Kitobni o'qish: «Deep Moat Grange»

CHAPTER I
THE EMPTY MAIL GIG

I was only a young fellow when these things began to happen among us, but I remember very well the morning when it first came out about the Bewick carrier. He was postman, too, but had got permission to keep a horse and cart so that he might make a good little bit by fetching parcels and orders from town. Town to us meant East Dene, and Bewick, to which Harry went, lay away to the east among the woods and hills. It was a lonesome place, Bewick, and, indeed, is still, though now they have got a railway coming within eight miles or so. But the mystery of the Moat Wood happened before there was any talk of railways.

Harry Foster was his name – the carrier's, I mean – and a common one enough in Northumberland. Many a ride have I gotten on his cart, which was a light one on springs – blue body, orange shafts, panelled with red, and the shafts lined red. You could tell the cart anywhere. At least any of the Breckonside boys could, quite a mile away. And if it was too far to see the cart, there was no mistaking Dappled Bess, the carrier's horse, which was bright orange colour with white patches, like the circus pony the clown rides. You've seen that pony. They have one like that in every circus that has ever come to our town, and there's few that pass Breckonside – Seager's, and Lord George's, and Bostock's, the Original and the Real Original, both, and in old days, so my father tells me, Wombwell's itself. Oh, a great place for circuses is Breckonside!

I will tell you about it. Breckonside, where I live, is a good big village about ten miles from the big town of East Dene, where there are docks and a floating landing-stage, and a jail – everything modern and up to date – with railways and electricity cars, and a theatre every night almost, and tramcars that you can hang on behind, and mostly everything that makes a boy happy – that is, for a day.

But still, give me Breckonside for steady. Why, there's only one policeman in Breckonside, and he owes my father for his grocer's bill – oh, ever so much! I shall not tell how much, but he knows that I know. More than that, he always tells his wife what he is going to do, and where he is going to go, and she tells Mrs. Robb, her neighbour over the hedge, and Mrs. Robb tells Mrs. Martin, and Mrs. Martin's Tommy tells me, or else I lick him. So we know. We like our policeman in Breckonside. He can make lovely whistles out of bore-tree, and his name is Codling.

You can see the sea from Breckon Hill, which is wooded to the top, only by climbing up a tree. And away to the north, Scotland way, you can make out the hills called Cheviots, like a long, low, blue cloud.

But about the Bewick carrier, Harry Foster, the thing is just this, and it is a Mystery. I saw the red and blue cart come in – the piebald pony lame, and the splashboard all leaves and blood, but no Harry Foster to be seen anywhere.

It was catechism morning, when the school had to go in half an hour earlier, and the Dissenter folk could keep away their children, if they liked; and that always made Mr. Mustard, our schoolmaster, very mad – hopping, indeed. He did not admire Dissenters anyway, at the best of times, because they had voted against him when he wanted to be parochial officer, or something. And it was just gall and squirm wood (as Elsie said) for him to see Ned Tiger, the Wesleyan minister's son, playing "plunkie" and "ringi" with marbles, when he, Henry Powell Mustard, a good Churchman and parish clerk, had to be teaching catechism to half-empty benches. He would glower and rap with his cane on the desk, and find fault – all the time with an eye on Ned Tiger (his real name was Wheatly) and Ben Overton, who was a Baptist, and Peter McNab and Sandy Auld (who, as you can see by their names, were Presbyterians, and hit anybody who called them Dissenters, being of the Scotch kirk and good fighters).

Mr. Mustard taught us our duty, how to walk humbly in our sphere, and so forth, with a supple cane, and he whipped the girls, too, till I stopped him. But that comes after. He whipped us all that morning, without forgetting one, and at every good shot of Ned Tiger's alley-taw he would scowl worse than ever and discover one more unfortunate to wallop.

Yet he was a good teacher, and made good scholars; kind, too – out of school, that is. But as we only met him in school, and with a black frown running across-ways between his eyes, we declined to believe in his kindness of heart, at any price.

"You are my subjects, great and little, bad or good," he used to preach to us. "In Breckonside school only the king, the head of the Church, is greater than I. Like him, I reward the virtuous, and I punish the naughty!"

