They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Master Nathaniel rose to his feet and said, "This may be a long business, Ambrose, and we may not have an opportunity for another talk. Shall we pledge each other in wild thyme gin?"
"I'm not the man to refuse your wild-thyme gin, Nat. And you don't often give one a chance of tasting it, you old miser," said Master Ambrose, trying to mask his emotion with facetiousness. When he had been given a glass filled with the perfumed grass-green syrup, he raised it, and smiling at Master Nathaniel, began, "Well, Nat...."
"Stop a minute, Ambrose!" interrupted Master Nathaniel. "I've got a sudden silly whim that we must should take an oath I must have read when I was a youngster in some old book ... the words have suddenly come back to me. They go like this: 'We' (and then we say our own names), 'Nathaniel Chanticleer and Ambrose Honeysuckle, swear by the Living and the Dead, by the Past and the Future, by Memories and Hopes, that if a Vision comes begging at our door we will take it in and warm it at our hearth, and that we will not be wiser than the foolish nor more cunning than the simple, and that we will remember that he who rides the Wind needs must go where his Steed carries him.' Say it after me, Ambrose."
"By the White Ladies of the Fields, never in my life have I heard such fustian!" grumbled Master Ambrose.
But Nat seemed to have set his heart on this absurd ceremony, and Master Ambrose felt that the least he could do was to humour him, for who could say what the future held in store and when they might meet again. So, in a protesting and excessively matter-of-fact voice, he repeated after him the words of the oath.
When, and in what book had Master Nathaniel found it? For it was the vow taken by the candidates for initiation into the first degree of the ancient Mysteries of Dorimare.
Do not forget that, in the eye of the Law, Master Nathaniel was a dead man.
The tasks assigned to the clerks in Master Nathaniel's counting-house did not always concern cargoes and tonnage. For instance, once for two whole days they had not opened a ledger, but had been kept busy, under their employer's supervision, in cutting out and pinning together fantastic paper costumes to be worn at Ranulph's birthday party. And they were quite accustomed to his shutting himself into his private office, with strict injunctions that he was not to be disturbed, while he wrote, say, a comic valentine to old Dame Polly Pyepowders, popping his head frequently round the door to demand their help in finding a rhyme. So they were not surprised that morning when told to close their books and to devote their talents to discovering, by whatever means they chose, whether there were any relations living in Lud of a west country farmer called Gibberty who had died nearly forty years ago.
Great was Master Nathaniel's satisfaction when one of them returned from his quest with the information that the late farmer's widowed daughter, Mistress Ivy Peppercorn, had recently bought a small grocer's shop in Mothgreen, a village that lay a couple of miles beyond the north gate.
There was no time to be lost, so Master Nathaniel ordered his horse, put on the suit of fustian he wore for fishing, pulled his hat well down over his eyes, and set off for Mothgreen.
Once there, he had no difficulty in finding Mistress Ivy's little shop, and she herself was sitting behind the counter.
She was a comely, apple-cheeked woman of middle age, who looked as if she would be more in her element among cows and meadows than in a stuffy little shop, redolent of the various necessities and luxuries of a village community.
She seemed of a cheerful, chatty disposition, and Master Nathaniel punctuated his various purchases with quips and cranks and friendly questions.
By the time she had weighed him out two ounces of snuff and done them up in a neat little paper poke she had told him that her maiden name had been Gibberty, and that her late husband had been a ship's captain, and she had lived till his death in the seaport town. By the time she had provided him with a quarter of lollipops, he knew that she much preferred a country life to trade. And by the time a woolen muffler had been admired, purchased and done up in a parcel, she had informed him that she would have liked to have settled in the neighbourhood of her old home, but—there were reasons.
What these reasons were took time, tact and patience to discover. But never had Master Nathaniel's wistful inquisitiveness, masquerading as warm-hearted sympathy, stood him in better stead. And she finally admitted that she had a stepmother whom she detested, and whom, moreover, she had good reason to distrust.
At this point Master Nathaniel considered he might begin to show his hand. He gave her a meaning glance; and asked her if she would like to see justice done and rascals getting their deserts, adding, "There's no more foolish proverb than the one which says that dead men tell no tales. To help dead men to find their tongues is one of the chief uses of the Law."
Mistress Ivy looked a little scared. "Who may you be, sir, please?" she asked timidly.
"I'm the nephew of a farmer who once employed a labourer called Diggory Carp," he answered promptly.
A smile of enlightenment broke over her face.
"Well, who would have thought it!" she murmured. "And what may your uncle's name have been? I used to know all the farmers and their families round our part."
There was a twinkle in Master Nathaniel's candid hazel eyes: "I doubt I've been too sharp and cut myself!" he laughed. "You see, I've worked for the magistrates, and that gets one into the habit of setting traps for folk ... the Law's a wily lady. I've no uncle in the West, and I never knew Diggory Carp. But I've always taken an interest in crime and enjoyed reading the old trials. So when you said your name had been Gibberty my mind at once flew back to a certain trial that had always puzzled me, and I thought perhaps, the name Diggory Carp might unlock your tongue. I've always felt there was more behind that trial than met the eye."
"Did you indeed?" said Mistress Ivy evasively. "You seem mighty interested in other folks' affairs," and she looked at him rather suspiciously.
This put Master Nathaniel on his mettle. "Now, hark'ee, Mistress Ivy, I'm sure your father took a pleasure in looking at a fine crop, even if it was in another man's field, and that your husband liked good seamanship...."
And here he had to break off his dissertation and listen, which he did very patiently, to a series of reminiscences about the tastes and habits of her late husband.
"Well, as I was saying," he went on, when she paused for a moment to sigh, and smile and wipe her eyes with the corner of her apron, "what the sight of a field filled to the brim with golden wheat was to your father, and that of a ship skilfully piloted into harbour was to your husband, the sight of Justice crouching and springing on her prey is to me. I'm a bachelor, and I've managed to put by a comfortable little nest-egg, and there's nothing I'd like to spend it on better than in preventing Justice being balked of her lawful prey, not to mention helping to avenge a fine fellow like your father. We old bachelors, you know, have our hobbies ... they're quieter about the house than a crowd of brats, but they're sometimes quite as expensive," and he chuckled and rubbed his hands.
He was thoroughly enjoying himself, and seemed actually to have become the shrewd, honest, and somewhat bloodthirsty old fellow he had created. His eyes shone with the light of fanaticism when he spoke of Justice, the tiger; and he could picture the snug little house he lived in in Lud—it had a little garden gay with flowers, and a tiny lawn, and espalier fruit trees, to the care of which he dedicated his leisure hours. And he had a dog, and a canary, and an old housekeeper. Probably, when he got home tonight, he would sit down to a supper of sausages and mashed, followed by a toasted cheese. And then, when he had finished his supper, he would get out his collection of patibulary treasures, and over a bowl of negus finger lovingly the various bits of gallows rope, the blood-stained glove of a murdered strumpet, the piece of amber worn as a charm by a notorious brigand chief, and gloat over the stealthy steps of his pet tiger, the Law. Yes, his obscure little life was as gay with hobbies as his garden was with flowers. How comfortable were other men's shoes!
