Clouds of Witness ch 4 cont

“Things begin to look a bit more comfortable for old Jerry,” said Lord Peter. He leaned on the wall and began whistling softly, but with great accuracy, that elaborate passage of Bach which begins “Let Zion's children.”

"Singet Dem Herrn Ein Neues Lied"
Composed in Leipzig (1726-27)
Text:
[Ps. 149:1-3] (Chorus I, Chorus II)
"Sing ye the Lord a new refrain; the assembly of saints should be telling his praises. Israel joyful be in him who hath made him. Let Zion's children rejoice in him who is their mighty king; let them be praising his name's honor in dances; with timbrels and with psalt'ries unto him be playing".

“I wonder,” said the Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot, “what damn silly fool invented Sunday afternoon.”

For most Christians, Sunday is observed as a day for worship of God and rest, due to the belief that it is Lord's Day, the day of Christ's resurrection.

Until recently - no work at all was allowed on Sundays afternoons - and no games either. People were to go to church, and then spend the rest of their time in doors.

In some countries, tourist spots like museums are closed on Sundays. In others - like the US, they are open on Sundays but closed on Mondays to make up for it.

Sunday is a day of rest in most Western countries, part of 'the weekend'. In most Muslim countries, and Israel, Sunday is a working day.

He shovelled coals on to the library fire with a vicious clatter, waking Colonel Marchbanks, who said, “Eh? Yes, quite right,” and fell asleep again instantly.

“Don't you grumble, Freddy,” said Lord Peter, who had been occupied for some time in opening and shutting all the drawers of the writing-table in a thoroughly irritating manner, and idly snapping to and fro the catch of the French window.

A French door is a door (installed singly or as one of a matching pair or series) consisting of a frame around one or more transparent and/or translucent panels (called lights or lites); it is also called a French window as it resembles a door-height casement window.

A pair of French doors does not generally include a central mullion (as do some casement window pairs), thus allowing a wider unobstructed opening. The frame typically requires a weather strip at floor level and where the doors meet to prevent water ingress. An espagnolette bolt allows the head and foot of each door to be secured in one movement. The slender window joinery maximizes light though into the room and minimizes the visual impact of the doorway joinery when considered externally.

“Think how dull old Jerry must feel. S'pose I'd better write him a line.”

He returned to the table and took a sheet of paper. “Do people use this room much to write letters in, do you know?”

“No idea,” said the Hon. Freddy. “Never write 'em myself. Where's the point of writin' when you can wire?

Telegraphs as such have existed in Europe from as early as prior to the Battle of Waterloo, then consisting as semaphores, or optical telegraphs that sent messages to a distant observer through line-of-sight signals. In 1837, American artist-turned inventor Samuel Morse conducted the first successful experiment with an electrical recording telegraph.

Terminology
A telegraph is a device for transmitting and receiving messages over long distances, i.e., for telegraphy. The word "telegraph" alone now generally refers to an electrical telegraph. Wireless telegraphy is also known as "CW", for continuous wave (a carrier modulated by on-off keying), as opposed to the earlier radio technique of using a spark gap.[citation needed]

A telegraph message sent by an electrical telegraph operator or telegrapher using Morse code (or a printing telegraph operator using plain text) was known as a telegram. A cablegram (see cablegram) was a message sent by a submarine telegraph cable, often shortened to a cable or a wire. Later, a Telex was a message sent by a Telex network, a switched network of teleprinters similar to a telephone network.

Before long distance telephone services were readily available or affordable, telegram services were very popular and the only way to convey information speedily over very long distances. Telegrams were often used to confirm business dealings and were commonly used to create binding legal documents for business dealings.

A wire picture or wire photo was a newspaper picture that was sent from a remote location by a facsimile telegraph. The teleostereograph machine, a forerunner to the modern electronic fax, was developed by AT&T's Bell Labs in the 1920s; however, the first commercial use of image facsimile telegraph devices date back to the 1800s. It was made by Samuel F. B. Morse (the coinventor of morse code).

A diplomatic telegram, also known as a diplomatic cable, is the term given to a confidential communication between a diplomatic mission and the foreign ministry of its parent country. These continue to be called telegrams or cables regardless of the method used for transmission.

