the Cape-cart hood, jumped out. +The chauffeur had also just leaped from his seat. It was pitch dark save +for the great shaft of light down the snowy road cast by the acetylene +lamps. The snow had ceased falling. + +"What's gone wrong?" + +"It sounds like the axle," said the chauffeur ruefully. + +He unshipped a lamp and examined the car, which had wedged itself +against a great drift of snow on the off side. Meanwhile McCurdie and +Biggleswade had alighted. + +"Yes, it's the axle," said the chauffeur. + +"Then we're done," remarked Doyne. + +"I'm afraid so, my lord." + +"What's the matter? Can't we get on?" asked Biggleswade in his querulous +voice. + +McCurdie laughed. "How can we get on with a broken axle? The thing's as +useless as a man with a broken back. Gad, I was right. I said it was +going to be an infernal journey." + +The little Professor wrung his hands. "But what's to be done?" he cried. + +"Tramp it," said Lord Doyne, lighting a fresh cigar. + +"It's ten miles," said the chauffeur. + +"It would be the death of me," the Professor wailed. + +"I utterly refuse to walk ten miles through a Polar waste with a gouty +foot," McCurdie declared wrathfully. + +The chauffeur offered a solution of the difficulty. He would set out +alone for Foullis Castle--five miles farther on was an inn where he +could obtain a horse and trap--and would return for the three gentlemen +with another car. In the meanwhile they could take shelter in a little +house which they had just passed, some half mile up the road. This was +agreed to. The chauffeur went on cheerily enough with a lamp, and the +three travellers with another lamp started off in the opposite +direction. As far as they could see they were in a long, desolate +valley, a sort of No Man's Land, deathly silent. The eastern sky had +cleared somewhat, and they faced a loose rack through which one pale +star was dimly visible. + + * * * * * + +"I'm a man of science," said McCurdie as they trudged through the snow, +"and I dismiss the supernatural as contrary to reason; but I have +Highland blood in my veins that plays me exasperating tricks. My reason +tells me that this place is only a commonplace moor, yet it seems like a +Valley of Bones haunted by malignant spirits who have lured us here to +our destruction. There's something guiding us now. It's just uncanny." + +"Why on earth did we ever come?" croaked Biggleswade. + +Lord Doyne answered: "The Koran says, 'Nothing can befall us but what +God hath destined for us.' So why worry?" + +"Because I'm not a Mohammedan," retorted Biggleswade. + +"You might be worse," said Doyne. + +Presently the dim outline of the little house grew perceptible. A faint +light shone from the window. It stood unfenced by any kind of hedge or +railing a few feet away from the road in a little hollow beneath some +rising ground. As far as they could discern in the darkness when they +drew near, the house was a mean, dilapidated hovel. A guttering candle +stood on the inner sill of the small window and afforded a vague view +into a mean interior. Doyne held up the lamp so that its rays fell full +on the door. As he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips and he +hurried forward, followed by the others. A man's body lay huddled +together on the snow by the threshold. He was dressed like a peasant, in +old corduroy trousers and rough coat, and a handkerchief was knotted +round his neck. In his hand he grasped the neck of a broken bottle. +Doyne set the lamp on the ground and the three bent down together over +the man. Close by the neck lay the rest of the broken bottle, whose +contents had evidently run out into the snow. + +"Drunk?" asked Biggleswade. + +Doyne felt the man and laid his hand on his heart. + +"No," said he, "dead." + +McCurdie leaped to his full height. "I told you the place was uncanny!" +he cried. "It's fey." Then he hammered wildly at the door. + +There was no response. He hammered again till it rattled. This time a +faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was +heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth +chattering. + +"Did ye hear that, Doyne?" + + +[Illustration: I TOLD YOU THE PLACE WAS UNCANNY.] + + +"Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor. + +Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the +door-handle. It yielded, the door stood open, and the gust of cold wind +entering the house extinguished the candle within. They entered and +found themselves in a miserable stone-paved kitchen, furnished with +poverty-stricken meagreness--a wooden chair or two, a dirty table, some +broken crockery, old cooking utensils, a fly-blown missionary society +almanac, and a fireless grate. Doyne set the lamp on the table. + +"We must bring him in," said he. + +They returned to the threshold, and as they were bending over to grip +the dead man the same sound filled the air, but this time louder, more +intense, a cry of great agony. The sweat dripped from McCurdie's +forehead. They lifted the dead man and brought him into the room, and +after laying him on a dirty strip of carpet they did their best to +straighten the stiff limbs. Biggleswade put on the table a bundle which +he had picked up outside. It contained some poor provisions--a loaf, a +piece of fat bacon, and a paper of tea. As far as they could guess (and +as they learned later they guessed rightly) the man was the master of +the house, who, coming home blind drunk from some distant inn, had +fallen at his own threshold and got frozen to death. As they could not +unclasp his fingers from the broken bottleneck they had to let him +clutch it as a dead warrior clutches the hilt of his broken sword. + +Then suddenly the whole place was rent with another and yet another +long, soul-piercing moan of anguish. + +"There's a second room," said Doyne, pointing to a door. "The sound +comes from there." He opened the door, peeped in, and then, returning +for the lamp, disappeared, leaving McCurdie and Biggleswade in the pitch +darkness, with the dead man on the floor. + +"For heaven's sake, give me a drop of whiskey," said the Professor, "or +I shall faint." + +Presently the door opened and Lord Doyne appeared in the shaft of light. +He beckoned to his companions. + +"It is a woman in childbirth," he said in his even, tired voice. "We +must aid her. She appears unconscious. Does either of you know anything +about such things?" + +They shook their heads, and the three looked at each other in dismay. +Masters of knowledge that had won them world-wide fame and honour, they +stood helpless, abashed before this, the commonest phenomenon of nature. + +"My wife had no child," said McCurdie. + +"I've avoided women all my life," said Biggleswade. + +"And I've been too busy to think of them. God forgive me," said Doyne. + + * * * * * + +The history of the next two hours was one that none of the three men +ever cared to touch upon. They did things blindly, instinctively, as men +do when they come face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they +knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled. +Doyne accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his +suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering +back beneath rugs and travelling bags which could supply clean linen and +needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find +nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman's +strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that +nameless hovel, with death on the hearthstone and death and life +hovering over the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain +and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never +yet stood before so great a mystery. + +With the first wail of the newly born infant a last convulsive shudder +passed through the frame of the unconscious mother. Then three or four +short gasps for breath, and the spirit passed away. She was dead. +Professor Biggleswade threw a corner of the sheet over her face, for he +could not bear to see it. + +They washed and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have +done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a +cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of +Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then they +wrapped him up warm in some of their own woollen undergarments, and took +him into the kitchen and placed him on a bed made of their fur coats in +front of the fire. As the last piece of fuel was exhausted they took one +of the wooden chairs and broke it up and cast it into the blaze. And +then they raised the dead man from the strip of carpet and carried him +into the bedroom and laid him reverently by the side of his dead wife, +after which they left the dead in darkness and returned to the living. +And the three grave men stood over the wisp of flesh that had been born +a male into the world. Then, their task being accomplished, reaction +came, and even Doyne, who had seen death in many lands, turned faint. +But the others, losing control of their nerves, shook like men stricken +with palsy. + +Suddenly McCurdie cried in a high pitched voice, "My God! Don't you feel +it?" and clutched Doyne by the arm. An expression of terror appeared on +his iron features. + +"There! It's here with us." + +Little Professor Biggleswade sat on a corner of the table and wiped his +forehead. + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." + +"It's the fourth time," said McCurdie. "The first time was just before I +accepted the Deverills' invitation. The second in the railway carriage +this afternoon. The third on the way here. This is the fourth." + +Biggleswade plucked nervously at the fringe of whisker under his jaws +and said faintly, "It's the fourth time up to now. I thought it was +fancy." + +"I have felt it, too," said Doyne. "It is the Angel of Death." And he +pointed to the room where the dead man and woman lay. + +"For God's sake let us get away from this," cried Biggleswade. + +"And leave the child to die, like the others?" said Doyne. + +"We must see it through," said McCurdie. + + * * * * * + +A silence fell upon them as they sat round in the blaze with the +new-born babe wrapped in its odd swaddling clothes asleep on the pile of +fur coats, and it lasted until Sir Angus McCurdie looked at his watch. + +"Good Lord," said he, "it's twelve o'clock." + +"Christmas morning," said Biggleswade. + +"A strange Christmas," mused Doyne. + +McCurdie put up his hand. "There it is again! The beating of wings." And +they listened like men spellbound. McCurdie kept his hand uplifted, and +gazed over their heads at the wall, and his gaze was that of a man in a +trance, and he spoke: + +"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given--" + +Doyne sprang from his chair, which fell behind him with a crash. + +"Man--what the devil are you saying?" + +Then McCurdie rose and met Biggleswade's eyes staring at him through the +great round spectacles, and Biggleswade turned and met the eyes of +Doyne. A pulsation like the beating of wings stirred the air. + +The three wise men shivered with a queer exaltation. Something strange, +mystical, dynamic had happened. It was as if scales had fallen from +their eyes and they saw with a new vision. They stood together humbly, +divested of all their greatness, touching one another in the instinctive +fashion of children, as if seeking mutual protection, and they looked, +with one accord, irresistibly compelled, at the child. + +At last McCurdie unbent his black brows and said hoarsely: + +"It was not the Angel of Death, Doyne, but another Messenger that drew +us here." + +The tiredness seemed to pass away from the great administrator's face, +and he nodded his head with the calm of a man who has come to the quiet +heart of a perplexing mystery. + +"It's true," he murmured. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is +given. Unto the three of us." + +Biggleswade took off his great round spectacles and wiped them. + +"Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar. But where are the gold, frankincense and +myrrh?" + +"In our hearts, man," said McCurdie. + +The babe cried and stretched its tiny limbs. + + +[Illustration: INSTINCTIVELY THEY ALL KNELT DOWN.] + + +Instinctively they all knelt down together to discover, if possible, and +administer ignorantly to, its wants. The scene had the appearance of an +adoration. + + * * * * * + +Then these three wise, lonely, childless men who, in furtherance of +their own greatness, had cut themselves adrift from the sweet and simple +things of life and from the kindly ways of their brethren, and had grown +old in unhappy and profitless wisdom, knew that an inscrutable +Providence had led them, as it had led three Wise Men of old, on a +Christmas morning long ago, to a nativity which should give them a new +wisdom, a new link with humanity, a new spiritual outlook, a new hope. + +And, when their watch was ended, they wrapped up the babe with precious +care, and carried him with them, an inalienable joy and possession, into +the great world. + + +[Illustration: CARRIED WITH THEM AN INALIENABLE JOY AND POSSESSION INTO +THE GREAT WORLD.] + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + +***** This file should be named 10707-8.txt or 10707-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/0/10707/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/10707-8.zip b/10707-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2b929e --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-8.zip diff --git a/10707-h.zip b/10707-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c1883c --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h.zip diff --git a/10707-h/10707-h.htm b/10707-h/10707-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1cbe0a --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/10707-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1473 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Christmas Mystery: The Story of Three Wise Men, by William J. Locke</title> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- +body {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; background-color: white} +img {border: 0;} +h1,h2,h3 {text-align: center;} +.ind {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} +hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} +.ctr {text-align: center;} +--> +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Christmas Mystery + The Story of Three Wise Men + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: January 13, 2004 [EBook #10707] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="cover.jpg"><img src="cover_th.jpg" alt="cover"></a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<i>"I cannot tell how the truth may be:<br> +I say the tale as 'twas said to me."</i> +</p> + + +<h3> +BY THE SAME AUTHOR +</h3> + +<p class="ctr"> +IDOLS<br> +SEPTIMUS<br> +THE USURPER<br> +THE WHITE DOVE<br> +THE BELOVED VAGABOND<br> +THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE<br> +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE<br> +AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA<br> +A STUDY IN SHADOWS<br> +SIMON THE JESTER<br> +WHERE LOVE IS<br> +DERELICTS<br> +</p> + + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="frontis.jpg"><img src="frontis_th.jpg" alt="'I HEARD IT. I FELT IT. It WAS LIKE THE BEATING OF WINGS.'"></a> +</p> + + +<h1>A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY</h1> + +<h2>THE STORY OF THREE WISE MEN</h2> + +<h2>BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE</h2> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL</h2> + +<h3> +1910 +</h3> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="frontis.jpg">"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." Frontispiece</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp40.jpg">"I told you the place was uncanny."</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp53.jpg">Instinctively they all knelt down.</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp54.jpg">Carried with them an inalienable joy and possession into the great world.</a> +</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<h1>A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY</h1> + +<br> + + +<p> +Three men who had gained great fame and honour throughout the world met +unexpectedly in front of the bookstall at Paddington Station. Like most +of the great ones of the earth they were personally acquainted, and they +exchanged surprised greetings. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Angus McCurdie, the eminent physicist, scowled at the two others +beneath his heavy black eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm going to a God-forsaken place in Cornwall called Trehenna," said +he. +</p> + +<p> +"That's odd; so am I," croaked Professor Biggleswade. He was a little, +untidy man with round spectacles, a fringe of greyish beard and a weak, +rasping voice, and he knew more of Assyriology than any man, living or +dead. A flippant pupil once remarked that the Professor's face was +furnished with a Babylonic cuneiform in lieu of features. +</p> + +<p> +"People called Deverill, at Foulis Castle?" asked Sir Angus. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," replied Professor Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"How curious! I am going to the Deverills, too," said the third man. +</p> + +<p> +This man was the Right Honourable Viscount Doyne, the renowned Empire +Builder and Administrator, around whose solitary and remote life popular +imagination had woven many legends. He looked at the world through tired +grey eyes, and the heavy, drooping, blonde moustache seemed tired, too, +and had dragged down the tired face into deep furrows. He was smoking a +long black cigar. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose we may as well travel down together," said Sir Angus, not +very cordially. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne said courteously: "I have a reserved carriage. The railway +company is always good enough to place one at my disposal. It would give +me great pleasure if you would share it." +</p> + +<p> +The invitation was accepted, and the three men crossed the busy, crowded +platform to take their seats in the great express train. A porter, laden +with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way through +the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed his shoulder +fretfully. +</p> + +<p> +"Why the whole land should be turned into a bear garden on account of +this exploded superstition of Christmas is one of the anomalies of +modern civilization. Look at this insensate welter of fools travelling +in wild herds to disgusting places merely because it's Christmas!" +</p> + +<p> +"You seem to be travelling yourself, McCurdie," said Lord Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes--and why the devil I'm doing it, I've not the faintest notion," +replied Sir Angus. +</p> + +<p> +"It's going to be a beast of a journey," he remarked some moments later, +as the train carried them slowly out of the station. "The whole country +is under snow--and as far as I can understand we have to change twice +and wind up with a twenty-mile motor drive." +</p> + +<p> +He was an iron-faced, beetle-browed, stern man, and this morning he did +not seem to be in the best of tempers. Finding his companions inclined +to be sympathetic, he continued his lamentation. +</p> + +<p> +"And merely because it's Christmas I've had to shut up my laboratory and +give my young fools a holiday--just when I was in the midst of a most +important series of experiments." +</p> + +<p> +Professor Biggleswade, who had heard vaguely of and rather looked down +upon such new-fangled toys as radium and thorium and helium and +argon--for the latest astonishing developments in the theory of +radio-activity had brought Sir Angus McCurdie his world-wide fame--said +somewhat ironically: +</p> + +<p> +"If the experiments were so important, why didn't you lock yourself up +with your test tubes and electric batteries and finish them alone?" +</p> + +<p> +"Man!" said McCurdie, bending across the carriage, and speaking with a +curious intensity of voice, "d'ye know I'd give a hundred pounds to be +able to answer that question?" +</p> + +<p> +"What do you mean?" asked the Professor, startled. +</p> + +<p> +"I should like to know why I'm sitting in this damned train and going to +visit a couple of addle-headed society people whom I'm scarcely +acquainted with, when I might be at home in my own good company +furthering the progress of science." +</p> + +<p> +"I myself," said the Professor, "am not acquainted with them at all." +</p> + +<p> +It was Sir Angus McCurdie's turn to look surprised. +</p> + +<p> +"Then why are you spending Christmas with them?" +</p> + +<p> +"I reviewed a ridiculous blank-verse tragedy written by Deverill on the +Death of Sennacherib. Historically it was puerile. I said so in no +measured terms. He wrote a letter claiming to be a poet and not an +archæologist. I replied that the day had passed when poets could with +impunity commit the abominable crime of distorting history. He retorted +with some futile argument, and we went on exchanging letters, until his +invitation and my acceptance concluded the correspondence." +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie, still bending his black brows on him, asked him why he had not +declined. The Professor screwed up his face till it looked more like a +cuneiform than ever. He, too, found the question difficult to answer, +but he showed a bold front. +</p> + +<p> +"I felt it my duty," said he, "to teach that preposterous ignoramus +something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor and +would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and meaningless +annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers than among my +married sisters' numerous and nerve-racking families." +</p> + +<p> +Sir Angus McCurdie, the hard, metallic apostle of radio-activity, +glanced for a moment out of the window at the grey, frost-bitten fields. +Then he said: +</p> + +<p> +"I'm a widower. My wife died many years ago and, thank God, we had no +children. I generally spend Christmas alone." +</p> + +<p> +He looked out of the window again. Professor Biggleswade suddenly +remembered the popular story of the great scientist's antecedents, and +reflected that as McCurdie had once run, a barefoot urchin, through the +Glasgow mud, he was likely to have little kith or kin. He himself envied +McCurdie. He was always praying to be delivered from his sisters and +nephews and nieces, whose embarrassing demands no calculated coldness +could repress. +</p> + +<p> +"Children are the root of all evil," said he. "Happy the man who has his +quiver empty." +</p> + +<p> +Sir Angus McCurdie did not reply at once; when he spoke again it was +with reference to their prospective host. +</p> + +<p> +"I met Deverill," said he, "at the Royal Society's Soirée this year. One +of my assistants was demonstrating a peculiar property of thorium and +Deverill seemed interested. I asked him to come to my laboratory the +next day, and found he didn't know a damned thing about anything. That's +all the acquaintance I have with him." +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne, the great administrator, who had been wearily turning over +the pages of an illustrated weekly chiefly filled with flamboyant +photographs of obscure actresses, took his gold glasses from his nose +and the black cigar from his lips, and addressed his companions. +</p> + +<p> +"I've been considerably interested in your conversation," said he, "and +as you've been frank, I'll be frank too. I knew Mrs. Deverill's mother, +Lady Carstairs, very well years ago, and of course Mrs. Deverill when +she was a child. Deverill I came across once in Egypt--he had been sent +on a diplomatic mission to Teheran. As for our being invited on such +slight acquaintance, little Mrs. Deverill has the reputation of being +the only really successful celebrity hunter in England. She inherited +the faculty from her mother, who entertained the whole world. We're sure +to find archbishops, and eminent actors, and illustrious divorcées asked +to meet us. That's one thing. But why I, who loathe country house +parties and children and Christmas as much as Biggleswade, am going down +there to-day, I can no more explain than you can. It's a devilish odd +coincidence." +</p> + +<p> +The three men looked at one another. Suddenly McCurdie shivered and drew +his fur coat around him. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll thank you," said he, "to shut that window." +</p> + +<p> +"It is shut," said Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"It's just uncanny," said McCurdie, looking from one to the other. +</p> + +<p> +"What?" asked Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing, if you didn't feel it." +</p> + +<p> +"There did seem to be a sudden draught," said Professor Biggleswade. +"But as both window and door are shut, it could only be imaginary." +</p> + +<p> +"It wasn't imaginary," muttered McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +Then he laughed harshly. "My father and mother came from Cromarty," he +said with apparent irrelevance. +</p> + +<p> +"That's the Highlands," said the Professor. +</p> + +<p> +"Ay," said McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne said nothing, but tugged at his moustache and looked out of +the window as the frozen meadows and bits of river and willows raced +past. A dead silence fell on them. McCurdie broke it with another laugh +and took a whiskey flask from his hand-bag. +</p> + +<p> +"Have a nip?" +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks, no," said the Professor. "I have to keep to a strict dietary, +and I only drink hot milk and water--and of that sparingly. I have some +in a thermos bottle." +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne also declining the whiskey, McCurdie swallowed a dram and +declared himself to be better. The Professor took from his bag a foreign +review in which a German sciolist had dared to question his +interpretation of a Hittite inscription. Over the man's ineptitude he +fell asleep and snored loudly. +</p> + +<p> +To escape from his immediate neighbourhood McCurdie went to the other +end of the seat and faced Lord Doyne, who had resumed his gold glasses +and his listless contemplation of obscure actresses. McCurdie lit a +pipe, Doyne another black cigar. The train thundered on. +</p> + +<p> +Presently they all lunched together in the restaurant car. The windows +steamed, but here and there through a wiped patch of pane a white world +was revealed. The snow was falling. As they passed through Westbury, +McCurdie looked mechanically for the famous white horse carved into the +chalk of the down; but it was not visible beneath the thick covering of +snow. +</p> + +<p> +"It'll be just like this all the way to Gehenna--Trehenna, I mean," said +McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +Doyne nodded. He had done his life's work amid all extreme fiercenesses +of heat and cold, in burning droughts, in simoons and in icy +wildernesses, and a ray or two more of the pale sun or a flake or two +more of the gentle snow of England mattered to him but little. But +Biggleswade rubbed the pane with his table-napkin and gazed +apprehensively at the prospect. +</p> + +<p> +"If only this wretched train would stop," said he, "I would go back +again." +</p> + +<p> +And he thought how comfortable it would be to sneak home again to his +books and thus elude not only the Deverills, but the Christmas jollities +of his sisters' families, who would think him miles away. But the train +was timed not to stop till Plymouth, two hundred and thirty-five miles +from London, and thither was he being relentlessly carried. Then he +quarrelled with his food, which brought a certain consolation. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +The train did stop, however, before Plymouth--indeed, before Exeter. An +accident on the line had dislocated the traffic. The express was held up +for an hour, and when it was permitted to proceed, instead of thundering +on, it went cautiously, subject to continual stoppings. It arrived at +Plymouth two hours late. The travellers learned that they had missed the +connection on which they had counted and that they could not reach +Trehenna till nearly ten o'clock. After weary waiting at Plymouth they +took their seats in the little, cold local train that was to carry them +another stage on their journey. Hot-water cans put in at Plymouth +mitigated to some extent the iciness of the compartment. But that only +lasted a comparatively short time, for soon they were set down at a +desolate, shelterless wayside junction, dumped in the midst of a hilly +snow-covered waste, where they went through another weary wait for +another dismal local train that was to carry them to Trehenna. And in +this train there were no hot-water cans, so that the compartment was as +cold as death. McCurdie fretted and shook his fist in the direction of +Trehenna. +</p> + +<p> +"And when we get there we have still a twenty miles' motor drive to +Foullis Castle. It's a fool name and we're fools to be going there." +</p> + +<p> +"I shall die of bronchitis," wailed Professor Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"A man dies when it is appointed for him to die," said Lord Doyne, in +his tired way; and he went on smoking long black cigars. +</p> + +<p> +"It's not the dying that worries me," said McCurdie. "That's a mere +mechanical process which every organic being from a king to a +cauliflower has to pass through. It's the being forced against my will +and my reason to come on this accursed journey, which something tells me +will become more and more accursed as we go on, that is driving me to +distraction." +</p> + +<p> +"What will be, will be," said Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"I can't see where the comfort of that reflection comes in," said +Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"And yet you've travelled in the East," said Doyne. "I suppose you know +the Valley of the Tigris as well as any man living." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," said the Professor. "I can say I dug my way from Tekrit to Bagdad +and left not a stone unexamined." +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps, after all," Doyne remarked, "that's not quite the way to know +the East." +</p> + +<p> +"I never wanted to know the modern East," returned the Professor. "What +is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations that +have gone before?" +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie took a pull from his flask. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he. +</p> + +<p> +At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at +Trehenna. The guard opened the door and they stepped out on to the +snow-covered platform. An oil lamp hung from the tiny pent-house roof +that, structurally, was Trehenna Station. They looked around at the +silent gloom of white undulating moorland, and it seemed a place where +no man lived and only ghosts could have a bleak and unsheltered being. A +porter came up and helped the guard with the luggage. Then they realized +that the station was built on a small embankment, for, looking over the +railing, they saw below the two great lamps of a motor car. A fur-clad +chauffeur met them at the bottom of the stairs. He clapped his hands +together and informed them cheerily that he had been waiting for four +hours. It was the bitterest winter in these parts within the memory of +man, said he, and he himself had not seen snow there for five years. +Then he settled the three travellers in the great roomy touring car +covered with a Cape-cart hood, wrapped them up in many rugs and started. +</p> + +<p> +After a few moments, the huddling together of their bodies--for, the +Professor being a spare man, there was room for them all on the back +seat--the pile of rugs, the serviceable and all but air-tight hood, +induced a pleasant warmth and a pleasant drowsiness. Where they were +being driven they knew not. The perfectly upholstered seat eased their +limbs, the easy swinging motion of the car soothed their spirits. They +felt that already they had reached the luxuriously appointed home which, +after all, they knew awaited them. McCurdie no longer railed, Professor +Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted the +stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight +it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world +to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. +McCurdie and Biggleswade fell into a doze. Lord Doyne chewed the end of +his cigar. The car sped on through an unseen wilderness. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly there was a horrid jolt and a lurch and a leap and a rebound, +and then the car stood still, quivering like a ship that has been struck +by a heavy sea. The three men were pitched and tossed and thrown +sprawling over one another onto the bottom of the car. Biggleswade +screamed. McCurdie cursed. Doyne scrambled from the confusion of rugs +and limbs and, tearing open the side of the Cape-cart hood, jumped out. +The chauffeur had also just leaped from his seat. It was pitch dark save +for the great shaft of light down the snowy road cast by the acetylene +lamps. The snow had ceased falling. +</p> + +<p> +"What's gone wrong?" +</p> + +<p> +"It sounds like the axle," said the chauffeur ruefully. +</p> + +<p> +He unshipped a lamp and examined the car, which had wedged itself +against a great drift of snow on the off side. Meanwhile McCurdie and +Biggleswade had alighted. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, it's the axle," said the chauffeur. +</p> + +<p> +"Then we're done," remarked Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm afraid so, my lord." +</p> + +<p> +"What's the matter? Can't we get on?" asked Biggleswade in his querulous +voice. +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie laughed. "How can we get on with a broken axle? The thing's as +useless as a man with a broken back. Gad, I was right. I said it was +going to be an infernal journey." +</p> + +<p> +The little Professor wrung his hands. "But what's to be done?" he cried. +</p> + +<p> +"Tramp it," said Lord Doyne, lighting a fresh cigar. +</p> + +<p> +"It's ten miles," said the chauffeur. +</p> + +<p> +"It would be the death of me," the Professor wailed. +</p> + +<p> +"I utterly refuse to walk ten miles through a Polar waste with a gouty +foot," McCurdie declared wrathfully. +</p> + +<p> +The chauffeur offered a solution of the difficulty. He would set out +alone for Foullis Castle--five miles farther on was an inn where he +could obtain a horse and trap--and would return for the three gentlemen +with another car. In the meanwhile they could take shelter in a little +house which they had just passed, some half mile up the road. This was +agreed to. The chauffeur went on cheerily enough with a lamp, and the +three travellers with another lamp started off in the opposite +direction. As far as they could see they were in a long, desolate +valley, a sort of No Man's Land, deathly silent. The eastern sky had +cleared somewhat, and they faced a loose rack through which one pale +star was dimly visible. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +"I'm a man of science," said McCurdie as they trudged through the snow, +"and I dismiss the supernatural as contrary to reason; but I have +Highland blood in my veins that plays me exasperating tricks. My reason +tells me that this place is only a commonplace moor, yet it seems like a +Valley of Bones haunted by malignant spirits who have lured us here to +our destruction. There's something guiding us now. It's just uncanny." +</p> + +<p> +"Why on earth did we ever come?" croaked Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne answered: "The Koran says, 'Nothing can befall us but what +God hath destined for us.' So why worry?" +</p> + +<p> +"Because I'm not a Mohammedan," retorted Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"You might be worse," said Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the dim outline of the little house grew perceptible. A faint +light shone from the window. It stood unfenced by any kind of hedge or +railing a few feet away from the road in a little hollow beneath some +rising ground. As far as they could discern in the darkness when they +drew near, the house was a mean, dilapidated hovel. A guttering candle +stood on the inner sill of the small window and afforded a vague view +into a mean interior. Doyne held up the lamp so that its rays fell full +on the door. As he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips and he +hurried forward, followed by the others. A man's body lay huddled +together on the snow by the threshold. He was dressed like a peasant, in +old corduroy trousers and rough coat, and a handkerchief was knotted +round his neck. In his hand he grasped the neck of a broken bottle. +Doyne set the lamp on the ground and the three bent down together over +the man. Close by the neck lay the rest of the broken bottle, whose +contents had evidently run out into the snow. +</p> + +<p> +"Drunk?" asked Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +Doyne felt the man and laid his hand on his heart. +</p> + +<p> +"No," said he, "dead." +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie leaped to his full height. "I told you the place was uncanny!" +he cried. "It's fey." Then he hammered wildly at the door. +</p> + +<p> +There was no response. He hammered again till it rattled. This time a +faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was +heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth +chattering. +</p> + +<p> +"Did ye hear that, Doyne?" +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp40.jpg"><img src="illp40_th.jpg" alt="I TOLD YOU THE PLACE WAS UNCANNY."></a> +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the +door-handle. It yielded, the door stood open, and the gust of cold wind +entering the house extinguished the candle within. They entered and +found themselves in a miserable stone-paved kitchen, furnished with +poverty-stricken meagreness--a wooden chair or two, a dirty table, some +broken crockery, old cooking utensils, a fly-blown missionary society +almanac, and a fireless grate. Doyne set the lamp on the table. +</p> + +<p> +"We must bring him in," said he. +</p> + +<p> +They returned to the threshold, and as they were bending over to grip +the dead man the same sound filled the air, but this time louder, more +intense, a cry of great agony. The sweat dripped from McCurdie's +forehead. They lifted the dead man and brought him into the room, and +after laying him on a dirty strip of carpet they did their best to +straighten the stiff limbs. Biggleswade put on the table a bundle which +he had picked up outside. It contained some poor provisions--a loaf, a +piece of fat bacon, and a paper of tea. As far as they could guess (and +as they learned later they guessed rightly) the man was the master of +the house, who, coming home blind drunk from some distant inn, had +fallen at his own threshold and got frozen to death. As they could not +unclasp his fingers from the broken bottleneck they had to let him +clutch it as a dead warrior clutches the hilt of his broken sword. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly the whole place was rent with another and yet another +long, soul-piercing moan of anguish. +</p> + +<p> +"There's a second room," said Doyne, pointing to a door. "The sound +comes from there." He opened the door, peeped in, and then, returning +for the lamp, disappeared, leaving McCurdie and Biggleswade in the pitch +darkness, with the dead man on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +"For heaven's sake, give me a drop of whiskey," said the Professor, "or +I shall faint." +</p> + +<p> +Presently the door opened and Lord Doyne appeared in the shaft of light. +He beckoned to his companions. +</p> + +<p> +"It is a woman in childbirth," he said in his even, tired voice. "We +must aid her. She appears unconscious. Does either of you know anything +about such things?" +</p> + +<p> +They shook their heads, and the three looked at each other in dismay. +Masters of knowledge that had won them world-wide fame and honour, they +stood helpless, abashed before this, the commonest phenomenon of nature. +</p> + +<p> +"My wife had no child," said McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +"I've avoided women all my life," said Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"And I've been too busy to think of them. God forgive me," said Doyne. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +The history of the next two hours was one that none of the three men +ever cared to touch upon. They did things blindly, instinctively, as men +do when they come face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they +knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled. +Doyne accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his +suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering +back beneath rugs and travelling bags which could supply clean linen and +needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find +nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman's +strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that +nameless hovel, with death on the hearthstone and death and life +hovering over the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain +and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never +yet stood before so great a mystery. +</p> + +<p> +With the first wail of the newly born infant a last convulsive shudder +passed through the frame of the unconscious mother. Then three or four +short gasps for breath, and the spirit passed away. She was dead. +Professor Biggleswade threw a corner of the sheet over her face, for he +could not bear to see it. +</p> + +<p> +They washed and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have +done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a +cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of +Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then they +wrapped him up warm in some of their own woollen undergarments, and took +him into the kitchen and placed him on a bed made of their fur coats in +front of the fire. As the last piece of fuel was exhausted they took one +of the wooden chairs and broke it up and cast it into the blaze. And +then they raised the dead man from the strip of carpet and carried him +into the bedroom and laid him reverently by the side of his dead wife, +after which they left the dead in darkness and returned to the living. +And the three grave men stood over the wisp of flesh that had been born +a male into the world. Then, their task being accomplished, reaction +came, and even Doyne, who had seen death in many lands, turned faint. +But the others, losing control of their nerves, shook like men stricken +with palsy. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly McCurdie cried in a high pitched voice, "My God! Don't you feel +it?" and clutched Doyne by the arm. An expression of terror appeared on +his iron features. +</p> + +<p> +"There! It's here with us." +</p> + +<p> +Little Professor Biggleswade sat on a corner of the table and wiped his +forehead. +</p> + +<p> +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." +</p> + +<p> +"It's the fourth time," said McCurdie. "The first time was just before I +accepted the Deverills' invitation. The second in the railway carriage +this afternoon. The third on the way here. This is the fourth." +</p> + +<p> +Biggleswade plucked nervously at the fringe of whisker under his jaws +and said faintly, "It's the fourth time up to now. I thought it was +fancy." +</p> + +<p> +"I have felt it, too," said Doyne. "It is the Angel of Death." And he +pointed to the room where the dead man and woman lay. +</p> + +<p> +"For God's sake let us get away from this," cried Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"And leave the child to die, like the others?" said Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"We must see it through," said McCurdie. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +A silence fell upon them as they sat round in the blaze with the +new-born babe wrapped in its odd swaddling clothes asleep on the pile of +fur coats, and it lasted until Sir Angus McCurdie looked at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +"Good Lord," said he, "it's twelve o'clock." +</p> + +<p> +"Christmas morning," said Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"A strange Christmas," mused Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie put up his hand. "There it is again! The beating of wings." And +they listened like men spellbound. McCurdie kept his hand uplifted, and +gazed over their heads at the wall, and his gaze was that of a man in a +trance, and he spoke: +</p> + +<p> +"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given--" +</p> + +<p> +Doyne sprang from his chair, which fell behind him with a crash. +</p> + +<p> +"Man--what the devil are you saying?" +</p> + +<p> +Then McCurdie rose and met Biggleswade's eyes staring at him through the +great round spectacles, and Biggleswade turned and met the eyes of +Doyne. A pulsation like the beating of wings stirred the air. +</p> + +<p> +The three wise men shivered with a queer exaltation. Something strange, +mystical, dynamic had happened. It was as if scales had fallen from +their eyes and they saw with a new vision. They stood together humbly, +divested of all their greatness, touching one another in the instinctive +fashion of children, as if seeking mutual protection, and they looked, +with one accord, irresistibly compelled, at the child. +</p> + +<p> +At last McCurdie unbent his black brows and said hoarsely: +</p> + +<p> +"It was not the Angel of Death, Doyne, but another Messenger that drew +us here." +</p> + +<p> +The tiredness seemed to pass away from the great administrator's face, +and he nodded his head with the calm of a man who has come to the quiet +heart of a perplexing mystery. +</p> + +<p> +"It's true," he murmured. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is +given. Unto the three of us." +</p> + +<p> +Biggleswade took off his great round spectacles and wiped them. +</p> + +<p> +"Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar. But where are the gold, frankincense and +myrrh?" +</p> + +<p> +"In our hearts, man," said McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +The babe cried and stretched its tiny limbs. +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp53.jpg"><img src="illp53_th.jpg" alt="INSTINCTIVELY THEY ALL KNELT DOWN."></a> +</p> + +<p> +Instinctively they all knelt down together to discover, if possible, and +administer ignorantly to, its wants. The scene had the appearance of an +adoration. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +Then these three wise, lonely, childless men who, in furtherance of +their own greatness, had cut themselves adrift from the sweet and simple +things of life and from the kindly ways of their brethren, and had grown +old in unhappy and profitless wisdom, knew that an inscrutable +Providence had led them, as it had led three Wise Men of old, on a +Christmas morning long ago, to a nativity which should give them a new +wisdom, a new link with humanity, a new spiritual outlook, a new hope. +</p> + +<p> +And, when their watch was ended, they wrapped up the babe with precious +care, and carried him with them, an inalienable joy and possession, into +the great world. +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp54.jpg"><img src="illp54_th.jpg" alt="CARRIED WITH THEM AN INALIENABLE JOY AND POSSESSION INTO THE GREAT WORLD."></a> +</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + +***** This file should be named 10707-h.htm or 10707-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/0/10707/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/10707-h/cover.jpg b/10707-h/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9450b89 --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/cover.jpg diff --git a/10707-h/cover_th.jpg b/10707-h/cover_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..87a7dbb --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/cover_th.jpg diff --git a/10707-h/frontis.jpg b/10707-h/frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..881a3b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/frontis.jpg diff --git a/10707-h/frontis_th.jpg b/10707-h/frontis_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..934f566 --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/frontis_th.jpg diff --git a/10707-h/illp40.jpg b/10707-h/illp40.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3f8e3c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/illp40.jpg diff --git a/10707-h/illp40_th.jpg b/10707-h/illp40_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d53bd93 --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/illp40_th.jpg diff --git a/10707-h/illp53.jpg b/10707-h/illp53.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f7ffdc --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/illp53.jpg diff --git a/10707-h/illp53_th.jpg b/10707-h/illp53_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5b110e --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/illp53_th.jpg diff --git a/10707-h/illp54.jpg b/10707-h/illp54.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..08bb0be --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/illp54.jpg diff --git a/10707-h/illp54_th.jpg b/10707-h/illp54_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5fb5a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/10707-h/illp54_th.jpg diff --git a/10707.txt b/10707.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ddbdfa --- /dev/null +++ b/10707.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1130 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Christmas Mystery + The Story of Three Wise Men + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: January 13, 2004 [EBook #10707] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +"_I cannot tell how the truth may be: +I say the tale as 'twas said to me._" + + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +IDOLS +SEPTIMUS +THE USURPER +THE WHITE DOVE +THE BELOVED VAGABOND +THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE +AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA +A STUDY IN SHADOWS +SIMON THE JESTER +WHERE LOVE IS +DERELICTS + + + +[Illustration: "I HEARD IT. I FELT IT. It WAS LIKE THE BEATING OF +WINGS."] + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY +THE STORY OF THREE WISE MEN + +BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE + +ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL + + +1910 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." Frontispiece + +"I told you the place was uncanny." + +Instinctively they all knelt down. + +Carried with them an inalienable joy and possession into the great +world. + + + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY + + + +Three men who had gained great fame and honour throughout the world met +unexpectedly in front of the bookstall at Paddington Station. Like most +of the great ones of the earth they were personally acquainted, and they +exchanged surprised greetings. + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the eminent physicist, scowled at the two others +beneath his heavy black eyebrows. + +"I'm going to a God-forsaken place in Cornwall called Trehenna," said +he. + +"That's odd; so am I," croaked Professor Biggleswade. He was a little, +untidy man with round spectacles, a fringe of greyish beard and a weak, +rasping voice, and he knew more of Assyriology than any man, living or +dead. A flippant pupil once remarked that the Professor's face was +furnished with a Babylonic cuneiform in lieu of features. + +"People called Deverill, at Foulis Castle?" asked Sir Angus. + +"Yes," replied Professor Biggleswade. + +"How curious! I am going to the Deverills, too," said the third man. + +This man was the Right Honourable Viscount Doyne, the renowned Empire +Builder and Administrator, around whose solitary and remote life popular +imagination had woven many legends. He looked at the world through tired +grey eyes, and the heavy, drooping, blonde moustache seemed tired, too, +and had dragged down the tired face into deep furrows. He was smoking a +long black cigar. + +"I suppose we may as well travel down together," said Sir Angus, not +very cordially. + +Lord Doyne said courteously: "I have a reserved carriage. The railway +company is always good enough to place one at my disposal. It would give +me great pleasure if you would share it." + +The invitation was accepted, and the three men crossed the busy, crowded +platform to take their seats in the great express train. A porter, laden +with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way through +the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed his shoulder +fretfully. + +"Why the whole land should be turned into a bear garden on account of +this exploded superstition of Christmas is one of the anomalies of +modern civilization. Look at this insensate welter of fools travelling +in wild herds to disgusting places merely because it's Christmas!" + +"You seem to be travelling yourself, McCurdie," said Lord Doyne. + +"Yes--and why the devil I'm doing it, I've not the faintest notion," +replied Sir Angus. + +"It's going to be a beast of a journey," he remarked some moments later, +as the train carried them slowly out of the station. "The whole country +is under snow--and as far as I can understand we have to change twice +and wind up with a twenty-mile motor drive." + +He was an iron-faced, beetle-browed, stern man, and this morning he did +not seem to be in the best of tempers. Finding his companions inclined +to be sympathetic, he continued his lamentation. + +"And merely because it's Christmas I've had to shut up my laboratory and +give my young fools a holiday--just when I was in the midst of a most +important series of experiments." + +Professor Biggleswade, who had heard vaguely of and rather looked down +upon such new-fangled toys as radium and thorium and helium and +argon--for the latest astonishing developments in the theory of +radio-activity had brought Sir Angus McCurdie his world-wide fame--said +somewhat ironically: + +"If the experiments were so important, why didn't you lock yourself up +with your test tubes and electric batteries and finish them alone?" + +"Man!" said McCurdie, bending across the carriage, and speaking with a +curious intensity of voice, "d'ye know I'd give a hundred pounds to be +able to answer that question?" + +"What do you mean?" asked the Professor, startled. + +"I should like to know why I'm sitting in this damned train and going to +visit a couple of addle-headed society people whom I'm scarcely +acquainted with, when I might be at home in my own good company +furthering the progress of science." + +"I myself," said the Professor, "am not acquainted with them at all." + +It was Sir Angus McCurdie's turn to look surprised. + +"Then why are you spending Christmas with them?" + +"I reviewed a ridiculous blank-verse tragedy written by Deverill on the +Death of Sennacherib. Historically it was puerile. I said so in no +measured terms. He wrote a letter claiming to be a poet and not an +archaeologist. I replied that the day had passed when poets could with +impunity commit the abominable crime of distorting history. He retorted +with some futile argument, and we went on exchanging letters, until his +invitation and my acceptance concluded the correspondence." + +McCurdie, still bending his black brows on him, asked him why he had not +declined. The Professor screwed up his face till it looked more like a +cuneiform than ever. He, too, found the question difficult to answer, +but he showed a bold front. + +"I felt it my duty," said he, "to teach that preposterous ignoramus +something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor and +would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and meaningless +annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers than among my +married sisters' numerous and nerve-racking families." + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the hard, metallic apostle of radio-activity, +glanced for a moment out of the window at the grey, frost-bitten fields. +Then he said: + +"I'm a widower. My wife died many years ago and, thank God, we had no +children. I generally spend Christmas alone." + +He looked out of the window again. Professor Biggleswade suddenly +remembered the popular story of the great scientist's antecedents, and +reflected that as McCurdie had once run, a barefoot urchin, through the +Glasgow mud, he was likely to have little kith or kin. He himself envied +McCurdie. He was always praying to be delivered from his sisters and +nephews and nieces, whose embarrassing demands no calculated coldness +could repress. + +"Children are the root of all evil," said he. "Happy the man who has his +quiver empty." + +Sir Angus McCurdie did not reply at once; when he spoke again it was +with reference to their prospective host. + +"I met Deverill," said he, "at the Royal Society's Soiree this year. One +of my assistants was demonstrating a peculiar property of thorium and +Deverill seemed interested. I asked him to come to my laboratory the +next day, and found he didn't know a damned thing about anything. That's +all the acquaintance I have with him." + +Lord Doyne, the great administrator, who had been wearily turning over +the pages of an illustrated weekly chiefly filled with flamboyant +photographs of obscure actresses, took his gold glasses from his nose +and the black cigar from his lips, and addressed his companions. + +"I've been considerably interested in your conversation," said he, "and +as you've been frank, I'll be frank too. I knew Mrs. Deverill's mother, +Lady Carstairs, very well years ago, and of course Mrs. Deverill when +she was a child. Deverill I came across once in Egypt--he had been sent +on a diplomatic mission to Teheran. As for our being invited on such +slight acquaintance, little Mrs. Deverill has the reputation of being +the only really successful celebrity hunter in England. She inherited +the faculty from her mother, who entertained the whole world. We're sure +to find archbishops, and eminent actors, and illustrious divorcees asked +to meet us. That's one thing. But why I, who loathe country house +parties and children and Christmas as much as Biggleswade, am going down +there to-day, I can no more explain than you can. It's a devilish odd +coincidence." + +The three men looked at one another. Suddenly McCurdie shivered and drew +his fur coat around him. + +"I'll thank you," said he, "to shut that window." + +"It is shut," said Doyne. + +"It's just uncanny," said McCurdie, looking from one to the other. + +"What?" asked Doyne. + +"Nothing, if you didn't feel it." + +"There did seem to be a sudden draught," said Professor Biggleswade. +"But as both window and door are shut, it could only be imaginary." + +"It wasn't imaginary," muttered McCurdie. + +Then he laughed harshly. "My father and mother came from Cromarty," he +said with apparent irrelevance. + +"That's the Highlands," said the Professor. + +"Ay," said McCurdie. + +Lord Doyne said nothing, but tugged at his moustache and looked out of +the window as the frozen meadows and bits of river and willows raced +past. A dead silence fell on them. McCurdie broke it with another laugh +and took a whiskey flask from his hand-bag. + +"Have a nip?" + +"Thanks, no," said the Professor. "I have to keep to a strict dietary, +and I only drink hot milk and water--and of that sparingly. I have some +in a thermos bottle." + +Lord Doyne also declining the whiskey, McCurdie swallowed a dram and +declared himself to be better. The Professor took from his bag a foreign +review in which a German sciolist had dared to question his +interpretation of a Hittite inscription. Over the man's ineptitude he +fell asleep and snored loudly. + +To escape from his immediate neighbourhood McCurdie went to the other +end of the seat and faced Lord Doyne, who had resumed his gold glasses +and his listless contemplation of obscure actresses. McCurdie lit a +pipe, Doyne another black cigar. The train thundered on. + +Presently they all lunched together in the restaurant car. The windows +steamed, but here and there through a wiped patch of pane a white world +was revealed. The snow was falling. As they passed through Westbury, +McCurdie looked mechanically for the famous white horse carved into the +chalk of the down; but it was not visible beneath the thick covering of +snow. + +"It'll be just like this all the way to Gehenna--Trehenna, I mean," said +McCurdie. + +Doyne nodded. He had done his life's work amid all extreme fiercenesses +of heat and cold, in burning droughts, in simoons and in icy +wildernesses, and a ray or two more of the pale sun or a flake or two +more of the gentle snow of England mattered to him but little. But +Biggleswade rubbed the pane with his table-napkin and gazed +apprehensively at the prospect. + +"If only this wretched train would stop," said he, "I would go back +again." + +And he thought how comfortable it would be to sneak home again to his +books and thus elude not only the Deverills, but the Christmas jollities +of his sisters' families, who would think him miles away. But the train +was timed not to stop till Plymouth, two hundred and thirty-five miles +from London, and thither was he being relentlessly carried. Then he +quarrelled with his food, which brought a certain consolation. + + * * * * * + +The train did stop, however, before Plymouth--indeed, before Exeter. An +accident on the line had dislocated the traffic. The express was held up +for an hour, and when it was permitted to proceed, instead of thundering +on, it went cautiously, subject to continual stoppings. It arrived at +Plymouth two hours late. The travellers learned that they had missed the +connection on which they had counted and that they could not reach +Trehenna till nearly ten o'clock. After weary waiting at Plymouth they +took their seats in the little, cold local train that was to carry them +another stage on their journey. Hot-water cans put in at Plymouth +mitigated to some extent the iciness of the compartment. But that only +lasted a comparatively short time, for soon they were set down at a +desolate, shelterless wayside junction, dumped in the midst of a hilly +snow-covered waste, where they went through another weary wait for +another dismal local train that was to carry them to Trehenna. And in +this train there were no hot-water cans, so that the compartment was as +cold as death. McCurdie fretted and shook his fist in the direction of +Trehenna. + +"And when we get there we have still a twenty miles' motor drive to +Foullis Castle. It's a fool name and we're fools to be going there." + +"I shall die of bronchitis," wailed Professor Biggleswade. + +"A man dies when it is appointed for him to die," said Lord Doyne, in +his tired way; and he went on smoking long black cigars. + +"It's not the dying that worries me," said McCurdie. "That's a mere +mechanical process which every organic being from a king to a +cauliflower has to pass through. It's the being forced against my will +and my reason to come on this accursed journey, which something tells me +will become more and more accursed as we go on, that is driving me to +distraction." + +"What will be, will be," said Doyne. + +"I can't see where the comfort of that reflection comes in," said +Biggleswade. + +"And yet you've travelled in the East," said Doyne. "I suppose you know +the Valley of the Tigris as well as any man living." + +"Yes," said the Professor. "I can say I dug my way from Tekrit to Bagdad +and left not a stone unexamined." + +"Perhaps, after all," Doyne remarked, "that's not quite the way to know +the East." + +"I never wanted to know the modern East," returned the Professor. "What +is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations that +have gone before?" + +McCurdie took a pull from his flask. + +"I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he. + +At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at +Trehenna. The guard opened the door and they stepped out on to the +snow-covered platform. An oil lamp hung from the tiny pent-house roof +that, structurally, was Trehenna Station. They looked around at the +silent gloom of white undulating moorland, and it seemed a place where +no man lived and only ghosts could have a bleak and unsheltered being. A +porter came up and helped the guard with the luggage. Then they realized +that the station was built on a small embankment, for, looking over the +railing, they saw below the two great lamps of a motor car. A fur-clad +chauffeur met them at the bottom of the stairs. He clapped his hands +together and informed them cheerily that he had been waiting for four +hours. It was the bitterest winter in these parts within the memory of +man, said he, and he himself had not seen snow there for five years. +Then he settled the three travellers in the great roomy touring car +covered with a Cape-cart hood, wrapped them up in many rugs and started. + +After a few moments, the huddling together of their bodies--for, the +Professor being a spare man, there was room for them all on the back +seat--the pile of rugs, the serviceable and all but air-tight hood, +induced a pleasant warmth and a pleasant drowsiness. Where they were +being driven they knew not. The perfectly upholstered seat eased their +limbs, the easy swinging motion of the car soothed their spirits. They +felt that already they had reached the luxuriously appointed home which, +after all, they knew awaited them. McCurdie no longer railed, Professor +Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted the +stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight +it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world +to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. +McCurdie and Biggleswade fell into a doze. Lord Doyne chewed the end of +his cigar. The car sped on through an unseen wilderness. + +Suddenly there was a horrid jolt and a lurch and a leap and a rebound, +and then the car stood still, quivering like a ship that has been struck +by a heavy sea. The three men were pitched and tossed and thrown +sprawling over one another onto the bottom of the