We thought within us that virtue must be scarce in Breckonside school. For as yet but few of the rewards had come our way. Of punishments there was never any lack, as our skins well knew.

"Some rascals were in my garden last night," said Mr. Mustard, "to the overturning of my potted geraniums. The size of his boot was a number six, like what are sold at Provost Yarrow's shop. I will flog all the boys with number six boots bought at The Shop, unless the culprit confesses. Show boots."

We showed them, putting them, as commanded, on the wooden desks with a clatter that made the ink leap in the dirty bottles. We did that on purpose.

"Quiet, boys, till I compare them," said Mr. Mustard. "Stand out, you – Tommy Bottle – you have on number six!"

Tommy Bottle dug his knuckles into his eyeholes and whined: "Please, sir, I was – "

"Don't answer me, sir!" cried Mr. Mustard; "how dare you? Bring me the long cane!"

"But, please, sir, I – "

"Thomas Bottle, your punishment is doubled!" shouted the master, bringing the pointer down across Tommy's legs, as a kind of "lick and a promise." He needn't. Tommy knew well enough what was coming.

"If you please, Mr. Mustard," I called out, "it was me that sold Tommy's father that pair of boots this morning in my father's shop, so Tommy couldn't have broken your flowerpots last night, with these boots on his feet!"

"Eh, what!" cried the master, turning upon me; "well, Tommy is excused. But the rest – "

The others provided with our sixes were, to wit, Frederick Allen, Widow Allen's boy; Bob Grey, Eben Pringle, and Dorky Cobb – all poor boys.

But before punishment began I put my own before the master's eyes. They were number sixes.

"If you punish Fred and Bob and Eben and Dorky, you must whip me, too, Mr. Mustard," I said. "And I shall have to tell my father, and he won't like it, because nobody will come any more to our shop to buy boots, if they are to be punished for it at school!"

I always called him Mr. Mustard, because I was the only boy in the school who dared do it, and I knew he hated it. But, you see, he was afraid of my father. Most people in Breckonside were afraid of my father.

So I got them off at that time; but presently the master welted Bob Grey for making a noise, though he knew perfectly well it was I who had done it. And the lesson was not over before he had got even with the lot of them – Fred and Eben and Dorky and all – except me, of course.

I was always first on my bench; and that was the highest in the school. You see, I wore the best coat, and Mr. Mustard got all his provisions, his stationery, his coals, his bacon from my father's shop; and he was supposed to settle his account once a year. He gave my father a little honey in exchange, when it was the time to draw the sections off from the hives, but he never paid very much money.

So I could stay away from school when I liked, and so long as my father did not find out, no harm ever came. Mr. Mustard never asked a question. He took it for granted that I had been sent somewhere to look after some of my father's little businesses. The boys knew this, and used to get me to take them into school if they were late or had been "kipping" – girls, too, sometimes; though they did not play truant regularly, as we did. It was a good thing in Breckonside to be my father's son.

Just after Scripture reading and catechism, if the vicar did not come to examine us – which was not often – we had half an hour's play, while the "Dissenters" had multiplication table and Troy weight, to keep them aware of themselves. So, while Mr. Mustard was rubbing his spectacles and telling us not to be longer away than half an hour, I took out my quill gun and cut a smart pellet with the end of it out of a slice of potato. Then I cut another with the opposite muzzle, and with my pretty, tiny ramrod I shot it under the desk. It took the end of Mr. Mustard's nose neatly, making a red bull's-eye, for which Freddy Allen was promptly whipped, because his mother was a widow and had no influence with the School Committee.

Now I had promised my mother to go to school that day, and not make my father angry again. Well, I had been to school, and had been dux of the catechism, which was surely enough glory and honour for one day. So soon, therefore, as we got out I made a rush down the street towards the bridge where was Elsie's house – a little cottage by the bridge end, all covered over with Virginia creeper and roses, though Nancy Edgar, the "outworker" with whom she lived, was quite poor, and the neighbours said it was a disgrace that she should make such a flaunting show, for all the world as if she was rich and could afford to buy plants from a nursery-man. But everything that Nancy had given her, or found thrown out as of no use, seemed to do with her, and grew to a marvel.

