I had not fallen far. As is the wont of boys and cats, I was on my feet again in a moment. Something like a tall Lochaber axe—with the hook but without the axe part—had fallen on me, and the steel fetched me a sound clip over the bridge of the nose. Did you ever get a proper clout there when you were least expecting it? Well, if you have, you know how angry it makes you. I wanted somebody's blood. Hardly that, perhaps, for I had been decently brought up.
But the thought of my mother, of my father's disappearance, and the stupefying clink on my nose, all taken together, made me wild to be at somebody. Oh, it is easy to say "How wicked—yet so young!" and so on; but just try it yourself.
Anyway, this is how it happened to me. I was up again, and tearing like mad down the passage, quicker than a wink. I did not care, at that moment, whether it was Jeremy Orrin or Mr. Stennis himself. One of the two I knew it must be. But the iron hook on its six-foot pole gave me confidence. I could feel the point of it sharp even in the darkness. I found out afterwards it was used to pull down the hanging lamps which the mad women and Miss Aphra—who was only half mad—used in their mystic ceremonies. I expect they were trying to raise the devil. Which was quite a work of supererogation—I think that is the word, but Elsie knows—considering that their own brother, Mad Jeremy, was on foot—and healthy, thank'ee kindly!
Well, I grabbed my hook and made after my shadowy man who had darted from behind the big reading desk. I knew some mystic palaver or other had been going on, but what that mummery had to do with the death or disappearance of my father I did not care—only just streaked it down the passage. It was dark as pitch, of course, but firm underfoot, and of a uniform height. The walls had been painted recently, I should say, for I felt the bits of plaster come away in my hand as I put it out, and all along the courses of the stones felt ridgy.
Then all of a sudden it dipped down, and the going got wet and soppy.
"Under the moat!" said I to myself, thinking myself no end clever to have hit on it. "We will be going up presently," I added to myself.
Just so it happened. And then Joseph Yarrow thought himself the cleverest fellow in the world; though, come to think of it now, it was really a chance word of Elsie's that set me on the track.
Anyway, there was somebody before me, for I heard a door open, then shut, and, as it seemed, a kind of fumbling as if with a key which wouldn't act.
I was at the door in a trice—indeed, I rather tumbled upon it. For there were two or three steps leading up, pretty sloppy and slippery with green stuff, and the smell of dank earth all about. Also, it got cold, while it had been quite warm below. So I knew we were getting near the surface where the black frost was.
Plung! I darted my long staff with the hook at the end of it between the door and the doorpost. Luckily it caught on the steel part, so the man behind could not get the key to turn. Way there! I used my staff as a lever. The door gave. And in the chill dawn I found myself in a little sham ruin, covered with ivy, quite near the place where Mr. Stennis got off his pony and came upon us the very first day Elsie and I had ever gone to Deep Moat Grange.
There was nobody there. My gentleman had failed to lock the door, but had managed to shoot an outside bolt which my long hook lever had torn away like so much brown paper. I climbed through a gap in the ruin—either a bit of an old cottage, such as shepherds live in, or, more probably, a thing built on purpose to shield the head of the secret passage. I had never thought of secret passages in connection with the Grange. But, of course—come to think of it—the people there would not have respected themselves if they had not at least one. They saw to it first thing—after the little coffins. "Necessities first, luxuries after," as my poor mother used to say when she confiscated my Saturday's penny for the Sunday's church collection.
But in the growing light of the morning—dawn is the proper word, though smelling of poetry—I saw the man who had led me such a chase running through the wood in the direction of Brom Common. Now, I knew that piece. Had not Elsie and I come there, crawling on our stomachs—yes, lifting our four feet one at a time, counting the front ones, and not daring to move hardly! I was sure the fellow would have to cross the road, and I knew where. He would not do it right in front of Mr. Bailiff Ball's house; he would have to turn away to the right, about the place where poor Harry Foster was done to death. Because, you see, he would have to cross Brom Water by the bridge, and he couldn't expect to have secret passages everywhere handy. So I made right for that place. It was risky, I own; but then I was in the mood for risks.
I could see him running—or rather gliding—a big portfolio thing under his arm, from tree to tree. And it came to me with a sudden certainty that this man knew the fate of my father, and that he was carrying off the booty under his armpits. Then somehow I got very angry all at once, and vowed I would put the steel hook into him or burst. I stretched across for the stile where he would have to cross the big march-dyke that bordered the Deep Moat property. He had not arrived, though I could hear him coming—in a precious hurry, too, and crashing like a steer through the underbrush. I crouched behind a bush of laurel—for we were in the pheasant shrubbery behind Bailiff Ball's—and waited with my hook at the "Ready."
He passed me, running—a tall, gliding shadow, with something familiar in the back of it. I did not see him clearly, for he was all crouched up because of the low branches of the evergreens and the leather case he carried under his arm. He was breathing heavily. So was I, but I would have died before I would have let myself make so much noise about it.
He looked about him for the stile. Evidently he knew the way well enough. I thought I recognized, as he bent, momentarily lower, the oily glitter of black ringlets which distinguished Mad Jeremy. But though I knew there would be a tussle, I determined that I would not let him off. Besides, we were pretty near old Ball's at any rate, and I meant to call for help like a steam whistle—that is, if it should prove to be Mad Jeremy, or even Mr. Stennis.
Whoever he might be, not finding the stile, he began to climb the high dyke mighty actively—nearly six foot, I should say, was the height of that march-dyke—and he had just his leg over when I hooked my steel into his collar and pulled him back. He fell unhandily, several of the stones following him, and the leather portfolio going all abroad. He came down on his face with a whop like a bag of wet salt.
As I turned the fellow over, I was full as I could hold of everything stuck-up—as arrogant as a jack sparrow after his first fight. He had hurt his head rather, hitting it hard as he fell. The dawn had come up clear by that time. I tell you I gasped. I give you a hundred guesses to tell me whose face it was I saw.