car. Biggleswade +screamed. McCurdie cursed. Doyne scrambled from the confusion of rugs +and limbs and, tearing open the side of the Cape-cart hood, jumped out. +The chauffeur had also just leaped from his seat. It was pitch dark save +for the great shaft of light down the snowy road cast by the acetylene +lamps. The snow had ceased falling. + +"What's gone wrong?" + +"It sounds like the axle," said the chauffeur ruefully. + +He unshipped a lamp and examined the car, which had wedged itself +against a great drift of snow on the off side. Meanwhile McCurdie and +Biggleswade had alighted. + +"Yes, it's the axle," said the chauffeur. + +"Then we're done," remarked Doyne. + +"I'm afraid so, my lord." + +"What's the matter? Can't we get on?" asked Biggleswade in his querulous +voice. + +McCurdie laughed. "How can we get on with a broken axle? The thing's as +useless as a man with a broken back. Gad, I was right. I said it was +going to be an infernal journey." + +The little Professor wrung his hands. "But what's to be done?" he cried. + +"Tramp it," said Lord Doyne, lighting a fresh cigar. + +"It's ten miles," said the chauffeur. + +"It would be the death of me," the Professor wailed. + +"I utterly refuse to walk ten miles through a Polar waste with a gouty +foot," McCurdie declared wrathfully. + +The chauffeur offered a solution of the difficulty. He would set out +alone for Foullis Castle--five miles farther on was an inn where he +could obtain a horse and trap--and would return for the three gentlemen +with another car. In the meanwhile they could take shelter in a little +house which they had just passed, some half mile up the road. This was +agreed to. The chauffeur went on cheerily enough with a lamp, and the +three travellers with another lamp started off in the opposite +direction. As far as they could see they were in a long, desolate +valley, a sort of No Man's Land, deathly silent. The eastern sky had +cleared somewhat, and they faced a loose rack through which one pale +star was dimly visible. + + * * * * * + +"I'm a man of science," said McCurdie as they trudged through the snow, +"and I dismiss the supernatural as contrary to reason; but I have +Highland blood in my veins that plays me exasperating tricks. My reason +tells me that this place is only a commonplace moor, yet it seems like a +Valley of Bones haunted by malignant spirits who have lured us here to +our destruction. There's something guiding us now. It's just uncanny." + +"Why on earth did we ever come?" croaked Biggleswade. + +Lord Doyne answered: "The Koran says, 'Nothing can befall us but what +God hath destined for us.' So why worry?" + +"Because I'm not a Mohammedan," retorted Biggleswade. + +"You might be worse," said Doyne. + +Presently the dim outline of the little house grew perceptible. A faint +light shone from the window. It stood unfenced by any kind of hedge or +railing a few feet away from the road in a little hollow beneath some +rising ground. As far as they could discern in the darkness when they +drew near, the house was a mean, dilapidated hovel. A guttering candle +stood on the inner sill of the small window and afforded a vague view +into a mean interior. Doyne held up the lamp so that its rays fell full +on the door. As he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips and he +hurried forward, followed by the others. A man's body lay huddled +together on the snow by the threshold. He was dressed like a peasant, in +old corduroy trousers and rough coat, and a handkerchief was knotted +round his neck. In his hand he grasped the neck of a broken bottle. +Doyne set the lamp on the ground and the three bent down together over +the man. Close by the neck lay the rest of the broken bottle, whose +contents had evidently run out into the snow. + +"Drunk?" asked Biggleswade. + +Doyne felt the man and laid his hand on his heart. + +"No," said he, "dead." + +McCurdie leaped to his full height. "I told you the place was uncanny!" +he cried. "It's fey." Then he hammered wildly at the door. + +There was no response. He hammered again till it rattled. This time a +faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was +heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth +chattering. + +"Did ye hear that, Doyne?" + + +[Illustration: I TOLD YOU THE PLACE WAS UNCANNY.] + + +"Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor. + +Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the +door-handle. It yielded, the door stood open, and the gust of cold wind +entering the house extinguished the candle within. They entered and +found themselves in a miserable stone-paved kitchen, furnished with +poverty-stricken meagreness--a wooden chair or two, a dirty table, some +broken crockery, old cooking utensils, a fly-blown missionary society +almanac, and a fireless grate. Doyne set the lamp on the table. + +"We must bring him in," said he. + +They returned to the threshold, and as they were bending over to grip +the dead man the same sound filled the air, but this time louder, more +intense, a cry of great agony. The sweat dripped from McCurdie's +forehead. They lifted the dead man and brought him into the room, and +after laying him on a dirty strip of carpet they did their best to +straighten the stiff limbs. Biggleswade put on the table a bundle which +he had picked up outside. It contained some poor provisions--a loaf, a +piece of fat bacon, and a paper of tea. As far as they could guess (and +as they learned later they guessed rightly) the man was the master of +the house, who, coming home blind drunk from some distant inn, had +fallen at his own threshold and got frozen to death. As they could not +unclasp his fingers from the broken bottleneck they had to let him +clutch it as a dead warrior clutches the hilt of his broken sword. + +Then suddenly the whole place was rent with another and yet another +long, soul-piercing moan of anguish. + +"There's a second room," said Doyne, pointing to a door. "The sound +comes from there." He opened the door, peeped in, and then, returning +for the lamp, disappeared, leaving McCurdie and Biggleswade in the pitch +darkness, with the dead man on the floor. + +"For heaven's sake, give me a drop of whiskey," said the Professor, "or +I shall faint." + +Presently the door opened and Lord Doyne appeared in the shaft of light. +He beckoned to his companions. + +"It is a woman in childbirth," he said in his even, tired voice. "We +must aid her. She appears unconscious. Does either of you know anything +about such things?" + +They shook their heads, and the three looked at each other in dismay. +Masters of knowledge that had won them world-wide fame and honour, they +stood helpless, abashed before this, the commonest phenomenon of nature. + +"My wife had no child," said McCurdie. + +"I've avoided women all my life," said Biggleswade. + +"And I've been too busy to think of them. God forgive me," said Doyne. + + * * * * * + +The history of the next two hours was one that none of the three men +ever cared to touch upon. They did things blindly, instinctively, as men +do when they come face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they +knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled. +Doyne accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his +suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering +back beneath rugs and travelling bags which could supply clean linen and +needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find +nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman's +strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that +nameless hovel, with death on the hearthstone and death and life +hovering over the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain +and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never +yet stood before so great a mystery. + +With the first wail of the newly born infant a last convulsive shudder +passed through the frame of the unconscious mother. Then three or four +short gasps for breath, and the spirit passed away. She was dead. +Professor Biggleswade threw a corner of the sheet over her face, for he +could not bear to see it. + +They washed and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have +done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a +cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of +Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then they +wrapped him up warm in some of their own woollen undergarments, and took +him into the kitchen and placed him on a bed made of their fur coats in +front of the fire. As the last piece of fuel was exhausted they took one +of the wooden chairs and broke it up and cast it into the blaze. And +then they raised the dead man from the strip of carpet and carried him +into the bedroom and laid him reverently by the side of his dead wife, +after which they left the dead in darkness and returned to the living. +And the three grave men stood over the wisp of flesh that had been born +a male into the world. Then, their task being accomplished, reaction +came, and even Doyne, who had seen death in many lands, turned faint. +But the others, losing control of their nerves, shook like men stricken +with palsy. + +Suddenly McCurdie cried in a high pitched voice, "My God! Don't you feel +it?" and clutched Doyne by the arm. An expression of terror appeared on +his iron features. + +"There! It's here with us." + +Little Professor Biggleswade sat on a corner of the table and wiped his +forehead. + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." + +"It's the fourth time," said McCurdie. "The first time was just before I +accepted the Deverills' invitation. The second in the railway carriage +this afternoon. The third on the way here. This is the fourth." + +Biggleswade plucked nervously at the fringe of whisker under his jaws +and said faintly, "It's the fourth time up to now. I thought it was +fancy." + +"I have felt it, too," said Doyne. "It is the Angel of Death." And he +pointed to the room where the dead man and woman lay. + +"For God's sake let us get away from this," cried Biggleswade. + +"And leave the child to die, like the others?" said Doyne. + +"We must see it through," said McCurdie. + + * * * * * + +A silence fell upon them as they sat round in the blaze with the +new-born babe wrapped in its odd swaddling clothes asleep on the pile of +fur coats, and it lasted until Sir Angus McCurdie looked at his watch. + +"Good Lord," said he, "it's twelve o'clock." + +"Christmas morning," said Biggleswade. + +"A strange Christmas," mused Doyne. + +McCurdie put up his hand. "There it is again! The beating of wings." And +they listened like men spellbound. McCurdie kept his hand uplifted, and +gazed over their heads at the wall, and his gaze was that of a man in a +trance, and he spoke: + +"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given--" + +Doyne sprang from his chair, which fell behind him with a crash. + +"Man--what the devil are you saying?" + +Then McCurdie rose and met Biggleswade's eyes staring at him through the +great round spectacles, and Biggleswade turned and met the eyes of +Doyne. A pulsation like the beating of wings stirred the air. + +The three wise men shivered with a queer exaltation. Something strange, +mystical, dynamic had happened. It was as if scales had fallen from +their eyes and they saw with a new vision. They stood together humbly, +divested of all their greatness, touching one another in the instinctive +fashion of children, as if seeking mutual protection, and they looked, +with one accord, irresistibly compelled, at the child. + +At last McCurdie unbent his black brows and said hoarsely: + +"It was not the Angel of Death, Doyne, but another Messenger that drew +us here." + +The tiredness seemed to pass away from the great administrator's face, +and he nodded his head with the calm of a man who has come to the quiet +heart of a perplexing mystery. + +"It's true," he murmured. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is +given. Unto the three of us." + +Biggleswade took off his great round spectacles and wiped them. + +"Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar. But where are the gold, frankincense and +myrrh?" + +"In our hearts, man," said McCurdie. + +The babe cried and stretched its tiny limbs. + + +[Illustration: INSTINCTIVELY THEY ALL KNELT DOWN.] + + +Instinctively they all knelt down together to discover, if possible, and +administer ignorantly to, its wants. The scene had the appearance of an +adoration. + + * * * * * + +Then these three wise, lonely, childless men who, in furtherance of +their own greatness, had cut themselves adrift from the sweet and simple +things of life and from the kindly ways of their brethren, and had grown +old in unhappy and profitless wisdom, knew that an inscrutable +Providence had led them, as it had led three Wise Men of old, on a +Christmas morning long ago, to a nativity which should give them a new +wisdom, a new link with humanity, a new spiritual outlook, a new hope. + +And, when their watch was ended, they wrapped up the babe with precious +care, and carried him with them, an inalienable joy and possession, into +the great world. + + +[Illustration: CARRIED WITH THEM AN INALIENABLE JOY AND POSSESSION INTO +THE GREAT WORLD.] + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + +***** This file should be named 10707.txt or 10707.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/0/10707/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/10707.zip b/10707.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..74790dc --- /dev/null +++ b/10707.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c37f310 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10707 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10707) diff --git a/old/10707-8.txt b/old/10707-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d99336 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1130 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Christmas Mystery + The Story of Three Wise Men + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: January 13, 2004 [EBook #10707] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +"_I cannot tell how the truth may be: +I say the tale as 'twas said to me._" + + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +IDOLS +SEPTIMUS +THE USURPER +THE WHITE DOVE +THE BELOVED VAGABOND +THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE +AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA +A STUDY IN SHADOWS +SIMON THE JESTER +WHERE LOVE IS +DERELICTS + + + +[Illustration: "I HEARD IT. I FELT IT. It WAS LIKE THE BEATING OF +WINGS."] + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY +THE STORY OF THREE WISE MEN + +BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE + +ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL + + +1910 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." Frontispiece + +"I told you the place was uncanny." + +Instinctively they all knelt down. + +Carried with them an inalienable joy and possession into the great +world. + + + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY + + + +Three men who had gained great fame and honour throughout the world met +unexpectedly in front of the bookstall at Paddington Station. Like most +of the great ones of the earth they were personally acquainted, and they +exchanged surprised greetings. + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the eminent physicist, scowled at the two others +beneath his heavy black eyebrows. + +"I'm going to a God-forsaken place in Cornwall called Trehenna," said +he. + +"That's odd; so am I," croaked Professor Biggleswade. He was a little, +untidy man with round spectacles, a fringe of greyish beard and a weak, +rasping voice, and he knew more of Assyriology than any man, living or +dead. A flippant pupil once remarked that the Professor's face was +furnished with a Babylonic cuneiform in lieu of features. + +"People called Deverill, at Foulis Castle?" asked Sir Angus. + +"Yes," replied Professor Biggleswade. + +"How curious! I am going to the Deverills, too," said the third man. + +This man was the Right Honourable Viscount Doyne, the renowned Empire +Builder and Administrator, around whose solitary and remote life popular +imagination had woven many legends. He looked at the world through tired +grey eyes, and the heavy, drooping, blonde moustache seemed tired, too, +and had dragged down the tired face into deep furrows. He was smoking a +long black cigar. + +"I suppose we may as well travel down together," said Sir Angus, not +very cordially. + +Lord Doyne said courteously: "I have a reserved carriage. The railway +company is always good enough to place one at my disposal. It would give +me great pleasure if you would share it." + +The invitation was accepted, and the three men crossed the busy, crowded +platform to take their seats in the great express train. A porter, laden +with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way through +the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed his shoulder +fretfully. + +"Why the whole land should be turned into a bear garden on account of +this exploded superstition of Christmas is one of the anomalies of +modern civilization. Look at this insensate welter of fools travelling +in wild herds to disgusting places merely because it's Christmas!" + +"You seem to be travelling yourself, McCurdie," said Lord Doyne. + +"Yes--and why the devil I'm doing it, I've not the faintest notion," +replied Sir Angus. + +"It's going to be a beast of a journey," he remarked some moments later, +as the train carried them slowly out of the station. "The whole country +is under snow--and as far as I can understand we have to change twice +and wind up with a twenty-mile motor drive." + +He was an iron-faced, beetle-browed, stern man, and this morning he did +not seem to be in the best of tempers. Finding his companions inclined +to be sympathetic, he continued his lamentation. + +"And merely because it's Christmas I've had to shut up my laboratory and +give my young fools a holiday--just when I was in the midst of a most +important series of experiments." + +Professor Biggleswade, who had heard vaguely of and rather looked down +upon such new-fangled toys as radium and thorium and helium and +argon--for the latest astonishing developments in the theory of +radio-activity had brought Sir Angus McCurdie his world-wide fame--said +somewhat ironically: + +"If the experiments were so important, why didn't you lock yourself up +with your test tubes and electric batteries and finish them alone?" + +"Man!" said McCurdie, bending across the carriage, and speaking with a +curious intensity of voice, "d'ye know I'd give a hundred pounds to be +able to answer that question?" + +"What do you mean?" asked the Professor, startled. + +"I should like to know why I'm sitting in this damned train and going to +visit a couple of addle-headed society people whom I'm scarcely +acquainted with, when I might be at home in my own good company +furthering the progress of science." + +"I myself," said the Professor, "am not acquainted with them at all." + +It was Sir Angus McCurdie's turn to look surprised. + +"Then why are you spending Christmas with them?" + +"I reviewed a ridiculous blank-verse tragedy written by Deverill on the +Death of Sennacherib. Historically it was puerile. I said so in no +measured terms. He wrote a letter claiming to be a poet and not an +archæologist. I replied that the day had passed when poets could with +impunity commit the abominable crime of distorting history. He retorted +with some futile argument, and we went on exchanging letters, until his +invitation and my acceptance concluded the correspondence." + +McCurdie, still bending his black brows on him, asked him why he had not +declined. The Professor screwed up his face till it looked more like a +cuneiform than ever. He, too, found the question difficult to answer, +but he showed a bold front. + +"I felt it my duty," said he, "to teach that preposterous ignoramus +something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor and +would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and meaningless +annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers than among my +married sisters' numerous and nerve-racking families." + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the hard, metallic apostle of radio-activity, +glanced for a moment out of the window at the grey, frost-bitten fields. +Then he said: + +"I'm a widower. My wife died many years ago and, thank God, we had no +children. I generally spend Christmas alone." + +He looked out of the window again. Professor Biggleswade suddenly +remembered the popular story of the great scientist's antecedents, and +reflected that as McCurdie had once run, a barefoot urchin, through the +Glasgow mud, he was likely to have little kith or kin. He himself envied +McCurdie. He was always praying to be delivered from his sisters and +nephews and nieces, whose embarrassing demands no calculated coldness +could repress. + +"Children are the root of all evil," said he. "Happy the man who has his +quiver empty." + +Sir Angus McCurdie did not reply at once; when he spoke again it was +with reference to their prospective host. + +"I met Deverill," said he, "at the Royal Society's Soirée this year. One +of my assistants was demonstrating a peculiar property of thorium and +Deverill seemed interested. I asked him to come to my laboratory the +next day, and found he didn't know a damned thing about anything. That's +all the acquaintance I have with him." + +Lord Doyne, the great administrator, who had been wearily turning over +the pages of an illustrated weekly chiefly filled with flamboyant +photographs of obscure actresses, took his gold glasses from his nose +and the black cigar from his lips, and addressed his companions. + +"I've been considerably interested in your conversation," said he, "and +as you've been frank, I'll be frank too. I knew Mrs. Deverill's mother, +Lady Carstairs, very well years ago, and of course Mrs. Deverill when +she was a child. Deverill I came across once in Egypt--he had been sent +on a diplomatic mission to Teheran. As for our being invited on such +slight acquaintance, little