"Well, if what you mean," said Mistress Ivy, "is that you'd like to help punish wicked people, why, I wouldn't mind lending a hand myself. All the same," and again she looked at him suspiciously, "what makes you think my father didn't come by a natural death?"
"My nose, good lady, my nose!" and, as he spoke, he laid a knowing finger alongside the said organ. "I smelt blood. Didn't it say in the trial that the corpse bled?"
She bridled, and cried scornfully, "And you, to be town-bred, too, and an educated man from the look of you, to go believing that vulgar talk! You know what country people are, setting everything that happens to the tunes of old songs. It was two drops of blood when the story was told in the tavern at Swan, and by the time it had reached Moongrass it was a gallon. I walked past the corpse with the others, and I can't say I noticed any blood—but, then, my eyes were all swelled with crying. All the same, it's what made Pugwalker leave the country."
"Indeed?" cried Master Nathaniel, and his voice was very eager.
"Yes. My stepmother was never the kind to be saucy with—though I had no cause to love her, I must say she looked like a queen, but he was a foreigner and a little bit of a chap, and the boys in the village and all round gave him no peace, jumping out at him from behind hedges and chasing him down the street, shouting, 'Who made the corpse of Farmer Gibberty bleed?' and such like. And he just couldn't stand it, and slipped off one night, and I never thought to see him again. But I've seen him in the streets of Lud, and not long ago too—though he didn't see me."
Master Nathaniel's heart was thumping with excitement. "What is he like?" he asked breathlessly.
"Oh! very like what he was as a young man. They say there's nothing keeps you young like a good conscience!" and she laughed drily. "Not that he was ever much to look at—squat and tubby and freckled, and such saucy prying eyes!"
Master Nathaniel could contain himself no longer, and in a voice hoarse with excitement he cried, "Was it ... do you mean the Lud doctor, Endymion Leer?"
Mistress Ivy pursed up her mouth and nodded meaningfully.
"Yes, that's what he calls himself now ... and many folks set such store by him as a doctor, that, to hear them talk, one would think a baby wasn't properly born unless he'd brought it into the world, nor a man properly dead unless he'd closed his eyes."
"Yes, yes. But are you sure he is the same as Christopher Pugwalker? Could you swear to him in court?" cried Master Nathaniel eagerly.
Mistress Ivy looked puzzled. "What good would it do to swear at him?" she asked doubtfully. "I must say I never held with foul language in a woman's mouth, nor did my poor Peppercorn—for all that he was a sailor."
"No, no!" cried Master Nathaniel impatiently, and proceeded to explain to her the meaning of the expression. She dimpled a little at her own blunder, and then said guardedly, "And what would bring me into the law courts, I should like to know? The past is over and done with, and what is done can't be undone."
Master Nathaniel fixed her with a searching gaze, and, forgetting his assumed character, spoke as himself.
"Mistress Peppercorn," he said solemnly, "have you no pity for the dead, the dumb, helpless dead? You loved your father, I am sure. When a word from you might help to avenge him, are you going to leave that word unsaid? Who can say that the dead are not grateful for the loving thoughts of the living, and that they do not rest more quietly in their graves when they have been avenged? Have you no time or pity left for your dead father?"
During this speech Mistress Ivy's face had begun working, and at the last words she burst into sobs. "Don't think that, sir," she gasped; "don't think that! I remember well how my poor father used to sit looking at her of an evening, not a word passing his lips, but his eyes saying as clearly as if it had been his tongue, 'No, Clem,' (for my stepmother's name was Clementine), 'I don't trust you no further than I see you, but, for all that, you can turn me round your little finger, because I'm a silly, besotted old fool, and we both know it.' Oh! I've always said that my poor father had both his eyes wide open, in spite of him being the slave of her pretty face. It was not that he didn't see, or couldn't see—what he lacked was the heart to speak out."
"Poor fellow! And now, Mistress Ivy, I think you should tell me all you know and what it is that makes you think that, in spite of the medical evidence to the contrary, your father was murdered," and he planted his elbows on the counter and looked at her squarely in the face.
But Mistress Ivy trimmed. "I didn't say that poor father was poisoned with osiers. He died quiet and peaceful, father did."
"All the same, you think there was foul play. I am not entirely disinterested in this matter, now that I know Dr. Leer is connected with it. I happen to bear him a grudge."
First Mistress Ivy shut the door on to the street, and then leant over the counter, so that her face was close to his, and said in a low voice: "Why, yes, I always did think there had been foul play, and I'll tell you why. Just before my father died we'd been making jam. And one of poor father's funny little ways was to like the scum of jam or jelly, and we used to keep some of every boiling in a saucer for him. Well, my own little brother Robin, and her little girl—a little tot of three—were buzzing round the fruit and sugar like a pair of little wasps, whining for this, sticking their fingers into that, and thinking they were helping with the jam-making. And suddenly my stepmother turned round and caught little Polly with her mouth all black with mulberry juice. And oh, the taking she was in! She caught her and shook her, and ordered her to spit out anything she might have in her mouth; and then, when she found out it was mulberries, she cooled down all of a sudden and told Polly she must be a good girl and never put anything in her mouth without asking first.
"Now, the jam was boiled in great copper cauldrons, and I noticed a little pipkin simmering on the hearth, and I asked my stepmother what it was. And she answered carelessly, 'Oh, it's some mulberry jelly, sweetened with honey instead of sugar, for my old grandfather at home.' And at the time I didn't give the matter another thought. But the evening before my father died ... and I've never mentioned this to a soul except my poor Peppercorn ... after supper he went and sat out in the porch to smoke his pipe, leaving her and him to their own doings in the kitchen; for she'd been brazen-faced enough, and my father weak enough, actually to have the fellow living there in the house. And my father was a queer man in that way—too proud to sit where he wasn't wanted, even in his own kitchen. And I'd come out, too, but I was hid from him by the corner of the house, for I had been waiting for the sun to go down to pick flowers, to take to a sick neighbour the next day. But I could hear him talking to his spaniel, Ginger, who was like his shadow and followed him wherever he went. I remember his words as clearly as if it had been yesterday: 'Poor old Ginger!' he said, 'I thought it would be me who would dig your grave. But it seems not, Ginger, it seems not. Poor old lady, by this time tomorrow I'll be as dumb as you are ... and you'll miss our talks, poor Ginger.' And then Ginger gave a howl that made my blood curdle, and I came running round the corner of the house and asked father if he was ailing, and if I could fetch him anything. And he laughed, but it was as different as chalk from cheese from the way he laughed as a rule. For poor father was a frank-hearted, open-handed man, and not one to hoard up bitterness any more than he would hoard up money; but that laugh—the last I heard him give—was as bitter as gall. And he said, 'Well, Ivy, my girl, would you like to fetch me some peonies and marigolds and shepherd's thyme from a hill where the Silent People have danced, and make me a salad from them?' And seeing me looking surprised, he laughed again, and said, 'No, no. I doubt there are no flowers growing this side of the hills that could help your poor father. Come, give me a kiss—you've always been a good girl.' Now, these are flowers that old wives use in love potions, as I knew from my granny, who was very wise about herbs and charms, but father had always laughed at her for it, and I supposed he was fretting over my stepmother and Pugwalker, and wondering if he could win her heart back to him.
