Doctor Forester: Abridged Edition

By Mrs. O. F. Walton

Doctor Forester, a medical man only twenty-five years old, has come to a lonely part of Wales to escape from an event in his recent past that has caused him much hurt. So he has more on his mind than worrying about strange noises behind his bedroom wall in the old castle where he is staying.
A young woman who shares part of the journey with him is staying in the same village. He is deeply attracted to her, and believes that she is equally attracted to him. But he soon has every reason to think that his old school friend Jack is also courting her.
Written and taking place in the early 1900s, this romantic mystery is a mix of excitement and heartbreak. What is the secret of Hildick Castle? And can Doctor Forester rid himself of the past that now haunts his life?
Mrs. O. F. Walton was a prolific writer in the late 1800s, and this abridged edition captures all of the original writer’s insight into what makes a memorable story.
Abridged by Chris Wright. Chris is the author of over thirty books, starting with young fiction for an English Christian publisher in 1966. He has written both fiction and non-fiction, mostly with a Christian theme, for a variety of publishers. Chris is married with three grownup children, and lives in the West Country of England where he is a home group leader with his local church. His website is: www.rocky-island.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Tree Publishing
• Release date: Aug 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9780993276002

Book preview

DOCTOR FORESTER

About this Book

(20 chapters, 65,000 words)

Doctor Forester, a medical man only twenty-five years old, has come to a lonely part of Wales to escape from an event in his recent past that has caused him much hurt. So he has more on his mind than worrying about strange noises behind his bedroom wall in the old castle where he is staying.

A young woman who shares part of the journey with him is staying in the same village. He is deeply attracted to her, and believes that she is equally attracted to him. But he soon has every reason to think that his old school friend Jack is also courting her.

Written and taking place in the early 1900s, this romantic mystery is a mix of excitement and heartbreak. What is the secret of Hildick Castle? And can Doctor Forester rid himself of the past that now haunts his life?

Mrs. O. F. Walton was a prolific writer in the late 1800s, and this abridged edition captures all of the original writer’s insight into what makes a memorable story.

* * *

Ghosts of the past kept flitting through his brain. Dark shadows which he tried to chase away seemed to pursue him. Here these ghosts were to be laid; here those shadows were to be dispelled; here that closed chapter was to be buried for ever. So he fought long and hard with the phantoms of the past until the assertive clock near his bedroom door announced that it was two o’clock.

Doctor Forester

Abridged Edition

Mrs. O. F. Walton

First published in England c1906

This Abridged Edition © 2015 Chris Wright

Illustrations © Simon Wright

eBook ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-9932760-0-2

Also available, as eBooks from

White Tree Publishing,

are these abridged editions of

two Classic Romances by Mrs. O. F. Walton

eBook ISBNs

The Lost Clue ISBN: 978-0-9932760-2-6

Was I Right? ISBN: 978-0-9932760-1-9

and by Charles Sheldon

In His Steps ISBN: 978-0-9927642-9-6

Paperback editions of all four books are available from most internet book sellers

Doctor Forester is a work of fiction. Named locations are used fictitiously, and characters and incidents are the product of the original author's imagination. The names of places and people are from the original work. Any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

Published by

White Tree Publishing Bristol

[e-mail]

Many more White Tree Publishing books on

www.whitetreepublishing.com

Table of Contents

Cover

About this Book

Introduction

The Visitors at Hildick

Chapter One: Garroch

Chapter Two: Among the Ruins

Chapter Three: An Old Friend

Chapter Four: Footsteps?

Chapter Five: The Old Watchtower

Chapter Six: The Strange Man

Chapter Seven: Sunday at Hildick

Chapter Eight: A Midnight Visitor

Chapter Nine: A Strange Night

Chapter Ten: White Heather

Chapter Eleven: A Meeting Disturbed

Chapter Twelve: Who Chose the Hymn?

Chapter Thirteen: Where Can He Be?

Chapter Fourteen: Watching the Tide

Chapter Fifteen: Whom Shall Tell?

Chapter Sixteen: At the Tent Door

Chapter Seventeen: The Spiral Staircase

Chapter Eighteen: The Secret Drawer

Chapter Nineteen: What Do You Advise?

Chapter Twenty: Goodbye to Hildick

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About White Tree Publishing

Non-Fiction

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Younger Readers

Introduction

Mrs. O. F. Walton wrote many books in the second half of the nineteenth century, and is probably best known for two children's books: Christie's Old Organ and A Peep Behind the Scenes. The wife of a clergyman, she wrote several rather morbid stories for children revolving around premature death.

