the cross face, made a mean substitute. She had it all her own way now.
The puddings had less jam in them, and the pies hardly any fruit. Little
Landon fell ill; and one day, after hours, when some of us went up to
see him, we found him crying for Mrs. Frost. He was only seven; the
youngest in the school, and made a sort of plaything of; an orphan with
no friends to see to him much. Illness had been Mrs. Frost's great
point. Any of us who were laid by she'd sit with half the day, reading
nice stories, and talking to us of good things, just as our mothers
might do. I know mine would if she had lived. However, we managed to
get along in spite of Hall, hoping the Doctor would find her out and
discharge her.
Matters went on quietly for some weeks. No one lost anything: and we had
almost forgotten there had been a doubt that we might lose something,
when it occurred. The loss was Tod's--rather curious, at first sight,
that it should be, after his threat of what he would do. And Tod, as
they all knew, was not one to break his word. It was only half-a-crown;
but there could be no certainty that sovereigns would not go next. Not
to speak of the disagreeable sense of feeling the thief was amongst us
still, and taking to his tricks again.
Tod was writing to Evesham for some articles he wanted. Bill Whitney,
knowing this, got him to add an order for some stationery for himself:
which came back in the parcel. The account, nine-and-tenpence, was made
out to Tod ("Joseph Todhetley, Esquire!"), half-a-crown of it being
Whitney's portion. Bill handed him the half-crown at once; and Tod, who
was busy with his own things and had his hands full, asked him to put it
on the mantelpiece.
The tea-bell rang, and they went away and forgot it. Only they two
had been in the room. But others might have gone in afterwards. We
were getting up from tea when Tod called to me to go and fetch him the
half-crown.
"It is on the mantelpiece, Johnny."
I went through the passages and turned into the box-room; a place where
knots of us gathered sometimes. But the mantelpiece had no half-crown on
it, and I carried the news back to Tod.
"Did you take it up again, Bill?" he asked of Whitney.
"I didn't touch it after I put it down," said Whitney. "It was there
when the tea-bell rang."
They said I had overlooked it, and both went to the box-room. I followed
slowly; thinking they should search for themselves. Which they did; and
were standing with blank faces when I got in.
"It has gone after my guinea," Whitney was saying.
"What guinea?"
"My guinea. The one you saw. That disappeared a week ago."
Bill was not a fellow to make much row over anything; but Tod--and I,
too--wondered at his having taken it so easily. Tod asked him why he had
not spoken.
"Because Lacketer--who was with me when I discovered the loss--asked me
to be silent for a short time," said Whitney. "He has a suspicion; and
is looking out for himself."
"Lacketer has?"
"He says so. I am sure he has. He thinks he could put his finger any
minute on the fellow; but it would not do to accuse him without proof;
and he is waiting for it."
Tod glanced at me, and I at him, both of us thinking of Vale.
"Yesterday Lacketer lost something himself," continued Whitney. "A
shilling, I think it was. He went into a fine way over it, and said now
he'd watch in earnest."
"Who is it he suspects?" asked Tod.
"He won't tell me; says it would not be fair."
"Well, I shall talk about my half-crown, if you and Lacketer choose to
be silent over your losses," said Tod, decisively. "And I'll be as good
as my word, and give the reptile a ducking if I can track him."
He went straight to the playground. It was a fine October evening, the
daylight nearly gone, and the hunter's moon rising in the sky. Tod told
about his half-crown, and the boys ceased their noise to listen to him.
He talked himself into a passion, and said some stinging things. "He
suspected who it was, and he heard that Lacketer suspected, and he
fancied that another or two suspected, and one _knew_; and he thought,
now that affairs had come to this pitch, when nothing, put for a minute
out of hand, was safe, it might be better for them all to declare their
suspicions, and hunt the animal as they'd hunt a hare."
There was a pause when Tod finished. He was about the biggest and
strongest in the school; his voice was one of power, his manner ready
and decisive; so that it was just as though a master spoke. Lacketer
came out from amongst them, looking white. I could see that in the
twilight.
"Who says I suspect? Speak for yourself, Todhetley. Don't bring up my
name."
"Do you scent the fox, or don't you?" roared Tod back again, not at all
in a humour to be crossed. "If you _do_, you must speak, and not shirk
it. Is the whole school to lie under doubt because of one black sheep?"
Tod's concluding words were drowned in noise; applause for him, murmurs
for Lacketer. I looked round for Vale, and saw him behind the rest, as
if preparing to make a run for it. That said nothing: he was one of
those quiet-natured fellows who liked to keep aloof from rows. When I
looked back again, Sanker was standing a little forward, not far from
Lacketer.
