The hunt was not a pleasant task. She had to stand some rude “chaff” from the sailor lads, as she stood about the doors peeping in when she could. She was, however, so very simple-minded and unsophisticated, that she bore this ordeal better than an ordinary girl could have done. And then, too, her mind was so steadfastly fixed on its object that many remarks intended for her failed to reach her understanding. She had convinced herself that Barnabas was not in either of the three taverns on the right hand side, and was beginning to despond, when she recognised, among the horseless carts, the one in which the farmer had brought her to the Abbey. Her spirits went up again, and with brisker steps she continued her search. Down into the little side-street she went boldly, and at last with a heart-leap of triumph she ran the farmer to earth.
It was in a narrow slip of an inn that Freda, peeping in at the door, spied the burly Barnabas laying down the law at the bar in a way that he never dared do at home. Indeed, the girl had recognised his voice some yards away. Without the least hesitation, she lifted up her voice, without entering, causing all the guests to look round.
“Barnabas!” was all she said.
The farmer turned as if he had been shot.
“The Lord bless my soul!” he ejaculated. “It’s t’ little missie!”
“Come,” she cried peremptorily, “come at once.”
He obeyed as unhesitatingly as if he had received a mandate from the queen. Leaving his glass of ale untasted on the counter, he followed the girl down the street; for without waiting she led the way straight to where his cart stood.
“Get your horse, Barnabas,” she said as soon as he came up, “you must drive me to Oldcastle Farm.”
“But——” began the bewildered farmer.
She would not let him speak, but stamped her crutch impatiently on the stones. Barnabas was as weak as water with any one who had a will; whistling to himself as if to prove that he was carrying out his own intentions instead of somebody else’s, he went straight to the place where his horse was put up. Within ten minutes the cart was jogging down slowly through the crowded street, with Barnabas and Freda side by side on the seat, the farmer shouting to the crowd to keep out of the way.
For a long way they did not exchange a word. As they proceeded down the stone-paved street the throng grew less and less, until, when they got to that point where the houses on the one side give place to the river, they passed only an occasional foot-farer. They were now on the outskirts of Presterby. The lights from the other side twinkled on the water; the distant sounds of the town, and the voices of men calling to each other from the barges, came faintly to their ears. Then for the first time Barnabas, drawing a deep breath, looked down at his companion.
“Eh, but ye’re a high-honded lass. What’s takin’ ye to t’ farm?”
“Never mind what’s taking me. I have something to say toyou,” said Freda with decision. “Barnabas, you know you didn’t keep that secret!”
“What secret?” said he uneasily.
Freda lowered her voice.
“About the dead man, and—the person you found beside him.”
Barnabas shuffled his feet.
“Ah doan’t knaw as Ah’ve said a word——”
“Oh, yes, you have. You haven’t meant to, perhaps, but you’ve let out a word here, and a hint there, until——”
Freda stopped. Her voice was breaking.
“Weel, Ah’m downright sorry if Ah have. Mebbe Ah have let aht a word that somebody’s picked oop, and—and—weel, Ah hope no harm’s coom of it.”
“There’s only this harm come of it,” answered the girl bitterly, “that you have perhaps put the police on the track of—of——”
“A dead mon. Weel, and where’s t’ harm of that?”
Freda was silent. She had forgotten her father’s pretended death.
“Mind ye, missie, there’s no good of being too sentimental, and, asking your pardon, t’ Capt’n’s reputation was none so good, setting aside that little business. So, as Ah said, there’s small harm done. And now mebbe you’ll tell me what’s taking you to Owdcastle Farm. There’s ne’er a pleace Ah wouldn’t sooner be droiving ye to.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s bad teales towd of it; an’ there’s bad characters that goes there.”
“Oh, Barnabas, I’m getting used to bad characters. I mean——”
She stopped. The farmer scratched his ear.
“Weel, but it’s t’ bad characters that are fahnd aht that’s t’ worst. T’ other sort, that keeps dark, aren’t near so degreading. An’, by what Ah’ve been told, Ah reckon there’s some that’s fahnd aht at Owdcastle Farm.”
Not a word of explanation of this dark hint could Freda get from him. With Yorkshire obstinacy he shut up his mouth on that one subject, and, although she plied him with entreaties, all that he would add on the subject was:
“Weel, now, ye’re warned. Folks that tek’ oop wi’ dangerous characters must be prepared to tek’ t’ consequences.”
After this speech, Freda fell into frightened silence; and for the rest of the journey there was little conversation between them.
Fromtime to time, when they got into the open country, Freda was alarmed by the sight of another cart some distance behind them on the road. For long tracts the hedges, the winds in the road, the hills and vales, hid it from her sight, but again and again it would reappear, filling her with misgivings.
“Barnabas,” she said at last, when the farmer asked what it was she was turning round to look at so constantly, “there’s another cart following us; I am sure of it. Who do you think it is?”
“Fred Barlow, moast loike,” answered he, with a glance back. “He’s generally home early, an’ he lives only two moile aweay from wheer Ah do.”
And there was silence again.
But Freda was not satisfied; however long it might be before it reappeared, that cart was sure to come in sight again, and as for Fred Barlow, he would surely come in a little vehicle the size of the one she was driving in, not in a big, lumbering conveyance like that! Before Barnabas turned up the lane that led to the farm, though, the big cart had been lost sight of for so long that the girl’s fears had calmed a little, and by the time they drew up at the front door, she had forgotten everything but Dick, and the object of her journey.
Barnabas got down and pulled the bell, but no one answered. He pulled it a second time, and came back to speak to Freda.
“Toimes are changed here,” he said, with a sagacious nod. “Ye woan’t find a merry welcome and troops of servants to weait on ye this toime.”
As nobody had yet come to the door, he gave it a kick with his hob-nailed boots, and called out lustily:
“Here, here! Is noabody cooming to open this door? Here’s a leady weating, an’ aht of respect to t’ sex, Ah’ll burst t’ door in if soombody doan’t open it!”
This frank-spoken summons succeeded. The door opened at once and Dick looked out. But was it Dick, this haggard, cavernous-eyed creature with his clothes hanging loosely upon him? He looked like a hunted criminal, and Freda felt a great shock as she noted the change.
