Vol.1 f.019 recto

upward with [????] a strong and sudden glare, and [??????? of] illumining his figure for a moment, cast it into deeper [?????] seemed afterwards to cast it [after???] into deeper [?????] obscurity than before.
By this flickering light, which made the old room, with its heavy timbers and dark panelled walls, look as if it were built of polished ebony -- the wind roaring and howling without [???? the ?????], now rattling the latch and creaking the hinges of the stout oaken door, and now driving at the casement as though it would beat it in -- by this light, and under circumstances so [?????] auspicious, for the [???????] of this [????]. Solomon Daisy began his tale:
"It was Mr Reuben Haredale, Mr Geoffrey's elder brother --"
Here he came to a dead stop, and made so long a pause that even John Willet grew impatient and asked why he did not proceed.
" Cobb,"- said Solomon Daisy in a voice which, , dropping his voice and appealing to the post-office keeper; "what day of the month is this?"
" The nineteenth."
" Of March," said the clerk, bending forward, "the nineteenth of March; that's very strange."
In a low voice they all acquiesced, and Solomon went on:
"It was Mr Reuben Haredale, Mr Geoffrey's elder brother, that twenty-two years ago was the owner of the Warren, which, as Joe has said -- not that you remember it, Joe, for a boy like you can't do that,