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CHAPTER III
THE BAILIFF OF DEEP MOAT GRANGE
Elsie and I cheered him. We would do what we could, which truly was not much. But I promised for my father, whose arm was long in Breckonside, reaching even to East Dene. But the poacher shook his head.
"They will get poor Davie. They will put it on him – yes, for sure!" he repeated. And from this melancholy conclusion he was not to be moved. He offered to accompany us, however, on our search. And we were glad of that, because we were quite sure of his innocence, and in such a case the difference between three and two is very marked. Two – you want to get close and rub shoulders. Three – you scatter and look the hedges.
We advised the old poacher to hide his fish under the bank, but, with strong good sense, he refused.
"They are Davie's only chance," he said, "there is just a possibility that there's an aw-li-bi in Davie's basket. He has catched so many of the Duke's trouts since three this morning that they may think he could not have had the time to make away with a man as well!"
As we went he told us how the post carrier had got his mail bags from Miss Harbishaw, the postmistress, on the stroke of three that morning – "a fearful sight in a mustard-coloured flannel dressing gown" – Davie described her. He himself had stood on the other side of the mail cart, well in the shadow.
"Did Miss Harbishaw see you?" Elsie asked.
"Well," said the poacher, "I would not just make so bold as to say. She might have seen my legs, mixed up with Bess's piebald stockings. But I keeped fairly quiet, not wanting her to spot the fishing basket on my back."
Davie was not stupid, and he saw clearly enough that it was the best thing he could do if Harry Foster were really dead, to go and help look for his murderer. So he came along with us, telling us of the talk he had had with the carrier in his cart.
"I was telling stories, and we were wonderful merry!" he admitted.
"How far did you go with him?" we asked.
"To where the road dives into the wood like a rabbit!" he answered. "Here!" he cried, suddenly throwing up his hand.
And there, plain enough to be seen, were the marks of Davie's boot heels as he had leaped upon the bank from the post gig.
"Then I crossed the dyke and went down to the waterside."
From that point, as you may suppose, we followed carefully the marks of the wheels. The pony had been going no faster than a walk. The tracks were deeply impressed, and as it was damper under the trees, you could even see where Piebald Bess had been sparing her lame foot, which, of course, she would not have the chance of doing when pushed to a trot.
Then Davie came to a halt, Elsie just behind him. There was nothing particular, only the ground was pawed and cut about in little crescent discs, as if a horse had got wearied standing and wanted to get on. Then beyond that the wheel ruts were much deeper than before.
"He has talked to somebody, he has taken other passengers here," cried Davie, "and I never heard them – fool that I was – thinking of nothing but the Duke's silly trout in the burn yonder."
Without speaking we followed on, till the Brom Water, slow, deep, and still, lay before us. It was strictly preserved, and we boys dared not visit it for fear of the fishery watchers and keepers, who were up to all sorts of tricks to catch us. Only old hands like Davie dared such a thing, and even they chose their time.
The road went across a bridge, a high-arched, old-fashioned structure, which I liked coming over in our light cart, because of the curious "hunch" it gave you as if you were on a swing. And close in by the bridge and on the near side of it, we came at last on what we had come out to look for – the signs of a struggle, the wheel tracks confused and partly up on the bank, the traces of many feet, very indistinct owing to the hard, dry ground, and (what took all our eyes) a dark irregular patch on the left side of the road, which had filled and overflowed the deep furrow of a track.
It did not need any doctor's certificate to tell us that that was blood, and we knew very well that we stood where poor Harry Foster had been foully dealt with. But of the carrier himself we could see nothing. The pony had bounded ahead at full speed, and for Davie's sake we thought it best not to go farther. Because the people who were coming along the Breckonside road might easily cover over the tracks or destroy them, crowding to see.
So we went to meet the first of them at the place where Davie Elshiner had wished his benefactor a good morning and jumped on the bank, with the last jest on his lips. We were just in time. Codling, our fat policeman, was there, and he took up Davie on the spot, warning him that all he might say would be used against him.
"I don't care," said Davie. "I will tell all I know, and that's little enough – more shame to me for going after trouts with poor Harry so near his end."
The village men scattered to search the wood and the waterside, finding nothing but sundry "stances" where the angler had stood while fishing, and the nook in which he had slept among the bracken, with the marks of our feet as we went toward him from the stile.