“What do you want?” asked he shortly.
“Ask t’ leady,” said Barnabas in the same tone.
Dick started when he caught sight of the girl.
“You!Miss Mulgrave!”
She held out her hands.
“Help me down, please,” she said in a husky voice, “I want to speak to you. Let me come inside.”
“Are you coming too?” said Dick, not very graciously, to Ugthorpe, as he helped Freda down.
“No, no, don’t you come, Barnabas,” said the girl quickly, turning to the farmer. “I want to speak to Dick by himself. You wait for me.”
Barnabas, laughed with some constraint.
“Ah doan’t knaw what Ah’m to seay to that.”
“Why, do as she wishes. She shan’t come to any harm, Ugthorpe,” said Dick with a break in his voice.
But the farmer still hesitated.
“Ah’m not afreaid of you, Mr. Richard. But—who have ye gotten abaht t’ pleace?”
Dick flushed as he answered quickly: “Nobody who can or will do any harm to Miss Mulgrave.”
This answer, while it reassured Barnabas, alarmed Freda. For it seemed to confirm her fears that it was her father who was in hiding about the farm.
“Yes, Barnabas, let me go,” she urged, touching his arm in entreaty.
“Well, Ah give ye ten minutes, an’ ye must leave t’ door open, and when toime ’s oop, Ah shall fetch ye.”
“Thank you, thank you, good, dear Barnabas,” said she.
But he began instantly to scoff.
“Oh, yes, we’re angels while we let ye have your own weay, an’ devils if we cross ye. Ye’re not t’ first woman Ah’ve hed to deal with, missie,” he grumbled.
But Freda did not heed him. She was walking very demurely down the unlighted passage with Dick, saying never a word now she had got her own way, and keeping close to the wall as if afraid of her companion. He felt bound to try to make conversation.
“I’m afraid you’ll find a great change in the place since my aunt left, Miss Mulgrave. This is only a bachelor’s den now, and you know a man with no ladies to look after him is not famous for his orderliness, and in fact—I’m hardly settled here yet you know.”
They were passing through the passage, at right angles with the entrance-hall, which ran alongside the servants’ quarters. No sounds of merry talk and laughter now, no glimpses of a roaring fire through the half-open kitchen door. Nothing but cold and damp, and a smell as of rooms long shut-up to which the fresh air never came. Freda shivered, but it was not with cold; it was with horror of the gloom and loneliness of the place. Poor Dick! They passed into the huge ante-room; it was entirely unlighted, and Dick turned to offer her his hand.
“You will hurt yourself, against the—walls. There is nothing else for you to hurt yourself against,” he added rather bitterly.
She gave him her hand; it was trembling.
“You are not frightened, are you? If you knew what it is to me to touch a kind hand again, and—and yours——”
He stopped short, putting such a strong constraint upon himself that Freda felt he was trembling from head to foot.
“Don’t, don’t,” she whispered.
Dick made haste to laugh, as if at a joke. But it was a poor attempt at merriment and woke hoarse echoes in the old rafters. They had reached the door of the banqueting-hall.
“You must be prepared for an awfully great change here,” he said, with assumed cheerfulness. “My aunt wanted the furniture of this room; of course she didn’t think I should use such a big place all by myself. But I’ve got used to it, so I stick to it in its bareness. You won’t mind my showing you in here; the fact is the—the—drawing-room’s locked up.”
“No-o,” quavered Freda, who knew that all the furniture of the farm had been seized and sold either before or immediately after Mrs. Heritage’s departure, “not at all. In fact I would rather.”
“I don’t know about that,” rejoined Dick dubiously as he opened the door.
All this had not prepared the girl for the desolate sight which met her eyes. The great hall, which had looked so handsome with its rugs, its old oak furniture and tapestry hangings, was barer than a prison ward. A vast expanse of floor, once brightly polished, now scratched and dirty; rough, bare walls with nothing to hide their nakedness, formed a picture so dreary that she uttered a low cry. In the huge fireplace a small wood fire burned low; an old retriever, crippled with age and rheumatism, wagged his tail feebly without rising at his master’s approach, and gave a feeble growl for the stranger. A kitchen chair, with some of the rails missing; a small deal table; an arrangement of boxes against the wall covered by a man’s ulster; these formed all the furniture of the huge room. Freda stopped short when she had advanced a few steps; and burst into tears. Dick affected to laugh boisterously.
“I didn’t reckon on the effect these rough diggings would have on a lady,” he said, in a tone of forced liveliness which did not deceive his guest. “Why, this is a palace to some of the places I’ve stayed in when in the Highlands. A man doesn’t want many luxuries when he’s alone. But I suppose it shocks you.”
“Ye-es, it does,” sobbed Freda.
“Come and take a chair. I’m sorry there isn’t much choice; I’ve ordered a couple of those wicker ones with cushions, but they haven’t come yet. I’ll sit upon the sofa.”
But Freda knew that the pile of boxes on which he seated himself, carelessly nursing his knee, was his bed. She had regained command of herself, however, so she took his only chair, and looked steadily into the fire. Dick sprang up again immediately, and affected to look about him with much eagerness.
“What an idiot I am!” he exclaimed. “I believe I’ve forgotten to bring in any candles; I know I was out of them last night.”
Freda said nothing, but sat very still. The tears were silently rolling down her cheeks again. She waited while he rummaged in the table drawer, and opened the door by the fireplace, as if in search. Then quick as lightning, while his back was turned, she whipped out from under her long cloak a large neat brown paper parcel, unrolled it, and took out two candles, which she proceeded to fix on the table by the primitive schoolgirl fashion of melting the ends at the fire. Then she took out of the parcel a box of matches, and lit the candles. In the meantime Dick had returned from his fruitless errand, and was watching her helplessly from the other side of the table. When she had finished, Freda dared not look at him, but tried furtively to draw towards her the tell-tale parcel, out of which several small packages had rolled. But at last she made a bold dash, and with a shaking voice said:
“I know better than you think what a man is, left to himself. I know—you’ve forgotten—to get in—any supper.”