"But that night he died, and it was then that I started wondering about that jelly in the pipkin, for him, liking scum as he did, and always having a saucer of it set aside for him, it wouldn't have been difficult to have boiled up some poison for him without any danger of other folks touching it. And Pugwalker knew all about herbs and such like, and could have told her what to use. For it was as plain as print that poor father knew he was going to die, and peonies make a good purge; and I've often wondered since if it was as a purge that he wanted these flowers. And that's all I know, and perhaps it isn't much, but it's been enough to keep me awake many a night of my life wondering what I should have done if I'd been older. For I was only a little maid of ten at the time, with no one I could talk to, and as frightened of my stepmother as a bird of a snake. If I'd been one of the witnesses, I dare say it would have come out in court, but I was too young for that."
"Perhaps we could get hold of Diggory Carp?"
"Diggory Carp?" she repeated in surprise. "But surely you heard what happened to him? Ah, that was a sad story! You see, after he was sent to gaol, there came three or four terrible lean years, one after the other. And food was so dear, no one, of course, had any money for buying fancy goods like baskets ... and the long and the short of it was that when Diggory came out of gaol he found that his wife and children had died of starvation. And it seemed to turn his wits, and he came up to our farm, raging against my stepmother, and vowing that someday he'd get his own back on her. And that night he hanged himself from one of the trees in our orchard, and he was found there dead the next morning."
"A sad story," said Master Nathaniel. "Well, we must leave him out of our calculations. All you've told me is very interesting—very interesting indeed. But there's still a great deal to be unravelled before we get to the rope I'm looking for. One thing I don't understand is Diggory Carp's story about the osiers. Was it a pure fabrication of his?"
"Poor Diggory! He wasn't, of course, the sort of man whose word one would be very ready to take, for he did deserve his ten years—he was a born thief. But I don't think he would have had the wits to invent all that. I expect the story he told was true enough about his daughter selling the osiers, but that it was only for basket-making that she wanted them. Guilt's a funny thing—like a smell, and one often doesn't quite know where it comes from. I think Diggory's nose was not mistaken when it smelt out guilt, but it led him to the wrong clue. My father wasn't poisoned by osiers."
"Can you think what it was, then?"
She shook her head. "I've told you everything I know."
"I wish you knew something more definite," said Master Nathaniel a little fretfully. "The Law dearly loves something it can touch—a blood-stained knife and that sort of thing. And there's another matter that puzzles me. Your father seems, on your showing, to have been a very indulgent sort of husband, and to have kept his jealousy to himself. What cause was there for the murder?"
"Ah! that I think I can explain to you," she cried. "You see, our farm was very conveniently situated for ... well, for smuggling a certain thing that we don't mention. It stands in a sort of hollow between the marches and the west road, and smugglers like a friendly, quiet place where they can run their goods. And my poor father, though he may have sat like a dumb animal in pain when his young wife was gallivanting with her lover, all the same, if he had found out what was being stored in the granary, Pugwalker would have been kicked out of the house, and she could have whistled for him till she was black in the face. My father was easy-going enough in some ways, but there were places in him as hard as nails, and no woman, be she never so much of a fool (and, fair play to my stepmother, she was no fool), can live with a man without finding out where these places are."
"Oh, ho! So what Diggory Carp said about the contents of that sack was true, was it?" And Master Nathaniel inwardly thanked his stars that no harm had come to Ranulph during his stay in such a dangerous place.
"Oh, it was true, and no mistake; and, child though I was at the time, I cried through half one night with rage when they told me what the hussy had said in court about my father using the stuff as manure and her begging him not to! Begging him not to, indeed! I could have told them a very different story. And it was Pugwalker that was at the back of that business, and got the granary key from her, so they could run their goods there. And shortly before my father died he got wind of it—I know that from something I overheard. The room I shared with my little brother Robin opened into theirs, and we always kept the door ajar, because Robin was a timid child, and fancied he couldn't go to sleep unless he heard my father snoring. Well, about a week before my father died I heard him talking to her in a voice I'd never known him to use to her before. He said he'd warned her twice already that year, and that this was the last time. Up to that time he'd held his head high, he said, because his hands were clean and all his doings straight and fair, and now he warned her for the last time that unless this business was put a stop to once and for all, he'd have Pugwalker tarred and feathered, and make the neighbourhood too hot for him to stay in it. And, I remember, I heard him hawking and spitting, as if he'd rid himself of something foul. And he said that the Gibbertys had always been respected, and that the farm, ever since they had owned it, had helped to make the people of Dorimare straight-limbed and clean-blooded, for it had sent fresh meat and milk to market, and good grain to the miller, and sweet grapes to the vintner, and that he would rather sell the farm than that poison and filth should be sent out of his granary, to turn honest lads into idiots gibbering at the moon. And then she started coaxing him, but she spoke too low for me to catch the words. But she must have been making him some promise, for he said gruffly, 'Well, see that it's done, then, for I'm a man of my word.'
"And in not much more than a week after that he was dead—poor father. And I count it a miracle that I ever grew up and am sitting here now telling you all this. And a still greater one that little Robin grew up to be a man, for he inherited the farm. But it was her own little girl that died, and Robin grew up and married, and though he died in his prime it was through a quinsy in his throat, and he always got on with our stepmother, and wouldn't hear a word against her. And she has brought up his little girl, for her mother died when she was born. But I've never seen the lass, for there was never any love lost between me and my stepmother, and I never went back to the old house after I married."
She paused, and in her eyes was that wistful, tranced look that always comes when one has been gazing at things that happened to one long ago.
"I see, I see," said Master Nathaniel meditatively. "And Pugwalker? Did you ever see him again till you recognized him in the streets of Lud the other day?"
She shook her head. "No, he disappeared, as I told you, just before the trial. Though I don't doubt that she knew his whereabouts and heard from him—met him even; for she was always going out by herself after nightfall. Well, well, I've told you everything I know—though perhaps I'd have better held my tongue, for little good comes of digging up the past."
Master Nathaniel said nothing; he was evidently pondering her story.
