The Shrieking Pit

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's Notes: Obvious printer errors have been corrected, all| |other inconsistencies are as in the original. | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+

TO

MY SISTERS IN AUSTRALIA

ANNIE AND FRANCES

The sea beats in at Blakeney-- Beats wild and waste at Blakeney; O'er ruined quay and cobbled street, O'er broken masts of fisher fleet, Which go no more to sea.

The bitter pools at ebb-tide lie, In barren sands at Blakeney; Green, grey and green the marshes creep, To where the grey north waters leap By dead and silent Blakeney.

And Time is dead at Blakeney-- In old, forgotten Blakeney; What care they for Time's Scythe or Glass; Who do not feel the hours pass, Who sleep in sea-worn Blakeney?

By the old grey church in Blakeney, By quenched turret light in Blakeney, They slumber deep, they do not know, If Life's told tale is Death and Woe; Through all eternity.

But Love still lives at Blakeney, 'Tis graven deep at Blakeney; Of Love which seeks beyond the grave, Of Love's sad faith which fain would save-- The headstones tell the story.

Grave-grasses grow at Blakeney Sea pansies, sedge, and rosemary; Frail fronds thrust forth in dim dank air, A message from those lying there: Wan leaves of memory.

I send you this from Blakeney-- From distant, dreaming Blakeney; Love and Remembrance: These are sure; Though Death is strong they shall endure, Till all things cease to be.

A. J. R.

Blakeney, Norfolk.

PREFACE

As the scenes of this story are laid in a part of Norfolk which will be readily identified by many Norfolk people, it is perhaps well to state that all the personages are fictitious, and that the Norfolk police officials who appear in the book have no existence outside these pages. They and the other characters are drawn entirely from imagination.

To East Anglian readers I offer my apologies for any faults there may be in reproducing the Norfolk dialect. My excuse is the fascination the language produced on myself, and that it is as essential to the scene of the story as the marshes and the sea. Though I have found it impossible to transliterate the pronunciation into the ordinary English alphabet, I hope I have been able to convey enough of the characteristic speech of the native to enable those familiar with it to put it for themselves into the accents of their own people. To those who are not familiar with the dialect, I can only say, "Go and study this relic of old English in that remote part of the country where the story is laid, where the ghosts of a ruined past mingle with the primitive survivors of to-day, who walk very near the unseen."

A. J. R. LONDON

THE SHRIEKING PIT

CHAPTER I

Colwyn had never seen anything quite so eccentric in a public room as the behaviour of the young man breakfasting alone at the alcove table in the bay embrasure, and he became so absorbed in watching him that he permitted his own meal to grow cold, impatiently waving away the waiter who sought with obtrusive obsequiousness to recall his wandering attention by thrusting the menu card before him.