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Updated: June 26, 2025
“Squire Bowes, of Barwyke, died without making a will, as you know,” said Tom. “And all the folk round were sorry; that is to say, sir, as sorry as folk will be for an old man that has seen a long tale of years, and has no right to grumble that death has knocked an hour too soon at his door.
What interruption I experienced that night I shall tell you presently. It was not much, but it was very odd. By next night I had completed my work at Barwyke. From early morning till then I was so incessantly occupied and hard-worked, that I had no time to think over the singular occurrence to which I have just referred.
Tom did not seem to like my invitation; and looking straight before him as we trudged on, he said, "You see, sir, the house has been quiet, and nout's been troubling folk inside the walls or out, all round the woods of Barwyke, this ten year, or more; and my old woman, down there, is clear against talking about such matters, and thinks it best and so do I to let sleepin' dogs be."
You came here about them Miss Dymock’s business, and he never meant they should have a foot o’ ground in Barwyke; and he was making a will to give it away quite different, when death took him short. He never was uncivil to no one; but he couldn’t abide them ladies.
I was looking from the chaise-window, and soon detected the object of which, for some time, my eye had been in search. Barwyke Hall was a large, quaint house, of that cage-work fashion known as "black-and-white," in which the bars and angles of an oak framework contrast, black as ebony, with the white plaster that overspreads the masonry built into its interstices.
My mind misgave me when I heard 'twas about their business you were coming; and now you see how it is; he'll be at his old tricks again!" With some pressure and a little more punch, I induced Tom Wyndsour to explain his mysterious allusions by recounting the occurrences which followed the old Squire's death. "Squire Bowes of Barwyke died without making a will, as you know," said Tom.
I was curious to learn something about Barwyke, which was the name of the demesne and house I was going to. As there was no inn within some miles of it, I had written to the steward to put me up there, the best way he could, for a night. The host of the “Three Nuns,” which was the sign under which he entertained wayfarers, had not a great deal to tell.
We had been driving for more than an hour, when we began to cross a wild common; and I knew that, this passed, a quarter of an hour would bring me to the door of Barwyke Hall. The peat and furze were pretty soon left behind; we were again in the wooded scenery that I enjoyed so much, so entirely natural and pretty, and so little disturbed by traffic of any kind.
He dropped his voice toward the close of the sentence, and nodded significantly. We soon reached a point where he unlocked a wicket in the park wall, by which we entered the grounds of Barwyke once more.
The story and its epilogue were over. I confessed I was rather glad when I heard the sound of the horses’ hoofs on the courtyard, a few minutes later; and still gladder when, having bidden Tom a kind farewell, I had left the neglected house of Barwyke a mile behind me. Hush! what was that cry, so low but yet so piercing, so strange but yet so sorrowful?
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