We started off home without making any more discoveries, and as we went Elsie pointed up to the firs above our heads.
"What sort of leaves were in the cart when we saw it?" she asked me suddenly.
"Some kind of big, broad leaves – oak, I think," I answered, for indeed, I had paid no very great attention.
"Well," she said, "will you please tell me where big, broad leaves came from in Spar hawk Wood?"
And then I saw how true it was – the thing that she meant to say. There were only tall Scotch firs in the Sparhawk, and not a low-growing tree or one with a leaf upon it! Only pine needles and fir cones.
"We will come back in the morning," I said to Elsie, "and see what we can find. Piebald Bess never came back this road!"
"As, indeed, we might have seen before this by the single tracks," she added. And, indeed, it was no great discovery after all. But old Codling and the village men just took it for granted, and as many of the farmers and even my father came in conveyances there was soon no lack of tracks all over the road.
But Elsie and I kept our counsel and made tryst for the morning. It is terrible to get bitten with the wanting to find out things. The more you know the more you want to know.
Next morning it was still and clear, with a promise of heat. Elsie had asked Nance Edgar if she could go, but I had dispensed with asking my father. Indeed, so long as he was assured that I was the cleverest boy in school, and at the top of the topmost class, he did not trouble much about me, having other things on his mind. And Mr. Mustard was always ready to tell him all that. Besides it was true. I was not so clever as Elsie, and I did not pretend to be. But I could lick everybody in Breckonside school into fits, and the master was cowed of my father. I think he would have let me sit on his tall hat!
This morning was a Friday, as I remember, and there were plenty of men searching the moor, prowling about the woods, some with picks and shovels, some just with their hands in their pockets. They were looking for Harry Foster. The East Dene police, too, were all about the edges of Sparhawk Wood, as important as if they knew all about it but wouldn't tell. One of them, posted by the big, black patch to keep people off, first told us to go back, and then asked where we were going.
Elsie merely told him that so far as she knew the road went further – on to Bewick Upton, in fact.
"Are you the kids that came across the moor and found this – and the prisoner?"
To make him civil we told him we were, but that Davie Elshiner was surely innocent and would not harm a fly.
"That's as may be," said the policeman; "what did he say when you woke him?"
We told the man that Davie was afraid of being suspected, having been last seen with the missing man, also how he was sure that because he was a known poacher people would not believe him.
"Aye," said the policeman, nodding his head dreadfully wisely, "indeed, he was right to say that. Ah, a bad conscience is our best friend! It is indeed!" And everything we could say in favour of Davie seemed just to tell against him, so that we had to be content with saying that he was the person least likely to do such a thing, because he would certainly be suspected, and that they might as well suspect us.
This last remark seemed to impress the policeman, who pulled out a fat notebook and solemnly jotted it down before our eyes.
"It's a good rule in our business," he said slowly, "to suspect the least likely persons. Thank you very much for your interesting communication – thank you very much, indeed!"
"Ah, you're dotty!" I called out to him in a sudden fume of anger, and left him standing there and slowly buckling up the flap of the inside pocket in which he had stowed away his precious notebook.
Now I am not going to pretend that Elsie and I found anything very grand that day, for we didn't. But at any rate we knew for certain how Dappled Bess came home, and where the leaves came from. It was all simple enough and quite natural. The poor beast had got a fright by the bridge on the Bewick road. She turned off it, therefore, as soon as she could. We found the wheel tracks leading away to the left along a rough moor track. The cart had been going fast, evidently empty or at least very lightly laden. For there was little depth to the impression even in fairly mossy places, but the rocks and stones were bumped and scarred with the iron tire as the wagon rebounded from side to side.
We soon found ourselves making for the highway, which is known in our parts as the Old Military Road. It goes into Scotland to a place called Longtown, and beyond that, they say, to Edinburgh and Glasgow. But that I only knew from hearsay. At any rate it was old, and so were the woods all about it. Centuries old they were, and the fine old house among them was called Deep Moat Grange. It stood right in the middle, and had always been inhabited by rich folk. But, only a few years before, my father had done it all up for old Mr. Stennis, whom they called the Golden Farmer, because of the great deal of money he had made farming and dealing in cattle. He was living there now, and for that matter was Elsie's very own grandfather. We called him the Unnatural, because he would have nothing to do with her – all because of something her mother had done long ago, before Elsie was so much as born. But he was a lusty old cock bird, and being rich was much respected. He bred first-rate sporting terriers that brought in a power of money, my father said. We knew all about him, too, that is as much as any one knew, because Nance Edgar sometimes worked there by favour of the farm bailiff, Mr. Simon Ball.