"As good speak as not, Lacketer," put in Whitney. "I don't mind telling
now that that guinea of mine has been taken; and you know you lost a
shilling yourself. You say you could put your finger on the fellow."
"Speak!" "Speak!" "Speak!" came the shouts from all quarters. And
Lacketer turned whiter.
"There's no proof," he said. "I might have been mistaken in what I
fancied. I _won't_ speak."
"Then I shall say you are an accomplice," roared Tod, in his passion. "I
intend to hunt the fellow to earth to-night, and I'll do it."
"I don't suspect any one in particular," said Lacketer, looking as if he
were run to earth himself. "There."
Great commotion. Lacketer was hustled, but got away and disappeared.
Sanker went after him. Tod had been turning on Sanker, saying why didn't
_he_ speak.
"Half-a-crown is half-a-crown, and I mean to get mine back again,"
avowed Tod. "If some of you are rich enough to lose your half-crowns,
I'm not. But it isn't that. Sovereigns may go next. It isn't _that_. It
is the knowing that we have a light-fingered, disreputable, sneaking rat
amongst us, whose proper place would be a reformatory, not a school for
honest men's sons."
"Name!" "Proofs!" "Proofs!" "Name!" It was as if a torrent had been let
loose. In the midst of the lull that ensued a voice was heard, and a
name.
"_Vale._ Harry Vale."
Harding was the one to say it: a clever, first-class boy. You might have
heard a pin drop in the surprise: and Harding went on after a minute.
"I beg to state that I do not accuse Vale myself. I know nothing
whatever about the case. But I have reason to think Vale's name is the
one that has been mentioned in connection with the losses last half."
"I know it is," cried Tod, who had only wanted the lead, not choosing to
take it himself. "Now then, Vale, make your defence if you can."
I dare say you recollect how hotly you used to take up a cause when you
were at school yourselves, not waiting to know whether it might be right
or wrong. Mrs. Frost said to us on one of these occasions she wondered
whether we should ever be as eager to take up heaven. They pounced upon
Vale with an awful row. He stood with his arm round one of the trees
behind, looking scared to death. I glanced back for Sanker, expecting
his confirming testimony, but could not see him, and at that moment
Lacketer appeared again, peeping round the trees. Whitney called to him.
"Here, Lacketer. Was it Vale you suspected?"
"As much as I did anybody else," doggedly answered Lacketer.
It was taken as an affirmative. The boys believed the thief was found,
and were mad against him. Vale spoke something, shaking and trembling
like the leaves in the wind, but his words were drowned. He was not
brave, and they looked ready to tear him to pieces.
"My half-crown, Vale," roared Tod. "Did you take it just now?"
Vale made no answer; I thought he could not. His face frightened me; the
lips were blue and drawn, his teeth chattered.
"Search his pockets."
It was a simultaneous thought, for a dozen said it. Vale was turned out,
and half-a-crown found upon him; no other money. The boys yelled and
groaned. Tod, with his great strength, pushed them aside, as the coin
was flung to him.
"Shall I resume possession of this half-crown?" he asked of Vale,
holding it before him in defiant mockery.
"If you like. I----"
Vale broke down with a gasp and a sob. His piteous aspect might have
moved even Tod.
"Look here," said he, "I don't care in general to punish a coward; I
regard him as an abject animal beneath me: but I cannot go from my word.
Ducking is too good for you, Vale, but you shall have it. Be off to that
tree yonder; we'll give you so much grace. Let him start fair, boys, and
then hound him on. It will be a fine chase."
Vale, seeming to be too confused and terror-stricken to do anything but
obey, went to the tree, and then darted away _in the direction of the
river_. It takes time to read all this; but scarcely a minute appeared
to have passed since Tod first came out with Whitney, and spoke of the
half-crown. Giving Vale the fair start, the boys sprang after him, like
a pack of hounds in full cry. Tod, the swiftest runner in the school,
was following, when he found himself seized by Sanker. I had stayed
behind.
"Have you been accusing Vale? Are you going to duck him?"
"Well?" cried Tod, angry at being stopped.
"It was not Vale who took the things. Vale! He is as innocent as you
are. You'll kill him, Todhetley; he cannot bear terror."
"Who says he is innocent?"
"I do. I say it on my honour. It was another fellow, whose name I've
been suppressing. This is _your_ work, Johnny Ludlow."
I felt a sudden rush of repentance. A conviction that Sanker spoke
nothing but the truth.