"Well," he said finally, "everything you have told me has been very interesting—very interesting indeed. But whether it will lead to anything definite is another matter. All the evidence is purely circumstantial. However, I'm very grateful to you for having spoken to me as freely as you've done. And if I find out anything further I'll let you know. I shall be leaving Lud shortly, but I shall keep in touch with you. And, under the circumstances, perhaps it would be prudent to agree on some word or token by which you would recognize a messenger as really coming from me, for the fellow you knew as Pugwalker has not grown less cunning with advancing years—he's full of guile, and let him once get wind of what we're after, he'd be up to all sorts of tricks to make our plans miscarry. What shall the token be?"
Then his eyes began to twinkle: "I've got it!" he cried. "Just to give you a little lesson in swearing, which you say you dislike so much, we'll make it a good round oath. You'll know a messenger comes from me if he greets you with the words, By the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West!"
And he rubbed his hands in delight, and shouted with laughter. Master Nathaniel was a born tease.
"For shame, you saucy fellow!" dimpled Mistress Ivy. "You're as bad as my poor Peppercorn. He used always...."
But even Master Nathaniel had had his fill of reminiscences. So he cut her short with a hearty good-bye, and renewed thanks for all she had told him.
But he turned back from the door to hold up his finger and say with mock solemnity, "Remember, it's to be By the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West!"
Late into that night Master Nathaniel paced the floor of his pipe-room, trying to pierce through the intervening medium of the dry words of the Law and the vivider though less reliable one of Mistress Ivy's memory, and reach that old rustic tragedy, as it had been before the vultures of Time had left nothing of it but dry bones.
He felt convinced that Mistress Ivy's reconstruction was correct—as far as it went. The farmer had been poisoned, though not by osiers. But by what? And what had been the part played by Pugwalker, alias Endymion Leer? It was, of course, gratifying to his vanity that his instinctive identification of the two had been correct. But how tantalizing it would be if this dead man's tale was to remain but a vague whisper, too low to be heard by the ear of the Law!
On his table was the slipper that Master Ambrose had facetiously suggested might be of use to him. He picked it up, and stared at it absently. Ambrose had said the sight of it had made Endymion Leer jump out of his skin, and that the reason was obvious. And yet those purple strawberries did not look like fairy fruit. Master Nathaniel had recently become but too familiar with the aspect of that fruit not to recognize it instantly, whatever its variety. Though he had never seen berries exactly like these, he was certain that they did not grow in Fairyland.
He walked across to his bookcase and took out a big volume bound in vellum. It was a very ancient illustrated herbal of the plants of Dorimare.
At first he turned its pages somewhat listlessly, as if he did not really expect to find anything of interest. Then suddenly he came on an illustration, underneath which was written THE BERRIES OF MERCIFUL DEATH. He gave a low whistle, and fetching the slipper laid it beside the picture. The painted berries and the embroidered ones were identical.
On the opposite page the berries were described in a style that a literary expert would have recognized as belonging to the Duke Aubrey period. The passage ran thus:—
THE BERRIES OF MERCIFUL DEATHThese berries are wine-coloured, and crawl along the ground, and have the leaves of wild strawberries. They ripen during the first quarter of the harvest moon, and are only to be found in certain valleys of the West, and even there they grow but sparsely; and, for the sake of birds and children and other indiscreet lovers of fruit, it is well that such is the case, for they are a deadly and insidious poison, though very tardy in their action, often lying dormant in the blood for many days. Then the poison begins to speak in itchings of the skin, while the tongue, as though in punishment for the lies it may have told, becomes covered with black spots, so that it has the appearance of the shards of a ladybird, and this is the only warning to the victim that his end is approaching. For, if evil things ever partake of the blessed virtues, then we may say that this malign berry is mercifully cruel, in that it spares its victims belchings and retchings and fiery humours and racking colics. And, shortly before his end, he is overtaken by a pleasant drowsiness, yielding to which he falls into a peaceful sleep, which is his last. And now I will give you a receipt, which, if you have no sin upon your conscience, and are at peace with the living and the dead, and have never killed a robin, nor robbed an orphan, nor destroyed the nest of a dream, it may be will prove an antidote to that poison—and may be it will not. This, then, is the receipt: Take one pint of salad oil and put it into a vial glass, but first wash it with rose-water, and marygold flower water, the flowers being gathered towards the West. Wash it till the oil comes white; then put it into the glass, and then put thereto the buds of Peonies, the flowers of Marygold and the flowers and tops of Shepherd's Thyme. The Thyme must be gathered near the side of a hill where the Fairies are said to dance.
THE BERRIES OF MERCIFUL DEATH
These berries are wine-coloured, and crawl along the ground, and have the leaves of wild strawberries. They ripen during the first quarter of the harvest moon, and are only to be found in certain valleys of the West, and even there they grow but sparsely; and, for the sake of birds and children and other indiscreet lovers of fruit, it is well that such is the case, for they are a deadly and insidious poison, though very tardy in their action, often lying dormant in the blood for many days. Then the poison begins to speak in itchings of the skin, while the tongue, as though in punishment for the lies it may have told, becomes covered with black spots, so that it has the appearance of the shards of a ladybird, and this is the only warning to the victim that his end is approaching. For, if evil things ever partake of the blessed virtues, then we may say that this malign berry is mercifully cruel, in that it spares its victims belchings and retchings and fiery humours and racking colics. And, shortly before his end, he is overtaken by a pleasant drowsiness, yielding to which he falls into a peaceful sleep, which is his last. And now I will give you a receipt, which, if you have no sin upon your conscience, and are at peace with the living and the dead, and have never killed a robin, nor robbed an orphan, nor destroyed the nest of a dream, it may be will prove an antidote to that poison—and may be it will not. This, then, is the receipt: Take one pint of salad oil and put it into a vial glass, but first wash it with rose-water, and marygold flower water, the flowers being gathered towards the West. Wash it till the oil comes white; then put it into the glass, and then put thereto the buds of Peonies, the flowers of Marygold and the flowers and tops of Shepherd's Thyme. The Thyme must be gathered near the side of a hill where the Fairies are said to dance.
Master Nathaniel laid down the book, and his eyes were more frightened than triumphant. There was something sinister in the silent language in which dead men told their tales—with sly malice embroidering them on old maids' canvas work, hiding them away in ancient books, written long before they were born; and why were his ears so attuned to this dumb speech?
For him the old herbalist had been describing a murderer, subtle, sinister, mitigating dark deeds with mercy—a murderer, the touch of whose bloody hands was balm to the sick in body, and whose voice could rock haunted minds to sleep. And, as well, in the light of what he already knew, the old herbalist had told a story. A violent, cruel, reckless woman had wished to rid herself of her enemy by the first means that came to her hand—osiers, the sap of which produced an agonizing, cruel death. But her discreet though murderous lover took the osiers from her, and gave her instead the berries of merciful death.
