Fredawent through the secret door the second time with more bravery then she had felt on the first occasion. For although she was bound on an expedition the dangers of which it was impossible to deny, she had now at least some knowledge of the risks she ran; and she was fortified by the belief that, even if she should not see him, her father would be about, within call perhaps, if she should run any danger from his rough associates. So she crept down into the room in which she had before hidden herself, very softly, listening as she went.
She could hear no sound. Her father had disappeared, leaving the light lowered. She crossed the floor almost on tip-toe, and peeped down through the opening. It was quite dark down there now; she could not even see the table round which the men had sat. She raised her head again and looked round her. She must go into that cellar, but she dared not go without a light. Becoming used to the silence, and feeling more secure, she began to make a tour of the room, hunting and groping very carefully. For, she thought, there must certainly be lanterns about somewhere; they would be a necessary part of a smuggler’s stock-in-trade. And truly, when she did at last stumble upon the right quarters, she found a selection of lanterns which would have equipped the band twice over. They were stored in a corner-cupboard, and were of all shapes and sizes, some old, battered and useless, some new and untried. Freda made a careful choice, fitted her lantern with a candle which she found in a box on a shelf, and helped herself to a box of matches. Then she returned to the opening in the floor, threw down the rope-ladder, and began the descent.
To the lame girl, quite unaccustomed to adventures of this sort, this part of the journey was neither easy nor pleasant. Her trembling feet only found firm footing on each succeeding rung after much futile swinging to and fro, desperate clinging to the swaying ropes, and nervous fears that her protruding foot would be caught by a rough hand from below. But she reached the cellar-floor in safety, and proceeded to light her lantern. Then she took a survey of the room.
It was large, lofty, stone-walled, and very cold. There was an oil-stove in one corner, but it was not burning. There were no stores of tobacco or spirits kept here, only lumber of ship’s gear, broken oars, coils of rope, some ends of rusty chain and such like. Freda, after a hasty inspection, proceeded to the corner where the men had disappeared. Here there was a large opening in the floor, from which a damp, earthy smell rose as she stooped to examine it. Freda could have no doubt that this was the entrance to a subterranean passage.
She drew back in horror which made her cold and wet from head to foot. Could she dare to trust herself alone in the very bowels of the earth, away from all hope of help if one of the rough and brutal men she had seen that evening should meet her?
She hesitated.
Then she thought of poor John Thurley, who had been so good to her: perhaps he was even then lying stunned or dead on the scaur, struck down by one of her father’s servants in evil. Ashamed of her hesitation, fired with the determination to try to save him, she dropped on to her knees, covered her face with her hands, and prayed for strength and courage. Then she sprang up, boldly grasped her crutch in her right hand and her lantern in her left, and plunged into the passage with rapid steps.
There were a few worn stone steps to begin with, then a gentle slope, and then a long, straight run. The passage was narrow and walled with stones, old and green with damp. At frequent intervals air and daylight were let in through small iron gratings which seemed to be a very long way overhead. It was not difficult to breathe, and the passage being stoned-paved and drained, the way so far was smooth and easy. Freda did not know how long she had been down there nor how far she had gone, when she became aware that the ground was sloping up again. Then came a flight of steps upwards. At the top of these steps Freda found herself in a very small octagonal chamber, which contained part of a broken stone spiral staircase, going upwards. Behind this staircase there was another large hole in the ground.
Freda guessed that she must be on the ground-floor of one of the towers of the Abbey-church. In the wall in front of her was a stout wooden door, which was ajar. She pushed it softly, guessing from this circumstance that there must be some one about. Putting her head through the aperture, she saw that she was in the western tower of the north transept of the ruined church. She thought she heard a man’s voice softly whistling to himself, but it did not sound very near, so she ventured to push the door open a little further and to slip through.
A clear, white moon, not long risen, was beginning to shine on the old pile, and to cast long lines of bright light and black shade between the old arches. To Freda the beautiful sight gave a fresh horror. How dared these men ply their wicked trade in the very shelter of these holy walls? She crept out, feeling more secure while she stood on this sacred ground, and treading with noiseless footsteps down the grass-grown nave, peeped through the broken window through which Robert Heritage had come to speak to her. She could trace in the moonlight the foot-path through the meadow outside to the outer wall, and beyond that she could just see a horse’s ears, and a whip standing up in such a fashion as to convince her that it was in a cart. She waited without a sound while she heard the soft whistling nearer and nearer, and then, peeping through the loose stones, she saw stolid Josiah Kemm, walking slowly to and fro under the church walls, with his hands behind him. He saw her immediately, and started forward to find out who was watching him.
Freda was ready for him, however; the risks and excitement of the adventure had made her quick-witted. She drew herself from a crouching attitude to her full height, and said, in a clear voice:
“Is it you, Josiah Kemm?”
The man did not answer; he made a step back, taken by surprise. She continued:
“I think you must have heard of me. I am Captain Mulgrave’s daughter.”
He touched his hat rather surlily, and seemed restless, as if uncertain what she knew, or how he ought to treat her.
“Why are you not waiting in the court-yard?” she asked with an inspiration. “You take your cart in there generally, don’t you?”
She thought that if she could persuade him that she knew all about his business, she could perhaps learn from him by what way she could get down to the scaur. Her confident tone had the desired effect. After a few minutes’ hesitation, during which Freda pretended to be unconcerned, but felt sick with anxiety, he answered:
“Well, noa; generally is a big word. Ah do soometoimes go into t’ yard, but more often Ah weait here.” He paused, but as his hearer took care to show no deep interest, he presently went on: “Ye see, it depends whether Ah teake t’ stuff streight from t’ boat, or whether Ah have to teake what’s stored in t’ Abbey.”
“I see. If you take what is stored up, the cart waits under the gallery window in the courtyard.”
“Aye. An’ Crispin Bean brings oop t’ stuff, an’ thraws it aht.”
“While if you take it straight from the boat——?”
“Why, Ah weait here, and when they’ve hauled it oop t’ cliff and brought it along t’ first passage, they bring it oop to me, instead o’ teaking it along t’ other passage into t’ Abbey.”
“Aren’t you afraid of people passing late, who might see your cart and wonder why it was so often standing there?”
Kemm shook his head decidedly, with a dry laugh.
“Noa, missie. T’ fowk hereabout’s all on our soide.”
“Oh,” said Freda.
She was wondering now how she should make her escape and find the second passage; that which, by Kemm’s account, led down to the beach. He himself unwittingly came to her succour.
“Ah thowt Ah heerd summat!” he suddenly exclaimed.
He gave a low, long whistle, but there was no reply. So without heeding Freda, who had succeeded in making him believe that she was in the secrets of the gang, he got through the ruined window, and went to the tower in the north transept. Freda hopped after him as quickly as she could. He pushed open the door, and going to the hole under the broken staircase, called down it, and whistled. There was no answering sound.
“False alarm!” said he, as he stepped again out into the transept.