"You said it was Vale, Sanker."
"I never did. _You_ said it. I told you you'd better believe it was any
other rather than Vale. And I meant it."
But that Sanker was not a fellow to tell a lie, I should have thought
he told one then. The impression, resting on my memory, was that he
acknowledged to its being Vale, if he had not exactly stated it.
"You know you told me to be quiet, Sanker: you said, give him a chance."
"But I thought you were speaking of another then, not Vale. I swear it
was not Vale. He is as honest as the day."
Tod, looking ready to strike me, waiting for no more explanation, was
already off, shouting to the crew to turn, far more anxious now to save
Vale than he had been to duck him.
How he managed to arrest them, I never knew. He did do it. But for being
the fleetest runner and strongest fellow, he could never have overtaken,
passed, and flung himself back upon them, with his arms stretched out,
words of explanation on his lips.
The river was more than a mile away, taking the straight course over the
fields, as a bird flies, and leaping fences and ditches. Vale went
panting on, _for it_. It was as if his senses were scared out of him.
Tod flew after him, the rest following on more gently. The school-bell
boomed out to call us in for evening study, but none heeded it.
"Stop, Vale! Stop!" shouted Tod. "It has been a mistake. Come back and
hear about it. It was not you; it was another fellow. Come back, Harry;
come back!"
The more Tod shouted, the faster Vale went on. You should have seen the
chase in the moonlight. It put us in mind of the fairy tales of Germany,
where the phantom huntsman and his pack are seen coursing at midnight.
Vale made for a part where the banks of the river are overshadowed by
trees. Tod was only about thirty yards behind when he gained it; he saw
him leap in, and heard the plunge.
But when he got close, there was no sign of Vale in the water. Had he
suddenly sunk? Tod's heart stood still with fear. The boys were coming
up by ones and twos, and a great silence ensued. Tod stript ready to
plunge in when Vale should rise.
"Here's his cap," whispered one, picking it up from the bank.
"He was a good swimmer; he must have been seized with cramp."
"Look here; they say there are holes in the river, just above this bend.
What if he has sunk into one?"
"Hold your row, all of you," cried Tod, in a hoarse whisper that
betrayed his fear. "Who's to listen with that noise?"
He was listening for a sound, watching for the faintest ripple, that
might give indication of Vale's rising. But none came. Tod stood there
in his shirt till he shivered with cold. And the church clock struck
seven, and then eight, and it was of no use waiting.
It was a horrible feeling. Somehow we seemed, I and Tod, to be
responsible for Vale's death, I for having mistaken Sanker; Tod for
entering upon the threatened ducking, and hounding the boys on.
The worst was to come: going back to Dr. Frost and the masters with the
tale; breaking it to Mr. and Mrs. Vale at Vale Farm. While Tod was
dressing himself, the rest went on slowly, no one staying by him but me
and Sanker.
"It's _your_ doing more than mine," Tod said, turning to Sanker in his
awful distress. "If you knew who the thief was last half, you should
have disclosed it; not have given him the opportunity to resume his
game. Had you done so this could not have happened."
"I promised him then I should proclaim him if he did resume it; I have
told him to-night I shall do it," quietly answered Sanker. "It was
Lacketer."
"Lacketer!"
"Lacketer. And since my eyes were opened, it has seemed to me that all
yours must have been closed, not to find him out. His manner was enough
to betray him: only, I suppose--you wanted the clue."
"But, Sanker, why did you let me think it was Vale?" I asked.
"_You_ made the first mistake; I let you lie under it for Lacketer's
sake; to give him the chance," said Sanker. "Who was to foresee you
would go and tell?"
It had never passed my lips, save those few words at the time when Tod
questioned me. Harding was the one outside the porch who had overheard
it; but he had kept it to himself until now, when he thought the time
had come for speaking.
What was to be done?--what was to be done? It seemed as if a great
darkness had suddenly fallen upon us, and could never again be lifted.
We had death upon our hands.
"There's just a chance," said Tod, dragging his legs along like so much
lead, and beginning with a sort of groan. "Vale may have made for the
land again as soon as he got in, and come out lower down. In that case
he would run home probably."
Just a chance, as Tod said. But in the depth of despair chances are
caught at. If we cut across to the left, Vale Farm was not more than a
mile off: and we turned to it. Absenting ourselves from school seemed as
nothing. Tod went on with a bound now there was an object, a ray of
hope; I and Sanker after him.
"I can't go in," said Tod, when we came in front of the farm, a long,
low house, with lights gleaming in some of the windows. "It's not
cowardice; at least, I don't think it is. It's---- Never mind; I'll wait
for you here."