By the time she reached the last words, her voice had dropped to a guttural whisper. But she was so much excited that it was quite easy for her to laugh long and naturally, as she opened, one after another, a series of little packages, and spread them out before his eyes.
“There’s butter and bacon, and a piece of cold beef, and tea, and sugar, and even bread!” she ended in a shrill scream, with her breath coming and going in quick sobs.
For, glancing up, she had caught on Dick’s face, which looked more haggard than ever in the candle light, the terrible look of hunger, real, famishing hunger. She looked down again quickly at her provisions.
“Aha!” she cried in a quavering voice, “Iknow how to take care of myself!Iwasn’t going to trust myself to the tender mercies of a man!”
Dick said nothing, but she talked on with scarcely a pause.
“You’ve got some plates, I suppose, and one knife and fork at least. Go and fetch them. Make haste, make haste!”
And she rattled her crutch upon the floor. The old dog was hungry too; he came sniffing and barking about her, as if he knew that she had brought help to him and his master. Dick had some plates and knives and forks, and a broken teapot. These Freda arranged upon the table with nimble, graceful fingers. For the moment, moved by the unguessed extremities to which her host was reduced, she had forgotten that the chief object of her visit was one of warning.
She was recalled to the truth in a startling manner. A handful of earth and stones was flung up at one of the lofty windows by some one in the court-yard. Freda sprang forward with a cry, her worst fears confirmed; as Dick turned hastily from the table, she clung to his arm and tried to speak. But at first words refused to come.
WhenFreda recovered her voice, Dick had broken away from her restraining touch, and was moving, in a hesitating sort of way, towards the door.
“Dick?” cried the girl in a frightened whisper, “Listen! I had forgotten why I came. There are men coming here, perhaps to-night, policemen from London, I think. Is—he—safe?”
Dick started, and began to tremble violently.
“Great Heavens!” he said in a hoarse voice, “how didyouknow? How didyouhear? Is it known all over the place?”
“I don’t know,” said Freda sadly, “but I don’t think it is. Barnabas didn’t seem to know anything about it.”
He stood still for a moment, considering.
“Men coming here, you say! You are sure of that?”
“I am not sure that they are coming to-night, but they will come sooner or later. One said they knew where he was, and the other asked the way to Oldcastle Farm.”
Dick turned to her quickly and decisively.
“Do you mind if I leave you here alone for a little while?”
“No-o, but won’t you let me come too? Oh, do let me!”
“I can’t. It would only alarm him the more. You stay here, and if you hear any one at the front door, don’t take any notice, but come across the yard as softly as you can; and if you see a light shining through a grating close to the ground on the other side, throw a stone through, but don’t cry out.”
“Very well,” said Freda.
As Dick turned again to go, the provisions laid out on the table caught his eye. With a hotly flushing face, he took up the bread and cutting off a piece, said, with an awkward laugh:
“We may as well give him some supper, don’t you think so?”
Without a word, Freda loaded him with meat, bread and butter.
“The tea isn’t ready yet,” she whispered. “I’ll make it, and you can come back for that.”
He nodded and went off, not without trying to utter some husky thanks, which the girl would not hear. He had one of her candles and a box of matches in his pocket. Left alone in the great bare room, poor Freda felt all the womanish fears which the need of active exertion had kept off for so long. Terror on her father’s account, grief for poor starving Dick; above all, an awestruck fear that God would not forgive such black crimes as some of those laid to their account, caused the bitter tears to roll down her cheeks, while her lips moved in simple-hearted prayer for them.
Presently the old dog, whom she had been feeding, pricked up his ears and growled ominously. She sprang to her feet, but at first heard nothing. Crossing the floor quickly and lightly, she opened the door and listened. Somebody at the front of the house was knocking. The summons, however, was neither loud nor imperative, and she crept through the passages, fancying that it might perhaps be only Barnabas Ugthorpe who had come back for her. Creeping into the deserted kitchen, she peeped through the dusty panes of the window, which was heavily barred. She could just see the outline of a large hooded cart, and a couple of men standing beside it. At once she knew it was the cart which had followed Barnabas Ugthorpe’s.
Retreating from the window as noiselessly as she had come while the intermittent knocking at the front door went on a little louder than before, she returned through the passage and slipped into the court-yard. She knew where to look for the grating of which Dick had spoken, having noticed it in the course of her investigations on the occasion of her previous visit. It consisted of two iron bars placed perpendicularly across a small opening in the wall of the very oldest part of the building—the portion known as “the dungeons.” Freda crept to the grating and stooped down. Yes, there was a light inside. She took up a handful of earth and stones, as she had been told to do, and threw them in with a trembling hand.
Instantly the light was extinguished.
Freda stole away from the grating, afraid that if the front door were burst open and the police were to find her there, her presence might afford a clue to her father’s hiding-place. If she got on to the top of the old outer wall, she thought, she might watch the course of events without herself being seen. She had hardly reached this post of vantage when she heard a crash and a noise as of splintering wood, and a few moments later she saw the black figures of half a dozen men dispersed about the court-yard below. She was crouching down in the narrow path that ran along the ruinous old wall, and peeping over the fringe of dried grass and brambles which grew along the edge. Suddenly she felt a hand placed roughly over her mouth and eyes, so that she could neither see nor cry out. After the first moment, she did not attempt to do either, but remained quite still, not knowing in whose grasp she was. She heard the man breathing hard, felt that his hands trembled, and knew that he was in a paroxysm of physical terror. Was it her father himself? That thought would have kept her quiet, even if his rough clasp had been rougher still. As it was, the pressure of his hand caused her teeth to cut through her under-lip.
Crouching still in the same cramped attitude, and still gagged and blindfolded by the mysterious hand, she presently heard a stealthy footfall close behind, and then a whispered word or two.
“Let her go,” hissed Dick’s voice peremptorily.
The next moment Freda felt herself free, heard a soft thud on the earth below, and saw the figure of a man crouching close under the wall on the outer side.
“Oh, Dick, will he get safe away?” she whispered, breathing the word close to his ear.
“I don’t know,” answered Dick gloomily. “Sh! Keep quiet.”
