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"That rather shuts out effort, doesn't it? Well, I mean " "Strivings?" Mr. Naylor smiled. "Yes, it does. On the other hand, it gives such free play. That's what makes him interesting, makes you think about him." He laughed. "Oh, I dare say the surroundings help too we're all rather children old Saffron, and the Devil, and Captain Duggle, and the rest of it!
He not only drank prodigiously that, being in character and also a source of local profit, might have passed with mild censure but he swore and blasphemed horribly, spurning the parson, mocking at Revelation, even at the Deity Himself. The Devil was his friend, he said. A most terrible fellow, this Captain Duggle. Inkston's hair stood on end, and no wonder!
A seafaring man had suddenly appeared, out of space, as it were, at Inkston, and taken the cottage. He carried with him a strong smell of rum and tobacco, and gave it to be understood that his name was Captain Duggle. He was no beauty, and his behavior was worse than his looks. To that quiet village, in those quiet strait-laced times, he was a horror and a portent.
Beaumaroy looked up quickly. "What, all about " "Captain Duggle, and the Devil, and the grave, and all that." "Who told you the story?" "Old Mr. Penrose. Do you know him? Lives in High Street, near the Irechesters." "I think I know him by sight. So he entertained you with that old yarn, did he? And that same old yarn probably accounts for the nocturnal examination which you saw going on.
And no doubt he'd have smelt brimstone if the wind hadn't set the wrong way! Anyhow Captain Duggle was never seen again by mortal eyes, at Inkston, at all events.
"Perhaps generally, but some rich pockets one may call pockets," corrected Beaumaroy. "I'm not an agriculturist," remarked weaselly Mr. Radbolt, in his oily tones. "And then there's a picturesque old yarn told about it oh, whether it's true or not, of course I don't know. It's about a certain Captain Duggle not the Army the Mercantile Marine, Mrs. Radbolt. You know the story Dr. Arkroyd?
"Apparently not when Captain Duggle left it if he was ever in it at all events not when he left the house, in whatever way and by whatever agency." "As to the latter point, I myself incline to Penrose's theory," said Mr. Naylor. "Delirium tremens, you know!" Beaumaroy puffed at his cigar.
"No doubt they shivered with delight over it all," commented Mr. Naylor. Captain Duggle lived all by himself well, what God-fearing Christian, male or female, would be found to live with him came and went mysteriously and capriciously, always full of money, and at least equally full of drink! What he did with himself nobody knew, but evil legends gathered about him.
He had done with thrones; he had even done with Tower Cottage unless indeed his pale shade were to hold nocturnal converse with the robust and flamboyant ghost of Captain Duggle; the one vaunting his unreal vanished greatness, mouthing orations and mimicking pomp; the other telling, in language garnished with strange and horrible oaths, of those dark and lurid terrors which once had driven him from this very place, leaving it ablaze behind.
"I've visited the cottage often," Irechester interposed, "when various people had it, but I never saw any signs of the Tower being used." "It never was, I'm sure; and as for the grave, well, Alec, in country parts, to this day, you'd be thought a bold man if you filled up a grave that your neighbor had dug for himself, and such a neighbor as Captain Duggle!
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