Elsie and I were standing at the turn of the road looking at the tracks of the wheels which Harry Foster's cart had made in the grass, when who should come up but the very man, Mr. Ball, the bailiff at Deep Moat Grange.
He knew me, which was nothing extraordinary. They say I am the image of what my father was at my age, and, of course, everybody knows him. If they don't, he tells them, and sees if he can do business with them.
Well, Mr. Ball came up and asked us what we were looking at, and when we had told him, he blurted out all in a gabble that he had seen the blue and red cart with the piebald mare come tearing over the moor road yesterday morning. He had been in the little "lantern" above the drying-room at the corn mill, which is so high that you can see over the tree tops and look right out on the moor. He thought it was a runaway, but when he had time to run down to the end of the avenue, he could only see it like a little square dab rocking and lurching from one side of the road to the other, and scraping trees and bushes like all possessed.
"And has nobody come to tell you that poor Harry Foster is murdered?" I said.
"I heard the men in the yard talking about some such suspicion," he said quite calmly, "but nobody has been here. You see, Master Yarrow, our old gov'nor, Mr. Stennis, has been up in London for three days seeing his lawyer, and he don't like folk coming about the Grange when he is from home!"
"So I have heard," said I, "and he keeps some fine dogs there, too, to see that they don't."
For my father had refused to deliver Mr. Stennis' goods, except at Mr. Ball's house, which was on the main road, and no tearing dogs kept.
"Very like – very like," said Mr. Ball hastily; "and who may this fine young lady be – your sister? She seems to favour you, sir."
"Elsie Stennis," says I, "and if she had her rights you know very well what she would be! Your young mistress!"
"Elsie Stennis?" he gasped, "not poor Bell's daughter – and Robin's?"
"The same!"
"Bell and Robin Stennis – I mind them well. But where, how – "
The bailiff stopped, all thrown out of gear, much more affected, indeed, than when it was a question of Harry Foster's death.
"Well," he went on at last, "it's perhaps as well not asking. I might blurt things out. But I hope – I may say that I pray – that the day may come when you shall have your rights, young lady, and I shall see yon crew sent about their business to a madhouse. That's the fit place for such as they! There they go. I must be off. They will be at their processioning again, and Mr. Stennis will never forgive me if they come to a mischief or go off the premises!"
We did not know then what he was talking about, but we could hear over the green tree tops the sound of a cornet playing a marching tune, and marvellously well, too.
CHAPTER IV
THE GOLDEN FARMER
But that same night we got the full story, so far as she knew it, from Nance Edgar. It did not help us any in finding out what had become of poor Harry the carrier and his mail bags, but because it involved Elsie's father and mother I will admit that it interested me nearly as much.
Nance Edgar was a weather-beaten woman of about fifty. She had lived nearly all her life in the fields, and was tanned like a leather schoolbag for carrying books. She was kindly, but you never could have told it on her. Only I knew because she had been kind to Elsie.
Afterwards I found out that often she would go supperless to bed that Elsie might have something to eat when she came home from school.
But when Nance Edgar talked it was with the curious kind of quiet I have noticed about the speech of gentlefolks. The other field workers said that she kept herself to herself. But in the furrow, or on the rig, she was kind to young ones or feeble folk who were not up to their work. So Nance, in spite of her aloofness, was not at all unpopular. She always had work, too, because she could be trusted with anything.
So that very night I said to Elsie: "Let's have it out with Nance about your people. Your grandfather is as rich as can be. There may be money in it, and my father says you should never let that go a-begging. Besides you ought to know about your father and mother. It is only respectable if you are asked."
"Oh, I know all that," said Elsie, mightily unmoved, "my mother married her cousin and her father was angry. She ran away. My grandfather can keep his old money. Who wants it? Not I! I am happier with Nance."
