Dead Man's Quarry Read Online Free

an almost embarrassingly friendly, soul.
    Thus Felix Price, trying conscientiously to be just to the cousin he instinctively disliked; wincing at the close proximity of that cousin’s close-cropped head to Isabel’s silky red-gold hair.
    â€œCould we have some more hot water, please?”
    The pale, colourless girl took the jug from the tray and asked anxiously:
    â€œWas the eggs boiled all right?”
    â€œOh, yes, quite,” said Nora with amiable mendacity. Meeting her brother’s astounded and reproachful eye, she added sweetly:“A tiny bit hard, perhaps. But it didn’t matter.”
    The girl looked relieved.
    â€œI was so afraid they’d be hard as rocks, and after you asking for them soft-boiled, I didn’t hardly like to bring them in. I’d just put them on to boil and taken a look at the clock, when I saw a man in the yard, going towards the orchard.” She paused, caressing the warm jug and looking at Nora with large, worried eyes. “He had a look as if he didn’t ought to be there. And we gets so many apples stolen, the orchard being a bit out of the way from the house, I thought I’d just run out and see as he was up to no harm. I couldn’t see him in the yard, and when I went to the orchard gate and looked over, he weren’t there, so I had just a look round, forgetting about the eggs, and then I thought: He’ll have gone round the house to the front, I expect. So I goes round the house, but I couldn’t see him nowhere, and then I remembers the eggs and runs in. And when I looks at the clock and sees the eggs’ve bin on nine minutes, I thinks: They’ll be hard-boiled, I expect.”
    â€œYou were right,” said Lion solemnly. “An egg should be boiled three and a quarter minutes. But never mind. We’ll say no more about it.”
    â€œThank you, sir,” murmured the girl, looking apprehensively at what she afterwards described to her father as “the most old-fashionedest young boy ever I saw.” She was about to depart when Lion added:
    â€œCould you tell me something? I do so want to know why this place is called the Tram Inn. Is Tram a Welsh word or something?”
    â€œWelsh?” repeated the girl, staring at him. “Not as I know, sir. I expect it’s called the Tram because it used to be called the Crown a long while ago, only the licence was took away, but that was long afore we come here. And then when old Mr. Lloyd, that was here before us and died in the place, took out a licence again, I expect it was called the Tram owing to there being a Crown at Rodland, a mile away on the main road.”
    â€œI see,” said Lion, adopting the kind, brisk manner of an examiner with a well-meaning but rather backward pupil. “That’s why it isn’t called the Crown. Now could you tell me why it is called the Tram, instead of the Pig and Whistle, or the Fox and Geese, or the Rumtifoo Arms?”
    â€œI never heard of an inn with a name like that last, sir,” murmured the girl with a puzzled air. She added pensively: “I expect it’s called the Tram because of the quarry.”
    There was a dazed pause.
    â€œI see,” said Lion after a moment, his face clearing. “There’s a tramway somewhere about to fetch the slate from the quarry. Oh, yes! I see, thank you very much. I was thinking of those large, top-heavy things that go shrieking about the towns. Is the quarry near here?”
    â€œJust across those fields,” said the girl, pointing through the front window. “But it isn’t used now, nor hasn’t been since I dunno when. Some of the lines from the quarry to where the slate-house used to be is still there. . .”
    â€œHow near is this quarry? I think I’ll stroll over and have a look at it after tea. Then I can put it on my map to explain the inn.”
    â€œNot more than seven minutes’ walk, sir. Just across the field over