A Night at a Cottage Richard Hughes 3/2

On the evening that I am considering I passed by some ten or twenty cosy barns and sheds
without finding one to my liking: for Worcestershire lanes are devious and muddy, and it
was nearly dark when I found an empty cottage set back from the road in a little
bedraggled? garden. There had been heavy rain earlier in the day, and the straggling fruit
trees still wept over it.
But the roof looked sound, there seemed no reason why it should not be fairly dry inside -
dry, at any rate, as I was likely to find anywhere.
I decided: and with a long look up the road, and a long look down the road, I drew an iron
bar from the lining of my coat l and forced the door, which was only held by a padlock and
two staples. Inside, the darkness was damp and heavy: I struck a match, and with its haloed
light I saw the black mouth of a passage somewhere ahead of me: and then it spluttered out.
So I closed the door carefully, though I had little reason to fear passers-by at such a dismal
hour in so remote a lane: and lighting another match, I crept down this passage to a little
room at the far end, where the air was a bit clearer, for all that the window was boarded
across. Moreover, there was a little rusted stove in this room: and thinking it too dark for any
to see the smoke, I ripped up part of the wainscot with my knife, and soon was boiling my
tea over a bright, small fire, and drying some of the day's rain out of my steamy clothes.
Presently I piled the stove with wood to its top bar, and setting my boots where they would
best dry, I stretched my body out to sleep.
I cannot have slept very long, for when I woke the fire was still burning brightly. It is not easy
to sleep for long together on the level boards of a floor, for the limbs grow numb, and any
movement wakes. I turned over, and was about to go again to sleep when I was startled to
hear steps in the passage. As I have said, the window was boarded, and there was no other
door from the little room - no cupboard even - in which to hide. It occurred to me rather
grimly? That there was nothing to do but to sit up and face the music, and that would
probably mean being haled back to Worcester jail, which I had left two bare days before, and
where, for various reasons, Thad no anxiety to be seen again.
The stranger did not hurry himself, but presently walked slowly down the passage, attracted
by the light of the fire: and when he came in he did not seem to notice me where I lay
huddled in a corner, but walked straight over to the stove and warmed his hands at it. He
was dripping wet; wetter than I should have thought it possible for a man to get, even on
such a rainy night; and his clothes were old and worn. The water dripped from him on to the
floor: he wore no hat, and the straight hair over his eves dripped water that sizzled spitefully
on the embers.
It occurred to me at once that he was no lawful citizen, but another wanderer like myself; a
gentleman of the Road; so I gave him some sort of greeting, and we were presently in
conversation. He complained much of the cold and the wet, and huddled himself over the
fire, his teeth chattering! and his face an ill white.
No, I said,' it is no decent weather for the Road, this. But I wonder this cottage isn't more
frequented, for it's a tidy little bit of a cottage!
Outside the pale dead sunflowers and giant weeds stirred in the rain.
'Time was, he answered, 'there wasn't a tighter little cot in the co-anty, nor a purtier garden.?
A regular little parlour, she was. But now no folk'll, live in it, and there's very few tramps will
stop here either!
There were none of the rags and tins and broken food about that you find in a place where
many beggars l are used to stay.
'Why's that?' I asked.
He gave a very troubled sigh before answering.
'Ghosts,' he said; 'ghosts. Him that lived here. It is a mighty sad tale, and I'll not tell it to you:
but the upshot of it was that he drowned himself, down the mill-pond. All slimy, " he was, and
floating when they pulled him out of it. There are folks have seen un floating on the pond,
and folks have seen un set round the corner of the school, waiting for his childer. Seems as
if he had forgotten, like, how they were all gone dead, and the why he drowned himself. But
there are some say he walks up and down this cottage, up and down; like when the smallpox
had 'em, and they couldn't sleep but if ' they heard his feet going up and down by their
do-ars. Drownded hisself down to the pond, he did; and now he walks The stranger sighed
again, and I could hear the water squelch in his boots as he moved himself.
'But it doesn't do for the like of us to get superstitious,' I answered. It wouldn't do for us to get
seeing ghosts, or many's the wet night we'd be lying in the roadway.' 'No,' he said; 'no, it
wouldn't do at all. I never had belief in Walks
myself.

I laughed.
'Nor I that,' I said. 'I never see ghosts, whoever may!
He looked at me again in his queer, melancholy fashion.