It was that of Mr. Ablethorpe, the Hayfork Parson.
*****
Well, I know now how it feels when the world comes suddenly to an end; when all that you had counted upon turns out just nothing; when what you believed true, and would have staked your life upon, is proven all in a minute the falsest of lies.
It was enough to drive any one mad. And indeed I think I could have stuck the steel hook into Mr. Ralph Ablethorpe, as he lay there in his High Church parson's coat with the tails nearly to his feet, his stiff white collar and the big gold cross—real for true gold—swinging as low as his hair watch chain. Yes, I would—but for one thing. The Hayfork Minister lay with his mouth open, his temples bleeding a little where he had hit a piece of stone, and he looked dead—painfully dead. If he had looked a bit alive, I wouldn't have minded sticking the hook into him. Just think of all that chase, and his pretending to hunt the murderers of poor Harry, and sending me up that drain pipe—and all in the interests, as was now proven, of the murderers themselves. It was enough to make a Quaker kick his mother.
There was also, though I had not noticed it at first, one thing more. The portfolio that I had supposed to contain my father's stolen papers and the proofs of the crime—well, there it lay, with the lock broken, and ready for me to find all about the foul treachery of the Hayfork Minister.
I was sure I should trap him now. I tell you I was so mad that I began to think of his being hung. And how glad I would be to see the black flag go up over the jail at Longtown. I meant to go there to see and cry "Hooray!"—I was so mad at his taking us all in. But, at any rate, I had a right to look, if only to search for my father's papers. It was I who had caught him, as it were, in the act.
I argued that it must be something very precious for the Hayfork Minister to keep it all the time by him, even when he was striking out his hardest, and knowing himself closely pursued. He had heard the roar as the people of Breckonside burst the barred door and came tumbling into the Grange barn. And that was a good deal worse than Mad Jeremy's howls—at least, to hear. Yet he had never let go, nor tried any other way of getting rid of his burden, not even in the sham ruin, where there were bound to be pints of hidie-holes among the ivy. But no; Mr. Ablethorpe held on to his leather case and just shanked it the faster. I believe if it had not been for that and my knowing the country better, I would not have nabbed him as I did. It must, therefore, as I made sure, be something worth having, when he was so set on getting safe off with it as all that.
So I took the case and cautiously opened the leather top. It folded over like a square cap. I found no papers! "Well, I'm blowed!"—yes, I said that! Mother said I might, so as to keep me from worse expressions. Father didn't care so much, so that I was a straight boy and told no lies—except when "jollying" somebody—making fun of them, that is—or just getting them to believe something because they were green.
Anyway, I opened the parson's case and saw no papers. It was lined with a kind of purple velvet—no end swell—and had a gold cross worked inside, like girls do things so as to waste their time. And inside a crystal globe there were a lot of round, wafer-looking things that looked good to eat, and a little silver dish beneath them—all figured over in raised work. Then, in a little compartment all by itself, there was a kind of vase or jug, closed with a stopper—all of silver. Everything smelled good. I was just going to try the little wafery things, when all of a sudden the Hayfork Parson sat up, looking all dazed and nohow. He put his hand to his brow.
So I thought "Now for the revelation!" But he only said—
"Joseph, put that down this instant—you have not been confirmed! And at any rate the Communion in both kinds is the privilege of the ordained clergy!"
Of course, I thought he had simply gone moony with the whack he had got when I pulled him down from the dyke, as the Hielant Donalds did the mailed knights at the Red Harlaw, as I had read in the history book.
But in this I was mistaken.
Mr. Ablethorpe got a bit better when he had assured himself that I had not touched the contents of his leather case. He even tried to snib it again, but the catch had been broken in the fall, and the best he could do was to fasten it up with a bit of twine I lent him out of my pocket.
It is a strange thing about grown-ups who set up for knowing everything that they never carry things that are really useful in their pockets; only watches and money, which people try to steal. Now, every boy has twine and knives, and fish-hooks and marbles, and a catapult, and yet nobody ever thinks of stopping him with a levelled pistol on the King's highway, saying, "Your pockets or your life!" They would need to have regular Pickford vans to carry off the plunder, anyway, if they cleaned out very many boys. Why, I should think it a shame if I had less than sixty things in my pockets, all different, and all of the kind that you never knew when you were going to need them. And me going on for eighteen, too, and not a real schoolboy any longer, but a man!
Then, after a while, I began to explain to Mr. Ablethorpe all about everything. He just sat open-mouthed as I told him about father and about the mare coming into our yard through a locked door. I was watching him. He turned a bit paler, but his face was not the face of a guilty man.
"Of course, I see now, Joe," he said, "it looked bad. And I don't wonder the mob acted as they did, seeing me leave the barn so hurriedly."
Now, though I did not say so, I thought that pretty good, just about as good as a dozen glass marbles for a halfpenny. "Leave the barn hurriedly!" says he. My respectable Aunt Sally! Why, he simply scooted like the wind! What is it? He "stood not on the order of his going, but—went?" I bet he did! There wasn't anybody in Mr. Mustard's school—no, nor yet in Breckonside, who could have caught the Hayfork Parson but me. He had legs like a whacking pair of compasses, and went along like the wild ass that sniffeth up the wind.
"Yes," he repeated, tying a white handkerchief about the size of a tablecloth round his brow—I kept mum about what had given him the headache; pretended that I had brought out the hook to fish with—"yes, Joe, I did leave the barn in a hurry. But it was for the sake of those poor, foolish women, for whose souls none cares but myself. I know well that in going there at all I am taking my life in my hands. But the eldest, Miss Aphra Orrin, shows a little more stability than the others. And it was borne in upon me as a duty that I should try and make them put away their mad vanities, no better than stocks and stones, by substituting a real worship in a real chapel. I found out by chance that the barn of Deep Moat Grange had been an oratory in the days of the ancient Cistercian Abbey, which had been built on that site about 1460. It was, therefore, in my opinion, duly and properly consecrated. True, I have not obtained the authorization of my bishop, and for that, Joseph, you may blame me."
