CHAPTER XI
THE PREVALENT ATMOSPHERE
Until that afternoon Collingwood had never been in the village to which he was now bending his steps; on that and his previous visits to the Grange he had only passed the end of its one street. Now, descending into it from the slopes of the park, he found it to be little more than a hamlet—a church, a farmstead or two, a few cottages in their gardens, all clustering about a narrow stream spanned by a high-arched bridge of stone. The Normandale Arms, a roomy, old-fashioned place, stood at one end of the bridge, and from the windows of the room into which Collingwood was presently shown he could look out on the stream itself and on the meadows beyond it. A peaceful, pretty, quiet place—but the gloom which was heavy at the big house or the hill seemed to have spread to everybody that he encountered.
"Bad job, this, sir!" said the landlord, an elderly, serious-faced man, to whom Collingwood had made known his wants, and who had quickly formed the opinion that his guest was of the legal profession. "And a queer one, too! Odd thing, sir, that our old squire, and now the young one, should both have met their deaths in what you might term violent fashion."
"Accident—in both cases," remarked Collingwood.
The landlord nodded his head—and then shook it in a manner which seemed to indicate that while he agreed with this proposition in one respect he entertained some sort of doubt about it in others.
"Ay, well!" he answered. "Of course, a mill chimney falling, without notice, as it were, and a bridge giving way—them's accidents, to be sure. But it's a very strange thing about this foot-bridge, up yonder at the Grange—very strange indeed! There's queer talk about it, already."
"What sort of talk?" asked Collingwood. Ever since the old woodman had come up to him and Pratt, as they stood looking at the foot-bridge, he had been aware of a curious sense of mystery, and the landlord's remark tended to deepen it. "What are people talking about?"
"Nay—it's only one or two," replied the landlord. "There's been two men in here since the affair happened that crossed that bridge Friday afternoon—and both of 'em big, heavy men. According to what one can learn that there bridge wasn't used much by the Grange people—it led to nowhere in particular for them. But there is a right of way across that part of the park, and these two men as I'm speaking of—they made use of it on Friday—getting towards dark. I know 'em well—they'd both of 'em weigh four times as much—together—as young Squire Mallathorpe, and yet it didn't give way under them. And then—only a few hours later, as you might say, down it goes with him!"
"I don't think you can form any opinion from that!" said Collingwood. "These things, these old structures, often give way quite suddenly and unexpectedly."