The herbalist had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the villain of the story was Endymion Leer.
Yes, but how should he make the dead tell their tale loud enough to reach the ear of the Law?
In any case, he must leave Lud, and that quickly.
Why should he not visit the scene of this old drama, the widow Gibberty's farm? Perhaps he might there find witnesses who spoke a language understood by all.
The next morning he ordered a horse to be saddled, packed a few necessaries in a knapsack, and then he told Dame Marigold that, for the present, he could not stay in Lud. "As for you," he said, "you had better move to Polydore's. For the moment I'm the most unpopular man in town, and it would be just as well that they should think of you as Vigil's sister rather than as Chanticleer's wife."
Dame Marigold's face was very pale that morning and her eyes were very bright. "Nothing would induce me," she said in a low voice, "ever again to cross the threshold of Polydore's house. I shall never forgive him for the way he has treated you. No, I shall stay here—in your house. And," she added, with a little scornful laugh, "you needn't be anxious about me. I've never yet met a member of the lower classes that was a match for one of ourselves—they fall to heel as readily as a dog. I'm not a bit afraid of the mob, or anything they could do to me."
Master Nathaniel chuckled. "By the Sun, Moon and Stars!" he cried proudly, "you're a chip off the old block, Marigold!"
"Well, don't stay too long away, Nat," she said, "or else when you come back you'll find that I've gone mad like everybody else, and am dancing as wildly as Mother Tibbs, and singing songs about Duke Aubrey!" and she smiled her charming crooked smile.
Then he went up to say good-bye to old Hempie.
"Well, Hempie," he cried gaily. "Lud's getting too hot for me. So I'm off with a knapsack on my back to seek my fortune, like the youngest son in your old stories. Will you wish me luck?"
There were tears in the old woman's eyes as she looked at him, and then she smiled.
"Why, Master Nat," she cried, "I don't believe you've felt so light-hearted since you were a boy! But these are strange times when a Chanticleer is chased out of Lud-in-the-Mist! And wouldn't I just like to give those Vigils and the rest of them a bit of my mind!" and her old eyes flashed. "But don't you ever get downhearted, Master Nat, and don't ever forget that there have always been Chanticleers in Lud-in-the-Mist, and that there always will be! But it beats me how you're to manage with only three pairs of stockings, and no one to mend them."
"Well, Hempie," he laughed, "they say the Fairies are wonderfully neat-fingered, and, who knows, perhaps in my wanderings I may fall in with a fairy housewife who will darn my stockings for me," and he brought out the forbidden word as lightly and easily as if it had been one in daily use.
About an hour after Master Nathaniel had ridden away Luke Hempen arrived at the house, wild-eyed, dishevelled, and with very startling news. But it was impossible to communicate it to Master Nathaniel, as he had left without telling anyone his destination.
In the interval between his two letters—the one to Hempie, and the one to Master Nathaniel—Luke decided that his suspicions had been groundless, for the days at the farm were buzzing by with a soothing hum like that of summer insects, and Ranulph was growing gay and sunburned.
Then towards autumn Ranulph had begun to wilt, and finally Luke overheard the strange conversation he had reported in his letter to Master Nathaniel, and once again the farm grew hateful to him, and he followed Ranulph as if he were his shadow and counted the hours for the order to come from Master Nathaniel bidding them return to Lud.
Perhaps you may remember that on his first evening at the farm Ranulph had wanted to join the children who watched the widow's cows at night, but it had evidently been nothing but a passing whim, for he did not express the wish again.
And then at the end of June—as a matter of fact it was Midsummer day—the widow had asked him if he would not like that night to join the little herdsmen. But towards evening had come a steady downfall of rain, and the plan had fallen through.
It was not alluded to again till the end of October, three or four days before Master Nathaniel left Lud-in-the-Mist. It had been a very mild autumn in the West and the nights were fresh rather than cold, and when, that evening, the little boys came knocking at the door for their bread and cheese, the widow began to jeer at Ranulph, in a hearty jovial way, for being town-bred and never having spent a night under the sky.
"Why don't you go tonight with the little herdsmen? You wanted to when you first came here, and the Doctor said it would do you no harm."
Now Luke was feeling particularly downcast that night; no answer had come from Master Nathaniel to his letter, though it was well over a week since he had written. He felt forlorn and abandoned, with a weight of responsibility too heavy for his shoulders, and he was certainly not going to add to that weight by allowing Ranulph to run the risk of catching a bad chill. And as well, any suggestion that came from the widow was greeted by him with suspicion.
"Master Ranulph," he cried excitedly, "I can't let you go. His Worship and my old auntie wouldn't like it, what with the nights getting damp and all. No, Master Ranulph, be a good little chap and go to your bed as usual."
As he was speaking he caught Hazel's eye, and she gave him an almost imperceptible nod of approval.
But the widow cried, with a loud scornful laugh, in which Ranulph shrilly joined: "Too damp, indeed! When we haven't had so much as a drop of rain these four weeks! Don't let yourself be coddled, Master Ranulph. Young Hempen's nothing but an old maid in breeches. He's as bad as my Hazel. I've always said that if she doesn't die an old maid, it isn't that she wasn't born one!"
Hazel said nothing, but she fixed her eyes beseechingly on Luke.
But Ranulph, I fear, was a very spoiled little boy, and, into the bargain, he dearly loved annoying Luke; so he jumped up and down, shouting, "Old maid Hempen! Old maid Hempen! I'm going—so there!"
"That's right, little master!" laughed the widow. "You'll be a man before I am."
And the three little herdsmen, who had been watching this scene with shy amusement, grinned from ear to ear.
"Do as you like, then," said Luke sullenly, "but I'm coming too. And, anyway, you must wrap up as warmly as you can."
So they went upstairs to put on their boots and mufflers.
When they came down Hazel, with compressed lips and a little frown knitting her brows, gave them their rations of cheese and bread and honey, and then, with a furtive glance in the direction of the widow, who was standing with her back turned, talking to the little herdsmen, she slipped two sprigs of fennel into Luke's button-hole. "Try and get Master Ranulph to wear one of them," she whispered.
This was not reassuring. But how is an undergardener, not yet turned eighteen, to curb the spoiled son of his master—especially when a strong-willed, elderly woman throws her weight into the other scale?
"Well, well," said the widow, bustling up, "it's high time you were off. You have a full three miles walk before you."
"Yes, yes, let's be off!" cried Ranulph excitedly; Luke felt it would be useless to protest further, so the little cavalcade dived into the moonlit night.
The world was looking very beautiful. At one end of the scale of darkness stood the pines, like rich black shadows; at the other end of the scale were the farm buildings, like white glimmering human masks. And in between these two extremes were all the various degrees of greyness—the shimmer of the Dapple that was more white than grey, and all the different trees—plane-trees, liege-oaks, olives—and one could almost recognize their foliage by their lesser or greater degree of density.