But they had already been seen. In a very short time the men in the yard below had found their way up, and Freda and her companion found themselves flanked on either side by a stalwart policeman.
“Hallo!” cried a voice from the court-yard, which Freda recognised as Thurley’s, “have you got him?”
Dick said nothing, but Freda, moved by a sudden, overpowering impulse, threw her arms round his neck and cried aloud:
“No, no!”
Thurley spoke again, in a hard, altered voice.
“Bring them both down here,” he said sharply.
But Dick would not suffer a strange man’s hand to touch the girl.
“I will take her down,” he said quietly.
And, escorted by a policeman in front and another behind, they made their way down into the court-yard, and were conducted to John Thurley, who, with a police-officer in plain clothes, evidently took the lead in this expedition.
“What are you doing with that young lady?” asked Thurley harshly.
“That is no business of yours,” answered Dick. “By what authority have you forced your way into my house?”
Thurley was about to answer, but the police-officer with him spoke instead, in a conciliatory tone.
“You see, sir, we’ve got a search-warrant.”
And he produced a document at which Dick glanced hastily.
“Very well,” he said shortly. “But you won’t find any one here!”
“I hope not, sir,” said the man, touching his hat and stepping back.
Meanwhile Thurley, a good deal agitated by the discovery of Freda’s presence, was trying to persuade her to let him send her back to the Abbey at once. She refused simply but firmly; and turning her back upon him, went straight to Dick, who had withdrawn a little from the group. Thurley went up to him.
“If you have any of the feelings of a man,” he said, “which perhaps is not likely, you will persuade this young lady to go back to her friends.”
“I am with one of them now,” cried Freda, clinging to Dick’s arm.
“I think,” said Dick, whose deep voice was trembling, “that you had better go back to your manhunting, and not insult people who have done you no harm.”
“I have a right to interfere on behalf of this lady. I love her.”
“So do I,” said Dick in a low voice.
“You!”
“And Dick has more right to say so than you,” broke in Freda’s clear voice, shaking with feeling, “for I love him!”
Dick pressed her arm against his side, but he did not speak. Neither did John Thurley, but he reeled back a step, as if he had received a blow. Then, with a shrug of the shoulders which was meant to be contemptuous, but which was only crestfallen and disgusted, he turned away and left the young fellow with Freda, while he rejoined the search-party.
Neither Dick nor his companion spoke for some minutes. In all the misery of this strange situation, with the messengers of the law hunting high and low around them for a man who had incurred the penalty of death, the new and strange delight each felt of touching a loving hand, deadened the anxiety and the pain. Each felt the intoxication of the knowledge that each was loved. Dick spoke first; he looked down into the girl’s face and said gently:
“I am afraid you are cold, dear.”
She shook her head.
“No, no, no,” she whispered, “if they hear you say that, they will take me away.”
He led her back into the house, and wished to place her in the one chair by the fireplace in the banqueting-hall. But she would not take it.
“Eat,” she whispered. “If they find you having your supper quietly they will be more likely to believe that there is no one here.”
This was undeniably a good suggestion; and Dick took advantage of it. But hungry as he was, having indeed been half-starved of late, he would have eaten little but for Freda’s insistence. She waited on him herself, cutting bread and butter, making the tea, hovering about like a good spirit. He, however, having hungered for more than bread during these solitary latter days, would have neglected the food before him to watch her tender eyes, to kiss her little hands. But whenever he turned from the table, he felt a peremptory touch on his shoulder, and heard a stamp of Freda’s crutch and her commanding voice saying:
“Eat, eat!”
So the minutes passed by, and their spirits began to rise. For, although they did not tell each other so in so many words, both felt that on this great happiness which was stealing upon them the shadow of a great misfortune could not come.
When he had finished his supper, Dick drew his one chair to the fireside, made Freda sit in it, and curled himself up on the ground at her feet.
“Isn’t it strange,” said the girl, “that they leave us alone so long? You don’t think they have gone away, do you?”
“No such luck, I’m afraid.”
“Hadn’t we better go out and see what they are doing?”
“Why should we leave off being happy any sooner then we need?”
“What do you mean, Dick? You don’t think they’ve—caught him?” whispered she in alarm.
“No, and I don’t think they will catch him. But when we leave this room we shall be just strangers for the rest of our lives.”
“But we shan’t! Oh, Dick, do you think I would ever treat you as a stranger?”
“You won’t be able to help yourself,” said he, looking up at her with a dreary smile. “You are so ridiculously ignorant of the world, little one, and you’ve been so neglected since you’ve been here that I don’t know how to explain the smallest thing to you without frightening you. But I assure you that after this escapade to-night you will never be allowed to go out by yourself again.”
“Escapade!”
“Yes. That is what you will hear your expedition called, and you will never be allowed to make another. Quite right too. If you had been left to run wild here, you would have been spoilt, and you would have begun to mix up right with wrong like the rest of us.”
“I don’t think so,” said Freda gently. “I should have been told the difference.”
“But who was there to tell you?”
“God would have told me.”
There was a pause, and then Dick said:
“You’re a Roman Catholic, aren’t you?”
“No, I was not allowed to be one.”
“Well, what are you then?”
Freda looked puzzled, and rather grieved.
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“If you’re religious, you must belong to some religion, you know.”
“Well, I’m a Christian. Isn’t that enough religion?”
“I’ve never met any sort of Christian who would admit that it was.”
Freda sighed.
“I am afraid mine is a religion all to myself then. But somehow,” and she lowered her voice reverently, “I don’t believe it makes any difference to God.”
“I don’t suppose it does,” said Dick gently. “I think,” he went on presently, “judging by its effect on you, I would rather have your religion than any other.”
“I wish you would, then,” she rejoined eagerly. “For then you could never do wrong things and think they were right.”
“How shall I begin?”
“Go to church.”
“What church?”
“It doesn’t matter. Sister Agnes used to say that in every church in the world there was some good spoken to those who wanted to hear it.”
“I wonder what good Sister Agnes would have heard from old Staynes?”
“Something, you may be sure. Or, how would his wife be such a noble woman?”