And today, it’s what’s the point of writing when you can email?

Encourages people to write back, that's all. I think Denver writes here when he writes anywhere, and I saw the Colonel wrestlin' with pen and ink a day or two ago, didn't you, Colonel?” (The Colonel grunted, answering to his name like a dog that wags its tail in its sleep.) “What's the matter? Ain't there any ink?”

“I only wondered,” replied Peter placidly. He slipped a paper-knife under the top sheet of the blotting-pad and held it up to the light.

Until the advent of “biros” – people used fountain pens to write. The flow of ink in a fountain pen was uneven and would often deliver too much ink to the paper, so a piece of “blotting paper” was used to soak up the excess ink, so that it would not smear.

Because of this, words that one has written would often be visible - backwards - on the piece of blotting paper, and many's the detective who got a clue from reading it.

“Quite right, old man. Give you full marks for observation. Here's Jerry's signature, and the Colonel's, and a big, sprawly hand, which I should judge to be feminine.” He looked at the sheet again, shook his head, folded it up, and placed it in his pocket-book. “Doesn't seem to be anything there,” he commented, “but you never know. 'Five something of fine something'—grouse, probably! 'oe—is fou'—is found, I suppose. Well, it can't do any harm to keep it.”

He spread out his paper and began:

“Dear Jerry,—Here I am, the family sleuth on the trail, and it's damned exciting——”

The Colonel snored.

Clouds of Witness ch 4 cont

Here he hunted along like a terrier, nose foremost, the tip of his tongue caught absurdly between his teeth, then jumped over, and, turning to Parker, said:
“Did you ever read The Lay of the Last Minstrel?”

"The Lay of the Last Minstrel" (1805) is a long narrative poem by Walter Scott. ( It should not to be confused with The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, also by Walter Scott, compiled three years previously.)

Overview
In the poem, Lady Margaret Scott of Buccleuch, the "Flower of Teviot" is beloved by Baron Henry of Cranstown an ally of the Ker Clan, but a deadly feud exists between the two border clans of Scott and Carr/Ker, which has resulted in the recent murder of Lady Margaret's father, Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch by the Kers on the High Street in Edinburgh. Maragaret's widowed mother - Lady Janet - hates the Ker clan as a result: and is adamant in refusing her consent to any suggestion of marriage between the lovers.

“I learnt a good deal of it at school,” said Parker. “Why?”
“Because there was a goblin page-boy in it,” said Lord Peter, “who was always yelling 'Found! Found! Found!' at the most unnecessary moments. I always thought him a terrible nuisance, but now I know how he felt. See here.”
Close under the wall, and sunk heavily into the narrow and muddy lane which ran up here at right angles to the main road, was the track of a side-car combination.

A sidecar is a one-wheeled device attached to the side of a motorcycle, scooter, or bicycle, producing a three-wheeled vehicle.

History
A sidecar appeared in a cartoon by George Moore in the January 7, 1903, issue of the British newspaper Motor Cycling. Three weeks later, a provisional patent was granted to Mr. W. J. Graham of Graham Brothers, Enfield, Middlesex. He partnered with Jonathan A. Kahn to begin production. A motorcycle with a sidecar is sometimes called a combination, an outfit, a rig or a hack.

“Very nice too,” said Mr. Parker approvingly. “New Dunlop tyre on the front wheel.

Dunlop Rubber was a company based in the United Kingdom which manufactured tyres and other rubber products for most of the 20th century. It was acquired by BTR plc in 1985. Since then, ownership of the Dunlop trade-names has been fragmented.

Early history
The company originated in 1889, when Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd was formed in Oriel House in Dublin in Westland Row, to acquire and commercialise John Boyd Dunlop's patent for pneumatic tyres for bicycles. This was the period of great demand for bicycles, and Willie Hume had created a publicity storm by winning seven out of the first eight races in which the pneumatic tyre was ever used, both in Ireland and England. Commercial production began in late 1890 in Belfast, and quickly expanded to fulfill consumer demand. After losing a patent battle to the assignees of an earlier pneumatic tyre patent filed by inventor Robert William Thomson, Dunlop assigned his patent to William Harvey Du Cros in return for 1,500 shares in the resultant company, and in the end did not make any great fortune by his invention.