But Freda had disappeared. She had followed him into the tower, and having blown out her lantern, crouched on the lowest stair until she found herself alone again. Then, waiting until Kemm’s voice, still calling to her, sounded a long way off, she relighted her candle, ran to the hole, and seeing a ladder in it, went down without delay. The underground passage into which this led her was very different from that which led from the church to the Abbey-house. As a matter of fact, the latter was of very ancient origin, having been carefully built and paved, six hundred years ago, as a private way for the Abbot between his house and the church. The passage which led from the church to the cliff, however, was an entirely modern and base imitation, dug and cut roughly out of the red clay and hard rock of which the cliffs were composed, ill-drained, ill-ventilated, almost impassable here and there through the slipping of great masses of the soft red clay. From time to time Freda, hurrying and stumbling along as best she could, now ankle-deep in sticky mud, now hurting her feet against loose stones, saw a faint gleam of moonlight above her, let in, as in the other passage, through a narrow grating, which would pass on the surface of the ground for the entrance to a drain. At last the passage widened suddenly, and she found herself in a low-roofed cave, partly natural, partly artificial, with a narrow opening, not looking straight out to sea, but towards a jutting point of the cliff.
Here Freda paused for a moment, afraid that some one might start up from one of the dark corners. But the total silence reassured her. There was a lantern hanging on the rough wall, and there was a bench on which lay some clothes. On the floor a few planks had been laid down side by side, with a worn and damp straw mat, evidently used for removing from the boots of the gang the clay collected on the way through the passage.
But the most noteworthy objects in the cave were a strong iron bar which was fixed from rock to rock across the mouth, to which a rope ladder was fastened, which hung down the surface of the cliff, and a windlass fastened firmly in the ground, by which, as Freda guessed, bales of smuggled tobacco and kegs of contraband spirit, were hauled up from the scaur below. She crept to the entrance and peeped out.
The moon was not yet fully risen, but there was light enough for the girl to make out the admirable position of this den above the water. Not only was the opening invisible from the sea, except for a little space close in shore where even small boats scarcely ventured, but it was also hidden from any one on the rocky beach below or on the cliff above by jutting points of rock; while a perpendicular slab of rock, descending sheer to the scaur beneath it, made it quite inaccessible from below except by the means the smugglers used.
After waiting a few minutes, and peering down on to the rocks below without hearing the least sound except the splash of the incoming tide, Freda resolved to descend, and take her chance of being seen. She must find out if John Thurley was there, and if any harm had come to him.
Atthe very first step she made on the rope ladder, Freda sustained a sudden shock which almost caused her to lose her grip of the ropes. With a wild, wailing cry, a great sea-gull flew out from a cleft in the rock a few feet from her, and almost touching her with its long grey-white wings, flew past her and circled in the air below, still keeping up its melancholy cry of alarm or warning, which was taken up by a host of its companions. Although she had heard the shrill sea-bird’s cry before, it had never sounded so lugubrious as now. The beating of the advancing tide on the rocks below made a mournful accompaniment to the bird’s wailing; and Freda, startled and alarmed, clung tremblingly to the ladder, not daring to descend a single step, as she felt the rush of air fanned by their long wings, and dreaded lest the great birds should attack her. At last, one by one, they circled lower and lower, until they reached the sea, and, folding their wings, settled in a flock upon the water: not till then did the girl venture to proceed on her journey.
This descent, though long, was much less difficult than her first trial of a rope-ladder in the secret-room of the Abbey; for the ladder was firmly fixed to a rock below into which two iron hooks had been driven. The greatest danger she had to contend with during the descent was the extreme cold, which benumbed her fingers, and made it scarcely possible for her to grasp the ropes, and to hold her crutch at the same time; the lantern she had extinguished and tied round her waist. At last her feet touched the solid rock: she drew a long breath of relief: she had reached the scaur. Turning slowly, she took a survey of the spot.
The cliff frowned at an immense height above her, rugged, and steep as a wall. She was standing on a narrow ledge formed of broken bits of rock which had, from time to time, been detached from the main cliff by force of water and rough weather. Only a few feet away the sea was breaking into little foaming cascades against the boulders. At sea, just out of the silver light cast by the moon, and some distance away from shore, she could dimly see a boat, which she guessed to be her father’s yacht. On the right hand, a jutting point of cliff shut out the view; on the left a bend in the cliff formed a tiny bay, beyond which a sort of rough pier of black rocks stretched out into the sea.
The bay was the point the smugglers would make for, she felt sure; it was in this direction, then, that she must go. She dared not light her lantern, but had to trust to the faint light of the moon. The way was infinitely more difficult than she had expected: to scramble, to crawl, sometimes to leap from rock to rock would have made the path a hard one for anybody; to a girl with a crutch it was absolutely dangerous. Panting, bruised, breathless, she at last scrambled over the last rough stone and found, to her relief, that in the tiny bay there was a stretch of smooth land, part clay, part sand, which had gathered in this inlet at the foot of the cliff, and on which a short, coarse grass grew. This seemed a paradise to Freda after her exertion: she sank down and rested her limbs, which were trembling with fatigue.
After a few moments, however, her sense of relief and rest was broken by a sensation of horror, which seemed to creep up her tired limbs and settle like a pall upon her. The utter silence, which not even a sea-gull now broke; the great wall of rock stretching round her, like a giant arm pointing its finger out to sea; the solitude, and the piercing cold all united to impress the girl with a dread of what she might be going to see and hear. With a little sobbing cry she shivered and shut out the scene by burying her face in her hands.
Suddenly a faint sound caused her to start up; it was the splash of oars in the water. There was a fringe of rock between the smooth land and the sea, under cover of which Freda ran, stumbling as she went, in the direction of the rough natural pier. From this she thought she would be able to get a clear view of all that went on by sea or by land. But on nearer approach this natural pier proved to be much more difficult of access than she had supposed; for it consisted of a huge rock, flattened on the top, rising so high out of the water that it would need a climb to get upon it. Still Freda resolved to try to overcome the difficulty. At this point she suddenly came in full view of the approaching boat, which was making straight for the beach. In another moment she had begun the climb. She had scarcely got her head above the level of the top of the rock, when she caught sight of a man crouching down on the smooth wave-worn surface, watching the approach of the boat with eagerness which betrayed itself in his very attitude. It was John Thurley.
Startled by the sight, Freda lost the footing she had obtained on the flaky, rotten side of the rock, and slipping back a few steps, found that she had all her work to do over again.
But she was quicker this time, her experience having stood her in good stead. In a very few moments she had won back the lost ground, and again glanced up at the crouching figure. She had scarcely done so when she saw, and yet hardly believed that she saw, a second figure crossing the smooth surface of the rock in the direction of the first, crossing stealthily, with the cat-like tread she knew so well.
It was the man who had said he would “be on the watch.”
She wanted to cry out, she tried to cry out, but only a hoarse rattle came forth from her parched throat. She knew what was going to happen, though she saw no weapon in the rascal’s hand; and the knowledge paralysed her. Before she could draw breath the blow had fallen: with a horrible cry John Thurley sprang up with a backward step, turned, staggered, and fell in a dark heap on the rock at his assailant’s feet.