More pleased by her ingenuousness than convinced by her arguments, Dick promised that he would go to church, to the delight of Freda, who thought she had secured a great moral victory.
They had forgotten the police, who were searching the house; they had forgotten the jealous Thurley; when again the old dog, half opening his eyes, gave a low growl of warning. Dick jumped up and faced the door. There was no enemy, but Barnabas Ugthorpe, wearing a very grave and troubled face.
“What is it? Speak out, man,” cried Dick impatiently.
“Let me teake t’ little leady aweay first, mester.”
Dick staggered.
“They haven’t—caught him, Barnabas?”
“Ah’m afreaid so.”
Low as he spoke, Freda caught the words. Overcome with self-reproach for having momentarily forgotten her father’s danger, with misery at his unhappy plight, she tottered across the room towards the farmer, who, lifting her up in his arms as if she had been a child, carried her straight out of the room, to the front door of the farm-house.
Thecovered cart, in which the police had come, had now disappeared. Beside Barnabas Ugthorpe’s cart was a gig, with John Thurley standing at the horse’s head.
“This way,” said Thurley in a peremptory tone, as Barnabas was carrying the girl to his own cart, “I’m going back to the Abbey and can take Miss Mulgrave with me.”
Freda shuddered. The farmer said a soothing word in her ear, and without heeding Mr. Thurley’s directions, placed her on the seat on which she had come.
“If it’s t’ seame to you, sir, Ah’ll tak’ t’ leady mysen.”
“Pray, are you the young lady’s guardian?”
“Ah’ve as mooch reght to t’ neame as you, sir,” answered Barnabas surlily. And without waiting for further parley, the farmer got up in his seat and drove away.
Freda and her driver made their way back to the Abbey almost in silence. All that he would tell her about the capture of the murderer was that “t’ poor fellow was caught in a field at back o’ t’ house.”
Mrs. Bean was waiting at the lodge-gates for her, and Freda saw by the housekeeper’s white face that she had heard the result of the expedition.
“Oh, Mrs. Bean, it is too horrible; I can’t bear it!” sobbed the girl, throwing her arms round Nell’s neck.
But the housekeeper pushed her off with a “Sh!” and a frightened look round, and Freda saw that John Thurley was standing in the deep shadow under the gateway. With a sudden cry the girl stepped back, and would have run away to Barnabas, whose cart was just moving off, if Thurley had not started forward, led her within the gates with a strong but gentle hand, and closed them behind her. He would not let her go until they had reached the dining-room; then he apologised rather brusquely, and asked her to sit down.
“I can hear what you have to say standing,” she said in a low, breathless voice.
“Why are you so changed to me? Why did you run away from me just now?” asked Thurley, distressed and irritated. “It is by your invitation I am here; you have only to say you are tired of my presence, and late as it is I will go out and try to find some other lodging.”
The instincts of a gentlewoman were too strong in Freda for her not to be shocked at the idea of showing incivility to a guest, however ill he might have requited her hospitality. She overcame the abhorrence she felt at his conduct sufficiently to say:
“You are very welcome to stay here as long as you please, Mr. Thurley. If my conduct towards you has changed, I hope you will own that it was not without reason.”
“But I think it is,” said he stoutly. “It’s all to your interest that this nest of smugglers should be cleared out; and as for a certain cowardly criminal whom we have had to take up for something worse, why,youhave no reason, beyond your natural kindness of heart, to be sorry he has met his deserts.”
Without answering him, and with much dignity, Freda turned to leave the room. But the words he hastened to add arrested her attention.
“To-morrow I have to return to London. Now as there may be scenes in this place not fit for a lady to witness, in the course of breaking up this gang, I intend to take you away with me, and to put you under proper care.”
“Will you send me back to the convent?” asked Freda eagerly.
John Thurley, who had a strong dislike to “popery” frowned.
“No,” he said decidedly, “I can’t do that. But I will undertake to have you well cared for.”
Freda paused one moment at the door, looking very thoughtful.
“Thank you,” she then said simply, as, with her eyes on the floor, she turned the handle; “good-night!”
There was something in her manner which made John Thurley, inexperienced as he was in women’s ways, suspect that she meant to trick him. Therefore, from the moment she left her room on the following morning, she felt that she was watched. Mrs. Bean had evidently gone over to the enemy, being indeed convinced that John Thurley’s plan was a good and kind one. When Freda announced her intention of going to church, the housekeeper said she would go with her. Freda made no objection, though as Mrs. Bean never went to church, her intention was evident. Old Mrs. Staynes was delighted to see the girl, and thanked her for coming.
“Why,” said Freda in surprise, “I should have come long ago, only I didn’t know you, and I was afraid.”
“Two blessings in one day!” whispered the little woman ingenuously.
And she glanced towards one of the free pews, where Freda, with a throb of delight, saw Dick’s curly head bending over his hat.
Only once, throughout the entire service, did Freda dare to meet his eyes, although they were, as she knew, fixed upon her all the time. When she did so, she was so much shocked that the tears rushed into her eyes. Pale, haggard, deathly, he scarcely looked like a living man; while the great yearning that burned in his blue eyes seemed to pierce straight to her own heart. She had to bite her lips to keep back the cry that rose to them: “Dick, Dick!”
When the service was over, he disappeared before the rest of the congregation had moved from their seats. Poor Freda tottered as she went out, and had to lean for support on Mrs. Bean. She had forgotten that the story of her father’s crime and capture would be likely to be in every one’s mouth that morning; the whispering groups gathering in the churchyard suddenly woke her to this fact, and stung her to put forth all her strength to reach the Abbey quickly. John Thurley met her at the gates.
“You will have to make haste with your packing,” he said abruptly but not unkindly, “our train goes at four.”
“I will see to that,” said Nell.
Freda said nothing at all. She passed the other two, and went into the house, and appeared, in due time, quiet and composed, at the dinner-table.
