Richard Honeywood's Bequest [pp. 166-180]

RICHARD HONE YWOOD'S BEQUEST.
One night Father Kirton, Phil, and the two a Courts stationed themselves at different points of the house. They balanced a tiny bit of paper on the bell-handle, and Challen stood
immediately under the bell itself. Father Kirton watched on the
stairs, and Arthur a Court stood behind the door, ready to bounce
out on any one who might approach. Soon it began; peal after
peal re-echoed through the passages, but no one came near the
door. The bit of paper was unmoved, and Challen declared that
the wire never vibrated in the least. After several experiments
of a like nature the police were instructed to watch the house;
but their efforts were fruitless. At last Father Kirton began to
regard the affair as part of his daily, or rather nightly, round.
After all, the raps and bumps did not hurt him in any way. He
was not going to be driven from his house by a few uncanny
noises. He had heard of people being rung and knocked out of
their homes by cleverly-managed contrivances prompted by private malice; so the bumpings and bangings sank into the position of rather disagreeable adjuncts to a house otherwise well
suited to his requirements.
About the same time that "Father Kirton's ghost" formed
a topic of interest for the people of Wiggonhurst there was another matter which agitated their minds. It was the remodelling of the grammar-school, or, as it was sometimes called,
"Honeywood's Charity."
There were several large houses in and around the town
standing empty; the owners found it impossible to get tenants.
MIen came from London, looked at them, shook their heads, and
went away, saying that, though the houses were in themselves
desirable, no one with a family could take them, as they would
be obliged to send their boys away to be educated. A few years
ago people had been content to live there and send their boys to
a private school in the town; but the school had deteriorated, as
private schools will. Besides, times have changed, boys get on
better at public schools, and so now private tuition is nowhere.
Thus it was that Wiggonhurst, with all the elements of a fine
town, remained the dull little place it was fifty years ago. Then
some one spoke of "Honeywood's Charity." Could nothing be
made of that? Behind the parish church, between the glebe
fields and the river, lay the quaintest, oldest bit of the town. It
was called, for some inexplicable reason, "Normandy," and was
composed of ten or a dozen half-timber cottages, a square of
ground surrounded on three sides by prim little almshouses, and
the grammar-school. The latter had been founded about I400
I 886.]
I75