"I say," said Sanker to me, "what excuse are we to make for going in at
this time? We can't tell the truth."
_I_ could not. Harry Vale stood alone; he had neither brother nor
sister. I could not go in and tell his mother that he was dead. She was
sitting in one of the front parlours, sewing by the lamp. We saw her
through the window as we stole up to look in. But there was no time for
plotting. Footsteps approached, and we only got back on the path when
Mr. Vale came up. He was a tall, fine man, with a fair face and blue
eyes like his son's. What we said I hardly knew; something about being
close by, and thought we'd call on our way home. Sanker had been there
several times in the holidays.
Mr. Vale took us in with a beaming face to his wife. They were the
kindest-hearted people, liberal and hospitable, as most well-to-do
farmers are. Mrs. Vale, rolling up her work, said we must take something
to help us on our way home, and rang the bell. We never said we could
not stop; we never said Tod was waiting outside. But there were no signs
that Vale had gone home half-drowned.
Two maids put the supper on the table, and Mrs. Vale helped them; for
Sanker had summoned courage to say it was late for us to stop. About a
dozen things. Cold ducks, and ham, collared-head, a big dish of custard,
and fruit and cake. I couldn't have swallowed a morsel; the lump rising
in my throat would have hindered it. I don't think Sanker could, for he
said resolutely we must not sit down because of Dr. Frost.
"How is Harry?" asked Mrs. Vale.
"Oh, he is--very well," said Sanker, after waiting to see if I'd answer.
"Have you seen him lately?"
"Not since last Sunday week, when he and young Snepp spent the day here.
He was looking well, and seemed in spirits. It was rather a hazard,
sending him to school at all; Mr. Vale wanted to have him taught at
home, as he has been until this year. But I think it is turning out for
the best."
"He gets frightened, does he not?" said Sanker, who knew what she meant.
"He did," replied Mrs. Vale; "but he is growing out of it. Never was a
braver little child born than he; but when he was four years old, he
strolled away from his nurse into a field where a bull was grazing, a
savage animal. What exactly happened, we never knew; that Harry was
chased across the field by it was certain, and then tossed. The chief
injury was to the nerves, strange though that may seem in so young a
child. For a long time afterwards, the least alarm would put him into a
state of terrible fear, almost a fit. But he is getting over it now."
She told this for my benefit; just as if she had divined the night's
work; Sanker knew it before. I felt sick with remorse as I listened--and
Tod had called him a coward! Let us get away.
"I wish you could stay, my lads," cried Mr. Vale; "it vexes me to turn
you out supperless. What's this, Charlotte? Ah yes, to be sure! I wish
you could put up the whole table for them."
For Mrs. Vale had been putting up some tartlets, and gave us each a
packet of them. "Eat them as you go along," she said. "And give my love
to Harry."
"And tell him that he must bring you both on Sunday, to spend the day,"
added Mr. Vale. "Perhaps young Mr. Todhetley will come also. You might
have breakfast, and go with us to church. I'll write to Dr. Frost."
Outside at last; I and my shame. These good, simple-hearted people--oh,
had we indeed, between us, made them childless? "Young Mr. Todhetley,"
waiting amid the stubble in the outer field, came springing up to the
fence, his face white in the light of the hunter's moon.
"What a long while you have been! Well?"
"Nothing," said Sanker, briefly. "No news! I don't think we've been much
above five minutes."
What a walk home it was! Mr. Blair, the out-of-school master, came down
upon us with his thunder, but Tod seemed never to hear him. The boys,
hushed and quiet as nature is before an impending storm, had not dared
to tell and provoke it. I could not see Lacketer.
"Where's Vale?" roared Mr. Blair, supposing he had been with us. "But
that prayers are waiting, I'd cane all four of you. Where are you going,
Todhetley?"
"Don't stop me, Mr. Blair," said Tod, putting him aside with a quiet
authority and a pain in his voice that made Blair stare. We called
Blair, Baked Pie, because of his name, Pyefinch.
"Read the prayers without me, please Mr Blair," went on Tod. "I must see
Dr. Frost. If you don't know what has happened to-night, sir, ask the
rest to tell you."
He went out to his interview with the Doctor. Tod was not one to shirk
his duty. Seeing Vale's father and mother he had shrunk from; but the
confession to Dr. Frost he made himself. What passed between them we
never knew: how much contrition Tod spoke, how much reproach the Doctor.