Freda’s voice had come back now; but it was too late. She stifled back her cries, got up, by digging heels and clawing fingers, somehow, anyhow, on to the top of the rock, and skimming along the surface, lame as she was, like a bird, came up with the man who had threatened her that evening. He started, looking up at her with blood-shot, evil eyes, as she laid her hand upon his arm.
“Hands off, missus,” said he roughly, assuming more coarseness of accent than usual.
“No,” answered the girl fiercely, as she fastened her fingers with a firmer grip on his arm, “you have exceeded your orders to-night, and now you’ve got to obey mine. You have to help me carry that man you have hurt into the house, into the Abbey.”
The man was impressed, in spite of himself, by her manner.
“He’s dead,” he said impatiently. “Haven’t you had enough corpses about the place lately?”
“He is not dead; he is moving; and you will take him in, dead or alive. Do you forget I am your master’s daughter?”
“Perhaps I’m my master’s master,” said he shortly. Then, with a sudden access of fury, to which his potations of earlier in the evening evidently gave reckless intensity, he suddenly held up, with a threatening movement, the knife with which he had stabbed his victim. It was red with blood—a sickening sight. But Freda was too much excited and exasperated to show a sign of fear now.
“You dare not hurt me,” she cried, in her high, girlish voice, that echoed among the cliffs. “If this poor man dies you may escape; but if you killme, my father will not let you live another day.”
She thought it was her words which suddenly caused him to drop from a defiant into a cringing attitude, and to hold himself quite limply and meekly under her grasp. But his shifting glances made her turn her head, and she saw that her father was standing behind, with his eyes fixed on the fallen man. Freda forgot her reticence, forgot his cautions. Rushing towards him with her left hand outstretched, she cried, with a break in her voice:
“Father! father!”
He did not rebuke her. Taking a step forward, he caught the girl in his arms, and looked tenderly down into her white face.
“What business have you here?” he said, but without harshness.
“I came to save John Thurley,” she answered, trembling. “But I was too late. Make this man take him home—father—to the Abbey.”
He shook his head, while the other man gave a short laugh.
“He’s done for, guv’nor,” said he curtly. “Sorry if I went too far, but it’s always dangerous work to put your nose into other people’s business.”
Freda was on her knees beside the fallen man.
“He’s alive,” she cried triumphantly. “Make haste, oh, make haste, and we shall be able to save him!”
“Him? Yes,” said her father gruffly and dubiously. “But how about ourselves? His safety is our danger, child; don’t you understand?”
“But, father, you wouldn’t have himmurdered! Oh, if it is true you care for me—and you do, you do—tell that man to help you; and take him in! Do this for me, as you would have done it for my mother.”
Captain Mulgrave hesitated. Then he tried to speak in a peremptory and angry voice, but broke down. Turning at last sharply to the assailant, who had been watching him with hungry intentness, he made a gesture towards the wounded man.
“Here, Crispin, help me—to take him in. We must obey the ladies,” he said with a hoarse and almost tremulous attempt at levity.
The grin died out of the lean and withered face, and Freda caught upon it an expression of so much baulked malignity that she wondered whether succour at these unwilling hands would mean death to the succoured one. There was nothing for her to do but to watch, however, while her father, with a skilful hand, tore his own shirt into bandages, with which he stopped the flow of blood from the wounded man’s side. Then, giving the word to start, he and his unwilling assistant lifted the still unconscious man and began the difficult journey to the Abbey.
Themoon was high by the time Captain Mulgrave and his subordinate started for the Abbey with their unwelcome guest.
John Thurley was still unconscious as they lifted him from the rock; and the jolting to which they were forced to subject him, as they made the difficult descent to the level land, failed to rouse him to the least sign of life. Indeed Freda, who followed close, not without suspicions of foul play in one of the bearers, was afraid that this journey was a hopeless one, and that it was a dead man they would carry into the Abbey.
“Up the steps,” directed Captain Mulgrave briefly.
And instead of turning to the left, towards the cave, they crossed the stretch of flat, grass-grown land in the direction of a rough flight of steps, partly cut in the cliff itself and partly formed of stones brought for the purpose, which, guarded on one side by a primitive handrail, formed the communication for the public between the top of the cliff and the scaur.
“It’s a long way round, guv’nor,” grumbled the other. “Better haul him up our way with the rest of the stuff.”
Freda uttered an angry and impatient exclamation. Her father who, to her horror, had appeared not unwilling to act on the suggestion, now shook his head and again nodded towards the steps. The other, though he had to submit to the directions of his chief, did so with a very bad grace, and muttered many expressions of ill-will as he staggered along under his share of the burden. For the unfortunate John Thurley was a solidly built, heavy man, and the ascent up the face of the cliff was not an easy one even in ordinary circumstances.
When they had at last, after many pauses, reached the top of the cliff, the little wizened face puckered up again with an expression of intense slyness.
“The boys won’t be able to get on without one or other of us, guv’nor,” he suggested. “They’ll have got the stuff through to the house by this time, and if there ’s nobody there to look after them they’ll just get roaring drunk, and perhaps manage to get up from the cellar for more liquor, and kick up no end of a disturbance.”
Freda, who was afraid her father might leave her alone with this odious man and the unconscious Thurley, instantly struck in with a suggestion.
“There’s Josiah Kemm waiting about by the ruin,” she said. “I suppose you have some whistle or signal that he would know, and he would bring his cart.”
She would have suggested going in search of him herself, but she could not pretend to have enough confidence in her companions for that. Her father smiled, and seemed to be both amused and pleased by her quickness. The other man, however, openly scowled at her. After a few moments’ consideration, Captain Mulgrave turned to his subordinate.
“You whistle,” he ordered shortly. “When Kemm comes, she” (nodding towards Freda) “will tell him what to do.”
So saying, he turned, and descending a dozen steps below the top of the cliff, concealed himself; while the other man, most unwillingly, whistled four times. By this Freda concluded that the fact of Captain Mulgrave’s being still alive was unknown to some members at least of the gang acting under him.
She knelt down by the wounded man, and was frightened by the coldness of his face and hands, and by the impossibility of discovering whether he still breathed. In a very few moments she was relieved to hear the rattle of wheels; and almost immediately afterwards the cart appeared in sight, and stopped in the road at the nearest point to where the wounded man was lying. There was a gate in the wall, and she could see Josiah Kemm opening it.
“Bring the cart through,” she cried out shrilly. “The cart!”
Kemm stopped, not at first understanding.
“T’ cart!” he echoed wonderingly.
“Yes, yes. Say yes,” she continued, turning with an impetuous air of command to her companion. He repeated sullenly:
“Yes, bring the cart.”
Kemm obeyed. But his disappointment, disgust and dismay were unbounded when, instead of a few bales of smuggled tobacco, he found that his cart was wanted to bear the wounded man. His superstitious fears were aroused, and he drew back hastily.