This was very well, but if Elsie was not curious, I was. So I cooed and besought round Nance Edgar that night, till at last she told us everything in her little kitchen, after the tea dishes had been washed up and the coal fire was beginning to catch – the flame paying bo-peep with the bars, and every now and then coming brightly out in a triumphant jet of light, unexpected like a cuckoo clock, shining on Elsie's yellow hair and Nance's calm, tired face as she told us the story —
"Breckonside was not a big place twenty years ago (she said), even less than it is now, but there is one house that is a-wanting. That was your grandfather's house, Elsie, him they call the Golden Farmer, that lives now at the Grange in Deep Moat Hollow.
"It was up yonder beyond the church, and in the summer mornings the tombstones were blithe to see, glinting rosy-coloured with the dew on them, and the long, well-nourished grass hiding the inscriptions. Now you may go up the burnside to the turn of the road where the kirkburn runs bonnie and clear down the hill. The heather and the breckon grow there together, and that they say gave its name to the village – Breckonside. At any rate, there where stood your grandfather's cottage – he was a poor man then – ye will see a kind of knowe or hillock, greener than the rest. But of the house not one stone is left upon another. The kindly mould is over all. The hemlock and the foxglove, what we used to call 'bloody fingers,' grow tall and red where lovers whispered cannily by the ingle nook, and of all that well-set garden plot where Hobby the Miser – that is now Mr. Howard Stennis – grew his weaving lint and dibbled his cabbages, only a single lilac bush looks over the corner of the broken-down dyke as you pass by!
"But at that time it was a heartsome spot. I mind it well; I was young mysel'." (Here Nance Edgar sighed and was silent awhile, looking at the pouting bo-peep of the little blue flames between the hearth bars.) "A-well, youth comes and youth goes, but at the last the greensward covers it like Miser Hobby's cottage.
"Long they dwelt there, Miser Stennis and his daughter Bell. She had the name of being bonnie to look on in her young days, and many a lover would fain have hung up his hat behind the kitchen door and taken his seat at Hobby Stennis's table as his son-in-law.
"But Hobby was a far-seeing carle and a plain-spoken. He had but one word for all such.
"'When I hae a felt want for ony sons-in-law I will put a notice in Editor Drake's weekly screed, or hae it intimated in the parish kirk!'
"There were ill reports even then about the miser. Lights were seen wandering up the hillsides above the cottage when the nights were mirk and unkindly. Hobby would be found far from home with a basket gathering simples and medical plants – that is, by his way of it. So he grew to be counted a wizard, and had the name of money which is so useful to a man in some ways, but more than all else makes the folk jealous, too.
"It was less than natural that Hobby should always have the best lint wherewith to weave the flowered tablecovers by which he made his fame. Why should he have early potatoes a clear fortnight before the rest of the Breckonsiders? But chiefly it was the ill-will about money that bred bad blood. Over the door of the parish church of Breckonside they had printed the motto, 'We serve the Lord.' But the right words should have been, 'We envy and grieve at the good of our neighbour.' For when the men thought of Miser Stennis's money bags they could have felled him, and when the women saw Bell Stennis's bonnie face smiling over her braw mantle, they set to work and bethought them what lie they could tell about her. All except me, and I was always by her side, as near as might be, loving her more than my own flesh and blood. And Bell told me all that was in her heart, because you see we had been at school together, sitting side by side on the same bench and sharing the same apple and toffee stick.
"So I was the only soul that knew it beforehand, when Bonnie Bell suddenly took matters into her own hand and gave Miser Hobby a son-in-law he had never bargained for – a first cousin of her own, an ensign in a marching regiment. The two foolish ones ran to Gretna to get married – I with them in the coach. But I had to tramp it back on my own feet, with Miser Hobby's malediction on my head as well as on theirs. You see he had spent money on the young fellow's commission hoping to get him out of the road, as soon as he suspected what was in the wind between Bell and him.
"But the regiment stayed on in Longtown just over the borders, and nearly every day Frank Stennis and a company would come through the countryside with feathers waving bravely in their bonnets, drawing in the silly young by the glint of their accoutrements, or wiling them to list by the merry noise of the pipe and drum that went before them and set the pulses jumping even in weak women's hearts.