In the early 1890s Dunlop Tyre established divisions in Europe and North America. In 1893 a branch office and factory was established in Australia, in Melbourne. In 1896 the company registered a trademark and incorporated a subsidiary in England.

Although the pneumatic tyre was successful, Dunlop had financial difficulties, and had to sell its overseas operations. A significant disposal was the sale of the Australian division in 1899 to a Canadian consortium, which incorporated it as the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company of Australasia Ltd. Since then, Dunlop Australia has not been associated with the parent company, except for a 25% share of Dunlop Australia owned by the British company from 1927 to 1984. As a result, the right to the Dunlop brands in Australia and New Zealand have had different ownership from those in the remainder of the world.

Initially the company subcontracted manufacture, but by 1902 it had its own manufacturing subsidiary, Dunlop Rubber Co. Ltd, in Birmingham, England.

In 1900 the company started production of tyres for motorcars. The company continued its expansion, and in 1918 production started at a new plant in Birmingham, known commonly as "Fort Dunlop" because of the fortress-like appearance of the main building. By 1920 the company had selling subsidiaries or divisions in South Africa, South America, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Spain and India, manufacturing operations in France, Japan and the USA, and rubber plantations in Malaya and Ceylon.

Old tyre on the back. Gaiter on the side-car tyre.

On a vehicle, a gaiter or boot refers to a protective flexible sleeve covering a moving part, intended to keep the part clean.

Nothing could be better. Tracks come in from the road and go back to the road. Fellow shoved the machine in here in case anybody of an inquisitive turn of mind should pass on the road and make off with it, or take its number. Then he went round on shank's mare to the gap he'd spotted in the daytime and got over.

More obscure terms for walking include "to go by Marrow-bone stage", "to take one's daily constitutional", "to ride Shanks' pony", "to ride Shanks' mare", or "to go by Walker's bus".

After the Cathcart affair he took fright, bolted into the preserve, and took the shortest way to his bus, regardless. Well, now.”
He sat down on the wall, and, drawing out his note-book, began to jot down a description of the man from the data already known.

Clouds of Witnss ch 4 cont

“Well, it may clear up presently. He didn't have a confederate to give him a back or a leg, I suppose?”

By this Peter means someone who would kneel down so that No. 10 could step on his back. By a leg, he means, “a leg up,” holding out two hands with fingers interlaced like a stirrup. No. 10 would put his foot in the stirrup and the confederate would lift while No. 10 would jump, enabling him to get onto the wall.

“Not unless the confederate was a being without feet or any visible means of support,” said Lord Peter, indicating the solitary print of a pair of patched 10's. “By the way, how did he make straight in the dark for the place where the spikes were missing? Looks as though he belonged to the neighborhood, or had reconnoitred previously.”

A term used mainly in Britain, from the French: [C18: from obsolete French reconnoître to inspect, explore; see recognize ]. Americans normally call it recon (as in a recon or reconnaissance platoon, in the military.)

“Arising out of that reply,” said Parker, “I will now relate to you the entertaining 'gossip' I have had with Mrs. Hardraw.”

“Humph!” said Wimsey at the end of it. “That's interesting. We'd better make inquiries at Riddlesdale and King's Fenton. Meanwhile we know where No. 10 came from; now where did he go after leaving Cathcart's body by the well?”

“The footsteps went into the preserve,” said Parker. “I lost them there. There is a regular carpet of dead leaves and bracken.”

“Well, but we needn't go through all that sleuth grind again,” objected his friend. “The fellow went in, and, as he presumably is not there still, he came out again. He didn't come out through the gate or Hardraw would have seen him; he didn't come out the same way he went in or he would have left some traces. Therefore he came out elsewhere. Let's walk round the wall.”

“Then we'll turn to the left,” said Parker, “since that's the side of the preserve, and he apparently went through there.”

“True, O King! and as this isn't a church, there's no harm in going round it widdershins. Talking of church, there's Helen coming back. Get a move on, old thing.”