By the early 1900s Mrs. Walton had moved to less heartrending stories, with two romantic mysteries. The Lost Clue and Doctor Forester. A few minor changes have been made to parts of the text, to make some incidents more easily understood today. All storylines remain unchanged. As well as in eBook format, both these titles are available in paperback from most internet book seller, as is Was I Right? an earlier romantic story, again without children dying.

The formal way in which the people address each other, and court each other in these stories is how things were done at the time. These books are a window into the past, written by someone who lived in a time when the niceties of etiquette were deeply ingrained into English society, and men often addressed their friends by their surnames.

Where does this story take place? There can be no doubt at all from the many details furnished by Mrs. Walton that Garroch is the peninsular in South Wales called the Gower -- or more correctly simply Gower. Llantrug must be the large town of Swansea to the east of Gower (now a city), which would have been the nearest mainline railway station on the Great Western Railway (G.W.R.).

Where is Hildick? There is only one place that meets every single one of Mrs. Walton's details, and that is the tiny village of Oxwich on the south coast of Gower, exactly fourteen miles by road from Swansea, which is the distance given by Mrs. Walton between Llantrug and Hildick.

Oxwich has a castle that exactly matches Hildick Castle, as well as the sand dunes and rocks. The little church with the Martha graves is perched just above the sea, as described in the book. Pennard Castle is a four mile walk east along the sand at low tide, with a stream that has to be waded halfway along.

So why did Mrs. Walton go to so much trouble to disguise the place names? The identity of Oxwich and its inhabitants might have made uncomfortable reading for some people in the area, because of the way a few of them are portrayed. More of a puzzle is why Mrs. Walton made even the smallest physical detail in her story fit a real place so exactly, if she wanted to avoid it being recognized. It should be noted that the discovery in the castle is only fiction -- so far as anyone knows!

If you want to see what the area looks like today, enter Oxwich or Gower into Google Earth or Google Images. Alternatively, visit the Gower peninsular. Gower has some stunning scenery, and is a popular area for holidays. It will suit explorers, nature lovers, and people who just want to sit on one of the many sandy beaches and relax. It's an area I got to know well through family holidays.

Chris Wright

Editor

NOTE

There are 20 chapters in this book. In the last third are advertisements for our other books, so the story may end earlier than expected! The last chapter is marked as such. We aim to make our eBooks free or for a nominal cost, and cannot invest in other forms of advertising. However, word of mouth by satisfied readers will also help get our books more widely known. When the story ends, please take a look at what we publish: Christian non-fiction, Christian fiction, and books for younger readers.

THE VISITORS AT HILDICK

Camping on the headland: Doctor Norman Forester.

Staying at Hildick Castle with the Norrises: Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair, and their sons Val, Dick and Billy, and small daughter Joyce.

Staying at the Bank: Mr. And Mrs. Mainwaring, and brothers and sisters Jack, Don, Mab and Dolly Mainwaring.

Staying with the Jenkins: Mr. Richard Somerville and his daughter Doris.

Chapter One

Garroch

OUTSIDE the railway station at Llantrug, the Garroch horse-drawn coach -- known locally as the bus -- was waiting for the arrival of the evening train. It was only twice a week that this coach came to town, giving the inhabitants of that remote part of South Wales an opportunity of reaching the world beyond their peninsula. They came in by the early bus, did their marketing and other business in Llantrug, and returned by it in the evening, arriving at the end of their long drive between nine and ten o'clock at night.

The inside of the bus was already filled with country people returning to their homes in Garroch -- women with large market-baskets, farmers with good-natured, sunburned faces, girls who had been to see the fashions and buy their new hats, and children taken into town by their parents as a wonderful treat to see the shops and the trams and the bustle of Llantrug.

But the bus never started until the evening train from England arrived, and the Garroch people had to wait, patiently or impatiently as the case might be, because today the train was an hour late. The driver stood by the horses and looked wearily from time to time in the direction of the expected train. Again and again he had turned round with a disappointed air, but at length, with satisfaction he put his head inside the coach and announced: She's coming!

A sigh of relief escaped from the long-suffering passengers when they heard this welcome news, and now all looked out to discover whether anyone bound for Garroch had arrived by the train. In a few minutes a porter appeared with a heavily laden truck of luggage.

"All that?" exclaimed the driver.

Yes, and more to follow, said the man. "And four passengers."

At this moment two of the passengers appeared, and the country people inside eyed them curiously. They saw an older gentleman wearing spectacles and a long gray overcoat, and with him a young lady who they concluded was his daughter. Most of the luggage appeared to belong to them, for the gentleman was scanning it anxiously, counting each package as it was taken off the truck.