"But after Bell took the road to Gretna, and the white cat by the Breckonside was left lonely, the miser never uttered word, but sat with shut mouth at the weaving of the wonderful flowered napery, the secret of which he alone possessed. And if he could not weave himself a new daughter with all his skill, at least he kept himself so busy that he seldom minded the one he had lost.
"And then he took to leaving his weaving, which nobody could do as well as he, and trying a new trade – that of cattle dealing and droving. At least, so it was said. At any rate Laird Stennis would shut up the cottage, and the sound of the weary shuttle would cease by the waterside. He would be seen riding to every market, cattle mart, horse fair, lamb sale, wool sale, displenishing-roup within fifty mile, his shoulders bent weaver fashion and his thin shanks legginged in untanned leather.
"But what was the wonder of the folk of Breckonside to see Laird Stennis, who could hardly abide his own kith and kin, suddenly bring a great stalwart colt of a ne'er-do-well, Jeremy Orrin by name, home to his house. For the creature was hardly held accountable for his actions. He had once killed a man in a brawl at a fair and been tried for his life, but had gotten off as being half an idiot, or what the folk about the south of the Cheviots called a 'natural.'
"The two of them brawled together, and drank and carried on to be the scandal of the place, till something happened – it was never known what – but Miser Stennis was laid up with a crack in his skull, and the Mad Jeremy tended him, gentle and tender as a mother they said. But so fierce with any one else that none, even the doctor, ventured near the cottage.
"Still your mother's name was never mentioned, and when others spoke to him of his daughter he would look round for fear of Daft Jeremy, who was jealous of her they said.
"And your father – well, I misdoubt me that he was no better than he should be. And my poor Bell had but a sorrowful time of it, following the regiment, and at last left behind when they embarked for the Indies. Then her father sent her word that having made her bed she might lie on it. She had no rights on him or on his money.
"So a year or two slipped by, and maybe another five or six to the back of that, and still no word of Bell. When, true as I am telling ye, who but Bell brought back word of herself. Faith, and it was strange word! I mind it clear as yesterday, for it was me, Nance Edgar, that am this day old and done, who gat the first glint of her.
"It was a fine summer morn, early in June, and the clouds in the sky to the east were just the colour of the first brier rosebuds in the hedge by the roadside. I came up the brae like a Untie and as free o' care, for my heart was light in those good days. There stood the cot of Breckonside before me, shining white in the sun. For the miser, though he spared most other things, never was a sparer of good whitewash. I was just beginning to listen for the click-clack of Hobby's shuttle, when down by the waterside methought I saw a ferlie.
"Fegs, I said to myself that surely the old times had come back again, and that the wee folk were disporting themselves once more in broad daylight. For, on the grass by the burn a bonnie bit bairn ran hither and thither waving its hands and laughing to the heavens for very gladness. The night had been calm, a 'gossamer night,' as the gipsy folk call it, and from hedge to hemlock, and from lowly bracken to tall Queen o' the Meadow, the silver threads were stretched taut like the cordage of some sea-going ship. The dew shone silver clear on ilka silken strand, and the blobs o' it were like pearls and diamonds in the morning sun.
"And aye the longer I stood the wilder the bairn ran and skipped lightfoot as a fairy herself. 'Bonnie – bonnie – oh, bonnie!' she cried, clapping her hands and laughing, 'see mither, mither, are they no unco bonnie?'
"Then, by the side of the beck, as if, being wearied with travel, she had set her down to take a drink of the caller burn water, I saw a woman sit. She was beneath a bush of hazel, and her head was resting tired-like on her hand. So, being back there in the shadow, I had not noticed her at the first, being taken up, as was small wonder, with the sight of that bonnie yellow-haired bairn flichtering here and there like a butterfly in the sun.
"Then the wee lass saw me and ran whatever she could to me. She took my hand and syne looked up in my face as trustful-like as if she ha' kenned me all her days.
"'Here woman,' she cried, 'come and wake my minnie to me, for I canna. She winna hearken when her wee Elsie speaks to her.'
"Hand in hand we went up to the poor thing, and even as I went a great fear gripped me by the heart. For the woman sat still, even when my step must have sounded in her ear. I laid my hand on her, and, as I am a living woman, she was clay cauld. The bairn looked ever up into my face.
"'Can you no waken my mither, either?' she said wistfully.