Roger and Miles, the man-servant and boy, were called into the library,
and sent abroad: we thought it might be to search the banks of the
river, or give notice for it to be dragged. The next called in was
Sanker. The next, Lacketer.
But Lacketer did not answer the call. He had vanished. Mr. Blair went
searching for him high and low, and could not find him. Lacketer had run
away. He knew his time at Worcester House was over, and thought he'd
save himself from dismissal. It was he who had been the thief, and whom
Sanker suspected. As good mention here that Dr. Frost got a letter from
his aunt the next Saturday, saying the school did not agree with her
nephew, and she had withdrawn him from it.
Whether the others slept that night, I can't tell; I did not. Harry
Vale's drowned form was in my mind all through it; and the sorrow of Mr.
and Mrs. Vale. In the morning Tod got up, looking more like one dead
than alive: he had one of his frightful headaches. I felt ready to die
myself; it seemed that never another happy morning could dawn on the
world.
"Shall I ask if I may bring you some breakfast up here, Tod? And it's
just possible, you know, that Vale----"
"Hold your peace, Johnny!" he snapped. "If ever you tell me a false
thing of a fellow again, I'll thrash your life out of you."
He came downstairs when he was dressed, and went out, waiting neither
for breakfast nor prayers. I went out to watch him away, knowing he must
be going to Vale Farm.
Oh, I never shall forget it. As Tod passed round the corner by the
railings, he ran up against him. _Him_, Harry Vale.
My sight grew dim; I couldn't see; the field and railings were reeling.
But it only lasted for a moment or two. Tod's breath was coming in great
gasps then, and he had Vale's two hands grasped in his. I thought he was
going to hug him; a loud sob broke from him.
"We have been thinking you were drowned!"
Vale smiled. "I am too good a swimmer for that."
"But you disappeared at once."
"I struck back out of the river the instant I got into it; I was afraid
you'd come in after me; and crept round the alder trees lower down. When
you were all gone I swam across in my clothes; see how they've shrunk!"
"Swam across! Have you not been home?"
"No, I went to my uncle's: it's nearer than home: and they made me go to
bed, and dried my things, and sent to tell Dr. Frost. I did not say why
I went into the water," added Vale, lifting his kind face. "But the
Doctor came round the ferry late, and he knew all about it. They talked
to me well, he and my uncle, about being frightened at nothing, and I've
promised not to be so stupid again."
"God bless you, Vale!" cried Tod. "You know it was a mistake."
"Yes, Dr. Frost said so. The half-crown was my own. My uncle met us boys
when we were out walking yesterday morning, and gave it me. I thought
you might have seen him give it."
Tod linked his arm within Vale's and walked off to the breakfast-room.
The wonder to me was how, with Vale's good honest face and open manners,
we could have thought him capable of theft. But when you once go in for
a mistake it carries you on in spite of improbabilities. The boys were
silent for an instant when Vale went in, and then you'd have thought the
roof was coming off with cheers. Tod stood looking from the window, and
I vow I saw him rub his handkerchief across his eyes.
We went to Vale Farm on Sunday morning early: the four of us invited,
and Harding. Mr. Vale shook hands twice with us all round so heartily,
that we might see, I thought, they bore no malice; and Mrs. Vale's
breakfast was a sight to do you good, with its jugs of cream and
home-made sausages.
After that, came church: it looked like a procession turning out for it.
Mr. and Mrs. Vale and the grandmother, an upright old lady with a
China-crape shawl and white hair, us five and a man and maid-servant
behind. The river lay on the right, the church was in front of us;
people dotted the fields on their way to it, and the bells were ringing
as they do at a wedding.
"This is a different sort of Sunday from what we thought last Thursday
it would be," I said in Tod's ear when we were together for a minute at
the gate.
"Johnny, if I were older, and went in for that kind of thing, as perhaps
I shall do sometime, I should like to put up a public thanksgiving in
church to-day."
"A public thanksgiving?"
"For mercies received."
I stared at Tod. He did not seem to heed it, but took his hat off and
walked with it in his hand all across the churchyard.
XI
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
Perhaps this might be called the beginning of the end of the chain of
events that I alluded to in that other paper. An end that terminated in
distress, and death, and sorrow.
It was the half-year following that hunt of ours by moonlight. Summer
weather had come in, and we were looking forward to the holidays, hoping
the heat would last.
The half-mile field, so called from its length, on Vale Farm was being
mowed. Sunday intervened, and the grass was left to dry until the
Monday. The haymakers had begun to rake it into cocks. The river
stretched past along the field on one side; a wooden fence bounded it
on the other. It was out of all proportion, that field, so long and so
narrow.