Five, six, seven. I thought there were eight, Doris, he said.

Yes, there were eight, father. It's your portmanteau that's missing.

The gentleman went off in search of it, followed by the porter. While they were away, the two other passengers came up. One was a short, sickly-looking man with thin lips and sharp features, aged thirty-five or thereabouts, who looked as if he had seen the bleak side of life and had not much chance of seeing any other. He had evidently been into Garroch before, for he greeted the driver as an old friend, and nodded familiarly to several of those inside the bus.

The fourth passenger was a tall young man, more than six feet high, in a long, light overcoat. His luggage consisted of several extraordinary packages sewn up in canvas, and two portmanteaus, evidently new and unused before, on which were inscribed the initials N. S. F.

The man had light brown hair, gray eyes, regular features, and a distinctly handsome face; but as the young lady who was standing near the coach and waiting for her father glanced at him, she thought she had never in her life seen a more melancholy expression. And yet the next moment, when he was speaking to the driver and helping him to adjust some of the packages on the top of the bus, he smiled at some remark that was made, and she immediately wondered at herself for having thought him melancholy, and decided that his was the merriest face she had ever seen. But the brightness was only a passing gleam, like a ray of sunshine streaming through a rent in a storm cloud. For the melancholy returned immediately and seemed more firmly settled than before.

It took some time to pack the luggage and find places for the four passengers. None of them wished to go inside, for which the Garroch people were devoutly thankful as they were already tightly wedged into their places. The two younger men climbed onto the box, and the father and daughter were helped by the driver to mount to the seat behind. It was a relief to everyone when all was ready and they were actually off. Then the tongues inside the bus were busy, for the Garroch people all knew each other and had plenty of interests in common; but there was not much conversation between the outside passengers. The driver was a reserved man, and beyond answering an occasional question from the middle-aged man who sat next him, he took no notice of the passengers.

The old gentleman on the back seat brought a newspaper from his pocket and began to read it as soon as they had left the streets of the town behind, while the girl amused herself by looking at the scenery through which they were passing, and occasionally glancing at her fellow passengers. As for the young man, he spoke to no one.

They had been driving for some miles when they came to an extensive common covered with bracken and gorse, and now and again with patches of purple heather. It was a breezy, pleasant place, far removed from the noxious smoke of the town. The sun was getting low in the sky as they crossed it, and the light was becoming mellow and golden.

The common seemed full of life. Flocks of geese were wandering over the heather; crows and jackdaws were strutting about on the short grass; countless small birds were sitting on the furze bushes, and larks were singing their lullaby overhead.

The girl, whom her father had called Doris, had come from Birmingham, and the freshness and beauty of the scene charmed her beyond measure. The stillness of the place -- a silence broken only by the cries of the birds and the rumbling of the coach wheels -- came as a delightful change from the din and the racket of town life. The clear sky, the lovely tints of tree and fern and hedgerow were wonderfully refreshing to her, after gazing for months on the smoky atmosphere and begrimed vegetation of the Black Country. It would be a pleasure to live, even for a time, she thought, in such a beautiful, peaceful world as this.

It was only when the large, lumbering coach was getting to the far side of the common and leaving its wildness behind, that the long silence was broken by another voice than that of the birds. It was the young man in the light overcoat who broke it.

He turned to the driver, and said, What sort of hotel is there at Hildick?

The driver and the man next him exchanged glances and laughed.

"Hotel? In Hildick? said the driver. You'll have to look far enough, and long enough, before you find an hotel there. There isn't such a thing, sir!"

Well, inn, public house, anything you like, said the young man.

There isn't such a thing, echoed the thin-lipped passenger. It's plain to see you haven't been to Hildick.

Well, it's to be hoped I can get a bed somewhere, answered the young man. Then he relapsed into silence.

After some minutes the man next to him looked at the driver, and said, What about the Bank?

"There is a bank?" said the young man in surprise.

The driver seemed to think this an excellent joke, for he chuckled to himself as he answered, A bank? Yes, sir, but there's never any money in it!

Any room? asked the middle-aged man.

No, full up, answered the driver.

The sun had now set, and the sunset tints were colouring the sky in front of them. To the left they could see the gray sea, dull and cheerless; to the right, wooded hills, and quiet valleys in which the evening mists were gathering.

They passed through several villages, and by many a lone cottage and solitary farmhouse. As the night came on, the load behind the horses became lighter, for one by one the Garroch people inside the bus reached their destination and departed, shouting goodnight to those left behind.