I told him that it was all right as far as I was concerned. I did not think of doing so. His dread secret, if that were all, was quite safe with me.
"I thank you, Joseph," he said, with the solemn air he always had when engaged in making me a good Churchman. "I admit that the action is, on the face of it, irregular. But then the saving of these poor souls, Joseph! Consider! None to give them a thought but me! And I have already induced them to substitute a crucifix for their foolish gauds, which had only a meaning in their own deranged brains, Joseph. And this very night, after confession such as the poor things could make, I had determined to administer the sacrament of the Holy Communion to them. I was in the act of doing so when the noise outside, and the crowd breaking in the doors, caused me to retire, in the belief that my presence and the act in which I was engaged might be misunderstood by an incensed rabble. You agree that I was right, Joseph? Yes? Then—I own it—I am much relieved in my mind—still more to find that all the elements are safe. It would have been terrible—a disastrous loss—if any part of them had been injured. Even now, Joseph, when I came a little to myself, it seemed to me that when I awoke I found you—you, Joseph, the son of a Churchman, who ought to have known better, in the act——"
"No, Mr. Ablethorpe," said I; "but something was necessary to arouse you, and it seemed to me that nothing else would have the desired effect."
"Quite right, Joseph! You judged well," he said, nodding his head. "And the pursuers? Were you able to turn them off the track? I heard them pursuing."
I reassured him. So far as the pursuers went, he had nothing to fear. Mr. Ablethorpe said that in that case he would go home and place the monstrance—I think he called it, but it doesn't seem the right word, does it?—in a place of safety. But as I had no time to lose, I would not let him go without telling me if he had heard anything of my father at the house of Deep Moat Grange.
"Joseph," he answered solemnly, "it is well enough known to you that all I heard there passed into my knowledge under the sacred seal of the confessional, and that I am debarred from repeating a word, either yea or nay."
"But I want to know about my father!" I cried. "You shall not go without! He may have been murdered! And suspicion points to that house where you were found, in which, according to your telling, you received confessions from those who may have been guilty!"
"Joseph," he answered me, with an accent extremely pitiful, "indeed I cannot tell you! I am debarred!"
"Debarred or no," I cried, "you must tell me if you have heard anything about my father, or I will break your head with this iron hook!"
He could have taken me up in one hand and shaken me, but it was not with the weapons of an earthly warfare that he was fighting this present battle.
"If so, I must e'en bow to the blast," he said. "I am aware that my actions not being strictly in accordance with canon law, and kept a secret from my bishop, I am a legitimate object of your suspicion."
"Never mind that, Mr. Ablethorpe," I said. "Only tell me as a friend. Remember how I helped you all I could before. If you know anything of my father. I must hear of it, and you must tell me."
He shook his head.
"Indeed, you cannot understand, Joseph," he repeated mournfully. "It is not to be expected that you should. I have not the authority to tell you. It is a sacred thing with me."
With the grasp of one hand I caught hold of the leathern case, and out came the thing he called the monstrance. It had a kind of glass top, which I had lifted up to get at the wafers.
"If you don't tell me," I shouted, "I'll send the whole flying into the Brom Water."
"That would be deadly sin—the sin of sacrilege, Joseph," he answered, trying to get the case from me; but I was too active and too near the wall. "Hold, Joseph—oh, my monstrance—my cibory!"
He was evidently in a great strait with his conscience. Curious what times some people have with their consciences! What a blessing mine never bothered me! I wonder what it feels like? Perhaps like when you have eaten a whole bushel of unripe gooseberries and wish you hadn't. Something like that, I wager!
At any rate, he felt bad, and I was sorry for him.
So I didn't throw the monstrous thingborium away, because he thought so much about it. I kept a tight hold of it, though, and said—
"Well, then, tell me if you know anything about my father!"
Mr. Ablethorpe sat down with his head between his hands, and groaned.
"Perfectly legitimate—perfectly legitimate—from your point of view," he said. "What am I to do? Seal of the confessional! I can't do it, yet I must satisfy Joseph."
Then he hit upon something.
"You know where the Rev. Cecil de la Poer lives," says he. "He is my spiritual director."
I knew him. The Reverend Cecil was another of the ultra-High Churchers, who lived about three miles off, and was a gentleman's private chaplain. He was, if possible, ten times more set on thingboriumset ceterathan our Mr. Ablethorpe.
"Well," said the Hayfork, "I will write a private confession of all I know about the matter to my spiritual director. I will intrust you with the letter to deliver it to Mr. De la Poer. And if you open it, the sin will be on your head."
"That's all right," said I, cheerfully.
And he wrote something, and sealed, or, rather licked it, in an envelope which he had used for carrying his cards in. It was on one of these that he had written his confession. He went off home in a great hurry to put the thingborium into his safe, and I opened the letter to Mr. De la Poer behind the trunk of the first big tree.
All it said was just—
DEAR DE LA POER,—I have to communicate to you, under the seal of the confessional, that I have learned nothing whatever concerning Mr. Yarrow, of Breckonside village, at the house of Deep Moat Grange or elsewhere.
Yours truly, R. ABLETHORPE.
So once more I had drawn blank.
Now, I liked Mr. Ablethorpe, but after he had wrestled like that with his conscience, just to tell me that he knew nothing about the matter—well, I could have gone back and felled him. Why, his old conscience couldn't have made more fuss if he had known all about the murder—the hiding of the body—of a score of bodies, indeed. But then, with consciences, a fellow like me can't tell. It's like love, or sea-sickness, or toothache. If a fellow has never had them, he's no judge of the sufferings of those who have.
