"WELCOME THE TRAVELLER"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 September 1939, Page 10

"WELCOME THE TRAVELLER"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

By

ARTHUR HARDY.

CHAPTER 11. (Continued). Robert Berry cast an involuntary glance at the doorway and beyond it where drab painted walls could oe dimly seen. “There is no oak panelling there now." “No, my boy. It went when the old inn was closed, and the contents were auctioned. My great grandfather, Stephen Lawley, was the auctioneer.” “And the old panelling was sold?” said Nora sadly. “Yes, every foot of it. Waterloo Berry was sold up.” “Yet you said he made a fortune out of the inn, Mr Mawley.” “He. made a big fortune. That was in the boom period of the toll roads and the fast coaches. He named his inn “Welcome the Traveller.” But times change and men and things suffer from the change. One day Waterloo Berry went to see the trial of an iron steam engine called a locomotive which ran on rails. He did not scoff like so many. Indeed, he was one of the few townsmen who voted in fav-1 our of the railway coming close to Tansworth with a station near Mile Bottom. But the older men turned down the proposition, laughed at Waterloo Berry and the ‘iron horse,’ and so Tansworth had no railway station and the line was laid down fifteen miles away al Hemsworth. That’s how Hemsworth grew, and Tansworth nearly died. “Waterloo Berry did his best.” Adam Lawley sighed as he scanned the noble proportions of the old house. “For years he fought the losing fight. The coaches dwindled and in the end were driven off the road whilst the railway took their traffic. By 1855, forty years after he bought the place Waterloo Berry was bankrupt. It broke his heart. Out of the wreck of the family, fortunes his son Robert, born in the Waterloo yefir, bought the Wood Farm and there they went to live and there Waterloo Berry died one year later.” "And the inn was dosed.” Nora sighed regretfully. "The inn was never opened again. My great grandfather, Stephen Law; ley, bought the property. There was no longer any use for the coacHing inn in Tansworth. The place was turned into offices and shops, as you see it now, and renamed Traveller’s Buildings. The property has been handed down from Lawley to Lawley until today it belongs to me.” Robert nodded understandingly. He knew that. And he knew something more. “Aren’t you going to sell the place? I was told that it is to be pulled down.” 1 Adam Lawley stiffened, braced his shoulders. Again his eyes swept the fine old building. “Not if I can help it,” he answered. “The mayor wanted the town to buy it, to pull it down and build on the site a new town hall. But I won’t have it.” “If only it could be run as an inn in the old way,” said Robert. Adam Lawley smiled grimly. “Well, it’s not as impossible as it sounds,” said he. "The prosperous times are coming back. Tansworth and Tansworth trade are booming once again. There’s plenty of motorist trade, too. There may be room for the right kind of inn here, run by the right man.” He pointed to the front of the building, where, above the fine central doorway high up near the parapet, could be seen an iroil setting set deep in the mellowed brick. “Up there,” said he, “used to hang an old sign, ‘Welcome the Traveller,’ painted beautifully with splendid lettering. Towards the end of Waterloo Berry’s tenure the sign was taken down and put up again on top of this post you see close‘by the pavement. Instead of the street lamp which now tops it, the old inn sign hung in a frame of hammered iron made by Tammas Martin of Little Tansworth, a noted iron worker. When all else was sold, Waterloo Berry would not part with the old sign, and it and its iron frame were taken to the Wood Farm. And there they are now.” Robert Berry stared. “I’ve not seen it —nor the frame of wrought iron you spoke of.” Adam Lawley smiled slowly. “I don't suppose your father has told you much about Waterloo Berry; he’s had too much else to occupy his mind.” “The name is on the grave, sir, but I've never thought about it until now. I know next to nothing about him.” Adam Lawley’s eyes kindled, his voice mellowed. "You don’t know that there is some fine old brandy that belonged to Waterloo Berry stored in the cellars at Wood Farm? You don’t know that somewhere hidden away are the visitors bocks which once stood in the entrance hall of Welcome the Traveller, or that Waterloo Berry kept a diary which may be found for. the searching?” Robert Berry looked al Adam Lawley incredulously. "At Wood Farm, sir?” "Aye, at Wood Farm. Lock for it. find it. study it and you'll read the story of a man. Unpack the old inn sign. Look at that. Go and find it. man. One tiling I will promise you and your sister. Bob, my boy. the town is not going to buy Traveller’s Buildings. and pull down the old place." CHAPTER 111. Routine work - at Wood Farm was carried on as usual on Sunday morning; there were cows to be milked and | stock to be fed; but for the rest, the: place was shut down. I Robert Berry and Nora had eagerly I questioned their father as to the, whereabouts of the visitors' books and) diary left by Waterloo Berry, and as to where the old inn sign and the iron

