The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hand in the Dark, by Arthur J. Rees

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Hand in the Dark

Author: Arthur J. Rees

Release Date: February 8, 2007 [EBook #20546]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAND IN THE DARK ***

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE HAND IN THE DARK

BY ARTHUR J. REES

AUTHOR OF "THE SHRIEKING PIT"

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
Copyright, 1920

PRESS OF
THE VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON, N. Y., U. S. A.

THE HAND IN THE DARK

CHAPTER I

Seen in the sad glamour of an English twilight, the old moat-house,
emerging from the thin mists which veiled the green flats in which it
stood, conveyed the impression of a habitation falling into senility,
tired with centuries of existence. Houses grow old like the race of men;
the process is not less inevitable, though slower; in both, decay is
hastened by events as well as by the passage of Time.

The moat-house was not so old as English country-houses go, but it had
aged quickly because of its past. There was a weird and bloody history
attached to the place: an historical record of murders and stabbings and
quarrels dating back to Saxon days, when a castle had stood on the spot,
and every inch of the flat land had been drenched in the blood of serfs
fighting under a Saxon tyrant against a Norman tyrant for the sacred
catchword of Liberty.

The victorious Norman tyrant had killed the Saxon, taken his castle, and
tyrannized over the serfs during his little day, until the greater
tyrant, Death, had taught him his first--and last--lesson of humility.
After his death some fresh usurper had pulled down his stolen castle,
and built a moat-house on the site. During the next few hundred years
there had been more fighting for restless ambition, invariably connected
with the making and unmaking of tyrants, until an English king lost his
head in the cause of Liberty, and the moat-house was destroyed by fire