"I expect it is because I love them!" she said. But privately I thought it was because of Elsie. She was ever such a nice girl, Elsie Stennis, and I had kept friends with her, steady, ever since she came to Breckonside from Thorsby. For she is a town girl, Elsie, and her father and mother are dead. But no nonsense about her – no love and stuff. She was what they call pretty, too, but not set up about it in the least, the way girls get. You would have liked her just as I did. Nearly every one did – except her grandfather.

Well, when I got to Nance Edgar's cottage, which stands back a bit from the road, with a joiner's yard at one side, and the road to Bewick stretching away on the other, I saw Elsie at the gable window. She had a book in her hand, her finger between the leaves. "Come down, Elsie," I called up to her. "I'm not going to school to-day. Come and see the new greenhouses they are building over at Rushworth Court. I can get you a ride in a dogcart all the way. Our man Jake is going with a cargo of paint. Father has the order."

But Elsie wouldn't. She said that it was all very well for me, who was going to be as rich as ever was, to "kip," but that she meant to learn, even though Mr. Mustard was a brute.

I said that was nonsense, and that I would give her half of all I had. At any rate I urged her to come down now. And just at that moment as I was speaking, she pointed over my shoulder. From the gable window she could see something I could not.

"Do look – what's that?" she cried. And her voice sounded pale.

It was Harry Foster's wagon, and I could see in a minute that something was wrong. Oh, it was easy to see that, even for a boy. My ears sung and I felt suddenly old. But by a sort of instinct I got the piebald pony by the bridle, which was trailing among her forefeet. And I could see she had been down, too. Her knees showed that. Poor Dappled Bess never tried to get away. She had terror in her eye, quite like a human it was. And she seemed to limp with all her feet at once. I was sorry for Bess. She and I were friends, you see. I used to ride her about in our pasture on Sundays, to keep her from feeling lonesome.

But it was Elsie who cried out. She had looked inside the mail cart.

"There's blood!" she gasped. "O Joe!"

She didn't faint just when she was needed to do something, though she did put her hand to her eyes, and, faith, I don't blame her. She came and said very quietly: "I'll take the horse's head, Joe – you look. I can't!"

Then I looked; and just as soon as I put my foot on the step I turned sick. But I didn't let on, being a big fellow and getting on for seventeen. There was a big, darkish pool, sort of half dried, under the seat, and there were cuts that had been made with an axe scattered all about, even on the soaky bottom of the cart. The whip had been cut right off three or four inches above the black japanned holder, and the lash lay over the splashboard of the trap, which was all reddened, too, and half covered with leaves. I saw some flyfisher's hooks stuck in the leather apron. There were no mail bags, no parcels for Bewick Upton – nothing at all in the post trap except what I have told. And it was quite enough for me. I got down, and we all took the road to the police station as quick as the pony could limp. I did this because I knew it was the proper place to go – not because old Silver-buttons Codling was the least good.

And in the crack of a thumb I had the whole village after me – asking questions, and wanting to look. But I kept going on, calling out to the folk to get out of the way.

Then my father came, and I stopped for him, and he looked the trap all over very carefully, as if it were something he was going to take at a valuation.

Then he said out loud: "This is a bad business; this is no accident. It looks to me like murder!"

"MURDER!"

The vicar had bustled up. He and my father almost tied for the first place in Breckonside, and so it was a settled thing that if my father thought one thing, the vicar, without any ill feeling, would take the opposite view.

"And why, Mr. Yarrow, why, may I ask? An accident is much more admissible – in this quiet parish. The horse has run away. See how lame he is, and the postman has cut wildly with an axe or other sharp weapon in order to – to – to rid himself of the furious animal – to get loose, in short, a foolish thing to do, I admit, but in such circumstances – I do not see – "

"No, Mr. Alderson, that is just it, you do not see," said my father. "There is this whip handle cut through six inches from the holder; what do you make of that?"

"Well," said the vicar, looking for arguments in defence of his parochial quiet, "there is the lash. There has been an accident, you see. Perhaps poor Harry went suddenly out of his mind. There is insanity in the family. He may have cut himself. That would account for the – the substance of a fluid nature resembling blood, and also for the lash cut from the butt of the whip!"