Mrs. Deverill has the reputation of being +the only really successful celebrity hunter in England. She inherited +the faculty from her mother, who entertained the whole world. We're sure +to find archbishops, and eminent actors, and illustrious divorcées asked +to meet us. That's one thing. But why I, who loathe country house +parties and children and Christmas as much as Biggleswade, am going down +there to-day, I can no more explain than you can. It's a devilish odd +coincidence." + +The three men looked at one another. Suddenly McCurdie shivered and drew +his fur coat around him. + +"I'll thank you," said he, "to shut that window." + +"It is shut," said Doyne. + +"It's just uncanny," said McCurdie, looking from one to the other. + +"What?" asked Doyne. + +"Nothing, if you didn't feel it." + +"There did seem to be a sudden draught," said Professor Biggleswade. +"But as both window and door are shut, it could only be imaginary." + +"It wasn't imaginary," muttered McCurdie. + +Then he laughed harshly. "My father and mother came from Cromarty," he +said with apparent irrelevance. + +"That's the Highlands," said the Professor. + +"Ay," said McCurdie. + +Lord Doyne said nothing, but tugged at his moustache and looked out of +the window as the frozen meadows and bits of river and willows raced +past. A dead silence fell on them. McCurdie broke it with another laugh +and took a whiskey flask from his hand-bag. + +"Have a nip?" + +"Thanks, no," said the Professor. "I have to keep to a strict dietary, +and I only drink hot milk and water--and of that sparingly. I have some +in a thermos bottle." + +Lord Doyne also declining the whiskey, McCurdie swallowed a dram and +declared himself to be better. The Professor took from his bag a foreign +review in which a German sciolist had dared to question his +interpretation of a Hittite inscription. Over the man's ineptitude he +fell asleep and snored loudly. + +To escape from his immediate neighbourhood McCurdie went to the other +end of the seat and faced Lord Doyne, who had resumed his gold glasses +and his listless contemplation of obscure actresses. McCurdie lit a +pipe, Doyne another black cigar. The train thundered on. + +Presently they all lunched together in the restaurant car. The windows +steamed, but here and there through a wiped patch of pane a white world +was revealed. The snow was falling. As they passed through Westbury, +McCurdie looked mechanically for the famous white horse carved into the +chalk of the down; but it was not visible beneath the thick covering of +snow. + +"It'll be just like this all the way to Gehenna--Trehenna, I mean," said +McCurdie. + +Doyne nodded. He had done his life's work amid all extreme fiercenesses +of heat and cold, in burning droughts, in simoons and in icy +wildernesses, and a ray or two more of the pale sun or a flake or two +more of the gentle snow of England mattered to him but little. But +Biggleswade rubbed the pane with his table-napkin and gazed +apprehensively at the prospect. + +"If only this wretched train would stop," said he, "I would go back +again." + +And he thought how comfortable it would be to sneak home again to his +books and thus elude not only the Deverills, but the Christmas jollities +of his sisters' families, who would think him miles away. But the train +was timed not to stop till Plymouth, two hundred and thirty-five miles +from London, and thither was he being relentlessly carried. Then he +quarrelled with his food, which brought a certain consolation. + + * * * * * + +The train did stop, however, before Plymouth--indeed, before Exeter. An +accident on the line had dislocated the traffic. The express was held up +for an hour, and when it was permitted to proceed, instead of thundering +on, it went cautiously, subject to continual stoppings. It arrived at +Plymouth two hours late. The travellers learned that they had missed the +connection on which they had counted and that they could not reach +Trehenna till nearly ten o'clock. After weary waiting at Plymouth they +took their seats in the little, cold local train that was to carry them +another stage on their journey. Hot-water cans put in at Plymouth +mitigated to some extent the iciness of the compartment. But that only +lasted a comparatively short time, for soon they were set down at a +desolate, shelterless wayside junction, dumped in the midst of a hilly +snow-covered waste, where they went through another weary wait for +another dismal local train that was to carry them to Trehenna. And in +this train there were no hot-water cans, so that the compartment was as +cold as death. McCurdie fretted and shook his fist in the direction of +Trehenna. + +"And when we get there we have still a twenty miles' motor drive to +Foullis Castle. It's a fool name and we're fools to be going there." + +"I shall die of bronchitis," wailed Professor Biggleswade. + +"A man dies when it is appointed for him to die," said Lord Doyne, in +his tired way; and he went on smoking long black cigars. + +"It's not the dying that worries me," said McCurdie. "That's a mere +mechanical process which every organic being from a king to a +cauliflower has to pass through. It's the being forced against my will +and my reason to come on this accursed journey, which something tells me +will become more and more accursed as we go on, that is driving me to +distraction." + +"What will be, will be," said Doyne. + +"I can't see where the comfort of that reflection comes in," said +Biggleswade. + +"And yet you've travelled in the East," said Doyne. "I suppose you know +the Valley of the Tigris as well as any man living." + +"Yes," said the Professor. "I can say I dug my way from Tekrit to Bagdad +and left not a stone unexamined." + +"Perhaps, after all," Doyne remarked, "that's not quite the way to know +the East." + +"I never wanted to know the modern East," returned the Professor. "What +is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations that +have gone before?" + +McCurdie took a pull from his flask. + +"I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he. + +At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at +Trehenna. The guard opened the door and they stepped out on to the +snow-covered platform. An oil lamp hung from the tiny pent-house roof +that, structurally, was Trehenna Station. They looked around at the +silent gloom of white undulating moorland, and it seemed a place where +no man lived and only ghosts could have a bleak and unsheltered being. A +porter came up and helped the guard with the luggage. Then they realized +that the station was built on a small embankment, for, looking over the +railing, they saw below the two great lamps of a motor car. A fur-clad +chauffeur met them at the bottom of the stairs. He clapped his hands +together and informed them cheerily that he had been waiting for four +hours. It was the bitterest winter in these parts within the memory of +man, said he, and he himself had not seen snow there for five years. +Then he settled the three travellers in the great roomy touring car +covered with a Cape-cart hood, wrapped them up in many rugs and started. + +After a few moments, the huddling together of their bodies--for, the +Professor being a spare man, there was room for them all on the back +seat--the pile of rugs, the serviceable and all but air-tight hood, +induced a pleasant warmth and a pleasant drowsiness. Where they were +being driven they knew not. The perfectly upholstered seat eased their +limbs, the easy swinging motion of the car soothed their spirits. They +felt that already they had reached the luxuriously appointed home which, +after all, they knew awaited them. McCurdie no longer railed, Professor +Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted the +stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight +it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world +to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. +McCurdie and Biggleswade fell into a doze. Lord Doyne chewed the end of +his cigar. The car sped on through an unseen wilderness. + +Suddenly there was a horrid jolt and a lurch and a leap and a rebound, +and then the car stood still, quivering like a ship that has been struck +by a heavy sea. The three men were pitched and tossed and thrown +sprawling over one another onto the bottom of the car. Biggleswade +screamed. McCurdie cursed. Doyne scrambled from the confusion of rugs +and limbs and, tearing open the side of the Cape-cart hood, jumped out. +The chauffeur had also just leaped from his seat. It was pitch dark save +for the great shaft of light down the snowy road cast by the acetylene +lamps. The snow had ceased falling. + +"What's gone wrong?" + +"It sounds like the axle," said the chauffeur ruefully. + +He unshipped a lamp and examined the car, which had wedged itself +against a great drift of snow on the off side. Meanwhile McCurdie and +Biggleswade had alighted. + +"Yes, it's the axle," said the chauffeur. + +"Then we're done," remarked Doyne. + +"I'm afraid so, my lord." + +"What's the matter? Can't we get on?" asked Biggleswade in his querulous +voice. + +McCurdie laughed. "How can we get on with a broken axle? The thing's as +useless as a man with a broken back. Gad, I was right. I said it was +going to be an infernal journey." + +The little Professor wrung his hands. "But what's to be done?" he cried. + +"Tramp it," said Lord Doyne, lighting a fresh cigar. + +"It's ten miles," said the chauffeur. + +"It would be the death of me," the Professor wailed. + +"I utterly refuse to walk ten miles through a Polar waste with a gouty +foot," McCurdie declared wrathfully. + +The chauffeur offered a solution of the difficulty. He would set out +alone for Foullis Castle--five miles farther on was an inn where he +could obtain a horse and trap--and would return for the three gentlemen +with another car. In the meanwhile they could take shelter in a little +house which they had just passed, some half mile up the road. This was +agreed to. The chauffeur went on cheerily enough with a lamp, and the +three travellers with another lamp started off in the opposite +direction. As far as they could see they were in a long, desolate +valley, a sort of No Man's Land, deathly silent. The eastern sky had +cleared somewhat, and they faced a loose rack through which one pale +star was dimly visible. + + * * * * * + +"I'm a man of science," said McCurdie as they trudged through the snow, +"and I dismiss the supernatural as contrary to reason; but I have +Highland blood in my veins that plays me exasperating tricks. My reason +tells me that this place is only a commonplace moor, yet it seems like a +Valley of Bones haunted by malignant spirits who have lured us here to +our destruction. There's something guiding us now. It's just uncanny." + +"Why on earth did we ever come?" croaked Biggleswade. + +Lord Doyne answered: "The Koran says, 'Nothing can befall us but what +God hath destined for us.' So why worry?" + +"Because I'm not a Mohammedan," retorted Biggleswade. + +"You might be worse," said Doyne. + +Presently the dim outline of the little house grew perceptible. A faint +light shone from the window. It stood unfenced by any kind of hedge or +railing a few feet away from the road in a little hollow beneath some +rising ground. As far as they could discern in the darkness when they +drew near, the house was a mean, dilapidated hovel. A guttering candle +stood on the inner sill of the small window and afforded a vague view +into a mean interior. Doyne held up the lamp so that its rays fell full +on the door. As he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips and he +hurried forward, followed by the others. A man's body lay huddled +together on the snow by the threshold. He was dressed like a peasant, in +old corduroy trousers and rough coat, and a handkerchief was knotted +round his neck. In his hand he grasped the neck of a broken bottle. +Doyne set the lamp on the ground and the three bent down together over +the man. Close by the neck lay the rest of the broken bottle, whose +contents had evidently run out into the snow. + +"Drunk?" asked Biggleswade. + +Doyne felt the man and laid his hand on his heart. + +"No," said he, "dead." + +McCurdie leaped to his full height. "I told you the place was uncanny!" +he cried. "It's fey." Then he hammered wildly at the door. + +There was no response. He hammered again till it rattled. This time a +faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was +heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth +chattering. + +"Did ye hear that, Doyne?" + + +[Illustration: I TOLD YOU THE PLACE WAS UNCANNY.] + + +"Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor. + +Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the +door-handle. It yielded, the door stood open, and the gust of cold wind +entering the house extinguished the candle within. They entered and +found themselves in a miserable stone-paved kitchen, furnished with +poverty-stricken meagreness--a wooden chair or two, a dirty table, some +broken crockery, old cooking utensils, a fly-blown missionary society +almanac, and a fireless grate. Doyne set the lamp on the table. + +"We must bring him in," said he. + +They returned to the threshold, and as they were bending over to grip +the dead man the same sound filled the air, but this time louder, more +intense, a cry of great agony. The sweat dripped from McCurdie's +forehead. They lifted the dead man and brought him into the room, and +after laying him on a dirty strip of carpet they did their best to +straighten the stiff limbs. Biggleswade put on the table a bundle which +he had picked up outside. It contained some poor provisions--a loaf, a +piece of fat bacon, and a paper of tea. As far as they could guess (and +as they learned later they guessed rightly) the man was the master of +the house, who, coming home blind drunk from some distant inn, had +fallen at his own threshold and got frozen to death. As they could not +unclasp his fingers from the broken bottleneck they had to let him +clutch it as a dead warrior clutches the hilt of his broken sword. + +Then suddenly the whole place was rent with another and yet another +long, soul-piercing moan of anguish. + +"There's a second room," said Doyne, pointing to a door. "The sound +comes from there." He opened the door, peeped in, and then, returning +for the lamp, disappeared, leaving McCurdie and Biggleswade in the pitch +darkness, with the dead man on the floor. + +"For heaven's sake, give me a drop of whiskey," said the Professor, "or +I shall faint." + +Presently the door opened and Lord Doyne appeared in the shaft of light. +He beckoned to his companions. + +"It is a woman in childbirth," he said in his even, tired voice. "We +must aid her. She appears unconscious. Does either of you know anything +about such things?" + +They shook their heads, and the three looked at each other in dismay. +Masters of knowledge that had won them world-wide fame and honour, they +stood helpless, abashed before this, the commonest phenomenon of nature. + +"My wife had no child," said McCurdie. + +"I've avoided women all my life," said Biggleswade. + +"And I've been too busy to think of them. God forgive me," said Doyne. + + * * * * * + +The history of the next two hours was one that none of the three men +ever cared to touch upon. They did things blindly, instinctively, as men +do when they come face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they +knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled. +Doyne accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his +suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering +back beneath rugs and travelling bags which could supply clean linen and +needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find +nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman's +strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that +nameless hovel, with death on the hearthstone and death and life +hovering over the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain +and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never +yet stood before so great a mystery. + +With the first wail of the newly born infant a last convulsive shudder +passed through the frame of the unconscious mother. Then three or four +short gasps for breath, and the spirit passed away. She was dead. +Professor Biggleswade threw a corner of the sheet over her face, for he +could not bear to see it. + +They washed and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have +done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a +cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of +Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then they +wrapped him up warm in some of their own woollen undergarments, and took +him into the kitchen and placed him on a bed made of their fur coats in +front of the fire. As the last piece of fuel was exhausted they took one +of the wooden chairs and broke it up and cast it into the blaze. And +then they raised the dead man from the strip of carpet and carried him +into the bedroom and laid him reverently by the side of his dead wife, +after which they left the dead in darkness and returned to the living. +And the three grave men stood over the wisp of flesh that had been born +a male into the world. Then, their task being accomplished, reaction +came, and even Doyne, who had seen death in many lands, turned faint. +But the others, losing control of their nerves, shook like men stricken +with palsy. + +Suddenly McCurdie cried in a high pitched voice, "My God! Don't you feel +it?" and clutched Doyne by the arm. An expression of terror appeared on +his iron features. + +"There! It's here with us." + +Little Professor Biggleswade sat on a corner of the table and wiped his +forehead. + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." + +"It's the fourth time," said McCurdie. "The first time was just before I +accepted the Deverills' invitation. The second in the railway carriage +this afternoon. The third on the way here. This is the fourth." + +Biggleswade plucked nervously at the fringe of whisker under his jaws +and said faintly, "It's the fourth time up to now. I thought it was +fancy." + +"I have felt it, too," said Doyne. "It is the Angel of Death." And he +pointed to the room where the dead man and woman lay. + +"For God's sake let us get away from this," cried Biggleswade. + +"And leave the child to die, like the others?" said Doyne. + +"We must see it through," said McCurdie. + + * * * * * + +A silence fell upon them as they sat round in the blaze with the +new-born babe wrapped in its odd swaddling clothes asleep on the pile of +fur coats, and it lasted until Sir Angus McCurdie looked at his watch. + +"Good Lord," said he, "it's twelve o'clock." + +"Christmas morning," said Biggleswade. + +"A strange Christmas," mused Doyne. + +McCurdie put up his hand. "There it is again! The beating of wings." And +they listened like men spellbound. McCurdie kept his hand uplifted, and +gazed over their heads at the wall, and his gaze was that of a man in a +trance, and he spoke: + +"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given--" + +Doyne sprang from his chair, which fell behind him with a crash. + +"Man--what the devil are you saying?" + +Then McCurdie rose and met Biggleswade's eyes staring at him through the +great round spectacles, and Biggleswade turned and met the eyes of +Doyne. A pulsation like the beating of wings stirred the air. + +The three wise men shivered with a queer exaltation. Something strange, +mystical, dynamic had happened. It was as if scales had fallen from +their eyes and they saw with a new vision. They stood together humbly, +divested of all their greatness, touching one another in the instinctive +fashion of children, as if seeking mutual protection, and they looked, +with one accord, irresistibly compelled, at the child. + +At last McCurdie unbent his black brows and said hoarsely: + +"It was not the Angel of Death, Doyne, but another Messenger that drew +us here." + +The tiredness seemed to pass away from the great administrator's face, +and he nodded his head with the calm of a man who has come to the quiet +heart of a perplexing mystery. + +"It's true," he murmured. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is +given. Unto the three of us." + +Biggleswade took off his great round spectacles and wiped them. + +"Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar. But where are the gold, frankincense and +myrrh?" + +"In our hearts, man," said McCurdie. + +The babe cried and stretched its tiny limbs. + + +[Illustration: INSTINCTIVELY THEY ALL KNELT DOWN.] + + +Instinctively they all knelt down together to discover, if possible, and +administer ignorantly to, its wants. The scene had the appearance of an +adoration. + + * * * * * + +Then these three wise, lonely, childless men who, in furtherance of +their own greatness, had cut themselves adrift from the sweet and simple +things of life and from the kindly ways of their brethren, and had grown +old in unhappy and profitless wisdom, knew that an inscrutable +Providence had led them, as it had led three Wise Men of old, on a +Christmas morning long ago, to a nativity which should give them a new +wisdom, a new link with humanity, a new spiritual outlook, a new hope. + +And, when their watch was ended, they wrapped up the babe with precious +care, and carried him with them, an inalienable joy and possession, into +the great world. + + +[Illustration: CARRIED WITH THEM AN INALIENABLE JOY AND POSSESSION INTO +THE GREAT WORLD.] + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + +***** This file should be named 10707-8.txt or 10707-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/0/10707/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10707-8.zip b/old/10707-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d2b929e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-8.zip diff --git a/old/10707-h.zip b/old/10707-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c1883c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h.zip diff --git a/old/10707-h/10707-h.htm b/old/10707-h/10707-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1cbe0a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/10707-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1473 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Christmas Mystery: The Story of Three Wise Men, by William J. Locke</title> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- +body {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; background-color: white} +img {border: 0;} +h1,h2,h3 {text-align: center;} +.ind {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} +hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} +.ctr {text-align: center;} +--> +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Christmas Mystery + The Story of Three Wise Men + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: January 13, 2004 [EBook #10707] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="cover.jpg"><img src="cover_th.jpg" alt="cover"></a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<i>"I cannot tell how the truth may be:<br> +I say the tale as 'twas said to me."