When the meal was over, Thurley told her to go and put on her things. She rose obediently and left the room; but instead of going to her own apartment, she went to the library, and finding the secret door as she had left it, closed, but not locked, had little difficulty in opening it, and in securing it behind her. Now Thurley knew of this door, since he had seen Dick come through it; so to secure herself from pursuit in case he should guess where she had gone, Freda closed the trap-door at the head of the narrow staircase, and bolted it securely. Then, running down the second staircase, she locked herself into the room where her father had made himself known to her, and as a last precautionary measure, let herself down the rope ladder into the cellar beneath.
He must go to London without her now!
The triumphant thought had scarcely flashed through her mind when, with a start, she became aware that she was not alone. A man was creeping stealthily from the opposite side of the room towards her.
Fredawas by this time getting too much accustomed to the shifts and surprises of the smugglers’ haunt to be greatly alarmed by the discovery that she was not alone in the underground chamber. Besides, her indignation against Thurley gave her a fellow-feeling with even the most lawless of the men he had been sent to spy upon. So she cried out in a clear voice:
“It is I, Freda Mulgrave; I have come down here to escape being carried off to London by John Thurley. Who are you?”
The man raised to the level of his face a dark lantern, turning its rays full upon himself. The girl, in spite of the fact that she was prepared to keep her feelings well under control, gave a cry of joy.
It was her father.
Freda stretched out her arms to him, trembling, frightened, crying with misery and with joy.
“You have escaped!” she whispered. “Escaped! Oh, what can I do to help you? to save you?”
Captain Mulgrave laughed, but with a quiver in his voice, as he smoothed her bright hair.
“Calm down, child,” he said kindly. “I—I want to talk to you. Come with me to the ruins! I want to get out to the daylight, where I can see your little face.”
“But, father, John Thurley may still be about. He wanted to take me away to London this afternoon, and I came down here to be safe. Perhaps——”
“Never mind him. He shan’t take you anywhere unless you want to go. Come with me.”
Surprised by the tone he took, which was not that of a hunted man, Freda followed her father in silence along the underground passage, and up the steps into the ruined church. Captain Mulgrave then helped his daughter up the broken steps which led to the window in the west front, and they sat down on the old stones and looked out to the sea. A conviction which had been growing in Freda’s mind as they came along, brightening her eyes and making her heart beat wildly, became stronger than ever when he deliberately chose this spot, in full view of any one who might stroll through the ruins. It was a grey, cold day, with a drizzle of rain falling; the sea was all shades of murky green and brown, with little crests of foam appearing and disappearing; the sea-birds flew in and out restlessly about the worn grey arches, screaming and flapping their wide wings; the wind blew keen and straight from the northwest, but Freda did not know that she was bitterly cold, and that her lips and fingers were blue, for her heart and her head were on fire.
“Father,” she whispered, crouching near him and looking into his face, “forgive me for what I thought. Oh, I see it was not true, and I could die of joy!”
She was shaking from head to foot, panting with excitement. Captain Mulgrave looked affectionately into her glowing face.
“Why, child,” he said, “there wasn’t a man or woman in England who wouldn’t have condemned me! Why should you blame yourself. When Barnabas Ugthorpe caught me, as he thought, red-handed, I saw that nothing but a miracle could save my neck; if I lived, it was sure to leak out. So I died. And they buried the murdered man instead of me.”
“But father, the jury—were they all in the secret!”
“No. They viewed a live body instead of a dead one. I had a beautifully painted wound on my breast, and I lay in the coffin till I was as cold as the dead; and I took care that the jury shouldn’t be warm enough to want to hang about long, or to have much sensitiveness of touch left if they were inclined to be curious.”
“But, father, wouldn’t it have been less risk just to go away?”
“No, for my disappearance would have told against me at the inevitable time, when Barnabas should babble out his secret. I thought, too, that my supposed death would put the real murderer off his guard, and that I might be able to track him down in the end.”
“Did you know who it was?” she asked in a whisper, after a pause.
“I guessed—and guessed correctly.”
“Who was it?”
“Bob Heritage.”
“And they have caught him?”
“Last night, hiding about the old farm-house. I went away yesterday in my yacht, because I had got wind of the search, and thought they were afterme. This morning I came sneaking back to find out whether you were safe, and Crispin was on the scaur with the news.”
Freda listened to these details, conscious, though she would not have owned it, of a secret disappointment in the midst of her joy at learning her father’s innocence. In spite of the kindness he showed when he was with her, she was to him only an afterthought. He had made no provision for her safety yesterday, left her no directions for her protection in the time of trouble which was coming. One other consideration grieved her deeply: the shame and distress which had been lifted from her shoulders now fell upon those of poor Dick. These thoughts caused her to drop into a silence which her father made no attempt to break. While they were still sitting side by side without exchanging a word, they heard the click of the gate behind, and a man’s voice saying “Thank you” to the lodge-keeper. It was John Thurley.
Captain Mulgrave and he caught sight of each other at the same moment, and the former at once came down. The meeting between the two men was a strange one. Each held out his hand, but with diffidence. Thurley spoke first.
“Captain Mulgrave,” said he, “I am indeed sorry that I should have been the means of bringing justice down upon you. At the same time I must say I should have thought that a man who had served his country so well would be the last to have any hand in defrauding her.”
Captain Mulgrave laughed harshly.
“ ‘My country’ rated my services so highly that in return for them they turned me off like a dog. ‘My country’ made me an outlaw by her treatment; let ‘my country’ take the blame of my reprisals.”
“I should have expected more magnanimity from you.”
“To every man his own virtues; none of the meeker ones are among mine,” said the other grimly. “I have been disgraced and left to eat my heart out for fifteen years. And I tell you I think the debt between my country and me is still all on her side.”
“Perhaps your country begins to think so too. At any rate the government, I feel sure, would be reluctant to prosecute you, as it would have done anybody else in your case. For it would not be only smuggling against you, Captain Mulgrave; it would be conspiracy.”
“The government knows, as well as I do, that prosecution of me would lead to unpleasant inquiries and reminiscences. The same party is in now that was in at the time of my disgrace; and as we are on the eve of a general election, my case would make a very good handle for the opposite side to use.”
“Well, don’t count on that too much. You can’t deny it is a serious offence to form such an organisation for illegal purposes as you have done. This place must be cleared out, the underground passages (which I know all about) blocked up; and if you don’t find it convenient to leave England for a time, I am afraid you’ll find that your past services won’t save you from arrest.”