“He’s dead!” he muttered, “yon chap’s dead. It’s onlucky to carry a dead mon.”
But Freda besought him, coaxed, persuaded, promised until the stubborn Yorkshireman, impressed by her imperious manner, began to think that in obeying her, he was currying favour with the higher powers. So that at last he stooped, hoisted up the unfortunate man, placed him in his cart, lifted Freda herself into the front seat without waiting to be asked, and turned his horse’s head, by her direction, towards the Abbey.
Freda was trembling with triumph, but also with some apprehension. The Abbey was the only place to which she could take the wounded man, and yet she could not but fear that it might prove a very unsafe refuge. The little grinning man, whom they had left behind on the edge of the cliff, was a trusted person in her father’s mysterious house, and could go and come by secret ways, whenever he pleased. Her only hope lay with Mrs. Bean. Freda believed in the little woman’s real kindness of heart, and then too she would get at her first, before the housekeeper could be influenced by less honest counsels.
The cart with its occupants reached the Abbey-lodge in very few minutes. At the inner gate there was a little longer delay, and then Mrs. Bean appeared and let them in without question.
“I didn’t expect you to-night, Mr. Kemm,” was all she said.
But she started back in astonishment and dismay when he said:
“Ah’ve browt ye back a friend an’ a stranger, Mrs. Bean. One’s a leady, an’ t’other’s a gen’leman.”
At the same moment Freda, who had got down with Kemm’s help, ran up and put her arm round Nell’s neck.
“Mrs. Bean, dear Mrs. Bean,” she whispered, “it’s a friend of mine, the gentleman you saw me with at the churchyard, and he’s very, very ill. You’ll be kind to him, won’t you?”
But Nell was not at all sure about that. She even began by resolutely refusing to allow him to be brought into the house. Kemm, however, as resolutely refused to take him away again. At last Freda thought of away of overcoming the housekeeper’s objections.
“It was my father himself who brought him up from the scaur,” she whispered, in a voice too low for Kemm to hear. And as the housekeeper looked at her incredulously, she added: “My father, the man I have always called Crispin. He told me to bring him home.”
Mrs. Bean turned abruptly to Kemm.
“Where did you find this gentleman?” she asked. “Who was with him?”
“This little leady, and your husband.”
Freda started. The wizened and grinning man who had threatened her and stabbed John Thurley was, then, Nell’s husband, the veritable Crispin Bean.
Kemm’s answer, while it disturbed her, reassured the housekeeper, who reluctantly gave Kemm permission to bring the unconscious man indoors.
“I’m sure I don’t know where to put him,” she said discontentedly, though Freda was happy in discovering a gleam of pity in her round face.
“Put him in my father’s room,” said Freda with unexpected authority. And she led the way upstairs, beckoning to Kemm to follow her with his burden. She had rapidly decided that this room would be the safest in the house.
As soon as John Thurley had been placed upon the bed and Kemm had gone, Freda was delighted to find that her trust in Nell’s goodness of heart had not been misplaced. The young girl wanted to go for a doctor, but this the housekeeper would not allow, saying that she could do what had to be done as well as any man. She proceeded to prove this by binding up his wound with skilful hands. Presently John Thurley opened his eyes, as he had done several times during the journey from the beach. This time, however, he was not allowed to relapse into unconsciousness. Applying a restorative to his lips, Mrs. Bean spoke to him cheerfully, and got some sort of feebly muttered answer. He caught sight of Freda, who was helping Mrs. Bean, and gave her a smile of recognition. But Nell sent her away lest he should want to talk to her.
Freda left the room obediently, but went no further away than the great window-seat on the landing outside. Here she curled herself up, trying to keep warm, and looked out on the moonlit stretch of country. She was full of disquieting thoughts. This man, who had been kind to her, whose life she was trying to save, had seen the murderer of the man-servant Blewitt, and could recognise him. The fact of his having kept this knowledge to himself for so long could only be explained by his belief that the murderer was dead, and could not be brought to justice. If he were to learn that the murderer was not dead after all, Freda felt that she knew the man well enough to be sure that no consideration would deter him from bringing punishment upon the criminal. And that criminal she could no longer doubt was her father. If she could only see her father again, and warn him to keep away, as she had meant but had missed the opportunity to do, it would be all right. It never occurred to her that her influence with John Thurley would be strong enough to induce him to keep silence. On the other hand, there was danger to be feared from the real Crispin; perhaps also from his wife, who, when she learnt who struck the blow, might be too dutiful to her husband to continue her care of his victim. But in this she did Nell an injustice.
While the girl was still sitting in the window-seat crouching in an attitude of deep depression, the door of her father’s room softly opened, and Nell came up to her. She looked worried but spoke very gently.
“This is a bad business,” she began. “It’s one of my lord and master’s tricks, no doubt. And the worst of it is that when Crispin takes a job like this on hand, he doesn’t generally stop till he’s finished it.”
“But can’t you prevent him? Can’t you persuade him that he’s hurt this poor man enough?” asked Freda anxiously.
Nell shook her head.
“My dear,” said she, “since you’ve found out so much you may as well know the rest. Crispin’s a bad man, but a moderately good husband. If I were to interfere with him in any way, he would not be at all a better man, and he’d be a much worse husband. Those are the terms we live upon: I hold my tongue to him, and he holds his to me.”
“Then you won’t take care of this poor man any longer?”
“Yes, I will as long as I can. What he will most want is—watching. You understand?”
“Yes,” said Freda, trembling.
“The wound isn’t dangerous, I think if he’s kept quiet. And I’m used to nursing. Who is he?”
Freda hesitated. But the truth could not be concealed from Nell much longer, so at last she faltered:
“He is sent down—by the government—to look after the smuggling.”
The housekeeper’s face changed, as if a warrant of death had been contained in those words.
“The Lord help him then!” was all she said.
But Freda was so horror-struck at her tone that she sprang up and ran like a hare to the door of the sick man’s room.
“What are you going to do?” asked Nell.
“I don’t know,” sobbed Freda. “But—but I think I ought to put him on his guard.”
“No,” said Nell peremptorily. “Don’t disturb him now. Come here with me; I have something to tell you.”
Fancying from the housekeeper’s manner that an idea for helping John Thurley had occurred to her, Freda allowed herself to be led away to the disused room opposite.
Beforethe two women had entered the musty, damp-smelling apartment which had once been one of the best bedrooms of the house, the younger began to feel that her companion was unnerved and unstrung. Indeed they were no sooner inside than Mrs. Bean, sinking down on a chair, burst into tears. This was such an unusual sign of weakness in the self-contained housekeeper, that Freda, in alarm, stood for a few moments quite helpless, not knowing what to do. But the kindly womanliness of her nature soon prompted the right action, and putting her arms round Nell’s neck, she clung to her and soothed her with few words but with genuine tenderness.
Recovering herself, Nell suddenly pushed her away.