Widdershins (sometimes withershins, widershins or widderschynnes) means to take a course opposite the apparent motion of the sun, to go anticlockwise or lefthandwise, or to circle an object by always keeping it on the left.[1] The Oxford English Dictionary's entry cites the earliest uses of the word from 1513, where it was found in the phrase widdersyns start my hair, i.e. my hair stood on end.

The use of the word also means "in a direction opposite to the usual", and in a direction contrary to the apparent course of the sun. It is cognate with the German language widersinnig, i.e., "against" + "sense". The term "widdershins" was especially common in Lowland Scots.

It was considered unlucky in former times in Britain to travel in an anticlockwise (anti sun wise) direction around a church, and a number of folk myths make reference to this superstition, e.g. Childe Rowland, where the protagonist and his sister are transported to Elfland after his sister runs widdershins round a church. There is also a reference to this in Dorothy Sayers's novels The Nine Tailors (chapter entitled The Second Course; "He turned to his right, knowing that it is unlucky to walk about a church widdershins, ...") and Clouds of Witness ("True, O King, and as this isn't a church, there's no harm in going round it widdershins").

They crossed the drive, passed the cottage, and then, leaving the road, followed the paling across some open grass fields. It was not long before they found what they sought. From one of the iron spikes above them dangled forlornly a strip of material. With Parker's assistance Wimsey scrambled up in a state of almost lyric excitement.

Lyric excitement means Peter could write a poem about his discovery.

“Here we are,” he cried. “The belt of a Burberry! No sort of precaution here. Here are the toe-prints of a fellow sprinting for his life. He tore off his Burberry! he made desperate leaps—one, two, three—at the palings. At the third leap he hooked it on to the spikes. He scrambled up, scoring long, scrabbling marks on the paling. He reached the top. Oh, here's a bloodstain run into this crack. He tore his hands. He dropped off. He wrenched the coat away, leaving the belt dangling——”

“I wish you'd drop off,” grumbled Parker. “You're breaking my collar-bone.”

Lord Peter dropped off obediently, and stood there holding the belt between his fingers. His narrow grey eyes wandered restlessly over the field. Suddenly he seized Parker's arm and marched briskly in the direction of the wall on the farther side—a low erection of unmortared stone in the fashion of the country.

Mortar is a workable paste used to bind construction blocks together and fill the gaps between them. The blocks may be stone, brick, cinder blocks, etc. Mortar becomes hard when it sets, resulting in a rigid aggregate structure. Modern mortars are typically made from a mixture of sand, a binder such as cement or lime, and water. Mortar can also be used to fix, or point, masonry when the original mortar has washed away.

Clouds of Witness Ch 4 cont

Like most people, Mrs. Hardraw was poor at definition. She thought he was youngish and tallish, neither dark nor fair, in such a long coat as motor-bicyclists use, with a belt round it.

The first internal combustion, petroleum fueled motorcycle was the Petroleum Reitwagen. It was designed and built by the German inventors Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Bad Cannstatt, Germany in 1885.

This vehicle was unlike either the safety bicycles or the boneshaker bicycles of the era in that it had zero degrees of steering axis angle and no fork offset, and thus did not use the principles of bicycle and motorcycle dynamics developed nearly 70 years earlier. Instead, it relied on two outrigger wheels to remain upright while turning. The inventors called their invention the Reitwagen ("riding car"). It was designed as an expedient testbed for their new engine, rather than a true prototype vehicle. Many authorities who exclude steam powered, electric or diesel two-wheelers from the definition of a motorcycle, credit the Daimler Reitwagen as the world's first motorcycle.

If a two-wheeled vehicle with steam propulsion is considered a motorcycle, then the first was the French Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede of 1868. This was followed by the American Roper steam velocipede of 1869, built by Sylvester H. Roper Roxbury, Massachusetts. Roper demonstrated his machine at fairs and circuses in the eastern U.S. in 1867, and built a total of 10 examples.

In 1894, Hildebrand & Wolfmüller became the first series production motorcycle, and the first to be called a motorcycle (German: Motorrad).