“The organisation is better worked than you think; my going away will not break it up. There’s another good head in it.”
“If you mean Crispin Bean’s, it is a good head indeed. On finding, this morning, that the game was up, he came to me and gave me full details of the band, its working, names, everything.”
Captain Mulgrave was not only astonished, he was incredulous.
“The d——l he did!” he muttered.
And it was not until John Thurley had read him out some notes he had taken down during Crispin’s confession, that the master of Sea-Mew Abbey would believe that his lieutenant had gone over to the enemy. Then he shrugged his shoulders and chose a cigar very carefully.
“Will you have one?” he said, offering the case to Thurley. “They smoke none the worse for being contraband.”
John Thurley declined.
“Ah, well,” continued the other, “I bear you no ill-will for causing my expatriation, especially as in doing so you have cleared my name of a charge I saw no means of disproving. By-the-bye, why didn’t you speak out sooner about the murder?”
“Because I had no very strong evidence myself. I put the case in the hands of the police, and detectives were sent down here who discovered that a man on horseback had come from Oldcastle Farm on the day of the murder, that he had tied up his horse in a shed at the bottom of the hill, just outside the town, and had been seen with a revolver in his hand making his way across the field to the spot where Barnabas Ugthorpe found the body. The man was identified as Robert Heritage; it was found out that he had just learnt the servant’s intention to betray his master’s secrets to you. This is evidence enough to try the man on, if not to hang him.”
“And the cousin, what becomes of him?”
This was the question Freda had been dying to ask, and she drew near, clasping her hands tightly in her anxiety to learn Dick’s fate.
“I don’t quite know. He seems to have been used as a tool from a very early age by his good-for-nothing cousin. It’s an exceedingly awkward business, especially for me, as I am distantly connected with the family, and I feel for the poor lady very much. I must look into their affairs, and try to get the farm let for her benefit. As for this Dick, he had better emigrate.”
“He won’t do that,” interrupted Freda quickly.
“He would rather starve than leave his old home!”
Both gentlemen turned in surprise, for the girl spoke with feeling and fire. John Thurley looked hurt and angry, her father only amused.
“What do you know about the young rascal’s sentiments?” asked the latter.
“I only know what he told me,” she answered simply, with a blush.
There was a pause in the talk for a few minutes. Then Captain Mulgrave said:
“We might go over to the farm this afternoon, and see the fellow.”
The other assented without alacrity. There was another person to be provided for, whose welfare interested him more than that of a hundred young men.
“What about your daughter?” he asked in a constrained voice.
“Oh, Freda’s going back to the convent. You have always wanted to, haven’t you, child?”
“Yes, father,” answered the girl, who had, however, suddenly fallen a-trembling at the suggestion.
“I—I could have provided for her better than that, if—if she had chosen,” said John Thurley, blushing as shyly as a girl, and finding a difficulty in getting his words out.
“Eh!You?cried Captain Mulgrave. Do you mean that you thought of marrying my little lame girl? Here, Freda, what do you say to that?”
Freda blushed and kept her eyes on the ground.
“I say, father, that I am very much obliged to Mr. Thurley, but I would rather go back to the convent, if you please.”
“You hear that, Mr. Thurley? I told you so. The child was born for a nun—takes to the veil as a duck does to water.”
But John Thurley did not feel so sure of that, and he looked troubled.
When, later in the day, the dogcart stood at the door waiting for the two gentlemen, they found Freda standing beside it in her outdoor dress.
“What, little one, are you going with us?” asked Captain Mulgrave.
“Yes, if you will please take me, father.”
“Well, as you’re going to see so little more of the world, I suppose you must be humoured. Jump up in front. Mr. Thurley, will you drive, or shall I?”
“You drive one way, and I the other, if you will let me.”
“All right. You’ll take the reins coming back then.”
And Freda saw by the expression of John Thurley’s face that he was too much annoyed to wish to sit by her just then.
Itwas getting dark when the dogcart drove up to Oldcastle Farm. The front door which had been partly destroyed by the forcible entry of the police was open, and both gentlemen were inclined to the conclusion that the lonely tenant of the house had left it. They were confirmed in this opinion when, on ringing the bell, they found no notice taken of their summons.
“Poor lad’s turned it up,” said Captain Mulgrave turning to Thurley with a nod.
“It looks like it.”
They tied the horse up to an iron ring in the farm-house wall provided for such purposes, and went inside, leaving Freda, who now hung back a little, to come in or not, as she pleased. As soon as the two gentlemen had gone down the entrance hall, Freda slipped in after them, and waited to see which way they would turn. After a glance into the rooms to right and left, they went through into the court-yard. Taking for granted that Dick had at last followed the only possible course of abandoning the old shell of what had been his boyhood’s home, they were going, by Thurley’s demand, to explore those recesses where the smuggled goods had formerly been stored.
Freda knew better than they. Tripping quickly through the empty rooms and passages, she reached the door of the banqueting-hall, but was suddenly seized with a fit of shyness when she heard the sound of a man coughing. However, she conquered this feeling sufficiently to open the door under cover of the noise Dick made in poking the fire, and then she stood just inside, shy again. Dick felt the draught from the open door, turned and saw her. He was sitting in his own chair by the fire, with the old dog still at his feet. The shadows were already black under the high windows on the side of the court-yard, but the light from the west was still strong enough for Freda to see a flash of pleasure come into his face as he caught sight of her.
“You have a bad cold,” she said in a constrained voice, coming shyly forward as he almost ran to meet her.
“Yes, there’s a broken window up there,” said he, glancing upwards, “and—and the curtains the spiders make are not very thick.”
“Poor Dick!”
She said it in such a heartfelt tone of commiseration that the tears came into his eyes, and when she saw them, a sympathetic mist came over her eyes too.
“They think you have gone away,” she said in a whisper, glancing up at the windows which overlooked the court-yard, “but I knew better!”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“My father and Mr. Thurley.”
“Your father! I didn’t know that he was alive till yesterday. What will he do? There will be all sorts of difficulties about the trick he played.”