And that's what I always say to people when I hear of some new caper of the Hayfork Parson, or Rev. De la Poer, or any of that lot. "It's conscience," I say. "It takes them like that. It's uncommon, I grant, in Breckonside, but they've got it. So take a back seat, boys, and wait till the flurry's over!"
I am not going to go into detail of the search for my father, because what with the search for Harry Foster, and my father, and all that is yet to come, the book would just be all about folk trying to find out the mystery of the house on the farther side of the Deep Moat, and coming back, as they say in Breckonside, with their finger in their mouth.
Briefly, then, everybody searched and searched, but all to no purpose. Mad Jeremy was proved to have been miles away, and Mr. Stennis safe in Edinburgh, dining with his lawyer. He came home as full of rage as he could stick, and he threatened to bring actions for "effraction" and breaking open of lock-fast places, trespass, damage to property, and I don't know what all. But none of these things came to anything.
He threatened, but did not perform. And as for me, in those days I had enough to do with my mother, who had fallen into a frail state of both mind and body—she who had been so robust. And if it had not been for Elsie, who took care of her, coming to our house to do it, and even biding the night, I don't know what would have become of my mother.
You see, she had never believed that anything serious had really happened to my father, or that he was dead. And when any one tried to argue her out of it, she said: "Tell me, then, who it was that let the mare into the yard?"
And we dared not give her the answer that was uppermost in all our minds—that it was the murderer who had done it with my father's master-key.
I did not see much of Elsie, though she was in the same house with me, for I had the business to attend to, just as if my father was there—to take his place, I mean. Because I knew that he would wish it, so that if he came back he would be proud not to be able to put his finger on anything, and say, "This has suffered in your hands, Joe!"
Of course, I had men from Scotland Yard, and others searching for a long time. But they did no good except to prove that my father had left the fair at Longtown in good time, carrying with him (what was very curious) not the money in gold or notes, but a cheque payable to bearer on the bank at Thorsby. Well, that cheque had never been presented. This was fatal to our theory. For if my father had been killed for booty, he could only have had an old silver watch on him, with the guard made of porpoise bootlaces, and perhaps five or six shillings in silver; because he always gave trysts and fairs and markets a bad name, especially those so near the border as Longtown. They gathered, he declared, all the riffraff of two countries, besides all the Molly Malones and cutpurses that ever were born to be hanged.
This was all that could be got out of these wise men from London for the money I spent—my father's money, rather. They never traced him beyond half-way, where, at a lonely inn on the Crewe Moss, he had stopped to drink a cup of coffee and break a bite of bread before going farther.
Oh, I tell you that our big house, with its bricked yard, and all the fine, new outhouses, barns, storages for grain and fodder, was a lonesome place those days! And how much more lonesome the nights! I tell you that, after the men had gone home, the horses been foddered and bedded down in the stable, and the doors were locked (except the big centre one, which my mother would not allow to be touched), Bob Kingsman and I went about with a permanent crick in each of our necks, got by looking over our shoulders for a thing with a master-key, that could let in horses, and open doors, and leave no tracks behind it on the snow. It lurked in the dark when we turned corners, and many's the time we felt it spring on our shoulders out of the dusk of the rafters.
My, but Bob was scared! Me, too, when it came to pass—as it often did—that mother, in her moanings and wailings, sent me down to the yard gate to look for father. If anybody had spoken too suddenly to me then, I should have dropped. And as for Bob Kingsman, he slept in his little room with shuttered windows on both sides and barricaded doors, besides a perfect armoury of deadly weapons ready to his hand. He nearly shot himself more than once, monkeying with them.
I used to tell him that it was all nonsense. For, at any rate, a ghost wouldn't care for repeating rifles, or even 12-inch guns, let alone his old horse pistols, that would go off but one time in four.
But he only said, "Fudge, Joe! Ghosts don't need master-keys. They use keyholes, as a rule."
To which I answered that they couldn't put Dapple through a keyhole, as she, at least, was not a ghost, but hearty, and taking her oats well. He did not know exactly what to reply to this, but contented himself with saying, with the true Bob Kingsman doggedness—
"Well, if he comes, I will plug him."
"Then," said I, "if so be you do, see that it isn't the master you are loosing off at!"
For somehow it struck me that, after all, my father might have his reasons for keeping out of the way. He told us so little of his affairs, and I was always a great one for mysteries, anyway. If there was none about a thing, I didn't mind making up one. It didn't strain me any!
Yet now, when I come to think of it, these days with Elsie were very happy ones. Not that I got much out of it, but just the happiness of being in the same house with her. She was seldom out of my mother's room, except when she went downstairs to bring something—such as a soothing drink or a cloth-covered, india-rubber bag with hot water for her feet in the cold weather. Elsie slept in a little child's cot with a folding-down end at the foot of my mother's big bed. It was one of mother's queer ways about this time that she expected my father back all the time, and always had his place made down and his night things laid out every evening.
It was nice, though, to meet Elsie on the stairs. I dare say you have not forgotten how frequently, with an Elsie in the house, or any one like her, young people are apt to meet on the stairs, particularly at the dusky corner where the grandfather's clock is—you remember the place, just where you cannot be seen, either from above or below.
Of course, Elsie was cross with me, and said that she would go back to Nance's if I did not behave—that I ought to be thinking of other things, which was true enough. But, for all that, she did not alter her times of coming and going up and down the stairs, and she knew I had a watch. Ah, well, such days pass all too soon! But they are good while they last. And now, when I lie awake, I like to think it all over, taking every single time by itself. We were very young and very innocent then. We did not know what was the matter with us. As for Elsie, she would have boxed my ears if I had dared to tell her that I was in love with her; and I would have blushed to say the word.
