soothing; and then went out, closing the door behind him. Maria came
back and stood with her face and its ghastliness turned from us. And
still the old mother noticed nothing.
"Why don't you take your things off, Maria?" she asked.
"Presently," was the answer.
I said good night in my turn, and went away. Half-way home I met Tod
with the two young Lexoms. The Lexoms made us go in and stay to supper,
and it was ten o'clock before we left them.
"We shall catch it," said Tod, setting off at a run. They never let us
stay out late on a Sunday evening, on account of the reading.
But, as it happened, we escaped scot-free this time, for the house was
in a commotion about Lena. She had been better in the afternoon, but at
nine o'clock the fever returned worse than ever. Her little cheeks and
lips were scarlet as she lay on the bed, her wide-open eyes were bright
and glistening. The Squire had gone up to look at her, and was fuming
and fretting in his usual fashion.
"The doctor has never sent the medicine," said patient Mrs. Todhetley,
who must have been worn out with nursing. "She ought to take it; I am
sure she ought."
"These boys are good to run over to Cole's for that," cried the Squire.
"It won't hurt them; it's a fine night."
Of course we were good for it. And we got our caps again; being charged
to enjoin Mr. Cole to come over the first thing in the morning.
"Do you care much about my going with you, Johnny?" Tod asked as we were
turning out at the door. "I am awfully tired."
"Not a bit. I'd as soon go alone as not. You'll see me back in
half-an-hour."
I took the nearest way; flying across the fields at a canter, and
startling the hares. Mr. Cole lived near South Crabb, and I don't
believe more than ten minutes had gone by when I knocked at his door.
But to get back as quickly was another thing. The doctor was not at
home. He had been called out to a patient at eight o'clock, and had not
yet returned.
I went in to wait: the servant said he might be expected to come in from
minute to minute. It was of no use to go away without the medicine; and
I sat down in the surgery in front of the shelves, and fell asleep
counting the white jars and physic bottles. The doctor's entrance awoke
me.
"I am sorry you should have had to come over and to wait," he said.
"When my other patient, with whom I was detained a considerable time,
was done with, I went on to Crabb Cot with the child's medicine, which I
had in my pocket."
"They think her very ill to-night, sir."
"I left her better, and going quietly to sleep. She will soon be well
again, I hope."
"Why! is that the time?" I exclaimed, happening to catch sight of
the clock as I was crossing the hall. It was nearly twelve. Mr. Cole
laughed, saying time passed quickly when folk were asleep.
I went back slowly. The sleep, or the canter before it, had made me feel
as tired as Tod had said he was. It was a night to be abroad in and to
enjoy; calm, warm, light. The moon, high in the sky, illumined every
blade of grass; sparkled on the water of the little rivulet; brought out
the moss on the grey walls of the old church; played on its round-faced
clock, then striking twelve.
Twelve o'clock at night at North Crabb answers to about three in the
morning in London, for country people are mostly in bed and asleep at
ten. Therefore, when loud and angry voices struck up in dispute, just as
the last stroke of the hour was dying away on the midnight air, I stood
still and doubted my ears.
I was getting near home then. The sounds came from the back of a
building standing alone in a solitary place on the left-hand side of
the road. It belonged to the Squire, and was called the yellow barn,
its walls being covered with a yellow wash; but it was in fact used as
a storehouse for corn. I was passing in front of it when the voices
rose upon the air. Round the building I ran, and saw--Maria Lease: and
something else that I could not at first comprehend. In the pursuit of
her vow, not to go to rest until she had "had it out" with Daniel
Ferrar, Maria had been abroad searching for him. What ill fate brought
her looking for him up near our barn?--perhaps because she had
fruitlessly searched in every other spot.
At the back of this barn, up some steps, was an unused door. Unused
partly because it was not required, the principal entrance being in
front; partly because the key of it had been for a long time missing.
Stealing out at this door, a bag of corn upon his shoulders, had come
Daniel Ferrar in a smock-frock. Maria saw him, and stood back in the
shade. She watched him lock the door and put the key in his pocket; she
watched him give the heavy bag a jerk as he turned to come down the
steps. Then she burst out. Her loud reproaches petrified him, and he
stood there as one suddenly turned to stone. It was at that moment that
I appeared.
I understood it all soon; it needed not Maria's words to enlighten me.
Daniel Ferrar possessed the lost key and could come in and out at will
in the midnight hours when the world was sleeping, and help himself
to the corn. No wonder his poultry throve; no wonder there had been
grumblings at Crabb Cot at the mysterious disappearance of the good
grain.