“He will have to go away. But he seems rather glad; he is tired of living up here, he says.”
She spoke rather sadly.
“And you?” said Dick.
“Oh, I’m not tired of it. I think the old Abbey-church the most beautiful place in the world. I should like to spend my life here.”
“And will you go away with him?”
“No, he is going to take me back to the convent.”
“What! For ever? For altogether? Will you be a nun?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like that?” asked Dick very earnestly, “to go and waste your youth and your prettiness, shut up with a lot of sour old women who were too ugly to get themselves husbands?”
Freda laughed a little.
“Oh, you don’t know anything about it,” she said, shaking her head, “they are not at all like that.”
“But do you seriously like the thought of going back as much as you liked the thought of being a nun before you left the convent?”
There was a long pause. At last:
“No-o,” said Freda very softly. “But—it’s better than what I should have had to do if I hadn’t chosen that!”
“What was that?”
“Marry Mr. Thurley.”
Dick started and grew very red.
“Oh, yes, it is better than that, much better,” he assented heartily.
“Yes, I—I thought you’d think so.”
She said this because they were both getting rather flurried and excited, and she felt a little awkward. Both were leaning against the table, and tapping their fingers on it. Something therefore had to be said, but in a moment she felt it was not the right thing. For Dick began to breathe hard, and to grow restless, as he said quickly:
“You see it’s not as if some young fellow of a suitable age, whom you—whom you—rather liked, could ever have a chance of—of asking you to be his wife. That would be a different thing altogether.”
“Ah, yes, if I were not lame! If I could ride, and row, and—and sail a boat!” said Freda with a quavering voice.
“No, no, just as you are, the sweetest, the dearest little——”
He stopped short, got up abruptly, and rushed at the fire, which he poked so vigorously that it went out. Then, quite subdued, he turned again to Freda, and holding his hands behind him, as he stood in a defiant attitude with his back to the fireplace, he asked abruptly:
“Would you like to know what I’ve been making up my mind to do, during these days that I’ve been living here like a rat in a hole?”
“Ye-es,” said Freda without looking up.
“Well, you’ll be shocked. At least, perhaps you won’t be, but anybody else would be. I’m going to turn farm-labourer, and here, in the very neighbourhood where I was brought up a gentleman, as they call it.”
The girl raised her head quickly, and looked him straight in the face, with shining, straightforward eyes.
“I think it is very brave of you,” she said in a high, clear voice.
“Hundreds of well educated young fellows,” he went on, flushed by her encouragement, “go out to Manitoba, and Texas, and those places, and do that or anything to keep themselves, and nobody thinks the less of them. Why shouldn’t I do the same here, in my own country, where I know something about the way of farming, which will all come in by-and-by? You see, I know my family’s disgraced, through my—my unfortunate cousin’s escapade; for even if it’s brought in manslaughter in a quarrel, as some of them say, he’ll get penal servitude. But, disgrace or no disgrace, I can’t bring myself to leave the old haunts; and as I’ve no money to farm this place, I’ll get work either here, if it lets, or somewhere near, if it doesn’t. I’ve made up my mind.”
The obstinate look which Freda had seen on his face before came out more strongly than ever as he said these words. During the pause that followed, they heard voices and footsteps approaching, and then Captain Mulgrave opened the door. The breaking up of the organisation he had worked so long seemed already to have had a good moral effect on him, for he spoke cheerfully as he turned to John Thurley, who followed him.
“Here’s the hermit! but oh, who’s this in the anchorite’s cell with him? Why, it’s the nun!”
John Thurley looked deeply annoyed. He had an Englishman’s natural feeling that he was very much the superior of a man who looked underfed; and it was this haggard-faced young fellow who, as he rightly guessed, had been the chief cause of the failure of his own suit. Captain Mulgrave’s good-humored amusement over the discovery of the young people together woke in him, therefore, no responsive feeling. Before they were well in the room, Freda had slipped out of it, through the door by the fireplace, and was making her way up to the outer wall. Dick was at first inclined to be annoyed at the interruption; but when Captain Mulgrave explained the object of his visit and that of his companion, the young man’s joy at the project they came to suggest was unbounded. This was the setting up of himself to farm the land, for the benefit of his aunt, to whom it had been left for life.
“Mr. Thurley is a connection of hers and wishes to see some provision made for her. So, as I felt sure you would be glad to do your best for her too,” continued Captain Mulgrave, “and as you have some knowledge of farming, I suggested setting you up in a small way as farmer here, and extending operations if you proved successful. How would that meet your views?”
Dick was overwhelmed; he could scarcely answer coherently.
“I never expected such happiness, sir,” he stammered, in a low voice. “I would rather follow the plough on this farm than be a millionaire, anywhere else. Why,” he went on after a moment’s pause, in a tone of eager delight, “I might—marry!”
He flushed crimson as Captain Mulgrave began to laugh.
“Well,” said the latter, “I don’t know that you could do better. You were always a good lad at heart, and my quarrel was never with you, but with your cousin. He used your services for his own advantage, but I must do you the justice to say it was never for yours. So find a wife if you can; I think you’re the sort to treat a woman well.”
Dick took the suggestion literally, and acted upon it at once. Leaving the two other men together in the darkening room, with some sort of excuse about seeing after the house, he went outside into the court-yard, and soon spied out Freda on the ruined outer wall. He was beside her in a few moments, looking down at her with a radiant face.
“I’m going to stay here—on the farm—to manage it myself—to be master here.”
“Oh, Dick!” was all the girl could say, in a breathless way.
“It sounds too good for belief, doesn’t it? But it’s true. That old Thurley must be a good fellow, for he’s going to help to start me. It’s for my aunt’s benefit he’s doing it; he’s a connection of hers.”
“Oh, Dick, if you had had a fairy’s wish, you couldn’t have chosen more, could you?”
There was a pause before Dick answered, and during that pause he began to get nervous. At last he said:
“There is one more thing. Your father said——”
A pause.
“Well, what did my father say?”
“He said—I might marry. Is—it true?”
And it took Dick very few minutes to find out that it was.
THE END.