She was my comrade, my friend, especially my sister—which is always a good lead with a nice girl. At least, I have found it so. Girls—the nice ones, I mean—are always longing to be somebody's sister—that is, if they have no brothers of their own. Then they know more about it, and are not nearly so keen. Actual brothers and sisters clout each other and fight like fun; but the kind of brother you can be to a nice girl sends poetry and flowers to his sister, and it is all right.
They drop the brothering after a bit, though. At least, that has been my experience—when, as it were, fraternity has served its purpose. Then I used to crib poems out of Keats and Byron and L.E.L., and change them about a bit to fit the "dear sister" dodge. And it worked first rate. Nobody ever found me out. And they asked no questions, because it was all so dreadful mysterious and romantic, and made their little hearts go pit-a-pat to have such a poetic brother. I was glad they did not ask me what I meant, because I never knew in the least myself.
However, this by the way of it.
It was first class to have Elsie right in the house, and a whole shelf-full of poetry down in the parlour cupboard, which father had taken over as part payment for a bad debt. The debt must have been a pretty bad one indeed for father to do such a thing. I think he meant some day to give them to the village library at Breckonside, but always put it off.
They came in as handy now as a hole in an orchard wall. And Elsie wondered why I had never shown myself quite so clever at school. I could easily have told her the reason, but didn't.
I had not found the shelf of poetry then, which father always kept locked. Besides, I did not want to muss up Elsie's young instincts, which were sprouting beautiful.
This was all very well, but the end of the Christmas holidays was approaching, when Elsie would need to go back to her teaching at Mr. Mustard's. I did not like to think about that. For not only would Elsie have to go back to the little Bridge End house where Nance Edgar lived, but I should have the whole care of my mother, which was no light matter.
And so I would have had; but one day old Mrs. Caleb Fergusson arrived. She had known mother from the time they were little girls together, and my mother called her Susy. And when she had heard all about the uselessness of Grace Rigley, our maid-of-all-work, who, really, said my mother, "was so handless that she dropped everything—worse than a man-body in a house!—and dirty!—and not to be trusted to rise in the morning!—and no washer, bless you! But oh, the trouble o' servant lassies in the country! Certes, it's enough to turn your hair grey! And grey mine would have been but that I ken my poor good-man is coming back, and it would never do for him to find me worn lookin' and aged like!"
And mother tried her best to smile. And I was as sorry as if it had all been my fault, just to see her.
Well, there was nothing but talk of this kind between Mistress Caleb Fergusson from the Common Farm and my mother. And I thought they were settled for hours, as comfortable as two old hens chunnering among the warm dust by a bankside. So, as I got pretty tired of such talk, I sneaked out, and made a pretence to look at the firm's books—though John Brown, our cashier, knew all about them a thousand times better than I did. From there I stepped over to the packing and despatching department, where I put off the best part of an hour.
For though I can stand the steady ditter-clatter of old folks' tongues for a good while in the dark—when I can sit near Elsie and, if she will let me (as a brother) hold her hand—it takes me all I know to put in ten minutes of it in broad daylight, my poor mother with her eye on me (her only hope and pride!), and telling the Pride every other minute for goodness' sake not to fidget in his seat!
Well, what I am going to tell is almost unbelievable. But when I came in, there in the little room that had been my father's office—which he had placed at the right hand of the entrance door, and as far away from the kitchen as possible, on account of Grace Rigley and her like—sat Elsie.
She was crying, yes, fit to break her heart. She had her hat on, too, and the little bag of things she had fetched over from Nance Edgar's was at her feet. I couldn't think what in the mischief had happened. All was as peaceful as Sunday afternoon when I went out, and now—this!
Well, I went up to Elsie and wanted to take her in my arms to comfort her, the way that brothers—except our kind—never dream of doing. But she rose and pushed me off, sobbing harder all the time, and the tears simply rolling down. I never knew before that a girl had such a water supply behind her eyes. Elsie had just fair cisterns full. She didn't cry often, that's a fact; but when she did—well, Brom Water rose, and they put it in theBorder Advertiseralong with the extraordinary duck's egg and Major Finn's big gooseberry.
But though I can make fun now, you take my word for it, it was no fun then.
"Elsie, Elsie," I said, "tell me what is the matter?"
But she only sobbed the more, and searched deep into her pocket for a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. But all in vain. I suppose she had packed her own. I offered her mine, but as I had used it some time for a penwiper, for easing up the lids of tar barrels, for putting under my knee when setting rat traps, and getting game out afterwards, perhaps it was as well she did not accept.
But I put it to you, if she need have thrown it on the office carpet and stamped on it. But I was of a forgiving nature. I only said, "Dear sister, tell me—do tell me—all about it?"
And I tried to remember some poetry; but that was jolly difficult without the book. Besides, you can't remember the changes you have made to suit the brother and sister business, and it won't run smooth a bit.
However, Elsie saved me trouble by saying: "None of that, if you please, Mr. Joseph Yarrow! Here are your poems. They may come in handy for the young ladies who are coming to look after your mother. I have heard all about it—Miss Harriet Caw and Miss Constantia. You can be their brother as much as ever you like, and use all the poems over again for all I care!"
And with that she threw the "poems" right in my face, and was out of the door before I could shut my mouth, which was fairly gasping with astonishment—like a fish's just out of the water. And so would yours to have all that happen when you have only been out of doors putting off time till Elsie would come down to the kitchen to get mother's beef-tea from Grace Rigley at ten-past eleven!
But there was no brother-and-sistering in the corner of the stairway that day, waiting for grandfather's clock to strike twenty-four. I simply stood and gaped. For I had not, on my honour, the least idea what it was all about. I knew, of course, that when girls or women folk get things into their heads, it is better to let them get better of themselves. But this was quite beyond me. I gave it up. Now, can you get the hang of it without being told?