frame belonging to it were stored. “I have never seen the old sign," answered John Robert Berry, "though your grandfather often mentioned it. It's kept in an old wood ease and I believe it’s up in the top of the old tithe barn. It’s hid behind a stack of old timber up there. The ironwork is swathed in canvas and tarpaulins as you say. I saw that years ago, an old twisted thing. If we have got the visitors’ books and the diary and any other papers left by Waterloo Berry I think you will find them stowed away in an oak chest somewhere, most likely down in the cellars. But you’ll have to move a heap of litter and rubbish in order to get at ’em." “It sound like a whole week’s work,” said Robert doubtfully, "but after what Adam Lawley said we mean to find them. Tell us all you know about Waterloo Berry, dad. Your father must-often have talked about him, for he was much nearer to Waterloo Berry’s time than we are; he was a great man, wasn’t he?” Robert’s father shook his head. “I suppose so. Unfortunately my father had his cares and was kept as hard at work on the farm as I am, worked harder, perhaps, toiling day and night and he was always so tired when he had finished the day that he didn’t do much beyond reading the paper before going to bed. All I gathered was that Waterloo Berry kept an inn in Tansworth and died up here at the farm. You’ve seen his grave in the churchyard at St Paul’s.” “Well, we’ll find out all about him ■on Sunday, dad,” he said. “Nora and I will devote, the afternoon to the search.” And so the search was fixed for Sunday. That day Martha, the cook, was helping Mrs Berry and Nora to clear away the luncheon dishes and plates from the dining room table and Robert was smoking his pipe and scanning the newspaper contentedly, when a noisy motor horn set the sheep dog barking and roused the dozing chickens. A car swept up the gravel drive to the door. The car door opened and Dan Shelton stepped out. Very big and bronzed and virile he looked as he stood with the sunlight streaming down on him. “Jess called for me in the car,” he called out as he waved his hand in greeting to Robert and Nora, whose faces were framed in the open window. “She drove from London this morning. And was I pleased—oh, boy.” “Don’t be silly, Dan.” Jessie Capstow, London’s latest revue star, whose charm, vivacity and prettiness, had captured the hearts of New Royal audiences that packed the theatre to capacity night after night and matinees as well, sprang through the opened door of the car and advanced with light steps. “Jess!” / With a glad cry Nora sped from the window through the house and out on to the drive to clasp her old schoolfriend in a fond hug. kissing her once, twice. “I’d have ’phoned up and asked myself to lunch dear,” said the actress, “only the folk wanted me at home. I drove from London by myself and was in Tansworth by eleven o’clock. I'll stay to dinner, if I may —and if it won’t seem unkind to the folk.” “You must fetch your father and mother, and we’ll have them, too," said Nora decisively. “I’ll go and ’phone them now.” Jessie Capstow set her old school friend aside and studied her with eager, calculating dark blue eyes. “One of these days, Nora,” she predicted, “I’ll snatch ’you away from home and get you a part in one of my shows. It will just have to come. You are every bit as clever as I am, and far prettier than me into the bargain. I hate to think of you going to rust up here.” “Oh, I like it here. Talk to Bob and Dan while I telephone.” Nora hurried away. Robert Berry explained what they intended to do. To his surprise, Jessie became enthusiastic. “Oh, dad has often told me about the sign which used to hang outside Traveller’s Buildings,” she said. “And Adam Lawley once told me about those old books you speak of, and a lot about Waterloo Berry. Please, may I help in the hunt?” "If you do you’ll have to wear some old clothes and shoes of mine because of the dirt and the dust,” said Nora. "That sounds grand." "And count me in the hunt, too,” said Dan Shelton. “Do you know, Bob, that years ago, I suppose about the time when Waterloo Berry kept his inn, a distant and remote ancestor of mine. Tom Shelton, came to Tansworth' to fight Jack Randall. Tom Shelton was known as the Navigator, and Randall as the Nonpareil. The day before the fight every available room in Tansworth was let, and scores of Corinthians slept on the floor. The fight took place at. Hawthorn Bottom, five miles away. My father says that the Nonpareil was brought back to Tansworth beaten all black and blue after the battle." Robert Berry stared. It was the first time he had heard the old time fight story. "Your .father told you that?" “Yes. He's got a lot of old time fight books and the story has been handed down. "That settles it,” said Robert determinedly. "Change into some old things. Jess, and we’ll start out on the search right away. Let’s get busy. (To be Continued).