On they trudged in silence, up the course of the Dapple—Luke too anxious and aggrieved to talk, Ranulph buried too deep in dreams, and the little herdsmen far too shy. There were nothing but rough cattle paths in the valley—heavy enough going by day, and doubly so by night, and before they had yet gone half the way Ranulph's feet began to lag.
"Would you like to rest a bit and then go back?" said Luke eagerly.
But Ranulph shook his head scornfully and mended his pace.
Nor did he allow himself to lag again till they reached their destination—a little oasis of rich pasturage, already on rising ground though still a mile or two away from the hills.
Once here—in their own kingdom, as it were—the little herdsmen became lively and natural; laughing and chatting with Ranulph, as they set about repairing such breaches as had been made in the huts by the rough and tumble of twelve odd hours. Then there was wood to be collected, and a fire to be lit—and into these tasks Ranulph threw himself with a gay, though rather feverish, vigour.
At last they settled down to their long watch—squatting round the fire, and laughing for sheer love of adventure as good campaigners should; for were there not marching towards them some eight dark hours equipped with who could say what curious weapons from the rich arsenal of night and day?
The cattle crouched round them in soft shadowy clumps, placidly munching, and dreaming with wide-open eyes. The narrow zone of colour created by the fire-light was like the planet Earth—a little freak of brightness in a universe of impenetrable shadows.
Suddenly Luke noticed that each of the three little herdsmen was, like himself, wearing a sprig of fennel.
"I say! why are all you little chaps wearing fennel?" he blurted out.
They stared at him in amazement.
"But you be wearing a bit yourself, Master Hempen," said Toby, the eldest.
"I know"—and he could not resist adding in an offhand tone—"it was a present from a young lady. But do you always wear a bit in these parts?" he added.
"Always on this night of the year," said the children. And as Luke looked puzzled, Toby cried in surprise, "Don't you wear fennel in Lud on the last night of October?"
"No, we don't," answered Luke, a little crossly, "and why should we, I should like to know?"
"Why," cried Toby in a shocked voice, "because this is the night when the Silent People—the dead, you know—come back to Dorimare."
Ranulph looked up quickly. But Luke scowled; he was sick to death of western superstitions, and into the bargain he was feeling frightened. He removed the second sprig of fennel given him by Hazel from his button-hole, and holding it out to Ranulph, said, "Here, Master Ranulph! Stick that in your hatband or somewhere."
But Ranulph shook his head. "I don't want any fennel, thank you, Luke," he said. "I'm not frightened."
The children gazed at him in half-shocked admiration, and Luke sighed gloomily.
"Not frightened of ... the Silent People?" queried Toby.
"No," answered Ranulph curtly. And then he added, "At least not tonight."
"I'll wager the widow Gibberty, at any rate, isn't wearing any fennel," said Luke, with a harsh laugh.
The children exchanged queer little glances and began to snigger. This aroused Luke's curiosity: "Now then, out with it, youngsters! Why doesn't the widow Gibberty wear fennel?"
But their only answer was to nudge each other, and snigger behind their fingers.
This put Luke on his mettle. "Look here, you bantams," he cried, "don't you forget that you've got the High Seneschal's son here, and if you know anything about the widow that's ... well, that's a bit fishy, it's your duty to let me know. If you don't, you may find yourselves in gaol some day. So you just spit it out!" and he glared at them as fiercely as his kindly china-blue eyes would allow.
They began to look scared. "But the widow doesn't know we've seen anything ... and if she found out, and that we'd been blabbing, oh my! wouldn't we catch it!" cried Toby, and his eyes grew round with terror at the mere thought.
"No, you won't catch it. I'll give you my word," said Luke. "And if you've really anything worth telling, the Seneschal will be very grateful, and each of you may find yourselves with more money in your pockets than your three fathers put together have ever had in all their lives. And, anyhow, to begin with, if you'll tell me what you know, you can toss up for this knife, and there's not a finer one to be found in all Lud," and he waved before their dazzled eyes his greatest treasure, a magnificent six-bladed knife, given him one Yule-tide by Master Nathaniel, with whom he had always been a favourite. At the sight of this marvel of cutlery, the little boys proved venal, and in voices scarcely above a whisper and with frequent frightened glances over their shoulders, as if the widow might be lurking in the shadows listening to them, they told their story.
One night, just before dawn, a cow called Cornflower, from the unusually blue colour of her hide, who had recently been added to the herd, suddenly grew restless and began to moo, the strange moo of blue cows that was like the cooing of doves, and then rose to her feet and trotted away into the darkness. Now Cornflower was a very valuable cow and the widow had given them special injunctions to look after her, so Toby, leaving the other two to mind the rest of the herd, dashed after her into the thinning darkness and though she had got a good start of him was able to keep in her track by the tinkling of her bell. Finally he came on her standing at the brink of the Dapple and nozzling the water. He went close up to her and found that she had got her teeth into something beneath the surface of the stream and was tearing at it in intense excitement. Just then who should drive up in a cart but the widow and Doctor Endymion Leer. They appeared much annoyed at finding Toby, but they helped him get Cornflower away from the water. Bits of straw were hanging from her mouth and it was stained with juices of a colour he had never seen before. The widow then told him to go back to his companions, and said she would herself take Cornflower back to the herd in the morning. And, to account for her sudden appearance on the scene, she said she had come with the doctor to try and catch a very rare fish that only rose to the surface an hour before sunrise. "But you see," went on Toby, "my dad's a great fisherman, and often takes me out with him, but he never told me about this fish in the Dapple that can only be caught before sunrise, and I thought I'd just like to have a peep at it. So instead of going back to the others right away, I hid, I did, behind some trees. And they took some nets, they did, out of the cart, but it wasn't fish they drew up in them ... no it wasn't." He was suddenly seized with embarrassment, and he and his two little friends again began to snigger.
"Out with it!" cried Luke impatiently. "What was in their nets? You'll not get the knife for only half a story, you know."
"You say, Dorian," said Toby bashfully, nudging the second eldest boy; but Dorian, too, would only giggle and hang his head.
"I don't mind saying!" cried Peter, the youngest, valiantly. "It was fairy fruit—that's what it was!"
Luke sprang to his feet. "Busty Bridget!" he exclaimed in a horrified voice. Ranulph began to chuckle. "Didn't you guess right away what it was, Luke?" he asked.
"Yes," went on Peter, much elated by the effect his words had produced, "it was wicker baskets all full of fairy fruit, I know, because Cornflower had torn off the top of one of them."
"Yes," interrupted Toby, beginning to think that little Peter had stolen enough of his thunder, "she had torn off the top of one of the baskets, and I've never seen fruit like it; it was as if coloured stars had fallen from the sky into the grass, and were making all of the valley bright, and Cornflower, she was eating as if she would never stop ... more like a bee among flowers, she was, than a common cow. And the widow and the doctor, though of course they were put out, they couldn't help laughing to see her. And her milk the next morning—oh my! It tasted of roses and shepherd's thyme, but she never came back to the herd, for the widow sold her to a farmer who lived twenty miles away, and...."