</i> +</p> + + +<h3> +BY THE SAME AUTHOR +</h3> + +<p class="ctr"> +IDOLS<br> +SEPTIMUS<br> +THE USURPER<br> +THE WHITE DOVE<br> +THE BELOVED VAGABOND<br> +THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE<br> +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE<br> +AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA<br> +A STUDY IN SHADOWS<br> +SIMON THE JESTER<br> +WHERE LOVE IS<br> +DERELICTS<br> +</p> + + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="frontis.jpg"><img src="frontis_th.jpg" alt="'I HEARD IT. I FELT IT. It WAS LIKE THE BEATING OF WINGS.'"></a> +</p> + + +<h1>A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY</h1> + +<h2>THE STORY OF THREE WISE MEN</h2> + +<h2>BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE</h2> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL</h2> + +<h3> +1910 +</h3> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + + +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="frontis.jpg">"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." Frontispiece</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp40.jpg">"I told you the place was uncanny."</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp53.jpg">Instinctively they all knelt down.</a> +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp54.jpg">Carried with them an inalienable joy and possession into the great world.</a> +</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<h1>A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY</h1> + +<br> + + +<p> +Three men who had gained great fame and honour throughout the world met +unexpectedly in front of the bookstall at Paddington Station. Like most +of the great ones of the earth they were personally acquainted, and they +exchanged surprised greetings. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Angus McCurdie, the eminent physicist, scowled at the two others +beneath his heavy black eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm going to a God-forsaken place in Cornwall called Trehenna," said +he. +</p> + +<p> +"That's odd; so am I," croaked Professor Biggleswade. He was a little, +untidy man with round spectacles, a fringe of greyish beard and a weak, +rasping voice, and he knew more of Assyriology than any man, living or +dead. A flippant pupil once remarked that the Professor's face was +furnished with a Babylonic cuneiform in lieu of features. +</p> + +<p> +"People called Deverill, at Foulis Castle?" asked Sir Angus. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," replied Professor Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"How curious! I am going to the Deverills, too," said the third man. +</p> + +<p> +This man was the Right Honourable Viscount Doyne, the renowned Empire +Builder and Administrator, around whose solitary and remote life popular +imagination had woven many legends. He looked at the world through tired +grey eyes, and the heavy, drooping, blonde moustache seemed tired, too, +and had dragged down the tired face into deep furrows. He was smoking a +long black cigar. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose we may as well travel down together," said Sir Angus, not +very cordially. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne said courteously: "I have a reserved carriage. The railway +company is always good enough to place one at my disposal. It would give +me great pleasure if you would share it." +</p> + +<p> +The invitation was accepted, and the three men crossed the busy, crowded +platform to take their seats in the great express train. A porter, laden +with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way through +the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed his shoulder +fretfully. +</p> + +<p> +"Why the whole land should be turned into a bear garden on account of +this exploded superstition of Christmas is one of the anomalies of +modern civilization. Look at this insensate welter of fools travelling +in wild herds to disgusting places merely because it's Christmas!" +</p> + +<p> +"You seem to be travelling yourself, McCurdie," said Lord Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes--and why the devil I'm doing it, I've not the faintest notion," +replied Sir Angus. +</p> + +<p> +"It's going to be a beast of a journey," he remarked some moments later, +as the train carried them slowly out of the station. "The whole country +is under snow--and as far as I can understand we have to change twice +and wind up with a twenty-mile motor drive." +</p> + +<p> +He was an iron-faced, beetle-browed, stern man, and this morning he did +not seem to be in the best of tempers. Finding his companions inclined +to be sympathetic, he continued his lamentation. +</p> + +<p> +"And merely because it's Christmas I've had to shut up my laboratory and +give my young fools a holiday--just when I was in the midst of a most +important series of experiments." +</p> + +<p> +Professor Biggleswade, who had heard vaguely of and rather looked down +upon such new-fangled toys as radium and thorium and helium and +argon--for the latest astonishing developments in the theory of +radio-activity had brought Sir Angus McCurdie his world-wide fame--said +somewhat ironically: +</p> + +<p> +"If the experiments were so important, why didn't you lock yourself up +with your test tubes and electric batteries and finish them alone?" +</p> + +<p> +"Man!" said McCurdie, bending across the carriage, and speaking with a +curious intensity of voice, "d'ye know I'd give a hundred pounds to be +able to answer that question?" +</p> + +<p> +"What do you mean?" asked the Professor, startled. +</p> + +<p> +"I should like to know why I'm sitting in this damned train and going to +visit a couple of addle-headed society people whom I'm scarcely +acquainted with, when I might be at home in my own good company +furthering the progress of science." +</p> + +<p> +"I myself," said the Professor, "am not acquainted with them at all." +</p> + +<p> +It was Sir Angus McCurdie's turn to look surprised. +</p> + +<p> +"Then why are you spending Christmas with them?" +</p> + +<p> +"I reviewed a ridiculous blank-verse tragedy written by Deverill on the +Death of Sennacherib. Historically it was puerile. I said so in no +measured terms. He wrote a letter claiming to be a poet and not an +archæologist. I replied that the day had passed when poets could with +impunity commit the abominable crime of distorting history. He retorted +with some futile argument, and we went on exchanging letters, until his +invitation and my acceptance concluded the correspondence." +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie, still bending his black brows on him, asked him why he had not +declined. The Professor screwed up his face till it looked more like a +cuneiform than ever. He, too, found the question difficult to answer, +but he showed a bold front. +</p> + +<p> +"I felt it my duty," said he, "to teach that preposterous ignoramus +something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor and +would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and meaningless +annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers than among my +married sisters' numerous and nerve-racking families." +</p> + +<p> +Sir Angus McCurdie, the hard, metallic apostle of radio-activity, +glanced for a moment out of the window at the grey, frost-bitten fields. +Then he said: +</p> + +<p> +"I'm a widower. My wife died many years ago and, thank God, we had no +children. I generally spend Christmas alone." +</p> + +<p> +He looked out of the window again. Professor Biggleswade suddenly +remembered the popular story of the great scientist's antecedents, and +reflected that as McCurdie had once run, a barefoot urchin, through the +Glasgow mud, he was likely to have little kith or kin. He himself envied +McCurdie. He was always praying to be delivered from his sisters and +nephews and nieces, whose embarrassing demands no calculated coldness +could repress. +</p> + +<p> +"Children are the root of all evil," said he. "Happy the man who has his +quiver empty." +</p> + +<p> +Sir Angus McCurdie did not reply at once; when he spoke again it was +with reference to their prospective host. +</p> + +<p> +"I met Deverill," said he, "at the Royal Society's Soirée this year. One +of my assistants was demonstrating a peculiar property of thorium and +Deverill seemed interested. I asked him to come to my laboratory the +next day, and found he didn't know a damned thing about anything. That's +all the acquaintance I have with him." +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne, the great administrator, who had been wearily turning over +the pages of an illustrated weekly chiefly filled with flamboyant +photographs of obscure actresses, took his gold glasses from his nose +and the black cigar from his lips, and addressed his companions. +</p> + +<p> +"I've been considerably interested in your conversation," said he, "and +as you've been frank, I'll be frank too. I knew Mrs. Deverill's mother, +Lady Carstairs, very well years ago, and of course Mrs. Deverill when +she was a child. Deverill I came across once in Egypt--he had been sent +on a diplomatic mission to Teheran. As for our being invited on such +slight acquaintance, little Mrs. Deverill has the reputation of being +the only really successful celebrity hunter in England. She inherited +the faculty from her mother, who entertained the whole world. We're sure +to find archbishops, and eminent actors, and illustrious divorcées asked +to meet us. That's one thing. But why I, who loathe country house +parties and children and Christmas as much as Biggleswade, am going down +there to-day, I can no more explain than you can. It's a devilish odd +coincidence." +</p> + +<p> +The three men looked at one another. Suddenly McCurdie shivered and drew +his fur coat around him. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll thank you," said he, "to shut that window." +</p> + +<p> +"It is shut," said Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"It's just uncanny," said McCurdie, looking from one to the other. +</p> + +<p> +"What?" asked Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing, if you didn't feel it." +</p> + +<p> +"There did seem to be a sudden draught," said Professor Biggleswade. +"But as both window and door are shut, it could only be imaginary." +</p> + +<p> +"It wasn't imaginary," muttered McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +Then he laughed harshly. "My father and mother came from Cromarty," he +said with apparent irrelevance. +</p> + +<p> +"That's the Highlands," said the Professor. +</p> + +<p> +"Ay," said McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne said nothing, but tugged at his moustache and looked out of +the window as the frozen meadows and bits of river and willows raced +past. A dead silence fell on them. McCurdie broke it with another laugh +and took a whiskey flask from his hand-bag. +</p> + +<p> +"Have a nip?" +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks, no," said the Professor. "I have to keep to a strict dietary, +and I only drink hot milk and water--and of that sparingly. I have some +in a thermos bottle." +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne also declining the whiskey, McCurdie swallowed a dram and +declared himself to be better. The Professor took from his bag a foreign +review in which a German sciolist had dared to question his +interpretation of a Hittite inscription. Over the man's ineptitude he +fell asleep and snored loudly. +</p> + +<p> +To escape from his immediate neighbourhood McCurdie went to the other +end of the seat and faced Lord Doyne, who had resumed his gold glasses +and his listless contemplation of obscure actresses. McCurdie lit a +pipe, Doyne another black cigar. The train thundered on. +</p> + +<p> +Presently they all lunched together in the restaurant car. The windows +steamed, but here and there through a wiped patch of pane a white world +was revealed. The snow was falling. As they passed through Westbury, +McCurdie looked mechanically for the famous white horse carved into the +chalk of the down; but it was not visible beneath the thick covering of +snow. +</p> + +<p> +"It'll be just like this all the way to Gehenna--Trehenna, I mean," said +McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +Doyne nodded. He had done his life's work amid all extreme fiercenesses +of heat and cold, in burning droughts, in simoons and in icy +wildernesses, and a ray or two more of the pale sun or a flake or two +more of the gentle snow of England mattered to him but little. But +Biggleswade rubbed the pane with his table-napkin and gazed +apprehensively at the prospect. +</p> + +<p> +"If only this wretched train would stop," said he, "I would go back +again." +</p> + +<p> +And he thought how comfortable it would be to sneak home again to his +books and thus elude not only the Deverills, but the Christmas jollities +of his sisters' families, who would think him miles away. But the train +was timed not to stop till Plymouth, two hundred and thirty-five miles +from London, and thither was he being relentlessly carried. Then he +quarrelled with his food, which brought a certain consolation. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +The train did stop, however, before Plymouth--indeed, before Exeter. An +accident on the line had dislocated the traffic. The express was held up +for an hour, and when it was permitted to proceed, instead of thundering +on, it went cautiously, subject to continual stoppings. It arrived at +Plymouth two hours late. The travellers learned that they had missed the +connection on which they had counted and that they could not reach +Trehenna till nearly ten o'clock. After weary waiting at Plymouth they +took their seats in the little, cold local train that was to carry them +another stage on their journey. Hot-water cans put in at Plymouth +mitigated to some extent the iciness of the compartment. But that only +lasted a comparatively short time, for soon they were set down at a +desolate, shelterless wayside junction, dumped in the midst of a hilly +snow-covered waste, where they went through another weary wait for +another dismal local train that was to carry them to Trehenna. And in +this train there were no hot-water cans, so that the compartment was as +cold as death. McCurdie fretted and shook his fist in the direction of +Trehenna. +</p> + +<p> +"And when we get there we have still a twenty miles' motor drive to +Foullis Castle. It's a fool name and we're fools to be going there." +</p> + +<p> +"I shall die of bronchitis," wailed Professor Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"A man dies when it is appointed for him to die," said Lord Doyne, in +his tired way; and he went on smoking long black cigars. +</p> + +<p> +"It's not the dying that worries me," said McCurdie. "That's a mere +mechanical process which every organic being from a king to a +cauliflower has to pass through. It's the being forced against my will +and my reason to come on this accursed journey, which something tells me +will become more and more accursed as we go on, that is driving me to +distraction." +</p> + +<p> +"What will be, will be," said Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"I can't see where the comfort of that reflection comes in," said +Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"And yet you've travelled in the East," said Doyne. "I suppose you know +the Valley of the Tigris as well as any man living." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," said the Professor. "I can say I dug my way from Tekrit to Bagdad +and left not a stone unexamined." +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps, after all," Doyne remarked, "that's not quite the way to know +the East." +</p> + +<p> +"I never wanted to know the modern East," returned the Professor. "What +is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations that +have gone before?" +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie took a pull from his flask. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he. +</p> + +<p> +At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at +Trehenna. The guard opened the door and they stepped out on to the +snow-covered platform. An oil lamp hung from the tiny pent-house roof +that, structurally, was Trehenna Station. They looked around at the +silent gloom of white undulating moorland, and it seemed a place where +no man lived and only ghosts could have a bleak and unsheltered being. A +porter came up and helped the guard with the luggage. Then they realized +that the station was built on a small embankment, for, looking over the +railing, they saw below the two great lamps of a motor car. A fur-clad +chauffeur met them at the bottom of the stairs. He clapped his hands +together and informed them cheerily that he had been waiting for four +hours. It was the bitterest winter in these parts within the memory of +man, said he, and he himself had not seen snow there for five years. +Then he settled the three travellers in the great roomy touring car +covered with a Cape-cart hood, wrapped them up in many rugs and started. +</p> + +<p> +After a few moments, the huddling together of their bodies--for, the +Professor being a spare man, there was room for them all on the back +seat--the pile of rugs, the serviceable and all but air-tight hood, +induced a pleasant warmth and a pleasant drowsiness. Where they were +being driven they knew not. The perfectly upholstered seat eased their +limbs, the easy swinging motion of the car soothed their spirits. They +felt that already they had reached the luxuriously appointed home which, +after all, they knew awaited them. McCurdie no longer railed, Professor +Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted the +stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight +it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world +to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. +McCurdie and Biggleswade fell into a doze. Lord Doyne chewed the end of +his cigar. The car sped on through an unseen wilderness. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly there was a horrid jolt and a lurch and a leap and a rebound, +and then the car stood still, quivering like a ship that has been struck +by a heavy sea. The three men were pitched and tossed and thrown +sprawling over one another onto the bottom of the car. Biggleswade +screamed. McCurdie cursed. Doyne scrambled from the confusion of rugs +and limbs and, tearing open the side of the Cape-cart hood, jumped out. +The chauffeur had also just leaped from his seat. It was pitch dark save +for the great shaft of light down the snowy road cast by the acetylene +lamps. The snow had ceased falling. +</p> + +<p> +"What's gone wrong?" +</p> + +<p> +"It sounds like the axle," said the chauffeur ruefully. +</p> + +<p> +He unshipped a lamp and examined the car, which had wedged itself +against a great drift of snow on the off side. Meanwhile McCurdie and +Biggleswade had alighted. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, it's the axle," said the chauffeur. +</p> + +<p> +"Then we're done," remarked Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm afraid so, my lord." +</p> + +<p> +"What's the matter? Can't we get on?" asked Biggleswade in his querulous +voice. +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie laughed. "How can we get on with a broken axle? The thing's as +useless as a man with a broken back. Gad, I was right. I said it was +going to be an infernal journey." +</p> + +<p> +The little Professor wrung his hands. "But what's to be done?" he cried. +</p> + +<p> +"Tramp it," said Lord Doyne, lighting a fresh cigar. +</p> + +<p> +"It's ten miles," said the chauffeur. +</p> + +<p> +"It would be the death of me," the Professor wailed. +</p> + +<p> +"I utterly refuse to walk ten miles through a Polar waste with a gouty +foot," McCurdie declared wrathfully. +</p> + +<p> +The chauffeur offered a solution of the difficulty. He would set out +alone for Foullis Castle--five miles farther on was an inn where he +could obtain a horse and trap--and would return for the three gentlemen +with another car. In the meanwhile they could take shelter in a little +house which they had just passed, some half mile up the road. This was +agreed to. The chauffeur went on cheerily enough with a lamp, and the +three travellers with another lamp started off in the opposite +direction. As far as they could see they were in a long, desolate +valley, a sort of No Man's Land, deathly silent. The eastern sky had +cleared somewhat, and they faced a loose rack through which one pale +star was dimly visible. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +"I'm a man of science," said McCurdie as they trudged through the snow, +"and I dismiss the supernatural as contrary to reason; but I have +Highland blood in my veins that plays me exasperating tricks. My reason +tells me that this place is only a commonplace moor, yet it seems like a +Valley of Bones haunted by malignant spirits who have lured us here to +our destruction. There's something guiding us now. It's just uncanny." +</p> + +<p> +"Why on earth did we ever come?" croaked Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne answered: "The Koran says, 'Nothing can befall us but what +God hath destined for us.' So why worry?" +</p> + +<p> +"Because I'm not a Mohammedan," retorted Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"You might be worse," said Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the dim outline of the little house grew perceptible. A faint +light shone from the window. It stood unfenced by any kind of hedge or +railing a few feet away from the road in a little hollow beneath some +rising ground. As far as they could discern in the darkness when they +drew near, the house was a mean, dilapidated hovel. A guttering candle +stood on the inner sill of the small window and afforded a vague view +into a mean interior. Doyne held up the lamp so that its rays fell full +on the door. As he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips and he +hurried forward, followed by the others. A man's body lay huddled +together on the snow by the threshold. He was dressed like a peasant, in +old corduroy trousers and rough coat, and a handkerchief was knotted +round his neck. In his hand he grasped the neck of a broken bottle. +Doyne set the lamp on the ground and the three bent down together over +the man. Close by the neck lay the rest of the broken bottle, whose +contents had evidently run out into the snow. +</p> + +<p> +"Drunk?" asked Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +Doyne felt the man and laid his hand on his heart. +</p> + +<p> +"No," said he, "dead." +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie leaped to his full height. "I told you the place was uncanny!" +he cried. "It's fey." Then he hammered wildly at the door. +</p> + +<p> +There was no response. He hammered again till it rattled. This time a +faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was +heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth +chattering. +</p> + +<p> +"Did ye hear that, Doyne?" +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp40.jpg"><img src="illp40_th.jpg" alt="I TOLD YOU THE PLACE WAS UNCANNY."></a> +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the +door-handle. It yielded, the door stood open, and the gust of cold wind +entering the house extinguished the candle within. They entered and +found themselves in a miserable stone-paved kitchen, furnished with +poverty-stricken meagreness--a wooden chair or two, a dirty table, some +broken crockery, old cooking utensils, a fly-blown missionary society +almanac, and a fireless grate. Doyne set the lamp on the table. +</p> + +<p> +"We must bring him in," said he. +</p> + +<p> +They returned to the threshold, and as they were bending over to grip +the dead man the same sound filled the air, but this time louder, more +intense, a cry of great agony. The sweat dripped from McCurdie's +forehead. They lifted the dead man and brought him into the room, and +after laying him on a dirty strip of carpet they did their best to +straighten the stiff limbs. Biggleswade put on the table a bundle which +he had picked up outside. It contained some poor provisions--a loaf, a +piece of fat bacon, and a paper of tea. As far as they could guess (and +as they learned later they guessed rightly) the man was the master of +the house, who, coming home blind drunk from some distant inn, had +fallen at his own threshold and got frozen to death. As they could not +unclasp his fingers from the broken bottleneck they had to let him +clutch it as a dead warrior clutches the hilt of his broken sword. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly the whole place was rent with another and yet another +long, soul-piercing moan of anguish. +</p> + +<p> +"There's a second room," said Doyne, pointing to a door. "The sound +comes from there." He opened the door, peeped in, and then, returning +for the lamp, disappeared, leaving McCurdie and Biggleswade in the pitch +darkness, with the dead man on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +"For heaven's sake, give me a drop of whiskey," said the Professor, "or +I shall faint." +</p> + +<p> +Presently the door opened and Lord Doyne appeared in the shaft of light. +He beckoned to his companions. +</p> + +<p> +"It is a woman in childbirth," he said in his even, tired voice. "We +must aid her. She appears unconscious. Does either of you know anything +about such things?" +</p> + +<p> +They shook their heads, and the three looked at each other in dismay. +Masters of knowledge that had won them world-wide fame and honour, they +stood helpless, abashed before this, the commonest phenomenon of nature. +</p> + +<p> +"My wife had no child," said McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +"I've avoided women all my life," said Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"And I've been too busy to think of them. God forgive me," said Doyne. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +The history of the next two hours was one that none of the three men +ever cared to touch upon. They did things blindly, instinctively, as men +do when they come face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they +knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled. +Doyne accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his +suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering +back beneath rugs and travelling bags which could supply clean linen and +needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find +nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman's +strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that +nameless hovel, with death on the hearthstone and death and life +hovering over the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain +and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never +yet stood before so great a mystery. +</p> + +<p> +With the first wail of the newly born infant a last convulsive shudder +passed through the frame of the unconscious mother. Then three or four +short gasps for breath, and the spirit passed away. She was dead. +Professor Biggleswade threw a corner of the sheet over her face, for he +could not bear to see it. +</p> + +<p> +They washed and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have +done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a +cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of +Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then they +wrapped him up warm in some of their own woollen undergarments, and took +him into the kitchen and placed him on a bed made of their fur coats in +front of the fire. As the last piece of fuel was exhausted they took one +of the wooden chairs and broke it up and cast it into the blaze. And +then they raised the dead man from the strip of carpet and carried him +into the bedroom and laid him reverently by the side of his dead wife, +after which they left the dead in darkness and returned to the living. +And the three grave men stood over the wisp of flesh that had been born +a male into the world. Then, their task being accomplished, reaction +came, and even Doyne, who had seen death in many lands, turned faint. +But the others, losing control of their nerves, shook like men stricken +with palsy. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly McCurdie cried in a high pitched voice, "My God! Don't you feel +it?" and clutched Doyne by the arm. An expression of terror appeared on +his iron features. +</p> + +<p> +"There! It's here with us." +</p> + +<p> +Little Professor Biggleswade sat on a corner of the table and wiped his +forehead. +</p> + +<p> +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." +</p> + +<p> +"It's the fourth time," said McCurdie. "The first time was just before I +accepted the Deverills' invitation. The second in the railway carriage +this afternoon. The third on the way here. This is the fourth." +</p> + +<p> +Biggleswade plucked nervously at the fringe of whisker under his jaws +and said faintly, "It's the fourth time up to now. I thought it was +fancy." +</p> + +<p> +"I have felt it, too," said Doyne. "It is the Angel of Death." And he +pointed to the room where the dead man and woman lay. +</p> + +<p> +"For God's sake let us get away from this," cried Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"And leave the child to die, like the others?" said Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +"We must see it through," said McCurdie. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +A silence fell upon them as they sat round in the blaze with the +new-born babe wrapped in its odd swaddling clothes asleep on the pile of +fur coats, and it lasted until Sir Angus McCurdie looked at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +"Good Lord," said he, "it's twelve o'clock." +</p> + +<p> +"Christmas morning," said Biggleswade. +</p> + +<p> +"A strange Christmas," mused Doyne. +</p> + +<p> +McCurdie put up his hand. "There it is again! The beating of wings." And +they listened like men spellbound. McCurdie kept his hand uplifted, and +gazed over their heads at the wall, and his gaze was that of a man in a +trance, and he spoke: +</p> + +<p> +"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given--" +</p> + +<p> +Doyne sprang from his chair, which fell behind him with a crash. +</p> + +<p> +"Man--what the devil are you saying?" +</p> + +<p> +Then McCurdie rose and met Biggleswade's eyes staring at him through the +great round spectacles, and Biggleswade turned and met the eyes of +Doyne. A pulsation like the beating of wings stirred the air. +</p> + +<p> +The three wise men shivered with a queer exaltation. Something strange, +mystical, dynamic had happened. It was as if scales had fallen from +their eyes and they saw with a new vision. They stood together humbly, +divested of all their greatness, touching one another in the instinctive +fashion of children, as if seeking mutual protection, and they looked, +with one accord, irresistibly compelled, at the child. +</p> + +<p> +At last McCurdie unbent his black brows and said hoarsely: +</p> + +<p> +"It was not the Angel of Death, Doyne, but another Messenger that drew +us here." +</p> + +<p> +The tiredness seemed to pass away from the great administrator's face, +and he nodded his head with the calm of a man who has come to the quiet +heart of a perplexing mystery. +</p> + +<p> +"It's true," he murmured. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is +given. Unto the three of us." +</p> + +<p> +Biggleswade took off his great round spectacles and wiped them. +</p> + +<p> +"Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar. But where are the gold, frankincense and +myrrh?" +</p> + +<p> +"In our hearts, man," said McCurdie. +</p> + +<p> +The babe cried and stretched its tiny limbs. +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp53.jpg"><img src="illp53_th.jpg" alt="INSTINCTIVELY THEY ALL KNELT DOWN."></a> +</p> + +<p> +Instinctively they all knelt down together to discover, if possible, and +administer ignorantly to, its wants. The scene had the appearance of an +adoration. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +Then these three wise, lonely, childless men who, in furtherance of +their own greatness, had cut themselves adrift from the sweet and simple +things of life and from the kindly ways of their brethren, and had grown +old in unhappy and profitless wisdom, knew that an inscrutable +Providence had led them, as it had led three Wise Men of old, on a +Christmas morning long ago, to a nativity which should give them a new +wisdom, a new link with humanity, a new spiritual outlook, a new hope. +</p> + +<p> +And, when their watch was ended, they wrapped up the babe with precious +care, and carried him with them, an inalienable joy and possession, into +the great world. +</p> + +<p class="ctr"> +<a href="illp54.jpg"><img src="illp54_th.jpg" alt="CARRIED WITH THEM AN INALIENABLE JOY AND POSSESSION INTO THE GREAT WORLD."></a> +</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + +***** This file should be named 10707-h.htm or 10707-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/0/10707/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/10707-h/cover.jpg b/old/10707-h/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9450b89 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/cover.jpg diff --git a/old/10707-h/cover_th.jpg b/old/10707-h/cover_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..87a7dbb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/cover_th.jpg diff --git a/old/10707-h/frontis.jpg b/old/10707-h/frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..881a3b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/frontis.jpg diff --git a/old/10707-h/frontis_th.jpg b/old/10707-h/frontis_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..934f566 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/frontis_th.jpg diff --git a/old/10707-h/illp40.jpg b/old/10707-h/illp40.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3f8e3c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/illp40.jpg diff --git a/old/10707-h/illp40_th.jpg b/old/10707-h/illp40_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d53bd93 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/illp40_th.jpg diff --git a/old/10707-h/illp53.jpg b/old/10707-h/illp53.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f7ffdc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/illp53.jpg diff --git a/old/10707-h/illp53_th.jpg b/old/10707-h/illp53_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5b110e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/illp53_th.jpg diff --git a/old/10707-h/illp54.jpg b/old/10707-h/illp54.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..08bb0be --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/illp54.jpg diff --git a/old/10707-h/illp54_th.jpg b/old/10707-h/illp54_th.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5fb5a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707-h/illp54_th.jpg diff --git a/old/10707.txt b/old/10707.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ddbdfa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1130 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Christmas Mystery + The Story of Three Wise Men + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: January 13, 2004 [EBook #10707] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +"_I cannot tell how the truth may be: +I say the tale as 'twas said to me._" + + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +IDOLS +SEPTIMUS +THE USURPER +THE WHITE DOVE +THE BELOVED VAGABOND +THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE +THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE +AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA +A STUDY IN SHADOWS +SIMON THE JESTER +WHERE LOVE IS +DERELICTS + + + +[Illustration: "I HEARD IT. I FELT IT. It WAS LIKE THE BEATING OF +WINGS."] + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY +THE STORY OF THREE WISE MEN + +BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE + +ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL + + +1910 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." Frontispiece + +"I told you the place was uncanny." + +Instinctively they all knelt down. + +Carried with them an inalienable joy and possession into the great +world. + + + + + +A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY + + + +Three men who had gained great fame and honour throughout the world met +unexpectedly in front of the bookstall at Paddington Station. Like most +of the great ones of the earth they were personally acquainted, and they +exchanged surprised greetings. + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the eminent physicist, scowled at the two others +beneath his heavy black eyebrows. + +"I'm going to a God-forsaken place in Cornwall called Trehenna," said +he. + +"That's odd; so am I," croaked Professor Biggleswade. He was a little, +untidy man with round spectacles, a fringe of greyish beard and a weak, +rasping voice, and he knew more of Assyriology than any man, living or +dead. A flippant pupil once remarked that the Professor's face was +furnished with a Babylonic cuneiform in lieu of features. + +"People called Deverill, at Foulis Castle?" asked Sir Angus. + +"Yes," replied Professor Biggleswade. + +"How curious! I am going to the Deverills, too," said the third man. + +This man was the Right Honourable Viscount Doyne, the renowned Empire +Builder and Administrator, around whose solitary and remote life popular +imagination had woven many legends. He looked at the world through tired +grey eyes, and the heavy, drooping, blonde moustache seemed tired, too, +and had dragged down the tired face into deep furrows. He was smoking a +long black cigar. + +"I suppose we may as well travel down together," said Sir Angus, not +very cordially. + +Lord Doyne said courteously: "I have a reserved carriage. The railway +company is always good enough to place one at my disposal. It would give +me great pleasure if you would share it." + +The invitation was accepted, and the three men crossed the busy, crowded +platform to take their seats in the great express train. A porter, laden +with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way through +the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed his shoulder +fretfully. + +"Why the whole land should be turned into a bear garden on account of +this exploded superstition of Christmas is one of the anomalies of +modern civilization. Look at this insensate welter of fools travelling +in wild herds to disgusting places merely because it's Christmas!" + +"You seem to be travelling yourself, McCurdie," said Lord Doyne. + +"Yes--and why the devil I'm doing it, I've not the faintest notion," +replied Sir Angus. + +"It's going to be a beast of a journey," he remarked some moments later, +as the train carried them slowly out of the station. "The whole country +is under snow--and as far as I can understand we have to change twice +and wind up with a twenty-mile motor drive." + +He was an iron-faced, beetle-browed, stern man, and this morning he did +not seem to be in the best of tempers. Finding his companions inclined +to be sympathetic, he continued his lamentation. + +"And merely because it's Christmas I've had to shut up my laboratory and +give my young fools a holiday--just when I was in the midst of a most +important series of experiments." + +Professor Biggleswade, who had heard vaguely of and rather looked down +upon such new-fangled toys as radium and thorium and helium and +argon--for the latest astonishing developments in the theory of +radio-activity had brought Sir Angus McCurdie his world-wide fame--said +somewhat ironically: + +"If the experiments were so important, why didn't you lock yourself up +with your test tubes and electric batteries and finish them alone?" + +"Man!" said McCurdie, bending across the carriage, and speaking with a +curious intensity of voice, "d'ye know I'd give a hundred pounds to be +able to answer that question?" + +"What do you mean?" asked the Professor, startled. + +"I should like to know why I'm sitting in this damned train and going to +visit a couple of addle-headed society people whom I'm scarcely +acquainted with, when I might be at home in my own good company +furthering the progress of science." + +"I myself," said the Professor, "am not acquainted with them at all." + +It was Sir Angus McCurdie's turn to look surprised. + +"Then why are you spending Christmas with them?" + +"I reviewed a ridiculous blank-verse tragedy written by Deverill on the +Death of Sennacherib. Historically it was puerile. I said so in no +measured terms. He wrote a letter claiming to be a poet and not an +archaeologist. I replied that the day had passed when poets could with +impunity commit the abominable crime of distorting history. He retorted +with some futile argument, and we went on exchanging letters, until his +invitation and my acceptance concluded the correspondence." + +McCurdie, still bending his black brows on him, asked him why he had not +declined. The Professor screwed up his face till it looked more like a +cuneiform than ever. He, too, found the question difficult to answer, +but he showed a bold front. + +"I felt it my duty," said he, "to teach that preposterous ignoramus +something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor and +would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and meaningless +annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers than among my +married sisters' numerous and nerve-racking families." + +Sir Angus McCurdie, the hard, metallic apostle of radio-activity, +glanced for a moment out of the window at the grey, frost-bitten fields. +Then he said: + +"I'm a widower. My wife died many years ago and, thank God, we had no +children. I generally spend Christmas alone." + +He looked out of the window again. Professor Biggleswade suddenly +remembered the popular story of the great scientist's antecedents, and +reflected that as McCurdie had once run, a barefoot urchin, through the +Glasgow mud, he was likely to have little kith or kin. He himself envied +McCurdie. He was always praying to be delivered from his sisters and +nephews and nieces, whose embarrassing demands no calculated coldness +could repress. + +"Children are the root of all evil," said he. "Happy the man who has his +quiver empty." + +Sir Angus McCurdie did not reply at once; when he spoke again it was +with reference to their prospective host. + +"I met Deverill," said he, "at the Royal Society's Soiree this year. One +of my assistants was demonstrating a peculiar property of thorium and +Deverill seemed interested. I asked him to come to my laboratory the +next day, and found he didn't know a damned thing about anything. That's +all the acquaintance I have with him." + +Lord Doyne, the great administrator, who had been wearily turning over +the pages of an illustrated weekly chiefly filled with flamboyant +photographs of obscure actresses, took his gold glasses from his nose +and the black cigar from his lips, and addressed his companions. + +"I've been considerably interested in your conversation," said he, "and +as you've been frank, I'll be frank too. I knew Mrs. Deverill's mother, +Lady Carstairs, very well years ago, and of course Mrs. Deverill