Presently we went round the outhouses, and as I was going on a little ahead I went into one before our guide came up. I went right in, and then I gave a shriek and ran out, feeling as if I should fall to the ground.
There, lying on the straw, stark and staring, I had seen the dead body of a man, and, oh, that dreadful face! I shall never forget it while I live.
“What’s the matter?” cried Harry, running to me and catching me in his arms just as I was fainting.
“Oh, oh!” I gasped; “there’s a dead man in there.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said the guide. “There’s always something of the sort in that shed. It’s kept on purpose.”
“What!” I stammered; “always a corpse there?”
“Yes, ma’am. You see, most of the people as throws theirselves into the river get carried into this lock, so we’re always on the look-out for ’em, and this is the inquest house. Lor’, ma’am, you wouldn’t believe what a lot of custom they bodies bring to the house! What with friends coming to identify ’em, and the inquest and the funeral, it’s a very good thing for the house, I can tell you.”
“Oh, Harry,” I said, as soon as I felt a little better; “I could never be happy here. Fancy these roses and flowers, and yet always a corpse on the premises. Let’s go away; we don’t want to see any more.”
But we did get settled at last. We found the place where I’m writing these Memoirs—the ‘Stretford Arms.’ It is called so after the Stretfords, who were the great family here, and it’s on what used to be their property, and nice people they were—some of them—but a queer lot some of the others, with stories in the family to make the Police News Sunday-school reading to them. The house is very pretty, quite countryfied, and standing back from the road, with a garden on each side of it, and lots of trees. And the windows are latticed, and there are creepers growing all over the walls, and it looks really just like the pretty house Harry and I saw in the melodrama and fell in love with.
We got it through a respectable broker, who was very useful to us, and told us everything we had to do, and put us right with the brewer and the distiller, and managed “the change” for us capitally, and gave us excellent advice about the house and the class of customers we should have to deal with, and was very obliging in every way.