“It is not fit that I should sit here and be comforted by you, child,” she said, abruptly but not harshly, “when it’s you have brought it all upon us—and it’s ruin, that’s what it is—ruin!”
“Mrs. Bean! What do you mean?”
“Why, that this is the end of it all, the end I’ve been dreading for years, but worse, a thousand times worse, than I ever guessed it would be! I thought it would only be the smuggling, and a break-up of the old gang. I never thought it would be murder!”
“Murder!” hissed out Freda, not indeed in surprise, but in fear.
“Yes, and you know it, for all you may say. You know that the man-servant Blewitt was murdered. And if you go in there, and listen to that man’s mutterings”—and she pointed towards the sick-room—“you’ll know more.”
Freda shook from head to foot, and at first tried in vain to speak.
“What doeshesay! What does he know?”
“He knows that it was murder, for one thing, but he knows more than that, or I’m much mistaken. It’s on his mind, and as the fever rises, it will all come out.”
She began to sob again and to dry her eyes. Freda at first stood motionless beside her, but as Nell got the better of her outburst, the girl took courage and touched her on the shoulder.
“Mrs. Bean,” she said in a hoarse whisper, “who do you think did it?”
There was no answer.
“Do you think it was—Crispin?”
She asked this question timidly, but Nell did not seem offended by the suggestion. She shook her head, however.
“No, he was in the house here with me. He had been out all night in the yacht, and he was lying down to have a nap on the sofa in my sitting-room. Then”—she lowered her voice, and spoke in an awe-struck whisper—“the master came in, looking white and—and queer, bloodshot about the eyes and that, and he called Crispin out, and they both left the house together, by the back way, through the garden. And I wondered, and watched, and presently I saw them come back and they were carrying something. I didn’t guess what sort of burden it was though, not then. But while I was watching, your ring came at the bell; and as I was crossing the yard to answer it Captain Mulgrave came running after me, and he said: ‘If it’s my daughter, say I’ve shot myself, for I’m going away to-night, and I don’t mean to meet her.’ ”
Here Freda interrupted, in some distress:
“He didn’t mean to meet me! Didn’t he want me to come, then?”
“Yes, and no, I think. I believe it made him feel ashamed of himself; it reminded him, perhaps, of old days when your mother was alive, and made him feel sorry that things were not with him now as they were then.”
Freda, with tears in her eyes, drew nearer to Nell as the latter made these tardy confessions.
“Mind,” continued the housekeeper, drawing back suddenly as the girl’s arm stole round her neck, “it’s only like guess-work what I’m telling you. The Captain has never said anything of the sort to me——”
“But it’strue!” whispered Freda eagerly, “it’s true: I know it, I feel it. Go on, go on.”
“Well, at any rate that was only part of what he felt, remember; for he’s done things he had better have left undone for a good many years now. He also felt that a girl would be in the way here with her prying eyes—as it has proved; and between the wish to see you and the wish not to see you, he was quite unmanned. In fact, he’s not been the same man since you’ve been about: it’s Crispin who has become master.”
Nell said this with sorrow rather than with pride. She paused, and Freda urged her to go on:
“And on that day, when you were coming to let me in——?” she suggested.
“Ah, yes. Suddenly he made up his mind to let you in himself, and he said: ‘Don’t let her know who I am; I shan’t.’ ‘Ishan’t say anything, sir, you may be sure,’ I said. And with that I walked back to my kitchen, and he let you in, and you took him for Crispin, as you know. And ever since then he’s been in two minds, now making believe to be dead, so that he might get away quietly, and now bent on staying here, whatever happened.”
“Whatever happened!” repeated Freda. “Why, what should happen, Mrs. Bean?”
The housekeeper rose, and made answer very abruptly:
“I suppose you have some nerve, or you wouldn’t have got down on the scaur by yourself to-night! Well, come with me, then.”
She opened the door, and led the girl back to the sick-room, where John Thurley lay quietly enough, looking up at the old-fashioned bed-draperies, and muttering to himself in a low voice from time to time. Leaving Freda by the door, with a significant sign to be silent, Nell went up to the bedside, and put her hand on the sick man’s forehead.
“Are you better now?” she asked gently.
“Better!” he muttered in a husky voice. “I don’t know. I haven’t time to think about that.”
“Why, what’s troubling you?”
“Oh, you know, you know. The old thing.”
“What, these men?”
“Yes, the gang. They’ve got to be caught, you know, to be caught, every man Jack of them.”
“Why, what have they done?”
He went on muttering to himself, and she had to repeat the question.
“Done! They’ve done everything: robbed, cheated, killed.”
Freda started.
“Hush, hush, sir. You are going too far, aren’t you?”
“Too far, yes, he went too far—that morning,” said the sick man drowsily, “I saw him slinking about—and I saw him take out his revolver—and he crept up past me, over the snow, to the top of the hill.”
“But you didn’t see him shoot, sir, now did you?”
He shook his head.
“I saw him return—presently, without the revolver,” he went on in a very low voice, “with a look on his face—all the savagery gone out of it—I did not understand it.”
“But when you heard later that a man had disappeared, and then a rumour that he had been murdered——?”
“I knew that I had seen the murderer. I knew his face. It was he.”
He uttered these last words slowly and dreamily, and then as Nell asked no more questions, he subsided into silence, and stared again at the bed-hangings. Freda slipped softly out of the room, ran downstairs into the library as fast as her feet and her crutch could take her, and went through the bookshelf door into the secret portion of the house for the third time that night. If she could only find her father, and warn him! That was the thought that was in her mind as she tripped up the first narrow stone staircase and down the second, and reached the room where she had had her interview with him.
There was no one either in this apartment or in the cellar below. The rope-ladder was hanging down just as she had left it, the lamp was still burning. Would her father come in by this way, she wondered, as she crouched on the floor by the opening, and listened for the sound of footsteps approaching from below. At first she heard nothing. She dared not go down into the cellar again, for fear of meeting Crispin, who bore no goodwill either to her or to the patient she had introduced into the house. Presently a distant rumbling down in the earth below riveted her attention. It grew louder and nearer until there was no mistaking the fact that some one was coming up the underground passage.
It was not until that moment that Freda realised the danger of her situation. She had been reckoning on meeting her father. But what foundation had she for this hope? She had scarcely acknowledged to herself that she had very little, when she perceived that her worst fears were fulfilled, and that the man who, lantern in hand, had just reached the floor of the cellar, was the real Crispin Bean. The faint cry which escaped her lips attracted his attention, and with an oath on his lips and a scowl on his face he made a rush for the ladder.
Freda was too quick for him. She pulled it up out of his reach with a jerk, flung to the trap-door which closed the opening, and with some difficulty drew the heavy iron bolt which made it fast. Then, frightened both by what she had done, and by the storm of oaths and blasphemies to which Crispin gave free vent, she crept out of the room like a mouse, and gained the library as fast as she could.