In the early period of motorcycle history, many producers of bicycles adapted their designs to accommodate the new internal combustion engine. As the engines became more powerful and designs outgrew the bicycle origins, the number of motorcycle producers increased.

Until World War I, the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world was Indian,producing over 20,000 bikes per year. By 1920, this honour went to Harley-Davidson,[citation needed] with their motorcycles being sold by dealers in 67 countries.By the late 1920s or early 1930s, DKW took over as the largest manufacturer.

After World War II, the BSA Group became the largest producer of motorcycles in the world, producing up to 75,000 bikes per year in the 1950s.[citation needed] The German company NSU held the position of largest manufacturer from 1955 until the 1970s

“Was he a gentleman?”

The term gentleman (from Latin gentilis, belonging to a race or gens, and man, cognate with the French word gentilhomme, the Spanish gentilhombre, the Italian gentil uomo or gentiluomo and the Portuguese gentil-homem), in its original and strict signification, denoted a well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin generosus (its invariable translation in English-Latin documents). In this sense, the word equates with the French gentilhomme ("nobleman"), which latter term was, in Great Britain, long confined to the peerage. The word gentry derives from the old term Adel, but without the strict technical requirements of those traditions, such as quarters of nobility.[vague] This was what the rebels under John Ball in the 14th century meant when they repeated:

When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?

John Selden, in Titles of Honour (1614), discussing the title gentleman, speaks of "our English use of it" as "convertible with nobilis" (an ambiguous word, like noble meaning elevated either by rank or by personal qualities) and describes in connection with it the forms of ennobling in various European countries.

To a degree, gentleman signified a man with an income derived from property, a legacy or some other source, and was thus independently wealthy and did not need to work. The term was particularly used of those who could not claim nobility or even the rank of esquire.

That a distinct order of landed gentry existed in England very early has, indeed, been often assumed and is supported by weighty authorities. Thus, the late Professor Freeman (in Encyclopædia Britannica xvii. page 540 b, 9th edition) said: "Early in the 11th century the order of 'gentlemen' as a separate class seems to be forming as something new. By the time of the conquest of England the distinction seems to have been fully established." Stubbs (Const. Hist., ed. 1878, iii. 544, 548) takes the same view. Sir George Sitwell, however, has suggested that this opinion is based on a wrong conception of the conditions of medieval society and that it is wholly opposed to the documentary evidence.[citation needed]

The fundamental social cleavage in the Middle Ages was between the nobiles, i.e., the tenants in chivalry, whether earls, barons, knights, esquires or franklins, and the ignobiles, i.e., the villeins, citizens and burgesses; and between the most powerful noble and the humblest franklin there was, until the 15th century, no "separate class of gentlemen". Even as late as 1400, the word gentleman still only had the sense of generosus and could not be used as a personal description denoting rank or quality, or as the title of a class. Yet after 1413, we find it increasingly so used, and the list of landowners in 1431, printed in Feudal Aids, contains, besides knights, esquires, yeomen and husbandmen (i.e. householders), a fair number who are classed as "gentilman".

Mrs. Hardraw hesitated, and Mr. Parker mentally classed the stranger as “Not quite quite.”

“Not quite quite.”

A phrase signifying that the person in question came across as a gentleman, but with something subtly wrong about him.

“You didn't happen to notice the number of the bicycle?”

Mrs. Hardraw had not. “But it had a side-car,” she added.

Lord Peter's gesticulations were becoming quite violent, and Mr. Parker hastened to rejoin him.

“Come on, gossiping old thing,” said Lord Peter unreasonably. “This is a beautiful ditch.

From such a ditch as this,
When the soft wind did gently kiss the trees
And they did make no noise, from such a ditch
Our friend, methinks, mounted the Troyan walls,
And wiped his soles upon the greasy mud.

This is a rephrasing of Lorenzo’s speech from Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare:
The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise- in such a night,
Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,
And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.

Look at my trousers!”

“It's a bit of a climb from this side,” said Parker.

“It is. He stood here in the ditch, and put one foot into this place where the paling's broken away and one hand on the top, and hauled himself up. No. 10 must have been a man of exceptional height, strength, and agility. I couldn't get my foot up, let alone reaching the top with my hand. I'm five foot nine. Could you?”