But Luke could contain himself no longer. "You little rascals!" he cried, "to think of all the trouble there is in Lud just now, and the magistrates and the town guard racking their brains to find out how the stuff gets across the border, and three little bantams like you knowing all about it, and not telling a soul! Why did you keep it to yourselves like that?"
"We were frightened of the widow," said Toby sheepishly. "You won't tell that we've blabbed," he added in an imploring voice.
"No, I'll see that you don't get into trouble," said Luke. "Here's the knife, and a coin to toss up for it with ... toasted Cheese! A nice place this, we've come to! Are you sure, young Toby, it was Dr. Leer you saw?" Toby nodded his head emphatically. "Aye, it was Dr. Leer and no mistake—here's my hand on it." And he stuck out a brown little paw.
"Well, I'm blessed! Dr. Leer!" exclaimed Luke; and Ranulph gave a little mocking laugh.
Luke fell into a brown study; surprise, indignation, and pleasant visions of himself swaggering in Lud, praised and flattered by all as the man who had run the smugglers to earth, chasing each other across the surface of his brain. And, in the light of Toby's story, could it be that the stranger whose mysterious conversation with the widow he had overheard was none other than the popular, kindly doctor, Endymion Leer? It seemed almost incredible.
But on one thing he was resolved—for once he would assert himself, and Ranulph should not spend another night at the widow Gibberty's farm.
Toby won the toss and pocketed the knife with a grin of satisfaction, and by degrees the talk became as flickering and intermittent as the light of the dying fire, which they were too idle to feed with sticks; and finally it was quenched to silence, and they yielded to the curious drugged sensation that comes from being out of doors and wide awake at night.
It was as if the earth had been transported to the sky, and they had been left behind in chaos, and were gazing up at its towns and beasts and heroes flattened out in constellations and looking like the stippled pictures in a neolithic cave. And the Milky Way was the only road visible in the universe.
Now and then a toad harped on its one silvery note, and from time to time a little breeze would spring up and then die down.
Suddenly Ranulph broke the silence with the startling question, "How far is it from here to Fairyland?"
The little boys nudged one another and again began to snigger behind their hands.
"For shame, Master Ranulph!" cried Luke indignantly, "talking like that before youngsters!"
"But I want to know!" said Ranulph petulantly.
"Tell what your old granny used to say, Dorian," giggled Toby.
And Dorian was finally persuaded to repeat the old saying: "A thousand leagues by the great West Road and ten by the Milky Way."
Ranulph sprang to his feet, and with rather a wild laugh, he cried, "Let's have a race to Fairyland. I bet it will be me that gets there first. One, two, three—and away!"
And he would actually have plunged off into the darkness, had not the little boys, half shocked, half admiring, flung themselves on him and dragged him back.
"There's an imp of mischief got into you tonight, Master Ranulph," growled Luke.
"You shouldn't joke about things like that ... specially tonight, Master Chanticleer," said Toby gravely.
"You're right there, young Toby," said Luke, "I only wish he had half your sense."
"It was just a bit of fun, wasn't it, Master Chanticleer? You didn't really want us to race to ... yonder?" asked little Peter, peering through the darkness at Ranulph with scared eyes.
"Of course it was only fun," said Luke.
But Ranulph said nothing.
Again they lapsed into silence. And all round them, subject to blind taciturn laws, and heedless of man, myriads of things were happening, in the grass, in the trees, in the sky.
Luke yawned and stretched himself. "It must be getting near dawn," he said.
They had successfully doubled the dangerous cape of midnight, and he began to feel secure of safely weathering what remained of their dark voyage.
It was the hour when night-watchers begin to idealize their bed, and, with Sancho Panza, to bless the man who invented it. They shuddered, and drew their cloaks closer round their shoulders.
Then, something happened. It was not so much a modification of the darkness, as a sigh of relief, a slight relaxing of tension, so that one felt, rather than saw, that the night had suddenly lost a shade of its density ... ah! yes; there! between these two shoulders of the hills she is bleeding to death.
At first the spot was merely a degree less black than the rest of the sky. Then it turned grey, then yellow, then red. And the earth was undergoing the same transformation. Here and there patches of greyness broke out in the blackness of the grass, and after a few seconds one saw that they were clumps of flowers. Then the greyness became filtered with a delicate sea-green; and next, one realized that the grey-green belonged to the foliage, against which the petals were beginning to show white—and then pink, or yellow, or blue; but a yellow like that of primroses, a blue like that of certain wild periwinkles, colours so elusive that one suspects them to be due to some passing accident of light, and that, were one to pick the flower, it would prove to be pure white.
Ah, there can be no doubt of it now! The blues and yellows are real and perdurable. Colour is steadily flowing through the veins of the earth, and we may take heart, for she will soon be restored to life again. But had we kept one eye on the sky we should have noticed that a star was quenched with every flower that reappeared on earth.
And now the valley is again red and gold with vineyards, the hills are clothed with pines, and the Dapple is rosy.
Then a cock crowed, and another answered it, and then another—a ghostly sound, which, surely, did not belong to the smiling, triumphant earth, but rather to one of those distant dying stars.
But what had taken Ranulph? He had sprung to his feet and was standing motionless, a strange light in his eyes.
And then again, from a still more distant star, it seemed, another cock crowed, and another answered it.
"The piper! the piper!" cried Ranulph in a loud triumphant voice. And, before his astonished companions could get to their feet, he was dashing up one of the bridle-paths towards the Debatable Hills.
For a few seconds they stood petrified, and then Luke was seized with panic, and, calling to the little boys to stay where they were, dashed off in pursuit.
Up the path he pounded, from time to time shouting angrily to Ranulph to come back, but the distance between them grew ever wider.
Luke's ears began to sing and his brain to turn to fire, and he seemed to lose all sense of reality—it was not on the earth that he was running, but through the airless deserts of space.
He could not have said how long he struggled on, for he who runs hard leaves time behind as well as space. But finally his strength gave way, and he fell, breathless and exhausted, to the ground.
When he had sufficiently recovered to think of starting again the diminishing speck that had been Ranulph had completely vanished.
Poor Luke began to swear—at both Ranulph and himself.
Just then he heard a tinkle of bells, and down the bridle-path came a herd of goats and a very ancient herdsman—to judge, at least, from his bowed walk, for his face was hidden by a hood.
When he had got up to Luke, he stood still, leaning heavily on his stick, and peered down at him from underneath the overhanging flap of his hood with a pair of very bright eyes.
"You've been running hard, young master, by the looks of ye," he said, in a quavering voice. "You be the second young fellow as what I've seen running this morning."