I did not go after Elsie. Because—first I knew it was better to let her settle a little. More than that, I could not go racing after her all down the village street; and, lastly, I heard my mother calling. Not that I would have minded that so much, except for the two first reasons. I knew she had Mrs. Caleb Fergusson with her. But, as it was, I went up to see.
The two old ladies were sitting as cosily as possible. It was my mother who spoke.
"Susan and I have just been talking," she said, "and as Elsie will have to go back to the school to her teaching, I see nothing for it but that Meysie Caw's daughters should come here in her place. It is a big house this, and a lonely one. And forbye, I think Elsie is far from well. For I called her in and explained everything to her, and out she went without answering a word or even saying how pleased she would be to ken that I was well taken care of."
"More than that," said Mistress Caleb; "she has just gone down the street with a bundle as fast as if she had wings. I am doubting that there must be something lichtsome about Elsie Stennis. She may tak' after her minnie that ran off wi' a sodjer man. Eh, the lilt o' the bagpipes and the tuck o' the drum, but they rin i' the blood! There's me mysel', I canna see a regiment gang by, route marchin' out o' Newcastle, but I look at my auld man and think how Caleb wad hae lookit in a red coat!"
Then, because I was not going to have Elsie miscalled, even by my mother, I explained how that Elsie had been compelled to go back to Mr. Mustard's, and how rather than grieve her with a formal parting, she had chosen to go off alone.
"I think, mother," I said—hypocritically, I own it—"that Elsie was feared that you would be for offering something for her work."
"And, indeed," said my mother, "what for not? I had as muckle in my mind. Who deserves it better, after all that she has done for me?"
This was a better spirit, but it was necessary that I should hold mother's manifestation of affection well in leash also, or she was quite capable of putting on her bonnet and going off to the Bridge End—where she would have heard another story from Elsie.
"Elsie's young and shy, mother," I said, to put her off; "but she has a real affection for you. And if she thought you expected her to take siller for her work here—it would hurt her sore. She did it for love."
"I doubt it not," said Mistress Caleb, a little dry like—what we call "cut" in our part of the country—"and so will Meysie Caw's bairns do the like. They will do all that Elsie Stennis did, and as ye say, Mr. Joseph, all for love—whilk is a silly word to use. They are brave workers, both of them; and it will be more fitting to have two young lassies in a house than one."
"And what for that?" I said, bristling up at once.
"Oh," said Mrs. Caleb, "they will be able to do more work!"
I knew very well that this was not what she meant, but I was obliged to be content; for Susan Fergusson of the Common Farm was far more subtle in her talk than any laddie of eighteen.
"And now," she went on, "I will be takin' my road. Master Joe here will convoy me a bit. The twa lassies will be over early i' the morning. You can tell that great lazy nowt, Bob Kingsman, to come for their bits o' traps wi' a cairt in the afternoon."
I walked with her out of the town, and all the way Susan Fergusson entertained me with an account of the many good qualities of Meysie's bairns. And I could see very well that, once installed, she did not mean that they should quit our big and comfortable house in a hurry. And the thought of Elsie nearly drove me out of my mind, to think what she would say and do when she heard of it.
Not that I could say I disliked the girls in any way—at least, not Harriet Caw. No man can really in his heart dislike a girl like Harriet.
And that was the most dangerous symptom of all—just what the Hayfork Parson would have called the natural, double-dealing, deceitful heart of man.
One of the first mornings after the coming of the Caw girls—just as we were all sitting late over our breakfast, having waited for Constantia (Harriet was always on wing with the lark)—Grace Rigley came up the back stairs, shuffling her feet and rubbing her nose with her apron for manners, and told my mother that there was a gamekeeper man who was very anxious to see her down in the kitchen.
"Go, Joseph!" said my mother. "See what he wants. I cannot be fashed with such things at such a time."
She had been listening to Harriet's lively lisp and mimicry of Constantia's many aspirants. But that did not matter. I went down, and there, sitting on the edge of a chair—he had evidently just sat down—was Peter Kemp, the gamekeeper at Rushworth Court, where my father had been so long building greenhouses and doing other contracting jobs.
"Hello, Peter Kemp!" I said. "What brings you here so early in the morning?"
The man seemed a little bit scared; but whether because of his errand, or because I had come in at an inopportune time, or just that he felt a little awkward, I cannot say.
"Why, this, Master Joe!" he said, holding out something that looked like a rook's feather, but smaller and with a thicker quick.
The bottom of the quill had been cut away very deftly, and plugged with something white—bread crumbled between the fingers, I think. The plug had evidently been removed before, and as I looked curiously at it the gamekeeper said—
"I did that, Master Joe. You see, I had never seen the like before."
Out of the hollow quill I drew a spiral of paper, like what people used to light pipes with—spills, they call them—only quite little, for such pipes as fairies might smoke. And there, written in my father's hand, in a sort of reddish-grey ink, were the words—
"To whoever finds this.—Please to inform Mrs. Yarrow, Breckonside, that her husband has been assaulted, carried off and confined, to compel him to sign papers. Otherwise not unkindly——"
It broke off there, as if something had occurred to bring the writing to a close.
"How did you get this, Peter?" I asked of the Rushworth gamekeeper.
"I will tell you, Joe." (It was marvellous with what suddenness people resumed the "Joe," after calling me "Mister"—or "Master," at least.) "I got 'un off the tail of a jackdaw when I was thinnin' out them rooks up at our old ellums by the hall. Jackdaws flock with them sometimes, you know, Joe."
"But that's no jackdaw's feather," I said; for, indeed, it was much bigger.
Peter Kemp scratched his head.