Dangerhad roused Freda from a little frightened girl into a ready-witted and daring woman. No sooner had she fastened down the trap-door and made it impossible for Crispin to get into the house from below than another idea for securing the safety of her sick guest flashed into her mind. As soon as the thought suggested itself, she set about carrying it out. Flying out of the house, across the court-yard, unlocking the first gate and taking care to keep it from closing by a stone at its base, she was out of breath by the time she reached the lodge-gates and pulled lustily at the bell. Of course the old woman was asleep, and it was some moments before the gates opened. In the meantime, Freda had had another inspiration. As soon as one of the gates opened, she slipped through, and placed a stone at the foot as she had done with the inner gate, and watched for the effect. As she had hoped when the spring was pulled again by the lodgekeeper from within, the gate swung to, but remained open a couple of inches. Satisfied, the young girl went on her way.
She crossed the churchyard, not without certain nervous and superstitious terrors, for some of which her convent training was perhaps responsible: and passing by the shapeless church with its squat stone tower, and the seat underneath where the old fishermen would sit and smoke their pipes and tell their yarns, with one eye on the listener, and one on their old love, the sea, she came to the steep flight of worn stone steps that led down into the town.
The moon was in her second quarter, and the light she gave was bright enough for Freda to see the silver river below, for the tide was high. Here and there the weak little town-lights twinkled, but they were so far between that they did not save Freda from a feeling that she was plunging into an abyss of blackness and horror, as she found herself in the steep, stone-paved street at the bottom of the steps. She had been told where the Vicarage was, knew that she must turn to the left, and go down Church Street until she came to it. But the sound of her footsteps and her crutch on the rough stones of the narrow street frightened her. The little irregular, old-fashioned shops, with their overhanging eaves and tiny windows, seemed to the scared girl to have a threatening aspect; she fancied every moment that one of the desperate characters with whom her imagination peopled them was lying in wait for her at the entrance of one of the squalid courts which ran between the houses. Past the tiny market-place she ran, with a frightened glance at the pillars which supported a pretentious town-hall about the size of a large beehive. But no one was in hiding among them; and she reached the Vicarage without even meeting a drunken fisherman finishing his evening’s enjoyment by a nap on a friend’s doorstep.
Her ring at the bell brought Mrs. Staynes to an upper window, and a few words of entreaty brought her to the front door. The sight of Miss Mulgrave without hat or cloak at three o’clock in the morning filled her with shocked amazement; but when Freda implored her to come with her at once to help to nurse a sick man, a stranger, who had been wounded on the scaur that night in some not very clearly explained manner, the good little woman at once agreed to come, and retreated to get ready. Her toilette being always of the simplest, she soon reappeared, tying on her rusty mushroom hat and clasping round her neck a circular cloak, the rabbit-skin lining of which had been so well worn that there was only enough of the fur left to come off on the garments it touched. But to Freda’s eyes, who saw in her coming safety for John Thurley, no princess’s court dress ever looked more pleasing than the ragged garments of the Vicar’s old wife, as she stepped cheerfully out in the raw April morning, first insisting on tying up the young girl’s head and shoulders in her garden shawl.
“You have sent for a doctor, my dear, of course?” she said.
“No,” said Freda. “Mrs. Bean says it’s nursing and watching he wants. So I thought of you. I knew you were good to the sick. Everybody says so.”
“Everybody” only did the odd little woman justice. Tied to a selfish husband for whom she thought it an honour to slave, she had learned to look upon herself as born to drudge for his comfort and glory; and feeling that whatever she did as the Vicar’s wife redounded to the Vicar’s credit, she was a devoted nurse and visitor to the sick, at the disposal of anybody in the parish. She received Freda’s thanks almost apologetically.
“It is a luxury to do good,” she said.
And although her tone was dogmatic and “preaching,” she meant what she said.
Nowhere could Freda have found a person better able to get her out of her difficulty. Even Mrs. Bean gave a sigh of relief, after the first moment of dismay at this unexpected intrusion of a stranger, on finding the burden of her responsibility thus suddenly lightened. Crispin would never dare do further harm to John Thurley while this “outsider” was about. The very personality of the quiet, chirpingly cheerful middle-aged woman, with her conversation largely made up of texts and quotations from the book of Common Prayer, her placid commonplaces, and her prosaic disbelief in any occurrence out of the common was healing and healthful to these two women who had been living under a volcano of crime and dread. When John Thurley raved in her presence of smuggling and murder, the little lady placidly ascribed his utterances to the effects of injudicious reading; when she heard a mysterious noise in the night which the other watchers knew too well how to account for, no arguments would have been strong enough to shake her conviction that it was caused by rats behind the wainscotting.
She brought in her train another safeguard for the sick man; the Reverend Berkeley, who missed his wife’s ministrations on the one hand, but was delighted at the opportunity of rummaging in the old house on the other, was constant in his visits; so that under this pastoral surveillance no bodily harm to the sick man could be attempted; and Crispin, who, to Freda’s horror, still lurked about the house, dared not show his face except to his wife.
John Thurley recovered rapidly; Mrs. Staynes soon gave up her watching for occasional visits, and indeed there seemed no reason why he should not go about his business. He must have been dull too, one would have thought; for Freda, when he came downstairs, avoided him as much as possible, dreading the fatal knowledge he possessed. She had never, since that eventful night on the scaur, been able to meet her father again, to warn him to keep out of the way of his danger. Every night now she hid herself in the secret portion of the house, watching and waiting for him. But he never came. Every day she would go out to the cliff’s edge, looking out for the yacht; and then she would roam about the Abbey ruins, and listen at the door of the tower in the north transept, hoping to hear his voice or his tread. It was all in vain.
At last one day, when Thurley had been downstairs nearly a week, he met her flying through one of the passages, and asked if she would speak with him.
“I will only keep you a few minutes,” he said humbly, apologetically. “I am going away. I must go away.”
Freda began to tremble. She dreaded some revelation about her father, and felt that she must have a little while to prepare herself for what she might have to hear, and for the entreaties she must make.
“I—I have got to go and help Mrs. Bean now,” she said in a frightened voice. “Won’t it do this afternoon? I mean——”
She blushed and stammered, afraid that she seemed rude; but John Thurley answered at once eagerly:
“This afternoon will do perfectly.”
Freda spent the intervening hours partly in prayer, partly in trying to devise entreaties which would move him to spare her father. In order to put off the evil hour of the interview, she roamed about the ruined church, supposing that Thurley was where he usually spent his time, in the library. Habit took her to the transept tower. She had not, this time, her usual thought of trying to meet her father; it was through custom, rather than by intention, that she leaned against the wooden door. To her surprise, it gave way, and she only just missed falling on her back. She forgot all about John Thurley in her excitement. This was only the second time she had found the door open, and she was convinced that there must be some one about. She listened at the opening, first of the one underground passage and then of the other, but could hear no sound in either. Should she dare to go down into the one which led to the cliff?
While she was hesitating, she was startled by a faint noise from outside the tower. It was like the falling of stones. At the same moment there was a sound of footsteps in the passage beneath her feet. She had to make up her mind quickly what she should do; and deciding that it would be less dangerous to meet an enemy outside the tower than in, if the new-comer should prove an enemy, she passed quickly into the church, and came face to face with John Thurley.