"The second?" cried Luke eagerly. "Was the other a little lad of about twelve years old with red hair, in a green leathern jerkin embroidered in gold?"
"Well, his hair was red and no mistake, though as to the jerkin...." And here he was seized with a violent attack of coughing, and it took all Luke's patience not to grab him by the shoulders and shake the words out of him.
"Though as to the jerkin—my eyes not being as sharp as they once were...."
"Oh! never mind about the jerkin," cried Luke. "Did you stop and speak to him?"
"But about that jerkin—you do cut an old man short, you do ... it might have been green, but then again it might have been yellow. But the young gentleman what I saw was not the one as you're after."
"How do you know?"
"Why, because he was the Seneschal's son—the one I saw," said the old man proudly, as if the fact put him at once into a superior position to Luke.
"But it's the Seneschal's son—Master Ranulph Chanticleer, that I'm after, too!" cried Luke, eagerly. "How long is it since you saw him? I must catch up with him."
"You'll not do that, on your two feet," said the goatherd calmly. "That young gentleman, and his yellow jerkin and his red hair, must be well on the way to Moongrass by now."
"To Moongrass?" And Luke stared at him in amazement.
"Aye, to Moongrass, where the cheeses come from. You see it was this way. I'm goatherd to the Lud yeomanry what the Seneschal has sent to watch the border to keep out you know what. And who should come running into their camp about half an hour ago with his red jerkin and his green hair but your young gentleman. 'Halt!' cries the Yeoman on guard. 'Let me pass. I'm young Master Chanticleer,' cries he. 'And where are you bound for?' cries the Yeoman on guard. 'For Fairyland,' says he. And then didn't they all laugh! And the little chap flew into quite a rage, and said he was off to Fairyland, and no one should stop him. And, of course, that just made them laugh all the more. But though they wouldn't let him go to Fairyland, the young rascal...." And here the old man was seized with a paroxysm of wheezy laughter which brought on another bout of coughing.
"Well, as I was saying," he went on, when he had recovered, "they wouldn't let him through to Fairyland, but they said they would ride back with him where he came from. 'No, you won't,' says he; 'my dad,' says he, 'don't want me to go back there, never any more.' And he whisks out a letter signed by the Seneschal, bidding him leave the widow Gibberty's farm, where he was staying, and go straight off to Farmer Jellygreen's at Moongrass. So one of the Yeomen saddled his horse, and the youngster got up behind him, and they set off for Moongrass by one of the cattle-paths running northeast, which comes out at about the middle of the road between Swan and Moongrass. So that's that, my young fellow." In his relief Luke tossed his cap into the air.
"The young rascal!" he cried joyfully; "fancy his never having told me he'd got a letter from his Worship, and me expecting that letter for the last three days, and getting stomach-ache with worry at its not coming! And saying he was off to a certain place, too! A nice fright he's given me. But thank'ee, gaffer, thank'ee kindly. And here's something for you to drink the health of Master Ranulph Chanticleer," and with a heart as light as a bird's, he began to retrace his steps down the valley.
But what was that faint sound behind him? It sounded suspiciously like the Ho, ho, hoh! of that impudent Willy Wisp, who for a short time, had been one of his Worship's grooms.
He stopped, and looked round. No one was visible except the old goatherd in the distance, leaning on his stick. What he had heard could have been nothing but the distant tinkle of the goat bells.
When he reached the farm, he found it in a tumult. The little boys had frightened Hazel out of her wits, and confirmed her worst fears by the news that "Master Ranulph had run away towards the hills, and that Master Hempen had run after him."
"Granny!" cried Hazel, wringing her hands, "a messenger must be sent off post-haste to the Seneschal!"
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried the widow, angrily. "You mind your own business, miss! Long before any messenger could reach Lud, the lads will be back safe and sound. Towards the hills, indeed! That Luke Hempen is a regular old woman. It's just a bit of Master Ranulph's fun. He's hiding behind a tree, and will jump out on them with a 'Boo!' Never in my life have I heard so much fuss about nothing." And then, turning to the farm-servants, who were clustering round the children with scared, excited eyes, she bade them go about their business, and let her hear no more nonsense.
Her words sounded like good sense, but, for all that, they did not convince Hazel. Her deep distrust of the widow was almost as old as herself, and her instinct had told her for some time that the widow was hostile to Ranulph.
Never for a moment did Hazel forget that she, not the widow, was the rightful owner of the farm. Should she for once assert her position, and, in direct defiance of the widow, report what had happened to the law-man of the district and send a messenger to Master Nathaniel?
But, as everybody knows, legal rights can be but weaklings—puny little child princes, cowed by their bastard uncles, Precedent and Seniority.
No, she must wait till she was of age, or married, or ... was there any change of condition that could alter her relations with the widow, and destroy the parasite growth of sullen docility which, for as long as she could remember, had rotted her volition and warped her actions?
Hazel clenched her fists and set her teeth ... she would assert herself!—she would!... now, at once? Why not give them, say, till noon, to come back? Yes, she would give them till noon.
But before then, a rather shame-faced Luke arrived with his confession that Master Ranulph had made proper fools of them.
"So, Miss Hazel, if you'll give me a bite of something, and lend me a horse, I'll go after the young scamp to Moongrass. To think of his giving us the slip like that and never having told me he'd heard from his father! And there was me expecting a letter from his Worship every day, telling us to leave at once, and...."
Hazel raised her eyebrows. "You were expecting a letter ordering you to leave us? How was that?"
Luke turned red, and mumbled something inaudible. Hazel stared at him for a few seconds in silence, and then she said quietly, "I'm afraid you were wise if you asked the Seneschal to remove Master Ranulph."
He gave her a shrewd glance. "Yes ... I fear this is no place for Master Ranulph. But if you'd excuse me for being so bold, miss, I'd like to give you a word of warning—don't you trust that Endymion Leer further than you can see him, and don't you ever let your Granny take you out fishing!"
"Thank you, Master Hempen, but I am quite able to look after myself," said Hazel haughtily. And then an anxious look came into her eyes. "I hope—oh! I hope that you'll find Master Ranulph safe and sound at Moongrass! It's all so ... well, so very strange. That old goatherd, who do you suppose he was? One meets strange people near the Elfin Marches. You'll let me know if all is well ... won't you?"
Luke promised. Hazel's words had dampened his spirits and brought back all his anxiety, and the fifteen miles to Moongrass, in spite of a good horse, seemed interminable.
Alas! there was no Ranulph at the Jellygreens' farm; but, to Luke's bewilderment, it turned out that the farmer had been expecting him, as he had, a few days previously, received a letter from Master Nathaniel, from which it was clear that he imagined his son was already at Moongrass. So there was nothing for Luke but, with a heavy heart, to start off the next morning for Lud, where, as we have seen, he arrived a few hours after Master Nathaniel had left it.