E Phillips Oppenheim

Mr. Marx's Secret E Phillips Oppenheim

My home was a quaint, three-storeyed, ivy-clad farmhouse in a Midland county. It lay in ahollow, nestled close up against Rothland Wood, the dark, close-growing trees of whichformed a picturesque background to the worn greystone whereof it was fashioned. In front, just across the road, was the boundary-wall of Ravenor Park, with its black firspinneys, huge masses of lichen-covered rock, clear fish-ponds, and breezy hills, from thesummits of which were visible the sombre grey towers of Ravenor Castle, standing out withgrim, rugged boldness against the sky. Forbidden ground though it was, there was not a yard of the park up to the inner boundaryfence which I did not know; not a spinney where I had not searched for birds' nests orraided in quest of the first primrose; not a hill on which I had not spent some part of asummer afternoon. I was a trespasser, of course; but I was the son of Farmer Morton, an old tenant on theestate, and much in favour with the keepers, by reason of a famous brew which he was everready to offer a thirsty man, or to drink himself. So "Morton's young 'un" was unmolested;and, save for an occasional good-humoured warning from Crooks, the head-gamekeeper, during breeding-time, I had the run of the place. Moreover, the great estates of which Ravenor Park was the centre knew at that time noother master than a lawyer of non-sporting proclivities, so the preserves were only lookedafter as a matter of form