"No, Joe, it ain't," he said; "and that made me wonder myself. It's a rook's wing feather; but, true as truth, it was sticking out of the daw behind, like the tail of a comet. Perhaps it was that which made me pepper him. It sort of drew the eye, like."
"Well," I told Peter, "that's a message from my father. He's hid somewhere—kept hidden, that is—against his will."
"So I was thinkin'," said Peter Kemp uneasily.
"Have you any idea where?"
"Why, no, Joe," he answered slowly. "You see, the daw was with the rooks scratchin' about in a plowed field near the ellums, and it might have come from anywhere. There's no sayin'. But there's one thing, Joe, them jackdaws is all for old castles and church steeples and such-like. If your father wrote that and tied it to the jackdaw's tail—as is likely—he will be in some o' them places—up a steeple of a church, most like; nobody goes there. Thank 'ee, no, Joe. I'd do more than that for Mr. Yarrow, if only I knew how. But I'll keep a bright look-out for daws with extra tail feathers. If any come along, Peter Kemp'll spend a cartridge or two on them that old Sir Eddard 'll never miss."
I hardly knew how to break the tidings to my mother, or whether to tell her Peter's news at all or not. But, luckily, she was interested in some tale that Harriet was telling. She was laughing, too, which somehow grated on me. I can't tell why, for I now had good reason to know that my father was alive and apparently, in no immediate danger.
Well, I slipped out, and went through the fields into the woods behind Mr. Mustard's school. I knew that Elsie would soon be coming, and if only she were minded to help, she had the levellest head of anybody; and I would rather take her advice than that of any minister in the place—especially after hooking down the Hayfork Parson like a smoked ham off the wall, a thing which lessens your respect for the clergy, if indulged in.
Well, I saw her coming, and I stood right in the way, just beyond the turn, well out of sight of old Mustard, for I knew he would be all fixed and ready to give Elsie her morning lesson. But the funny thing was that she didn't seem to see me at all, and would have passed by, reading out of a book, like a train that doesn't stop at a station. But I stood right slam in front, and taking the book—"snatching it rudely," she said afterwards—I held out the little unrolled scrap which Peter the gamekeeper had fetched in his jackdaw's quill. I had the quill, too, in my jacket pocket, in case she should want to see that.
"There," I said, "be all the 'outs' with me you like afterwards—I can't help girls' tempers—but if you want to help save my father, you read that."
And I believe, just because I took her sharp like that without whining to be forgiven and twaddle of that kind, her hand closed on the paper, and she read it.
"Where did you get this?" she asked just as I had done myself from Peter Kemp. So I told her all about it—everything there was to tell, and smartly, too. For I knew she was very late; we should have old Mustard's weasely muzzle snowking down the lane after us. This was no grandfather's clock, puss-in-the-corner game, this.
So I put off no time, and Elsie never remembered about wading into me about the Caw girls, but just wrinkled her brow and thought like a good one. She was death on thinking, Elsie; I never met her match. I was a fool to her; and in spite of what father says, I am not generally taken for one, either.
At last it came—the wisdom over which Elsie had knit her brows.
"If I were you, I would have another turn at that drain—the one you told me about going up with Mr. Ablethorpe," she said; "and likewise take a look at the ruin near which we saw Mr. Stennis get down from his horse."
I told Elsie that I had no stomach for going alone. The oily curls and big knife of Mad Jeremy had weaned me from the love of adventure.
"I will go, if you will, Elsie," I said, thinking this to be impossible.
For one instant her eyes flashed, and I felt sure she was going to say: "Take your caws and crows and rooks, and get them to go with you!"
However, whether it was that she caught the imploring look in my eyes, or from some secret relenting within herself, I do not know; but she suddenly put out her hand, clasped mine for a moment, and said—"I will come on Saturday. There!"
She was gone, and not a whit too soon; for I had hardly got back behind the hedge among the trees when old Mustard poked his bent shoulders and red, baldish head round the corner, looking for her. But he saw nothing; for Elsie was coming along, already deep in her book. He waited for her, smiling like a hyena, and they went up to the school together.
Saturday was the day after to-morrow, and when I thought of Elsie's promise, and the hope of finding my father without any other person in the world to help us, I snapped my finger and thumb like a pistol shot, and cried as loud as I could—
"That for old Mustard! Wait till Saturday!"
All the same, I thought it best for the moment to say nothing at all about the matter to my mother. Indeed, I looked out for Peter Kemp on my way up the village and swore him to secrecy. He said that nobody knew about it but Tommy Bottle, who was now dog-boy and cartridge-filler at Rushworth Court. The gamekeeper said that he was all right. And he was. For Tommy Bottle knew me, and also that I would flay him alive if he told anything I wanted him not to.
I was, if one may say so in the circumstances, jubilant. I don't know that I had loved my father more than just average. He never gave me much chance, you see. But I liked to think of him so strong and ready. And, above all, I thought with pride of his coming back, and finding that I had kept everything in good order, with the help, of course, of John Brown, our good cashier, in the office, and Bob Kingsman in the yard.
But after all, between Thursday and Saturday there is always Friday. And all sorts of superstitious people call that an unlucky day. Now, I never could see any difference myself. A day on which I lost money through a hole in my pocket, or got a cut finger, or got caught at the cupboard, or had a headache, was "an unlucky day, whether it happened to be Monday or Friday. And Sunday was Sunday, and the worst of all, mostly; for if mother caught me in a secluded crib reading what she called a "novelle," she marched me straight up to my father, who whaled me proper—not that he cared himself, but just to satisfy mother's conscience and for disturbing him in his after-dinner nap.
But, at all events, there was this Friday, which proved to be unlucky or not—just as you look at it. At any rate, it was with that day that there began the solving of the real mystery of Deep Moat Grange, which had puzzled Breckonside in general, and me in particular, for so long.