Maria Lease was decidedly mad in those few first moments. Stealing is
looked upon in an honest village as an awful thing; a disgrace, a crime;
and there was the night's earlier misery besides. Daniel Ferrar was a
thief! Daniel Ferrar was false to her! A storm of words and reproaches
poured forth from her in confusion, none of it very distinct. "Living
upon theft! Convicted felon! Transportation for life! Squire Todhetley's
corn! Fattening poultry on stolen goods! Buying gold chains with the
profits for that bold, flaunting French girl, Harriet Roe! Taking his
stealthy walks with her!"
My going up to them stopped the charge. There was a pause; and then
Maria, in her mad passion, denounced him to me, as representative (so
she put it) of the Squire--the breaker-in upon our premises! the robber
of our stored corn!
Daniel Ferrar came down the steps; he had remained there still as a
statue, immovable; and turned his white face to me. Never a word in
defence said he: the blow had crushed him; he was a proud man (if any
one can understand that), and to be discovered in this ill-doing was
worse than death to him.
"Don't think of me more hardly than you can help, Master Johnny," he
said in a quiet tone. "I have been almost tired of my life this long
while."
Putting down the bag of corn near the steps, he took the key from his
pocket and handed it to me. The man's aspect had so changed; there was
something so grievously subdued and sad about him altogether, that I
felt as sorry for him as if he had not been guilty. Maria Lease went on
in her fiery passion.
"You'll be more tired of it to-morrow when the police are taking you to
Worcester gaol. Squire Todhetley will not spare you, though your father
was his many-years bailiff. He could not, you know, if he wished; Master
Ludlow has seen you in the act."
"Let me have the key again for a minute, sir," he said, as quietly as
though he had not heard a word. And I gave it to him. I'm not sure but
I should have given him my head had he asked for it.
He swung the bag on his shoulders, unlocked the granary door, and
put the bag beside the other sacks. The bag was his own, as we found
afterwards, but he left it there. Locking the door again, he gave me
the key, and went away with a weary step.
"Good-bye, Master Johnny."
I answered back good night civilly, though he had been stealing. When
he was out of sight, Maria Lease, her passion full upon her still,
dashed off towards her mother's cottage, a strange cry of despair
breaking from her lips.
"Where have you been lingering, Johnny?" roared the Squire, who was
sitting up for me. "You have been throwing at the owls, sir, that's what
you've been at; you have been scudding after the hares."
I said I had waited for Mr. Cole, and had come back slower than I went;
but I said no more, and went up to my room at once. And the Squire went
to his.
I know I am only a muff; people tell me so, often: but I can't help it;
I did not make myself. I lay awake till nearly daylight, first wishing
Daniel Ferrar could be screened, and then thinking it might perhaps be
done. If he would only take the lesson to heart and go on straight for
the future, what a capital thing it would be. We had liked old Ferrar;
he had done me and Tod many a good turn: and, for the matter of that,
we liked Daniel. So I never said a word when morning came of the past
night's work.
"Is Daniel at home?" I asked, going to Ferrar's the first thing before
breakfast. I meant to tell him that if he would keep right, I would keep
counsel.
"He went out at dawn, sir," answered the old woman who did for him, and
sold his poultry at market. "He'll be in presently: he have had no
breakfast yet."
"Then tell him when he comes, to wait in, and see me: tell him it's all
right. Can you remember, Goody? 'It is all right.'"
"I'll remember, safe enough, Master Ludlow."
Tod and I, being on our honour, went to church, and found about ten
people in the pews. Harriet Roe was one, with her pink ribbons, the
twisted gold chain showing outside a short-cut velvet jacket.
"No, sir; he has not been home yet; I can't think where he can have got
to," was the old Goody's reply when I went again to Ferrar's. And so I
wrote a word in pencil, and told her to give it him when he came in, for
I could not go dodging there every hour of the day.
After luncheon, strolling by the back of the barn: a certain
reminiscence I suppose taking me there, for it was not a frequented
spot: I saw Maria Lease coming along.
Well, it was a change! The passionate woman of the previous night had
subsided into a poor, wild-looking, sorrow-stricken thing, ready to die
of remorse. Excessive passion had wrought its usual consequences; a
re-action: a re-action in favour of Daniel Ferrar. She came up to me,
clasping her hands in agony--beseeching that I would spare him; that I
would not tell of him; that I would give him a chance for the future:
and her lips quivered and trembled, and there were dark circles round
her hollow eyes.
I said that I had not told and did not intend to tell. Upon which she
was going to fall down on her knees, but I rushed off.
"Do you know where he is?" I asked, when she came to her sober senses.
"Oh, I wish I did know! Master Johnny, he is just the man to go and
do something desperate. He would never face shame; and I was a mad,
hard-hearted, wicked girl to do what I did last night. He might run
away to sea; he might go and enlist for a soldier."