"No,' he said. "Spect you don't ever. " Some folk do-an't. It's hard enough for poor fellows to
have no money to their lodging, apart from ghoasts
sceering them.'
'It's the coppers, not spooks, made me sleep uneasy,' said I. What with coppers, and
meddlesome-minded folk, it isn't easy to get a night's rest nowadays.'
The water was still oozing from his clothes all about the floor, and a dank smell went up
from him.
'God, man,' I cried, 'can't you NEVER get dry?'
'Dry?' He made a little coughing laughter. 'Dry? I shan't never" be dry …

"tisn't the likes of us that ever get dry, be it wet OR fine, winter OR summer.
He thrust his muddy hands up to the wrist in the fire, glowering over it fiercely and madly.
But I caught up my two boots and ran crying out in to the night.

THE INDEPENDENT ARTÍCULO 1

Mediums have been called into the graveyard where a dog known as Greyfriars Bobby
mourned ' his dead master for years in Victorian times. In the past two years, nearly visitors
have reported paranormal sensations in the Greyfriars churchyard in Edinburgh. They have
experienced being "bumped, " jostled " and pushed", said Brian Allen, who runs the Scottish
branch of Strange Phenomena Investigations.
His group is exploring the graveyard, whose Gothic ? figures, tombs and sculptures of skulls
made it the perfect backdrop for the film Jude the Obscure, starring Dame Judi Dench.
Mr Allen added: "Several people have reported that weals have appeared on their arms as if
they have been scratched. Some have actually passed out after feeling as if they were being
struck or choked and woken up with a crowd around them." The problems do not appear to
involve the grave of John Gray, who died in 1858, and whose dog, Bobby, became a national
celebrity when he maintained a vigil l at his master's graveside until his own death in 1872.
"The atmosphere in this spot is very peaceful," said Mr Allen.
Concern among council workers has focused instead on the remains of a prison - known as
the Black Mausoleum - within the cemetery walls, where more than 1,200 religious
dissenters, known as "Covenanters", were jailed by Charles II in 1679.
The man who sent many of the Covenanters to their deaths, George
"Bloody" McKenzie, Lord Advocate at the time, is also buried in the cemetery. His ghost is
said to stalk the graveyard.
Two mediums working with Mr Allen's team, Anne Marie Sneddon and Jim Lochhead,
examined the cemetery using a dowsing crystal,
"At one point I felt like being very sick," said Mr Lochhead. "At another point we came across
a tremendous rotting smell " as though bodies were piled on top of one another and got a
tremendous feeling of pain and suffering.
Ms Sneddon said: "I suspect visitors have been experiencing things because these people
were treated so badly and left to die."
Mr Allen said that a device used to measure electromagnetic fields had recorded wild
variations around the points in the prison where Ms Sneddon and Mr Lochhead located
evidence of spirits. Mr Allen said he would now be approaching the local church to perform a
ceremony to exorcise the spirits from the cemetery site.

A TIME TO DIE by ALIEEN WHEELER 4/1

EIlison Liddell was a self-made man and inordinately 1 proud of his handiwork.?
Born into a large family of humble parentage 3 he had soon shaken off 4 his working-class
origins and by single-minded deployment 5 of his considerable abilities in the field of 5
electronics, his innovative talent, capacity for hard work and sheer ruthlessness 6 in the
removal of all obstacles, he had, in his late forties, acquired very healthy 7 business
interests, a large, imposing, 8 exquisitely furnished house, expensive cars, holiday
properties overseas and not one financial cloud 10 in his successful sky. Most men in his
position would have 10 been content to rest upon their laurels. 11 Not so Ellison.
He had enjoyed accumulating his wealth; now he aspired to two more of life's glittering
prizes - 12 an honour 13 of some sort and an heir. 14 The stumbling block 15 to both these
ambitions lay in the person of his wife, Dulcie.
Recently, he had spent much time painstakingly 16 cultivating the 'right' people and,
although normally careful with money, had begun giving largely to worthy causes, 1
pretending dismay 18 when the news of his 'secret' generosity was carefully leaked. 19
Unfortunately, Dulcie did not share his social aspirations, proving, in fact, a distinct
embarrassment 20 to them, so, with the ruthless efficiency that characterized all his
enterprises, l he decided to dispose of her, 2 completely and soon. She was too old, anyway,
to provide him with the son he so desired and now that he had met Violette, a lovely,
thirty-year-old French woman, widow 3 of a former business competitor, he knew he had
found the perfect partner. Wealthy in her own right, 4 she possessed the looks, breeding 5
and business acumen 6 that made her infinitely attractive in his eyes. What a hostess? she
would make! What a fitting 8 mother of his children! He sensed ' also, correctly, that she was
equally attracted to him, for 30 he had retained his early good looks 10 and was not without
a certain facile charm. 11 Only dull, dreary 12 little Dulcie stood between him and the perfect
marriage. Dulcie was a drag. 13 Dulcie must go.
