Read Online Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 01 by What Dreams May Come (v1.1) - Free Book Online

up to the ceiling. The other walls were hung with drapes of
rough, tawny cloth, and upon these were paintings in frames. They were curious
paintings, cloudy-looking. A grand piano stood in the center of the floor, but
nobody sat at it.
                 “Who
was playing as we came in?” inquired Thunstone.
                 “Someone
I have staying with me here,” was the reply. “Won’t you sit down?”
                 Ensley
gestured him to a leather-cushioned armchair. “Cigarette?” Ensley offered a silver box with cigarettes so dark as to look almost black.
Thunstone could not tell their make.
                 “Thanks,”
said Thunstone. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stick to an old friend I brought
along,” and he produced his pipe and pouch.
                 “Of course.”
                 Ensley
took a cigarette and sat in another chair. Thunstone filled his pipe and struck
a match to it.
                 “Now
then, Mr. Thunstone,” said Ensley, “I'll admit to a certain curiosity about
you, a curiosity which, by the way, seems to be felt by others in Claines.
That’s why I asked you to call. What brings you here, may I ask? And how may I
help you, if it’s help you need?”
                 He
asked the question so winningly, so hospitably, that Thunstone wondered if
there were any sincerity in it. He drew on his pipe
and smiled.
                 “Call
it curiosity,” he said. “I came to England to speak at a meeting and to study in
libraries, visit a few sites of old remains. Some friends spoke of this village of Claines , told about the figure of Old Thunder on
the slope out there, and of the Dream Rock. They also mentioned some difficulty
about getting permission to research such things. So, as I say, I came here
from curiosity.”
                ‘‘Curiosity,” Ensley repeated him.
“I take you at your word, Mr. Thunstone. You're from abroad, and so you can't
be representing National Trust or the Department of Environment or any of
those. If there's been difficulty about researching here—dragging through land
that belongs to me, disturbing the people of Claines—perhaps it can be charged
to me and to my people before me. I've even had to go to court a couple of
times, but so far there haven't been digs or upheavals at Claines.”
                 “I
take it you feel justified in that,” said Thunstone. “I might feel the same way
if this place belonged to me. I hear that you own most of the houses in
Claines, and lands beyond.”
                 “Including
Sweepside,” nodded Ensley. “I inherited the property, yes. But I’ve been busy
on my own part, making researches as I can. I've tried to inform myself on what
to look for, and how to look for it. See here.”
                 He
reached from where he sat and from an end table took a flat case the size of a
big book. It was covered with a rectangle of glass and exhibited, on a bed of
cotton, several flint points. He offered it to Thunstone.
                 “I've
found those on my land,” he said. “Found them right here in Claines. I have
others; when someone comes upon one, I pay him to bring it to me. Look at the
workmanship of those stones.”
                 Thunstone
knew something of stone artifacts, and immediately recognized these as fine
examples. The largest of them was like a knife blade, say five inches long, tapering, finely flaked along one edge. The others were
slender and tapered, like willow leaves. So beautifully were they worked that
they suggested jewelry. The colors of the flints were various—rosy, slate-gray,
tawny. These were magnificent examples of stone-working skill.
                 Thunstone
studied every item of the collection, and handed it back to his host.
“Beautiful,” he pronounced. “Skillfully done. I wish a
friend of mine were here to look.