My father took the stained thong in his fingers. It was curiously braided, plait laid over plait, rather flat than round, and exceedingly neat.

"This is not the lash of Harry Foster's whip," he said. "I ought to know, because I sold him the whip. This is a worked lash, and if I mistake not I know the fingers that wrought that pattern."

CHAPTER II
POACHER DAVIE

There was no more thought of school that day – neither on the part of Mr. Mustard nor of any of his scholars. All the world (but not his wife – by no means his wife) must needs go in search of Harry Foster and his probable murderer. It was the first real mystery ever known in Breckonside.

Now the missing carrier and postman had no open enemies. He was a quiet, middle-aged man who had lived long in the village, a widower without children; no man's foe, not even his own; a steady, trustworthy, kindly man, "and," said Miss Harbishaw, the postmistress, "to be trusted with untold gold," or, what was much more (departmentally), with unsealed mail bags.

The telegraph was no doubt working hard to bring up officers from East Dene, Clifton, and Thorsby, the big towns to the south. Meantime, however, all the male population of Breckonside poured northward. But Elsie and I got away the very first.

I wanted her to stay at home, but she would not. She would be more frightened alone in that house by the Bridge End, she said, than with me. So as I could not refuse Elsie many things, of course she had to have permission to come. Besides, she would have come at any rate, permission or no permission. It was difficult to be even with Elsie. So I was very gracious and let her.

As soon as we were clear of the village and across the bridge, Elsie and I came out upon Brom Common. This is a rare place for Saturdays at all times of the year, but specially in autumn, because of the brambles that grow there. Now it was all green and yellow with gorse bushes. Artists painted it, coming all the way from East Dene and Thorsby to do it. And Elsie and I found it good to bird-nest in. There were two roads across the waste. One to the left struck off just past Elsie's cottage, and the other went to the right; that was the road which Harry Foster must have taken the night before. He had no calls to make on the way. The letters for that district would be delivered by the walking post carriers going to Bewick Upton, and taking the farms and houses on their way.

"Let's take the short cut – you know – the footpath over Moor Clint," said Elsie, pointing with her finger to a long low heathery ridge through which the grey stone peeped. A pale grey thing, like a piece of twine, wimpled up it and ducked over the top.

"Very likely," I cried, "and miss anything that is on the road."

"We shan't miss anything," she said, giving me a look of disdain; "don't you remember the leaves in the cart? Where do you suppose they came from?"

I had not thought of that. Yes, of course, there was nothing of that sort on the Bewick Upton road nearer than Sparhawk Wood, where the big Moat Forest throws a spur across the Bewick road. On the left-hand road it was quite different. There were trees nearly all the way, right from the Bridge End of Breckonside. But then, as official postman, Harry Foster had his route marked out for him, and there was nothing to take him toward the left – indeed, nothing but farms and trout streams all the way to the Cheviots.

So, like dogs on a live scent, Elsie and I stretched across the moor by the Moor Clint footpath as fast as our legs would carry us. The rest of the search parties from the village kept to the road, going slowly and searching minutely. But I was sure that Elsie was right, and that whatever there was to find would lie beyond the array of dark-green fir trees which stood like an army across our path.

It was kind of quaky, too, I admit, going along, getting nearer and nearer all the time. For, when you came to think about it, there might be a murderer any where about there, waiting for you. But Elsie did not seem to mind. Elsie always knew just what to do, and wasn't at all backward about telling a fellow, either.

I forget if I have ever told you what Elsie Stennis was like. Well, nothing very particular at that time – only a tallish slip of a girl, who walked like a boy, a first-rate whistler, and a good jumper at a ditch. She always had her hair tied behind her head with a blue ribbon, and then falling all in a mess about her shoulders. It wouldn't stop still, but blew out every way with the wind, and was such a nuisance. I would have had it cut off, but Elsie wouldn't. It was yellowy coloured.

In spite of this, Elsie was a first-rate companion, nearly as good as a boy, and just no trouble at all. Indeed, I generally did what she said, not because I didn't know as well, but because it kept her in a better temper. Her temper was like kindling wood, and I hate being bothered, unless, of course, it is something serious.