when +she was a child. Deverill I came across once in Egypt--he had been sent +on a diplomatic mission to Teheran. As for our being invited on such +slight acquaintance, little Mrs. Deverill has the reputation of being +the only really successful celebrity hunter in England. She inherited +the faculty from her mother, who entertained the whole world. We're sure +to find archbishops, and eminent actors, and illustrious divorcees asked +to meet us. That's one thing. But why I, who loathe country house +parties and children and Christmas as much as Biggleswade, am going down +there to-day, I can no more explain than you can. It's a devilish odd +coincidence." + +The three men looked at one another. Suddenly McCurdie shivered and drew +his fur coat around him. + +"I'll thank you," said he, "to shut that window." + +"It is shut," said Doyne. + +"It's just uncanny," said McCurdie, looking from one to the other. + +"What?" asked Doyne. + +"Nothing, if you didn't feel it." + +"There did seem to be a sudden draught," said Professor Biggleswade. +"But as both window and door are shut, it could only be imaginary." + +"It wasn't imaginary," muttered McCurdie. + +Then he laughed harshly. "My father and mother came from Cromarty," he +said with apparent irrelevance. + +"That's the Highlands," said the Professor. + +"Ay," said McCurdie. + +Lord Doyne said nothing, but tugged at his moustache and looked out of +the window as the frozen meadows and bits of river and willows raced +past. A dead silence fell on them. McCurdie broke it with another laugh +and took a whiskey flask from his hand-bag. + +"Have a nip?" + +"Thanks, no," said the Professor. "I have to keep to a strict dietary, +and I only drink hot milk and water--and of that sparingly. I have some +in a thermos bottle." + +Lord Doyne also declining the whiskey, McCurdie swallowed a dram and +declared himself to be better. The Professor took from his bag a foreign +review in which a German sciolist had dared to question his +interpretation of a Hittite inscription. Over the man's ineptitude he +fell asleep and snored loudly. + +To escape from his immediate neighbourhood McCurdie went to the other +end of the seat and faced Lord Doyne, who had resumed his gold glasses +and his listless contemplation of obscure actresses. McCurdie lit a +pipe, Doyne another black cigar. The train thundered on. + +Presently they all lunched together in the restaurant car. The windows +steamed, but here and there through a wiped patch of pane a white world +was revealed. The snow was falling. As they passed through Westbury, +McCurdie looked mechanically for the famous white horse carved into the +chalk of the down; but it was not visible beneath the thick covering of +snow. + +"It'll be just like this all the way to Gehenna--Trehenna, I mean," said +McCurdie. + +Doyne nodded. He had done his life's work amid all extreme fiercenesses +of heat and cold, in burning droughts, in simoons and in icy +wildernesses, and a ray or two more of the pale sun or a flake or two +more of the gentle snow of England mattered to him but little. But +Biggleswade rubbed the pane with his table-napkin and gazed +apprehensively at the prospect. + +"If only this wretched train would stop," said he, "I would go back +again." + +And he thought how comfortable it would be to sneak home again to his +books and thus elude not only the Deverills, but the Christmas jollities +of his sisters' families, who would think him miles away. But the train +was timed not to stop till Plymouth, two hundred and thirty-five miles +from London, and thither was he being relentlessly carried. Then he +quarrelled with his food, which brought a certain consolation. + + * * * * * + +The train did stop, however, before Plymouth--indeed, before Exeter. An +accident on the line had dislocated the traffic. The express was held up +for an hour, and when it was permitted to proceed, instead of thundering +on, it went cautiously, subject to continual stoppings. It arrived at +Plymouth two hours late. The travellers learned that they had missed the +connection on which they had counted and that they could not reach +Trehenna till nearly ten o'clock. After weary waiting at Plymouth they +took their seats in the little, cold local train that was to carry them +another stage on their journey. Hot-water cans put in at Plymouth +mitigated to some extent the iciness of the compartment. But that only +lasted a comparatively short time, for soon they were set down at a +desolate, shelterless wayside junction, dumped in the midst of a hilly +snow-covered waste, where they went through another weary wait for +another dismal local train that was to carry them to Trehenna. And in +this train there were no hot-water cans, so that the compartment was as +cold as death. McCurdie fretted and shook his fist in the direction of +Trehenna. + +"And when we get there we have still a twenty miles' motor drive to +Foullis Castle. It's a fool name and we're fools to be going there." + +"I shall die of bronchitis," wailed Professor Biggleswade. + +"A man dies when it is appointed for him to die," said Lord Doyne, in +his tired way; and he went on smoking long black cigars. + +"It's not the dying that worries me," said McCurdie. "That's a mere +mechanical process which every organic being from a king to a +cauliflower has to pass through. It's the being forced against my will +and my reason to come on this accursed journey, which something tells me +will become more and more accursed as we go on, that is driving me to +distraction." + +"What will be, will be," said Doyne. + +"I can't see where the comfort of that reflection comes in," said +Biggleswade. + +"And yet you've travelled in the East," said Doyne. "I suppose you know +the Valley of the Tigris as well as any man living." + +"Yes," said the Professor. "I can say I dug my way from Tekrit to Bagdad +and left not a stone unexamined." + +"Perhaps, after all," Doyne remarked, "that's not quite the way to know +the East." + +"I never wanted to know the modern East," returned the Professor. "What +is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations that +have gone before?" + +McCurdie took a pull from his flask. + +"I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he. + +At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at +Trehenna. The guard opened the door and they stepped out on to the +snow-covered platform. An oil lamp hung from the tiny pent-house roof +that, structurally, was Trehenna Station. They looked around at the +silent gloom of white undulating moorland, and it seemed a place where +no man lived and only ghosts could have a bleak and unsheltered being. A +porter came up and helped the guard with the luggage. Then they realized +that the station was built on a small embankment, for, looking over the +railing, they saw below the two great lamps of a motor car. A fur-clad +chauffeur met them at the bottom of the stairs. He clapped his hands +together and informed them cheerily that he had been waiting for four +hours. It was the bitterest winter in these parts within the memory of +man, said he, and he himself had not seen snow there for five years. +Then he settled the three travellers in the great roomy touring car +covered with a Cape-cart hood, wrapped them up in many rugs and started. + +After a few moments, the huddling together of their bodies--for, the +Professor being a spare man, there was room for them all on the back +seat--the pile of rugs, the serviceable and all but air-tight hood, +induced a pleasant warmth and a pleasant drowsiness. Where they were +being driven they knew not. The perfectly upholstered seat eased their +limbs, the easy swinging motion of the car soothed their spirits. They +felt that already they had reached the luxuriously appointed home which, +after all, they knew awaited them. McCurdie no longer railed, Professor +Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted the +stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight +it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world +to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. +McCurdie and Biggleswade fell into a doze. Lord Doyne chewed the end of +his cigar. The car sped on through an unseen wilderness. + +Suddenly there was a horrid jolt and a lurch and a leap and a rebound, +and then the car stood still, quivering like a ship that has been struck +by a heavy sea. The three men were pitched and tossed and thrown +sprawling over one another onto the bottom of the car. Biggleswade +screamed. McCurdie cursed. Doyne scrambled from the confusion of rugs +and limbs and, tearing open the side of the Cape-cart hood, jumped out. +The chauffeur had also just leaped from his seat. It was pitch dark save +for the great shaft of light down the snowy road cast by the acetylene +lamps. The snow had ceased falling. + +"What's gone wrong?" + +"It sounds like the axle," said the chauffeur ruefully. + +He unshipped a lamp and examined the car, which had wedged itself +against a great drift of snow on the off side. Meanwhile McCurdie and +Biggleswade had alighted. + +"Yes, it's the axle," said the chauffeur. + +"Then we're done," remarked Doyne. + +"I'm afraid so, my lord." + +"What's the matter? Can't we get on?" asked Biggleswade in his querulous +voice. + +McCurdie laughed. "How can we get on with a broken axle? The thing's as +useless as a man with a broken back. Gad, I was right. I said it was +going to be an infernal journey." + +The little Professor wrung his hands. "But what's to be done?" he cried. + +"Tramp it," said Lord Doyne, lighting a fresh cigar. + +"It's ten miles," said the chauffeur. + +"It would be the death of me," the Professor wailed. + +"I utterly refuse to walk ten miles through a Polar waste with a gouty +foot," McCurdie declared wrathfully. + +The chauffeur offered a solution of the difficulty. He would set out +alone for Foullis Castle--five miles farther on was an inn where he +could obtain a horse and trap--and would return for the three gentlemen +with another car. In the meanwhile they could take shelter in a little +house which they had just passed, some half mile up the road. This was +agreed to. The chauffeur went on cheerily enough with a lamp, and the +three travellers with another lamp started off in the opposite +direction. As far as they could see they were in a long, desolate +valley, a sort of No Man's Land, deathly silent. The eastern sky had +cleared somewhat, and they faced a loose rack through which one pale +star was dimly visible. + + * * * * * + +"I'm a man of science," said McCurdie as they trudged through the snow, +"and I dismiss the supernatural as contrary to reason; but I have +Highland blood in my veins that plays me exasperating tricks. My reason +tells me that this place is only a commonplace moor, yet it seems like a +Valley of Bones haunted by malignant spirits who have lured us here to +our destruction. There's something guiding us now. It's just uncanny." + +"Why on earth did we ever come?" croaked Biggleswade. + +Lord Doyne answered: "The Koran says, 'Nothing can befall us but what +God hath destined for us.' So why worry?" + +"Because I'm not a Mohammedan," retorted Biggleswade. + +"You might be worse," said Doyne. + +Presently the dim outline of the little house grew perceptible. A faint +light shone from the window. It stood unfenced by any kind of hedge or +railing a few feet away from the road in a little hollow beneath some +rising ground. As far as they could discern in the darkness when they +drew near, the house was a mean, dilapidated hovel. A guttering candle +stood on the inner sill of the small window and afforded a vague view +into a mean interior. Doyne held up the lamp so that its rays fell full +on the door. As he did so, an exclamation broke from his lips and he +hurried forward, followed by the others. A man's body lay huddled +together on the snow by the threshold. He was dressed like a peasant, in +old corduroy trousers and rough coat, and a handkerchief was knotted +round his neck. In his hand he grasped the neck of a broken bottle. +Doyne set the lamp on the ground and the three bent down together over +the man. Close by the neck lay the rest of the broken bottle, whose +contents had evidently run out into the snow. + +"Drunk?" asked Biggleswade. + +Doyne felt the man and laid his hand on his heart. + +"No," said he, "dead." + +McCurdie leaped to his full height. "I told you the place was uncanny!" +he cried. "It's fey." Then he hammered wildly at the door. + +There was no response. He hammered again till it rattled. This time a +faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was +heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth +chattering. + +"Did ye hear that, Doyne?" + + +[Illustration: I TOLD YOU THE PLACE WAS UNCANNY.] + + +"Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor. + +Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the +door-handle. It yielded, the door stood open, and the gust of cold wind +entering the house extinguished the candle within. They entered and +found themselves in a miserable stone-paved kitchen, furnished with +poverty-stricken meagreness--a wooden chair or two, a dirty table, some +broken crockery, old cooking utensils, a fly-blown missionary society +almanac, and a fireless grate. Doyne set the lamp on the table. + +"We must bring him in," said he. + +They returned to the threshold, and as they were bending over to grip +the dead man the same sound filled the air, but this time louder, more +intense, a cry of great agony. The sweat dripped from McCurdie's +forehead. They lifted the dead man and brought him into the room, and +after laying him on a dirty strip of carpet they did their best to +straighten the stiff limbs. Biggleswade put on the table a bundle which +he had picked up outside. It contained some poor provisions--a loaf, a +piece of fat bacon, and a paper of tea. As far as they could guess (and +as they learned later they guessed rightly) the man was the master of +the house, who, coming home blind drunk from some distant inn, had +fallen at his own threshold and got frozen to death. As they could not +unclasp his fingers from the broken bottleneck they had to let him +clutch it as a dead warrior clutches the hilt of his broken sword. + +Then suddenly the whole place was rent with another and yet another +long, soul-piercing moan of anguish. + +"There's a second room," said Doyne, pointing to a door. "The sound +comes from there." He opened the door, peeped in, and then, returning +for the lamp, disappeared, leaving McCurdie and Biggleswade in the pitch +darkness, with the dead man on the floor. + +"For heaven's sake, give me a drop of whiskey," said the Professor, "or +I shall faint." + +Presently the door opened and Lord Doyne appeared in the shaft of light. +He beckoned to his companions. + +"It is a woman in childbirth," he said in his even, tired voice. "We +must aid her. She appears unconscious. Does either of you know anything +about such things?" + +They shook their heads, and the three looked at each other in dismay. +Masters of knowledge that had won them world-wide fame and honour, they +stood helpless, abashed before this, the commonest phenomenon of nature. + +"My wife had no child," said McCurdie. + +"I've avoided women all my life," said Biggleswade. + +"And I've been too busy to think of them. God forgive me," said Doyne. + + * * * * * + +The history of the next two hours was one that none of the three men +ever cared to touch upon. They did things blindly, instinctively, as men +do when they come face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they +knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled. +Doyne accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his +suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering +back beneath rugs and travelling bags which could supply clean linen and +needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find +nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman's +strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that +nameless hovel, with death on the hearthstone and death and life +hovering over the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain +and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never +yet stood before so great a mystery. + +With the first wail of the newly born infant a last convulsive shudder +passed through the frame of the unconscious mother. Then three or four +short gasps for breath, and the spirit passed away. She was dead. +Professor Biggleswade threw a corner of the sheet over her face, for he +could not bear to see it. + +They washed and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have +done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a +cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of +Biggleswade's thermos bottle, and put it to his lips; and then they +wrapped him up warm in some of their own woollen undergarments, and took +him into the kitchen and placed him on a bed made of their fur coats in +front of the fire. As the last piece of fuel was exhausted they took one +of the wooden chairs and broke it up and cast it into the blaze. And +then they raised the dead man from the strip of carpet and carried him +into the bedroom and laid him reverently by the side of his dead wife, +after which they left the dead in darkness and returned to the living. +And the three grave men stood over the wisp of flesh that had been born +a male into the world. Then, their task being accomplished, reaction +came, and even Doyne, who had seen death in many lands, turned faint. +But the others, losing control of their nerves, shook like men stricken +with palsy. + +Suddenly McCurdie cried in a high pitched voice, "My God! Don't you feel +it?" and clutched Doyne by the arm. An expression of terror appeared on +his iron features. + +"There! It's here with us." + +Little Professor Biggleswade sat on a corner of the table and wiped his +forehead. + +"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." + +"It's the fourth time," said McCurdie. "The first time was just before I +accepted the Deverills' invitation. The second in the railway carriage +this afternoon. The third on the way here. This is the fourth." + +Biggleswade plucked nervously at the fringe of whisker under his jaws +and said faintly, "It's the fourth time up to now. I thought it was +fancy." + +"I have felt it, too," said Doyne. "It is the Angel of Death." And he +pointed to the room where the dead man and woman lay. + +"For God's sake let us get away from this," cried Biggleswade. + +"And leave the child to die, like the others?" said Doyne. + +"We must see it through," said McCurdie. + + * * * * * + +A silence fell upon them as they sat round in the blaze with the +new-born babe wrapped in its odd swaddling clothes asleep on the pile of +fur coats, and it lasted until Sir Angus McCurdie looked at his watch. + +"Good Lord," said he, "it's twelve o'clock." + +"Christmas morning," said Biggleswade. + +"A strange Christmas," mused Doyne. + +McCurdie put up his hand. "There it is again! The beating of wings." And +they listened like men spellbound. McCurdie kept his hand uplifted, and +gazed over their heads at the wall, and his gaze was that of a man in a +trance, and he spoke: + +"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given--" + +Doyne sprang from his chair, which fell behind him with a crash. + +"Man--what the devil are you saying?" + +Then McCurdie rose and met Biggleswade's eyes staring at him through the +great round spectacles, and Biggleswade turned and met the eyes of +Doyne. A pulsation like the beating of wings stirred the air. + +The three wise men shivered with a queer exaltation. Something strange, +mystical, dynamic had happened. It was as if scales had fallen from +their eyes and they saw with a new vision. They stood together humbly, +divested of all their greatness, touching one another in the instinctive +fashion of children, as if seeking mutual protection, and they looked, +with one accord, irresistibly compelled, at the child. + +At last McCurdie unbent his black brows and said hoarsely: + +"It was not the Angel of Death, Doyne, but another Messenger that drew +us here." + +The tiredness seemed to pass away from the great administrator's face, +and he nodded his head with the calm of a man who has come to the quiet +heart of a perplexing mystery. + +"It's true," he murmured. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is +given. Unto the three of us." + +Biggleswade took off his great round spectacles and wiped them. + +"Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar. But where are the gold, frankincense and +myrrh?" + +"In our hearts, man," said McCurdie. + +The babe cried and stretched its tiny limbs. + + +[Illustration: INSTINCTIVELY THEY ALL KNELT DOWN.] + + +Instinctively they all knelt down together to discover, if possible, and +administer ignorantly to, its wants. The scene had the appearance of an +adoration. + + * * * * * + +Then these three wise, lonely, childless men who, in furtherance of +their own greatness, had cut themselves adrift from the sweet and simple +things of life and from the kindly ways of their brethren, and had grown +old in unhappy and profitless wisdom, knew that an inscrutable +Providence had led them, as it had led three Wise Men of old, on a +Christmas morning long ago, to a nativity which should give them a new +wisdom, a new link with humanity, a new spiritual outlook, a new hope. + +And, when their watch was ended, they wrapped up the babe with precious +care, and carried him with them, an inalienable joy and possession, into +the great world. + + +[Illustration: CARRIED WITH THEM AN INALIENABLE JOY AND POSSESSION INTO +THE GREAT WORLD.] + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J. Locke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY *** + +***** This file should be named 10707.txt or 10707.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/7/0/10707/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Shon McCarley, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10707.zip b/old/10707.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..74790dc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10707.zip |
