Darrell’s Stile

Aubrey first put about the dark story of Littlecote: a midwife brought blindfold to a great house one night delivered a child, which the master at once thrust into the fire. She had counted the stairs and cut a piece from the bed curtain, and so the house was found, but its owner, Darrell, was said to have escaped by bribing his judge. Within months he broke his neck in a fall from his horse while hunting, at a place still called Darrell’s Stile. Country people dreaded to pass it after dark.