Parker was six foot, and could just touch the top of the wall with his hand.

“I might do it—on one of my best days,” he said, “for an adequate object, or after adequate stimulant.”

“Just so,” said Lord Peter. “Hence we deduce No. 10's exceptional height and strength.”

“Yes,” said Parker. “It's a bit unfortunate that we had to deduce his exceptional shortness and weakness just now, isn't it?”

“Oh!” said Peter. “Well—well, as you so rightly say, that is a bit unfortunate.”

Clouds of Witness Ch 4 cont

“And here's where he got over,” said Lord Peter, pointing to a place where the chevaux de frise on the top was broken away.

a portable obstacle, usually a sawhorse, covered with projecting spikes or barbed wire, for military use in closing a passage, breaking in a defensive wall, etc.
Origin:
1680–90; < French; literally, horse of Friesland, so called because first used by Frisians

“Here's the dent where his heels came down, and here's where he fell forward on hands and knees. Hum! Give us a back, old man, would you?

Parker is to kneel down so Wimsey can stand on his back.

Thanks. An old break, I see. Mr. Montague-now-in-the-States should keep his palings in better order. No. 10 tore his coat on the spikes all the same; he left a fragment of Burberry behind him.

Burberry Group plc (LSE: BRBY) is a British luxury fashion house, manufacturing clothing, fragrance, and fashion accessories. Its distinctive tartan pattern has become one of its most widely copied trademarks. Burberry is most famous for its iconic trench coat, which was invented by founder Thomas Burberry. The company has branded stores and franchises around the world, and also sells through concessions in third-party stores. HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH The Prince of Wales have granted the company Royal Warrants. The Chief Creative Officer is Christopher Bailey. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

According to Business Weekly, Burberry is the 98th most valuable brand in the world

What luck! Here's a deep, damp ditch on the other side, which I shall now proceed to fall into.”

A slithering crash proclaimed that he had carried out his intention. Parker, thus callously abandoned, looked round, and, seeing that they were only a hundred yards or so from the gate, ran along and was let out, decorously, by Hardraw, the gamekeeper, who happened to be coming out of the lodge.

“By the way,” said Parker to him, “did you ever find any signs of any poachers on Wednesday night after all?”

“Nay,” said the man, “not so much as a dead rabbit. I reckon t'lady wor mistaken, an 'twore the shot I heard as killed t'Captain.”

“Possibly,” said Parker. “Do you know how long the spikes have been broken off the palings over there?”

“A moonth or two, happen. They should 'a' bin put right, but the man's sick.”

“The gate's locked at night, I suppose?”

“Aye.”

“Anybody wishing to get in would have to waken you?”

“Aye, that he would.”

“You didn't see any suspicious character loitering about outside these palings last Wednesday, I suppose?”

“Nay, sir, but my wife may ha' done. Hey, lass!”

Mrs. Hardraw, thus summoned, appeared at the door with a small boy clinging to her skirts.

“Wednesday?” said she. “Nay, I saw no loiterin' folks. I keep a look-out for tramps and such, as it be such a lonely place. Wednesday. Eh, now, John, that wad be t'day t'young mon called wi' t'motor-bike.”

“Young man with a motor-bike?”

“I reckon 'twas. He said he'd had a puncture and asked for a bucket o' watter.”

“Was that all the asking he did?”

“He asked what were t'name o' t'place and whose house it were.”

“Did you tell him the Duke of Denver was living here?”

“Aye, sir, and he said he supposed a many gentlemen came up for t'shooting.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He said he'd coom oop fra' Weirdale an' were makin' a trip into Coomberland.”

Weirdale is actually a location in Satskatchewan, Canada.

Weardale is a dale, or valley, of the east side of the Pennines in County Durham, in England. Large parts of Weardale fall within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) - the second largest AONB in England and Wales. The upper valley is surrounded by high fells (up to 2,454 feet (748 m) O.D. at Burnhope Seat) and heather grouse moors. The River Wear flows through Weardale before reaching Bishop Auckland and then Durham, meeting the sea at Sunderland. Running roughly parallel to Weardale to the south is Teesdale. To the local people of Weardale, the area represents a part of English heritage and culture that is seldom encountered outside the sheltered valleys of the north of England. Walkers visiting Slit Wood in Westgate at the right time of year encounter several rare flowers.

Cumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 (excluding Carlisle from 1914) and now forms part of Cumbria.

“How long was he here?”

“Happen half an hour. An' then he tried to get his machine started, an' I see him hop-hoppitin' away towards King's Fenton.”

She pointed away to the right, where Lord Peter might be seen gesticulating in the middle of the road.

“What sort of a man was he?”

Clouds of Witness Ch 4 cont

It ain't the sort of thing one would drop without making a fuss about—I've lost him altogether.”

“It's all right—I've got him. He's tripped over a root.”

“Serve him glad,” said Lord Peter viciously, straightening his back.

One would think “serve him right” would be the phrase…

“I say, I don't think the human frame is very thoughtfully constructed for this sleuth-hound business.

The sleuth hound (from Old Norse 'slóð' - track or trail + 'hound') was a breed of dog. Broadly, it was a Scottish term for what in England was called the bloodhound, although it seems that there were slight differences between them. It was also referred to as a 'slough dog', (or 'slewe dogge'), and a 'slow hound', the first word probably representing a mispronuciation of 'slough' rather than a reference to the speed of the hound.

The sleuth hound first appears in poems about the Scottish patriots Robert the Bruce and William Wallace. These poems depict their heroes tracked by sleuth hounds. Bruce escapes by crossing water, and Wallace by killing one of his party, whom he suspects of treachery, and leaving the corpse to distract the hound. The poems are romances, not histories, but there is no implausibility about the use of sleuth hounds. John Barbour, who wrote The Bruce, was born before his hero died, and the year in which the Bruce was supposedly pursued was 1307. Thus we can be sure that the inclusion of the sleuth hound in the story was no anachronism, hence that the dogs existed in Scotland as early as c.1300, and that their use as man-trailers was fully established.

If one could go on all-fours, or had eyes in one's knees, it would be a lot more practical.”

“There are many difficulties inherent in a teleological view of creation,” said Parker placidly. “Ah! here we are at the park palings.”

A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose" (not to be confused with τῆλε, “at a distance, far from”). The adjective "teleological" has a broader usage, for example in discussions where particular ethical theories or types of computer programs are sometimes described as teleological because they involve aiming at goals.

Teleology was explored by Plato and Aristotle, by Saint Anselm around 1000 AD, and later by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgment. It was fundamental to the speculative philosophy of Hegel.

A thing, process or action is teleological when it is for the sake of an end, i.e., a telos or final cause. In general it may be said that there are two types of final causes, which may be called intrinsic finality and extrinsic finality.[1]

A thing or action has an extrinsic finality when it is for the sake of something external to itself. In a way, people exhibit extrinsic finality when they seek the happiness of a child. If the external thing had not existed that action would not display finality.

A thing or action has an intrinsic finality when it is for none other than its own sake. For example, one might try to be happy simply for the sake of being happy, and not for the sake of anything outside of that.

In modern science teleological explanations tend to be deliberately avoided since the Novum Organum of Francis Bacon, because whether they are true or false is argued to be beyond the ability of human perception and understanding to judge.

Some disciplines, in particular within evolutionary biology, are still prone to use language that appears teleological when they describe natural tendencies towards certain end conditions; but these arguments can always be rephrased in non-teleological forms.

The word pale means two things. It can refer to one’s skin color – she was pale.

Or it can refer to a picket fence, as in this case. The word pale derives ultimately from the Latin word palus, meaning stake, specifically a stake used to support a fence. From this came the figurative meaning of boundary and eventually the phrase beyond the pale, as something outside the boundary. Also derived from the "boundary" concept was the idea of a pale as an area within which local laws were valid. As well as the Pale in Ireland, the term was applied to various other English colonial settlements. In addition, the term Pale of Settlement was applied to the area in the west of Imperial Russia where Jews were permitted to reside.