She had not always been so dispensable. 14 When they had married, almost twenty-five
years earlier, he had been merely 15 Leslie Sydney Norman - L. S. N.
35 - Liddle, possessed of nothing but burning ambition. 16 Frustrated, he had soon learned
that ambition alone was insufficient for rapid advancement unless backed by funds. 17 How
could one accumulate unless able to speculate? 18 Dulcie had entered his life, a plain,
homely, guileless 19 girl of his own age, and had fallen hopelessly in love with him. At first,
her affections were completely 40 unrequited, 20 but when her widowed mother died
suddenly, leaving to her only child a comfortable semi-detached house, 21 a tidy sum of
money 2 and the benefits of a substantial insurance policy, the young Liddle had considered
it his moral duty to protect the poor, motherless girl from fortune hunters. He had swept her
into marriage, ' inveigled her into putting all her worldly goods into their joint names, founded
his own business and after changing his name to the more impressive sounding 3 Ellison
Liddell, had hitched his wagon to the star of success. 4
At first, Dulcie had been blissfully 5 happy, but as their standard of living escalated, 6 she
found herself unable to keep pace,? her own ambition extending no farther than 'a nice new
three-piece suite & and some cosy' velvet curtains for the winter'. When Ellison decided they
should move from their modest little home to something more imposing, she had been
heartbroken. 10
As the years passed she found herself increasingly out of her social depth, " quite unable to
adapt to her husband's opulent 12 lifestyle. Starved of 13 affection and understanding, she
turned, as do so many emotionally deprived people, to food and drink for comfort, sweet,
sugary things affording her 14 particular consolation. In consequence, she gained weight
alarmingly, 15 soon looking years older than Ellison, who had taken great care of his
appearance. Miserably depressed by this, she sought solace 16 in yet greater quantities of
tempting delicacies.
In the early days of their marriage it had been Dulcie who had wanted children, but Ellison
had decided firmly against it, for no domestic distractions were to be allowed to come
between him and his goals. Now, however, he decided the time had come to found a Liddell
dynasty and, as usual when he made a decision, he intended wasting no time in
implementing it.
Things would, of course, be so much easier could he ' simply divorce Dulcie, pensioning her
off into a saccharine world of endless cream cakes, syrupy drinks and the romantic
novelettes to which she was addicted.
However, in the early days it had been expedient to tie her into the business, at least
nominally, for tax purposes, 2 and so intricately was she woven in that 3 even she had no
idea how much power she possessed, at least on paper; to divest her of that power 4 now
would be to reduce his own financial
75 assets 5 considerably.
Another important factor was that Violette hailed from 6 an aristocratic, if impecunious, 7
French Catholic family - another of her attractions - and would never consider allying herself
to 8 a man with a wife still living. So what alternative was there? Dulcie must invest him with
the dignity of a widower.
With the characteristic meticulousness' of a man who had never yet put a foot wrong, 10 he
began planning Dulcie's demise l with infinite care, drawing upon 12 his expert electronic
skills. First, he must implant in Dulcie's mind the idea that there was a gas leak 13 in the
house; like most compliant 14 people, she was very suggestible and would be sure to have
the Gas Board check this out thoroughly. 15 Nevertheless, the seeds of suspicion would be
sown. 16
Then, on a carefully chosen day when he could be sure of Dulcie's absence from home, he
would install a small but highly concentrated explosive 0 charge to the gas meter, connect a
timing device 18 to the clock of the central heating system, set the fuse to detonate at eleven
o'clock that night, it being!
Dulcie's invariable custom 2 never to retire 3 later than 10.15 p.m., and at the very moment
that the house and contents were blasted to extinction, 4 he, Ellison, would be establishing a
nice, watertight 5 alibi many miles away.
Naturally, the insurance people would leave no stone or piece of rubbles unturned to
ascertain ? the cause of the explosion, but they were not dealing with an incompetent
amateur 8 and he would make quite sure that nothing used could survive the holocaust, no
tell-tale remains ' to point the finger of suspicion in his direction.