"'No,' said I. 'No, my puir, wee lassie!' For truth to tell, I kenned not what to say.
"'Will minnie never waken?' she asked again, bright as a button.
"'I fear not, bonnie lassie,' said I, and the tear was in my eye.
"Then the elf clapped her hands and danced like a yellow butterfly over the lea.
"'Then she willna greet any more! She willna be hungry any more. She will never need bite o' meat nor thread o' claes for ever and ever mair.' She lilted the words almost as if she had been singing a tune. 'She will be richt pleased, my minnie. For, oh, she grat sair and often! She carried me in her arms till her ain feet were hurted and she could gang nae farther. Late yestreen she sat doon here to wash them, and I sat, too, and after that she cuddled me in her airms. Are ye no richt glad for my minnie?'
"I telled her that I was glad, for naught less would satisfy her, though even as I spak the words the sob rose in my throat.
"And as we stood there, looking at the woman sitting with her face on her hands, what should happen but that the auld miser should come hirpling to the door, and there, too, looking over his shoulder, was Daft Jeremy, that the village bairns were wont to cry at and call the 'Mounster.'
"'What hae ye there, Nance Edgar?' the old man cried, shaking his stick at me; 'keep away from my door with your doxies and changeling bairns.'"
"But I was civil to him for his age's sake, and also because of the witless man that was looking over his shoulder. For it is not good to cross such as the Lord has smitten in their understanding, and so do my own folk never.
"'It is a woman, Laird Stennis,' quoth I, 'that hath set herself down to die by your burnside.'
"'Die,' cried he, with a queer scream most like a frighted hen flying down off the baulks, 'what word is that to speak? A woman dead by my burnside – what richt had she there? Who has taken such a liberty with Hobby Stennis?'
"'Nay, that you can come and see for yourself,' said I, a little nettled at the carle's hardness of heart. So the auld miser, bent and stiff, came hirpling barehead down the path, and behind him, looking most uncanny, danced Daft Jeremy, combing his hair with a weaver's heckle and muttering to himself. The morning sunshine fell fair on this strange couple, and when she saw him the little maid let go my hand and ran to Laird Stennis. She would have taken his hand, but he pushed her off. Whereat, she being affronted, the witch caught at his stick and pulled it away from him before he could resist. Then she gat astride and played horses with it on the green grass of the burnside dell. It was like an incantation.
"But without heeding her the old man went to the woman, and, lifting up her head, looked steadfastly in her face.
"'God in his heaven be merciful,' he cried, 'it is my daughter Bell!'
"Then the 'mounster' laughed loud and long, and wrapping his 'heckle' in a wisp of paper, he played a tune upon it with his mouth, dancing round and crying, 'There's her right for ye – ye said she hadna a right, Laird Stennis! Ye were that hard ye refused the woman room to die at your dykeside. But Bell has come hame to claim her own. Coffin and clay – coffin and clay! Sax foot of clean kirkyard sods! Faith, I wish a' Daft Jeremy's enemies had the same, nae mair and nae less. But it's as weel as it is, Laird Stennis – for Jeremy cannot be doing with grown women about the noose o' Breckonside. And it's him that has the say now, ye ken!'
"But the old man answered nothing, good or ill. He only stood and looked down at his daughter, muttering to himself words that sounded like 'Bell has comed hame… My bairn has comed back to me at the last!'
"So in time the miser buried his daughter decently, and took the little lass hame to him to bring up. But when this came to be talked of in the countryside, there was a well-to-do woman in Dumfries toon, a Mistress Comly or Comline, that was some kin to Bell Stennis through her mother, and when she heard o' the bit bairn shut up in that lonesome house with only a miser and a daft man, she had heart pity on her, and as soon as she had shut her shop one Saturday afternoon, off she set to Breckonside in a pony cart that she used to bring her goods up from the port quay.
"It was but a coldrife welcome she gat at the white house of Breckonside, but sorrow a bit Margaret Comline cared for that. She tied up her sonsy beast, that was, like herself, fat as pats of butter, to the yettpost of the miser's garden. And when he came to the door himself, she did not take a couple of minutes in telling the auld runt her business, plump and plain.
"'I hae comed to ask ye to put away that daft man,' she said, 'and get a decent woman for a house-keeper, Laird Stennis.'
