The Blythes Are Quoted Read Online Free

the child. One day it was drowned in the barn cistern ... Jock had left the top off. Anna seemed to take it coolly ... didn’t make a fuss ... didn’t even cry, I’m told. People said, ‘Oh, she’s glad to be rid of it. A bad lot, those Marshes. Too bad Lucia Field couldn’t get better help. Perhaps if they paid better wages ...’ and so on. But two weeks after the child was buried Anna hanged herself in the garret.”
    Curtis gave a horrified exclamation.
    “I have heard that Dr. Blythe warned them to watch her. But you see there is a magnificent foundation for a ghost story. They say that’s the true reason Edna Pollock won’t marry Long Alec. The Pollocks are well off and Edna is a smart, capable girl ... but a bit below the Fields socially and mentally. She wants Alec to sell and move. She insists that the place is under a curse. Well, as for that, a note was found one morning written in blood ... badly written and badly spelled ... Anna Marsh was very illiterate ... ‘If ever children are born in this house they will be born accursed.’ Dr. Blytheinsisted it wasn’t Anna’s writing but ... well, there you are. Alec won’t sell ... even if he could find a purchaser, which is doubtful. The place has been in his family since 1770 and he says he is not going to be driven out of it by spooks. A few weeks after Anna’s death these performances began. The cradle was heard rocking in the garret ... there was a cradle there then. They took it away but the rocking went on just the same. Oh, everything has been done to solve the mystery. Neighbours have watched night after night. Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes things happened but they couldn’t tell why. Three years ago Julia took a sulky fit and left ... said people were saying things about her and she wasn’t going to stand for it. Lucia got Min Deacon from the Upper Glen. Min stayed three weeks ... she was a smart, capable girl ... and left because she was awakened by an icy hand on her face ... though she had locked her door before going to sleep. Then they got Maggie Eldon ... a young girl with no nerves. She had splendid black hair and was very proud of it. Never would have it bobbed. Icy hands and weird laughter and ghostly cradles didn’t bother her . She was there for five weeks. But when she woke up one morning she found her beautiful braid of black hair had been cut off in the night. Well, that was too much for Maggie. Her young man didn’t approve of bobbed hair. People will tell you that Anna Marsh had very poor hair and was very jealous of those who had nice hair.
    “Lucia prevailed on Julia to come back and she’s been there ever since. Personally I feel sure Julia hasn’t anything to do with it and Dr. Blythe agrees with me. Have a talk with him sometime ... he’s a very intelligent man, even if he is a Presbyterian.”
    “But if Julia has nothing to do with it, who has?”
    “Oh, Mr. Burns, we can’t answer that. And ... who knows what the powers of evil can or cannot do? Again I say remember Epworth Rectory. I don’t think that mystery has ever been solved. And yet ... I hardly think the devil ... or even a malicious ghost ... would empty out a dozen bottles of raspberry vinegar and fill them up with red ink, salt and water.”
    Mr. Sheldon laughed in spite of himself. Curtis did not laugh ... he frowned.
    “It is intolerable that such things should go on for five years and the perpetrator escape. It must be a dreadful life for Miss Field.”
    “Lucia takes it coolly. Some people think a little too coolly. Of course we have malicious people in Mowbray Narrows as well as everywhere else and some have hinted that she does the things herself. Only you’d better not say so to Mrs. Dr. Blythe. She is a special friend of Lucia’s. Of course I never suspected her for a moment.”
    “I should think not. Apart from her personality, what earthly reason could she have?”
    “To prevent Long Alec’s marriage with Edna Pollock. Lucia