As always, he had a certain amount of luck, two factors in particular
10g
working to his advantage. A sinus disorder impaired Dulcie's sense of smell 1 and it was
simplicity itself convincing her of the presence of a strong odour of gas, which she speedily
reported. 11 A Gas Board inspector duly 12 arrived, checked the system thoroughly and
gave it a clean bill of health, 13 but several times during the following weeks, Ellison
succeeded in alarming
105
her sufficiently so that she summoned 14 the inspector three times more, until she became
considered something of a crank. 15 But to Dulcie, Ellison's word was law and if he smelled
gas, then it must be the inspector who was in error. By now, she genuinely believed that she,
too, could smell the leak and was constantly confiding 16 her fears to Mrs Halliday, the daily
help. 17
110
Ellison's second piece of luck came from Dulcie being a complete creature of habit. 18
Always on Thursdays she visited her cousin Doris, who lived some 19 ten miles distant,
leaving home in her little car on the dot of ten 20 in the morning and returning at precisely
ten at night, when she would retire to bed with her hot chocolate, custard creams, 1 sleeping
pills and sentimental literature.
The opportunity to put his plan into action came when Ellison was invited to an important
dinner to be held on a Thursday evening at an hotel in the next county. The conditions were
ideal; even he couldn't have arranged them better.
Several times in the hearing of Mrs Halliday 2 he tried to persuade Dulcie to accompany him,
promising her an expensive new evening gown 3 for the occasion. As he had been certain
she would, Dulcie had declined, 4 detesting social exposure 5 and being unwilling to
disappoint Doris. 6 Mrs Halliday pursed her lips contemptuously. 7 What a silly creature Mrs
Liddell was.
Catch her, Elsie Halliday, passing up a chance like that! 8
On the day of the dinner, a chill day in late November, Ellison returned from his office at the
end of the afternoon to an empty house and began his preparations. All went smoothly 10
but, being a perfectionist, he checked and double-checked, " even confirming the exact time
by the speaking clock 12 before resetting the central heating control and switching it on
again.
After dressing carefully, he took a last look around the house. It would all be gone when he
returned. There was no sentimentality in him and he had few regrets 13 at the prospect of its
loss. Now was the time for new beginnings.
The dinner was a grand occasion, which normally he would have enjoyed to the full. 14
Tonight, however, his mind returned repeatedly to the scene of his crime and at eleven
o'clock he almost imagined that he heard the explosion, but he had always possessed nerve
15 and nobody present suspected the inner tension and excitement simmering 16 below the
surface of his usual urbane manner. 1
At about twelve-fifty, he drove into the exclusive avenue where he lived, prepared for the
chaotic scene that should await him. Fire engines, ambulances, police waiting to break the
dire ? news, onlookers avid for sensation - all the confusion associated with the aftermath 4
of disaster.
The avenue was completely quiet, the well-spaced, detached houses slumbering 5
peacefully beneath the cold, starry sky. His own house, in
145
darkness, stood intact.
Inside, all was exactly as he had left it. Puzzled, he ran upstairs to Dulcie's room. It was
empty, her bed not slept in. For the first time in his life, he felt totally disorientated. What
possibly could have gone so wrong?
As he returned to the hall, the phone rang. It was Dulcie, apologizing for 150 her absence
and explaining that Doris had persuaded her to stay the night because of the power cut 7
occurring 8 just as she had been about to leave for home. Didn't he know about the power
cut? It had affected an area for a radius 10 of twenty miles and had lasted exactly two hours.
She apologized again, promised she would be home in time to prepare his breakfast, said
155 goodnight and hung up.
Ellison replaced the phone slowly. Power cut! Suddenly, the import of it dawned upon him. "
With mounting 12 horror, he looked at the electric clock on the wall. The second hand was
within moments of 11 p.m. 13 He hurried himself in panic towards the front door, but too late.
Just as he had so 160 carefully planned, to the very last second, the house was blown to
smithereens 14 as the hands on the time switch 15 reached eleven. Ellison Liddell had made
the first - and last - miscalculation 16 of his life.
THE DAILY MIRROR ARTÍCULO 2
An expelled 1 student shot dead 2 17 people, including 14 teachers, in a massacre at his
former school
yesterday.