The road was a good one, well made and maintained, but Doris thought she had never seen one more hilly. It was like a switchback in its construction. At one moment the tired horses were toiling with their load up a sharp ascent, at the next they were going steeply downhill with the heavy bus almost on their backs. Every now and then these hills were so long and difficult that everyone turned out of the bus to walk to the top.

It was on one of these occasions that Doris spoke to her tall fellow passenger for the first time. The young girl's father had found such difficulty in getting down from his high seat and afterwards in climbing up to it again, that the driver advised him to stay where he was. But Doris was eager to walk, not only for the sake of the tired horses, but also because she was weary of sitting still on her high seat, and longed for a little exercise. It was then that the young man came forward to help her to dismount, and gave her his firm hand as she made the final leap from the wheel. Doris thanked him, and for some time they walked on together in silence a little ahead of the coach. It was almost dark, and a heavy black cloud was driving up from the sea. Then suddenly the rain came, driving across the open country in a heavy pelting shower.

Let me get your coat, he said. And without waiting for an answer he ran back to the bus for it.

On his return Doris felt that after his kindness to her she ought not to let the silence continue, but he seemed little inclined for conversation. His answers were short and abrupt, and he spoke sometimes as if he was hardly conscious that he was speaking at all. Behind them came the horses, toiling patiently up the long hill.

It was just as they drew near the top of it that he suddenly turned to her and asked, Are you going to Hildick?

Yes, we are going there for about six weeks, she answered.

Nothing more passed between them, and when they once more had to walk, downhill this time, and over a muddy, heavy road, he strode on alone and spoke to no one.

Doris thought she had seldom come across anyone so unsociable as this man. And yet he looks as if he ought to be so different, she said to herself.

The curt driver announced, when they were once more taking their seats at the bottom of the hill, that they were in Hildick Bay, and that they would soon be there -- meaning by "there," at the end of their long drive.

What the road was like it was impossible to see, for it was too dark to distinguish anything, and the rain still continued to fall heavily.

The thin-lipped man remarked that it would be a wild night at sea, but beyond a grunt from the driver no one took any notice of what he said. They were cold and wet, tired and hungry, and were longing above all things for the bus to reach its destination.

The long drive came to an end at last, for about a quarter of an hour later the coach drew up at the door of the little post office at Hildick.

A crowd of villagers had collected, in spite of the wind and the rain, to await the arrival of the well-known coach. Some of them were expecting parcels from Llantrug, others had come to meet friends who had been to the town, some were there merely to keep in touch with the outside world.

Doris and her father were going to a lodging some little distance up the road, and the coach was going also to take their luggage.

Where can I get a bed? asked the tall young man to the driver, as his packages were lifted down from the roof of the coach.

Can't say, he answered. Every place is probably full up. Perhaps they can tell you in there.

He pointed with his whip in the direction of the post office. It was a little general shop with a tiny square window in which some of its wares were exhibited, and with a small counter at one end of it where the post office business was transacted.

The young man went inside, but quickly came out again. They can't tell me of any place, he said. Can none of you help me? he asked, turning to the crowd. I've got my tent here, pointing to the large packages lying on the ground, but I can't get it up until morning.

Here, Rupert, can't you put him up at your place? said an old man who was standing by the horses. Your folks haven't come yet, have they?

A tall, good-looking man stepped forward. He had dark hair and eyes, and a healthy sunburned face. If you like to come with me, sir, he said, I'll see what we can do for you. I'll get them to take your bags in here for the night.

After a little discussion he returned and helped the driver carry in the canvas bundles and the tent pole inside the shop. Then as the coach drove away he picked up one of the new portmanteaus and led the way. The young man picked up the other portmanteau and followed him into the darkness.

As they passed under the light of the post office window, the first man looked at the luggage label which was tied to the handle of the portmanteau he was carrying:

FORESTER

LLANTRUG

VIA G.W.R.

Forester; a good name that, he said to himself as he walked in front of the stranger up the steep hill. I wonder if it belongs to a good sort of man.

The visitor did not say much to enlighten him on the subject, and Rupert glanced behind him from time to time, trying to discover what he was like, and wondering somewhat anxiously what his father would say when he told him he had brought a stranger to stay with them for the night.

At length, after climbing the hill for some way, Rupert stopped before a white gate and put down the portmanteau for a moment while he opened it.

Where are we going? asked the young man.

To the castle, sir, said his guide.

The castle? Whose castle?

"Our castle. He said it with a touch of justifiable pride in his voice. We've lived in it about four hundred years. Father and son, father and son for four hundred years. There has always been a Norris at the castle since Henry VII was king."

Does it belong to you?

"No, not to own it, but we've rented it all the time. All the land, right away along the top of the hill on to the sea, is ours. You can see