218

WINNIE CORSELLIS; OR, DEATH IN THE POT.

houses, lying about five miles away in the hollow

| studded with copses and spinneys, and dotted with
houses, then the spire of Halesworth church rose
up from its deep valley, and the roofs of the town
might be seen clustering round it, looking pictu-
resque at a distance, though a very centre of grimy
poverty if you were among the streets. But they
looked pretty from the Castle, and no less pretty
looked Brierley Hill and Rowley Regis, with their
square church towers standing upon rounded
mounds, which began to rise on the other side of
the valley and mounted up one above the other till
Dudley spire and its Castle Hill stood sharp
against the northern sky, while the great round
back of the Wrekin rose farther towards the west,
and the Cley Hills peeped up in the distance
behind the woods of Hagley on the left. It was
pretty to stand at the door of the farm on a windy
day, and watch the veil of smoke drifting across
the country, now and then breaking up and show-
ing gleams of distance through its rifts, and then
again shutting out all the far-off hills with its grey
curtain. It was pretty at night, too, when the
fires flashed out of the darkness, and red waves
of light glared and flickered over the country, and
lit up the sky with the reflection of a hundred
lights. No wonder that the Castle Farm could
always let its lodgings during the summer months,
and that from May to October the parlour at the
back was seldom empty.

Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay were middle-aged people,
their two sons and only daughter had married and

set up houses of their own, and the old couple |

were left alone at the farm, except when some
one of their numerous grandchildren came to pay
them a visit. Living so much by themselves the
Ramsays rather liked to have strangers in the

of the valley. First came a tract of clean country, |

house for part of the year, and the two pounds a |

week they charged for the rooms came in very
handy, and was earned with little trouble, for
Mrs. Ramsay was a delicate woman, always ailing,
more or less, yet without any specific form of
disease, and therefore never undertook the hard
work in the house—a tall large-limbed servant
did all that; so seeing to the cooking, minding the
dairy, and waiting on the lodgers, no more than
pleasantly filled up her days.

People often wondered that Mrs. Ramsay was not
a stouter woman, but they came to the conclusion
that “folks is as God made them,” and fine air
cannot make sickly bodies strong, though it might
keep them alive, and that if Mrs. Ramsay was
weakly up at the Castle, she would have been dead
years ago, if she had lived down in the vale.

In the early summer of the year we speak of,
the lodgings had not let quite as well as usual, and
they had been empty during the last weeks of

| June, but as July drew on, Mrs. Ramsay received

an application from some people who had never
been to her before, and there was much sweeping
and dusting and hanging out of sheets and bed
furniture to air in the sun.

«TJ wonder who they be, those folks as is
coming,” said Mr. Ramsay to his wife, as he sat
smoking his pipe in the big kitchen that fronted
the road. ‘Most whiles we knows something of
our lodgers, but these be strange names, and they
don’t speak of knowing any one as has been here
before.”

“They don’t say nothing of it,” replied Mrs,
Ramsay, as she moved about the room straightening
things for the night, “but I doubt they must know
some of them, or how would they have heard of
the lodgings? Beechley ain’t easy found out by

| Birmingham folks, let alone the Black Country.”

‘‘ What time does they come ?”

‘‘ They'll be here by five.”

“Then I'll have that heap of muck by the gate
cleared away in the morning, and the foal-yard
would not be none the worse if some of the litter
was took up; it’s been down a great bit, and
smelled a trifle yesterday when the sun were hot.”

“Tt wouldn’t do no harm if the men can awhile,”
assented Mrs. Ramsay carelessly, “‘but our yard
ain’t like some. Let it rain as it will, it’s always
dry ina day, instead of a nasty pool standing in
the sun, poisoning the place with bad smells.”

* Ah, it’s being on the gravel does that, there's
a nice puddle down at Old Brook, Ill warrant:
were better off than they be in wet times, like
what there’s been lately.”

** And none worse off in dry ones,” replied Mrs.
Ramsay; “‘ there ain’t a house in the parish has got
water as handy as we have.”

Which was quite true, for a spring which: rose
on the top of the hill had been brought down
through drainage-pipes into the back kitchen of the
farm, and ran in a bright clear stream through ®
stone trough in the corner, and then out again into
the garden, whence it found its way down the hill
in tiny waterfalls and miniature rapids. Some-
times, it is true, heavy rains would send surface-
water into the channel aad discolour the generally
clear stream, but then they could always fall back
upon their pumps, which stood just outside the
back door, and so close to the yard that it was no
trouble for the men to get their water, or for the
house-servant to fill her pails.

“Yes, there ain’t much to complain of that
way,” assented the farmer: “pity we can’t say
the same about other things.”

“Yes, indeed! and that puts me in mind; the
rain has beat into that bed-room where Bill used
to sleep, ever so bad. It’s lucky as this set of
lodgers only wanted three bed-rooms, for which-

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