Hatter's Castle [Hardcover]

HATTER'S CASTLE By A. J CRONIN. BOOK I. THE spring of 1879 was unusually forward and open. Over the Low lands the green of early corn spread smoothly, the chestnut spears burst in April, and the hawthorn hedges flanking the white roads which laced the countryside blossomed a month before time. In the inland villages farmers exulted cautiously and children ran bare footed after watering carts; in the towns which flanked the wide river the clangour of the shipyards lost its insistence and, droning through the mild air, mounted to the foothills behind, where the hum of a precocious bee mingled with it and the exuberant bleat ing of lambs overcame it; in the city, clerks shed their coals for cool ness and lolled in offices, execrating the sultry weather, the policy of Lord Beaconsfield, the news of the Zulu War, and the high cost of beer. Thus, over the whole estuary of the Clyde, from Glasgow to Portdoran, upon Overton, Darroch, Ardfillan those towns which, lying between the Winton and Doran hills, formed the three cardinal points of the fertile triangle upon the right bank of the firth over the ancient Borough of Levenford, which stood bisecting exactly the base line of this triangle at the point where Leven entered Clyde, over all lay the radiance of a dazzling sun and, lapped in this strange benignant heat, the people worked, idled, gossiped, grumbled, cheated, prayed, loved, and lived. Over Levenford, on this early day of May, thin wisps of cloud had hung languidly in the tired air, but now in the late afternoon these gossamer filaments moved slowly on to activity. A warm breeze sprang up and puffed them across the sky, when, having propelled them out of sight, it descended upon the town, touching first the high historic rock which marked the confluence of the tributary Leven with its parent stream, and which stood, a landmark, outlined clearly against the opal sky like the inert body of a gigantic elephant. The mild wind circled the rock, then passed quickly through the hot, mean streets of the adjoining Newtown and wandered amongst the tall stocks, swinging cranes and the ribbed framework of half formed ships in the busy yards of Latta and Company along the river's mouth. Next it wafted slowly along Church Street, as befitted the passage of a thoroughfare dignified by the Borough Hall, the Borough Academy and the Parish Church, until, free of the sober street, it swirled jauntily in the advantageously open space of the Cross, moved speculatively between the rows of shops in the High Street, and entered the more elevated residential district of Knoxhill. But here it tired quickly of sporting along the weathered, red sand stone terraces and rustling the ivy on the old stone houses, and seeking the countryside beyond, passed inland once more, straying amongst the prim villas of the select quarter of Wellhall, and fanning the little round plots of crimson-faced geraniums in each front garden. Then, as it drifted carelessly along the decorous thoroughfare which led from this genteel region to the adjacent open country, suddenly it chilled as it struck the last house in the road. This was a singular dwelling. In size it was small, of such dimen sions that it could not have contained more than seven rooms; in its construction solid, with the hard stability of new grey stones; in its architecture unique. The base of the house had the shape of a narrow rectangle with the wider aspect directed towards the street, with walls which arose, not directly from the earth, but from a stone foundation a foot longer and wider than themselves, and upon which the whole structure seemed to sustain itself like an animal upon its deep-dug paws.