Somehow I made sure that Elsie would be looking out for me at the same corner of the road on Friday morning, just where I had met her the day before. At any rate, I did not doubt but that she would have it in her head. And I was such a fool that it pleased me, like a cat stroked on the back, to think that Elsie was thinking about me.
It was all right having Harriet and Constantia in the house, though. And not at all like what Elsie had feared. They were really very good to mother. And Harriet being always merry, and Constantia all the time wanting things done for her, it was good for mother, and took her mind more off her trouble.
Besides, you can't really keep on being angry with a pair of pretty girls about a house. They brighten things wonderfully. The very sight of them does, and you can't help it. And though both of them together were not worth an Elsie, nor half so pretty, yet they laughed more, and being town girls, of course they had any amount of nice dresses, pretty blouses, belts for the waist, and lace for their necks; while Elsie had just a white turn-over collar like a boy, and a broad brown leather belt for her blue serge dress. I gave her that belt, and she always wore blue serge, because she said that, with good brushing, she could make a not Sunday dress look almost like a Sunday one.
Well, as I say, of course all the Caws that ever were could never be like Elsie. But still it is a wonder and a marvel to me to think how much I liked having them in the house. Harriet was as merry as a grig whatever that may be; they don't live in our parts—and pretty, too, with a piquant expression that was never twice the same. She always looked as if she were going to cheek you. And that interested you, because, not being a boy, it put you in a fret to know how she was going to set about it this time. If she had been a boy, she would have got pounded—sound and frequent.
And then Constantia! She was more "keepsake" girl than ever, and slopped about all over our plain furniture like the "window-sill" girl, and the "Romney" girl, and the "chin-on-elbows" girl—that was Cinderella. But Constantia was always dressed to the nines—no holes in her dress, and not a very big one even where her waist came through. Oh, she was a Miss Flop from Floptown if you like! But lovely, I tell you! How everybody stared, as if they had never seen a girl with curls and big eyes that looked as if they were going to cry! They called them "dewy"—dewy, indeed! She kept an onion in her handkerchief on purpose. Once it fell out, and rolled right under the sofa. I nailed it, and in a minute had "dewy" eyes, too—right before her nose. There were gentlemen calling, too—your lawyer fellows with cuffs and dickeys! She said I was a horrid beast, but Harriet was quite jolly about it. She never "dewied" any, but kept laughing all the time. And if it had not been for thinking about Elsie and my father, she would have got a fellow to like her in time. She was the right sort. But the funny thing was, that of the two Elsie rather took to Constantia. She never could abide Harriet. Now, I was quite different.
Now, I know all this about girls' likes and dislikes is as tangled as can be. I asked Mr. Ablethorpe about it once. And he let on that he understood all about it; but when I asked him to explain, he said that he was bound by the "professional secret."
Which was all right, as a way of getting out of it. But as for understanding about girls, and what they like and don't, that was more than a bit of a stretcher, if one may say such a thing of a parson.
Well, on Friday morning, as I was coming down from my room, ready to go out and meet Elsie, just at the corner where stood the clock—which, as the books say, has been previously referred to in these memoirs—I came on Harriet rigged out in the smartest little dusting dress—the kind of thing that costs three shillings to buy and three pounds to make. She had her sleeves rolled up, because her arms were dimply, and she was sweeping crumbs into a dustpan. There had not been a crumb in that spot to my knowledge for ten years, but that made no matter. She was just tatteringly pretty—yes, and smart. I like that sort of girl, nearly as much as I dislike a loll-about, siesta-with-ten-cushions-and-a-spaniel girl—I mean Constantia.
Well, up jumps Harriet from her knees—quite taken aback she was—and makes believe to roll down her sleeves; but with a dustpan and a crumb-brush, of course you can't. And so she said—
"Do them for me."
And what was a fellow to do? He can't say "No," and look a fool—feel one, too! So I up and did it—rolled the sleeves both down, slow movement, and slid in the buttons careful—at least, I thought so. But not, as it seemed, careful enough for Harriet. For in getting the second button at the wrist through the buttonhole I took up a bit of the skin, and then, if you please, there was a hullabaloo. You never did see! I expected mother or Constantia every minute. Harriet pretended that it hurt, and that I had done it on purpose. Silly! If I had wanted to do anything to her on purpose, it wouldn't have been a footy little thing like that. Oh, no! I'd have given her something to remember me by. But it was all the same to Harriet, and, if you will believe me, she would not be satisfied till I had "kissed it better."
Just think what an ass I looked! I didn't want a bit to do it—indeed, I was as mad as blitz. But, to get rid of her, I did at last. And it was not so bad, only she bent down and kissed me, too, whispering that it was all right now. And just then Constantia popped her head over the banisters and said:
"Ah-ha, you two! Very pretty, indeed!"
And I had a face on me like fire as I went down the two flights of stairs in three hops.
How I stamped and raged when I got outside! To be kissed by a girl—well, that's nothing to cry about, if nobody sees and you had not your mind filled with another girl, especially the former. But to get caught, and by that Constantia! I believed she had been watching from the beginning, the nasty, floppy, hang-her-out-on-a-clothes-line "keep-saker" that she was!
Worse than all, she made me miss Elsie that Friday morning, for I saw her boot tracks in the snow as soon as I got to our corner. I had fixed india-rubber heels on her boots, so I knew. She said that that sort kept her drier, but I knew very well that it was to make her taller than Harriet Caw, whom she hated.
If she had only known why I was late! But, after all, what is the use of giving pain to others unnecessarily? It was contrary to my nature and against my principles. So I resolved that I would not tell Elsie about my buttoning Harriet's sleeve, or, indeed, anything. My great aim in life had always been Elsie's peace of mind. Besides, I don't think she would have taken my explanation in good part. There are some things that Elsie doesn't seen fitted to understand.