You mustn't think we were so very brave going off like that to find out about Harry Foster. Only, you see, we had always lived in the country, and didn't think that any one could run faster than we could. In town I was scared out of my life lest I should slip in front of a tramcar, and even Elsie went pale the first time she went on one of the ferry steamers. But in the country we were all right.

Well, nothing happened till we got to the edge of Sparhawk Wood, where we came to the road again, the road along which poor Harry had come with his load of letters and parcels very early that morning, and where, no doubt, the village people were even then searching for his body. I do not deny that when we felt our feet on its smooth, white dust we went a bit slower, Elsie and I. So would you. We didn't really mind, of course, but just we went slower. And we saw to it that the back track was clear. Elsie picked up her skirts. She was a good runner – better than I was. She said, after, she would have waited for me, but – well, no matter.

We saw the long road like a gray ribbon laid across the brown and yellow moor. There was nobody there – no black heap, nothing. Before us we could not see far. The highway took a turn and plunged into Sparhawk Wood very suddenlike, and got dark and gloomy. We stood on the stile a while in the sunshine – I don't know why, and presently we got an awful start. For Elsie declared, and stuck to it, that she saw something move among some bracken down by the burnside.

I got ready to run. Perhaps I had even started, when Elsie called me back.

"It is only Davie Elshiner, the night poacher," she cried. "I can see the patch on the left knee of his trousers. Nance Edgar sewed it on. I saw her."

And as neither of us were in the least afraid of Davie Elshiner, alive, dead, asleep, awake, drunk, sober, or in any intermediate state, we hailed him. But he did not answer our shouts. So we went to look. And as we went I said to Elsie, "What if he has been a witness to the deed and they have killed him, too!"

"Come on," she said, grabbing me, "let's see, any way – we can't stop now!"

"But suppose they should kill us!" I could hardly get the words out. I was not frightened, only I seemed to lose my voice. Funny, wasn't it? Elsie hushed me down quick, and said, nastily, that if I was afraid I could take her hand or go home to nursie.

Afraid! Me afraid! Likely! Would I have been there if I had been afraid? But it was Davie, right enough, and we were both relieved. He had a good backful of fish, regular preserved water beauties that never could have been got except in the Duke's pools on the Bram Burn. They were all done up in fern leaves, as nice as ninepence, and as freckly as Fred Allen's nose. But Davie had stopped by the way after catching them. A flask and the remains of a loaf told why.

"Davie," said Elsie, shaking him; "wake up, man, we have something to ask you!"

Davie opened his eyes. He was dazed, not so much at the bright sun and the heather – he was used to that – but at seeing us. And he looked all round about him to take his bearings.

"What are you doing so far from home?" he asked, sitting up on his elbow. "The dominie will thrash you!"

"Davie," said Elsie, "did you see Harry Foster this morning?"

Davie laughed with a funny chuckle he had, but which sounded awful just then. "Aye," he said, "I was in his cart, lassie. He gied me a lift to kirk or market – I will not be telling you which!"

"Davie," I said, "tell us. This is no joke. Harry Foster is very likely murdered, and all the Queen's mail bags stolen. A lot of money, too, they were sending from the bank in East Dene to the new branch in Bewick."

I knew that because I had heard my father say so.

Never did I see a man so struck as Davie. His face changed. The smirk went out of it and it got gray, with the blue watery eyes sticking out like gooseberries.

"Then if I cannot prove myself innocent," he gasped, "they will hang me!"

"But you are innocent?" I asked eagerly.

"Ow, aye, I'm innocent enough," he said, "but can I prove it? That's the question. There's a deal of folk, gameys and landlords, that has a pick at poor Davie for the odd snare he sets and the big trout he catches. They'll nail this on him. And I gave Harry two – three flies newly busked," he added hoarsely, "did you hear?.."

"Yes," said I, "I saw them. They were stuck in the leather apron."

Davie the poacher raised his hand in a discouraged way to his throat, and caressed it, feeling it all over like a doctor.

"I'm feared ye are no worth thrippens!" he said.