The 19-year-old killer sat down for a maths A-Level 3 he had been banned from 4 and
screamed: 'I'm not writing anything?
He then went on a murderous rampage 5 killing staff, a police officer and two girls at
point-blank range 6 before committing suicide.
Five hundred rounds of ammunition? were found near the body of Robert Steinhaeuser.
Pupil Kerstin Guebler, 17, said: I saw him in the corridor just as I was walking the other way
and all I could see were burning eyes, bulging eyes, aflame with hatred.
"He carried two guns but I didn't wait to see what was happening.
'I dropped my books and turned the corner and ran. Then I heard firing...
Police estimate the murders took place within minutes.
A spokesman ° said: "The corpses were everywhere. It was truly a bloodbath 10 because
blood was flowing down the corridors like water spilled from a bucket.'"
Several of the corpses had their faces badly mutilated from gunshot wounds. 12
The spokesman said: 'They were killed at close quarters. 13 Some males were
indistinguishable from the females because of the wounds?
The dead included nine male teachers and five female teachers.
Six other people were wounded, two seriously. They were airlifted 1 to hospital after the
massacre in the eastern German city of Erfurt.
The killer, said to be a Satanist and loner, 2 had once told a fellow pupil:
'One day, I want everyone to know my name and I want to be famous.' He had often had
run-ins 3 with teachers.
Steinhauser donned 4 a black ninja outfit 5 for the rampage at the Johann Gutenberg
Gymnasium, a secondary school that kicked him out 6 several weeks ago.
Melanie Steinbrueck, 13, fought back tears as she told of the horror: 'I heard shooting and
thought it was a joke. But then I saw a teacher dead in the hallway and a gunman in black
carrying a weapon.'
Another pupil Juliane Blank, 13, said: 'He must have opened the door without being heard
and forced his way into the classroom.
'We ran out into the hallways, we just wanted to get out?
Student Filip Niemann thought at first the gunfire was firecrackers. 7 He said: 'We were
sitting in class doing our work and we heard a shooting sound. We joked about it and the
teacher smiled.
"The teacher let us go out and see what was happening and when we left the classroom,
three or four metres in front of us, there was a masked person in black holding his gun from
his shoulder.
'He stretched out 8 his gun and shot.
We saw a teacher fall to the ground.
We just turned and ran.
I heard from other kids the gunman opened classroom doors and aimed 9 at teachers.'
At one stage at least 28 pupils were understood to be held hostage. 10
Others hid in lockers 11 while one sent her mother a text message saying:
'Gunman shoots here, many dead, me safe, call cops!!' 12
A handwritten sign reading Hilfe (= Help) was pasted 13 to a fourth-floor window and the
face of a girl could be seen pressed against the glass. Police helicopters backed by
armoured cars 1 moved in shortly after 11am when the first call for help was received.
A caretaker 2 witnessed the shooting and managed to get to a phone. The police officer who
died was a patrol car 3 driver who was the first to step into 4 the school.
Klaus-Dieter Pohl, of Erfurt police, said: 'It was an incredibly cruel and calculating execution
of innocent people. "Teachers were the main target. 5 The two female pupils who died
probably just got in his way?
More than 800 pupils and staff were evacuated to a nearby sports field.
Units of the elite SEK police 6 set up sniper positions ? believing at first they were dealing
with more than one killer.
They later laid siege to the school, 8 moving from room to room before coming across the
bloodbath on the first floor.
Last night reports that a second killer may have slipped out of 9 the building were being
investigated.
The massacre is the worst Germany has witnessed for more than half a century.
The toll 10 was higher than at Columbine High School in the US in 1999 where two students
killed 13 people and then themselves.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was on his way to Erfurt last night. He spoke of a
'tragedy on an unparalleled scale.'
He added: 'My heart and the hearts of all Germans and people everywhere go out to the
loved ones of the victims and the suffering people of Erfurt.' The shooting coincided with a
debate in the German parliament yesterday on tightening gun laws. 1l The country is awash
with 12 illegal arms flooding in 13 from the Balkans.
And last night campaigners who fought for a change in the law after the Dunblane massacre
1 called for tougher? European gun laws.
Ann Pearson, a founder of the Snowdrop campaign set up after 16 pupils and their teacher
were shot dead in 1996, said: The more we hear about shootings of this type the more we
have to believe that the laws should be stricter?'
She added: 'We have the strictest firearm controls in Europe. Maybe the German laws
should be brought in line with the UK.'