Her cheeks blanched, and she stood before him without a word to say. He, on his side, struck by the terror on her face, muttered an apology, and was turning to retreat, when a footstep in the tower caused him to stop. Freda recognised the tread, and a low cry escaped her.
“Go, go,” she entreated in a hoarse voice. “Why do you stay when I beg you, implore you to go?”
John Thurley hesitated. But that moment’s delay was too long. For the door of the tower was pulled roughly open, and Captain Mulgrave, who had heard his daughter’s pleading appeared, bristling with anger, as her champion.
“Who is this annoying you?” he asked fiercely.
But Freda drew a long breath and said nothing. For the men had caught sight of each other, had exchanged a long, steady look. It was impossible to doubt that it was a recognition.
Captain Mulgrave did not repeat his question, asked for no further explanation. With a stare of quiet defiance he took a great key from his pocket, locked the door in the tower, and whistling to himself with a splendid affectation of unconcern, walked past his daughter and Thurley, and made his way over the fields towards the side-gate of Sea-Mew Abbey.
Fredawatched her father’s retreating figure for some moments, without daring to look at John Thurley’s face. When at last she found the courage to throw a shy, frightened glance in his direction, she saw on his countenance an expression of deep pain and surprise as he gazed steadily at Captain Mulgrave.
“It is—my father,” she faltered out, in pleading tones, while her great brown eyes were full of entreaty.
“I know, I know,” he answered hastily, without looking at her.
And he began to pace up and down the choir, with his eyes on the long rough grass at his feet, and his hands behind his back. Freda felt the very faint hope she had entertained of moving him by her entreaties melt utterly away as she watched him. The whole face of the man—the steadfast eyes, square jaw, resolute mouth—all indicated strength of purpose, and a will difficult to turn. The trouble and anxiety which now clouded his face gave it no gentler character, but rather added sternness. After considering him in silence for a few minutes, during which he seemed intent on his own thoughts even to forgetfulness of her presence, she stole away down the nave, and getting through the window to the north side of the church, crossed the meadow towards the road.
As she approached the wall which separated the meadow from the road, Freda was startled by a man who sprang up suddenly on the other side. Already unstrung by the events of the preceding twenty minutes, she could scarcely repress a cry of alarm. The man, who had evidently expected some one else, touched his hat and said:
“Beg pardon, miss. Sorry if I frightened you. I was expecting to meet a friend here by appointment. I am afraid I startled you.”
Freda wondered who he was. Already she knew enough of the Yorkshire types and the Yorkshire accent to be sure that he was not a native of this part of the country; and there was a sort of trimness and smartness about him in spite of the rough suit of clothes he wore, and a precision in his manner, which made her think he was some sort of official. She wondered whether it was John Thurley he was waiting for, and if so, what his business with him was.
Going back to the ruins, she had got into the shadow of the east end when she again came face to face with Thurley. The expression of his countenance had changed; instead of the frown of anxiety he had worn a few minutes before, care of another kind, far less stern, but scarcely less disquieting to the young girl, was stamped upon his somewhat rough features. Yet she could not have explained the feeling which caused her to start and blush, and to hope that he would let her pass without speaking.
But that was far from being his intention. He started forward at sight of her, and his face flushed.
“Ah, I was looking for you; I have something to say to you.”
He turned to walk beside her, but went a few paces without saying anything further. When they reached the angle of the ruin he stopped and, looking down upon her rather shyly, said abruptly:
“Give me your arm. We are friends enough for that, aren’t we?”
Freda shyly complied, and they turned and walked back under the shadow of the eastern wall of the ancient church.
“You are not afraid of me, are you?”
“No-o.”
“No-o! Why No-o? You arenotafraid of me, you know you are not. Then why, lately, have you always avoided me?”
There was a long silence. Then Freda said, in a weak little voice:
“I expect you know.”
“You think I know too much about—about certain very disagreeable occurrences?”
The girl answered by a long sob of terror. He patted her arm kindly:
“Come, come, my knowledge shall never hurtyou, little one. That is what I wanted to tell you. At least, it’s part of it.” Another pause. “Don’t you want to hear the rest?”
“No, I don’t think I do.”
“But you must. First, I want to tell you that I know who saved my life and had me brought to the Abbey that night when I was attacked by those ruffians——”
“Ruffians!” Freda turned upon him quickly. “There was only one. My father wasn’t——”
She stopped, and drew a deep breath.
“I know, I know,” said Thurley.
“It was he who ordered that you were to be brought here—to the house.”
“I know all about that,” said he quietly.
By his tone Freda knew that he must have heard more than at the time had seemed possible.
“And I know who nursed me——”
“Mrs. Staynes.”
“And who watched over me——”
“Mrs. Bean.”
“And took care that I should come to no harm, although she knew all the time that it would be better for those she cared about if I did come to harm.” Freda tried to protest, but he silenced her peremptorily. “And the little girl does care for those who belong to her, no matter how she has been treated by them. But now,” he continued in a different tone, “I want you to forget all that for the present, though I never can. I want you to think of the day when I first met you, a poor, tired, cold, hungry little girl; and to remember how you gave me your confidence, and chattered to me, and told me I was very kind.”
“And so you were,” cried Freda eagerly.
“Ah, but I had a motive: I had fallen in love with you.”
Freda wriggled her arm out of his, and looked up at him in astonishment. Indeed John Thurley’s tone was so robust, matter-of-fact, and dogmatic that this statement was the last she had expected.
“In love with me! Oh!”
And she began to laugh timidly.
“But this is no laughing matter—to me at least,” said John Thurley, in a tone more earnest still, and less matter-of-fact. “I tell you I fell in love with you. I suppose you know what that means?”
“Not very well,” Freda admitted.
This answer seemed rather to take him aback.
“Why,” said he, looking out to sea and frowning with perplexity, “I thought all girls knew that.”
“Idon’t,” said Freda shaking her head. “I don’t understand it at all. It seems ridiculous to like a person very much, fall in love as you call it, when you have only seen that person once, and can’t be sure at all what that person is really like.”
“Perhaps one can be surer than you think. At any rate I felt sure enough about you to make up my mind at once that you were the girl I should like to make my wife.”
“Wife!” echoed Freda in astonishment and even horror, “me! a cripple!”
“Yes,you, just as you are, little crutch and all. Now, child, will you have me? You don’t love me yet, but you will very soon, for I love you deeply, and you are loving. You trust me, I know, although you have avoided me lately. There is trouble coming upon this part of the world, and I will take you away from it, and keep you safe for all your life. Won’t you let me?”
But Freda grew white and began to tremble. Before she could attempt any answer, however, he broke in again.
“I tell you you are not safe here; this place is infested with desperate characters, who have access to the house by all sorts of secret ways. Only this morning, as I was sitting in the library, a man suddenly appeared before me, who seemed to spring out of the wall itself.”
In an instant Freda became flushed and full of passionate interest.
“What was he like?” she asked breathlessly.
“He was a young man, with a thin, wolfish face, with light eyes I think; dressed in an old brown shooting jacket. He looked half starved.”
The girl’s face quivered with distress, and the tears sprang to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
“Half starved!” she repeated in a heartbroken voice. “Oh, Dick!”
John Thurley stared at her in attentive silence for a few moments. Then he said drily:
“You are sure you don’t know what falling in love is?”
Freda blushed, and began to dry her eyes.
“I know what it is,” she answered meekly, “to be sorry for a starving man.”
“And you haven’t a word for the man who is starving for the love of you?”
There was some passion in his voice now. Freda’s breath came quickly; she bent her head in deep thought, and presently raised it to show a face full of excitement, doubt, and entreaty.
“Do you love me enough to do something for my sake? something great, something difficult?”
John Thurley was a practical man, who liked to keep fact and sentiment well apart. A shade of caution came into his tone at once.
“Well, what is it? Let us hear.”
“Will you promise”—her voice trembled with passionate eagerness, “not to make any inquiries, not to give any information, about the murder of the man Blewitt?”
She hissed out the last words below her breath.
But John Thurley shook his head at once and decidedly.
“I couldn’t allow sentiment to interfere with my duty even for you, my dear,” he said in a tone which precluded all hope of his softening. “Besides,” he continued decisively, “as a matter-of-fact, I gave all the information I had to the police long since.”
Without uttering another word or giving him time for one, Freda fled away as if she had been struck. Running round the angle of the wall, and under one of the clustered arches at the south side of the choir, she stumbled, not seeing where she trod, against a heap of grass-grown masonry, and fell to the ground.
Before she could rise, she heard the voice of the man who had frightened her by jumping up behind the wall of the meadow.
“Beg pardon, Mr. Thurley,” said the voice, “but I’ve come to tell you it’s all right. We’ve followed up the clue you sent, and I’ve been sent down here to make the arrest. By to-morrow we shall have John Blewitt’s murderer safe in quod.”
WhenFreda overheard the words which told her the police were on the track of the murderer, she did not lose a moment in making her way back to the Abbey. Mrs. Bean opened the inner gate, as usual, and was alarmed by the look on the girl’s face.
“Why, what’s come to you, child?” she said. “Where have you been? Has anybody frightened you again?”
“No,” said Freda hoarsely. Then, bending forward, she whispered: “My father—have you seen him?”
“Sh-sh!” said Nell, sharply. “Go into the dining-room.”
Freda thought there was a look of anxiety upon the housekeeper’s face, but as it was always useless to try to force Nell’s confidence, she hurried past her into the dining-room without a word. No one was in the room, however. She was on the point of going back to Mrs. Bean when the corner of a note, which had been thrust under the clock, caught her eye. She pulled it out, and found that it was directed, in her father’s handwriting, to “Freda.” She opened it eagerly but not without fear. The note was very short:
“My dearest Child,—I am away for a little while, you can perhaps guess why. As long as I am out of reach, this Thurley (who is, I believe, an honourable man) can do nothing. You need not be anxious on my account, little one. When I can, I shall come back, and carry you straight back to the convent. I ought never to have brought you away, it is the right place for a little saint. I wish I could have been a better father to you, but it is too late. ‘The tree has ta’en the bend.’ Good-bye, child.“Your affectionate,“Father.”
“My dearest Child,—I am away for a little while, you can perhaps guess why. As long as I am out of reach, this Thurley (who is, I believe, an honourable man) can do nothing. You need not be anxious on my account, little one. When I can, I shall come back, and carry you straight back to the convent. I ought never to have brought you away, it is the right place for a little saint. I wish I could have been a better father to you, but it is too late. ‘The tree has ta’en the bend.’ Good-bye, child.
“Your affectionate,
“Father.”
Freda sobbed over this; she was surprised to find, among the mingled emotions which the note roused in her, a strong feeling of reluctance to the idea of going back to the convent. The excitement of the strange life she had led since leaving it had spoilt her for the old, calm, passionless existence. What! Never again to leave the shade of those quiet walls? Never to wander, as she now loved to do, about the ruined church of Saint Hilda, whose roofless walls, with their choir of wailing sea-birds, had grown to her ten times more sacred than the little convent-chapel? Never to see her father? Never to see—Dick?
At this thought she broke down, and resting her head upon her hands, let the tears come. And poor Dick had looked half-starved, so John Thurley said! There began to steal into her heart a consciousness that,ifthings had been different, as it were, andifshe had not been brought up in, and for, a convent, as one might say, she too might perhaps, to use John Thurley’s words, “have known what falling in love was.”
She was startled, in the midst of her tears, by the sound of John Thurley’s voice in the hall, outside. He was talking to Nell, asking “the way to Oldcastle Farm.” Freda sprang up in alarm. What if the farm were her father’s hiding-place? It was the probable, the most horrible explanation. The man who had spoken to Thurley that morning was certainly a member of the London police force, and he had said that he was on the murderer’s track. It might be, then, that he had got wind of the fact that the farm was to be Captain Mulgrave’s hiding-place. If not, what did Mr. Thurley want there?
It took Freda only a few minutes, when these thoughts had occurred to her, to make up her mind what she should do. She waited until, by the more distant sound of their voices, she knew that Thurley and Mrs. Bean had retreated into the passage leading to the precincts of the latter; and then ran upstairs to her own room, dressed hastily for walking, and crept out of the house without being seen by any one.
It was Saturday, and market-day at Presterby. Barnabas Ugthorpe would be at market; and Freda, in her short acquaintance with him, had gained enough insight into that gentleman’s tastes and habits to be sure that, instead of making the best of his way home as soon as the business of the day was done, he would at this moment be enjoying himself at the “The Blue Cow,” or “The Green Man,” or one or other of the small hostelries which abutted on the market-place. So it was in this direction that she turned her steps, flitting among the old grave-stones and hopping down the hundred and ninety-eight worn steps, until she reached Church Street.
It was six o’clock, and the streets swarmed with a noisy rabble. Crowds of children, as usual, played about the steps; riotous fisher-lads, in parties of half-a-dozen or so, streamed into the streets from the Agalyth, a row of tumble-down houses, much out of the perpendicular, that nestled right under the cliff, and some of which fell down, from time to time, into the sea. Knots of women stood gossiping at the doors; girls, in preposterous “best” hats, flaunted down the street in twos and threes. Poor Freda, with her crutch and her quaint dress, was laughed at as she sped along, her progress from time to time impeded by the crowd. At last she reached the little market-place, where business was long since over, but where women were still busy packing up their baskets, and groups of men stood about, discussing the news of the day. At the lower end a line of primitive-looking carts and gigs stretched from one side of the market-place to the other, and straggled into the narrow side-street. From a nest of little beetle-browed and dingy taverns came a noise of mingled merriment, wrangling and loud talking; it was in these unprepossessing quarters she must look for her friend, Freda knew.