"I dare say he is at home by this time. I have left a word for him
there, and promised to go in and see him to-night. If he will undertake
not to be up to wrong things again, no one shall ever know of this from
me."
She went away easier, and I sauntered on towards South Crabb. Eager as
Tod and I had been for the day's holiday, it did not seem to be turning
out much of a boon. In going home again--there was nothing worth staying
out for--I had come to the spot by the three-cornered grove where I saw
Maria, when a galloping policeman overtook me. My heart stood still; for
I thought he must have come after Daniel Ferrar.
"Can you tell me if I am near to Crabb Cot--Squire Todhetley's?" he
asked, reining-in his horse.
"You will reach it in a minute or two. I live there. Squire Todhetley is
not at home. What do you want with him?"
"It's only to give in an official paper, sir. I have to leave one
personally upon all the county magistrates."
He rode on. When I got in I saw the folded paper upon the hall-table;
the man and horse had already gone onwards. It was worse indoors than
out; less to be done. Tod had disappeared after church; the Squire was
abroad; Mrs. Todhetley sat upstairs with Lena: and I strolled out again.
It was only three o'clock then.
An hour, or more, was got through somehow; meeting one, talking to
another, throwing at the ducks and geese; anything. Mrs. Lease had her
head, smothered in a yellow shawl, stretched out over the palings as I
passed her cottage.
"Don't catch cold, mother."
"I am looking for Maria, sir. I can't think what has come to her to-day,
Master Johnny," she added, dropping her voice to a confidential tone.
"The girl seems demented: she has been going in and out ever since
daylight like a dog in a fair."
"If I meet her I will send her home."
And in another minute I did meet her. For she was coming out of Daniel
Ferrar's yard. I supposed he was at home again.
"No," she said, looking more wild, worn, haggard than before; "that's
what I have been to ask. I am just out of my senses, sir. He has gone
for certain. Gone!"
I did not think it. He would not be likely to go away without clothes.
"Well, I know he is, Master Johnny; something tells me. I've been all
about everywhere. There's a great dread upon me, sir; I never felt
anything like it."
"Wait until night, Maria; I dare say he will go home then. Your mother
is looking out for you; I said if I met you I'd send you in."
Mechanically she turned towards the cottage, and I went on. Presently,
as I was sitting on a gate watching the sunset, Harriet Roe passed
towards the withy walk, and gave me a nod in her free but good-natured
way.
"Are you going there to look out for the ghosts this evening?" I asked:
and I wished not long afterwards I had not said it. "It will soon be
dark."
"So it will," she said, turning to the red sky in the west. "But I have
no time to give to the ghosts to-night."
"Have you seen Ferrar to-day?" I cried, an idea occurring to me.
"No. And I can't think where he has got to; unless he is off to
Worcester. He told me he should have to go there some day this week."
She evidently knew nothing about him, and went on her way with another
free-and-easy nod. I sat on the gate till the sun had gone down, and
then thought it was time to be getting homewards.
Close against the yellow barn, the scene of last night's trouble, whom
should I come upon but Maria Lease. She was standing still, and turned
quickly at the sound of my footsteps. Her face was bright again, but had
a puzzled look upon it.
"I have just seen him: he has not gone," she said in a happy whisper.
"You were right, Master Johnny, and I was wrong."
"Where did you see him?"
"Here; not a minute ago. I saw him twice. He is angry, very, and will
not let me speak to him; both times he got away before I could reach
him. He is close by somewhere."
I looked round, naturally; but Ferrar was nowhere to be seen. There was
nothing to conceal him except the barn, and that was locked up. The
account she gave was this--and her face grew puzzled again as she
related it.
Unable to rest indoors, she had wandered up here again, and saw Ferrar
standing at the corner of the barn, looking very hard at her. She
thought he was waiting for her to come up, but before she got close to
him he had disappeared, and she did not see which way. She hastened past
the front of the barn, ran round to the back, and there he was. He stood
near the steps looking out for her; waiting for her, as it again seemed;
and was gazing at her with the same fixed stare. But again she missed
him before she could get quite up; and it was at that moment that I
arrived on the scene.
I went all round the barn, but could see nothing of Ferrar. It was an
extraordinary thing where he could have got to. Inside the barn he could
not be: it was securely locked; and there was no appearance of him in
the open country. It was, so to say, broad daylight yet, or at least not
far short of it; the red light was still in the west. Beyond the field
at the back of the barn, was a grove of trees in the form of a triangle;
and this grove was flanked by Crabb Ravine, which ran right and left.
Crabb Ravine had the reputation of being haunted; for a light was
sometimes seen dodging about its deep descending banks at night that no
one could account for. A lively spot altogether for those who liked
gloom.
"Are you sure it was Ferrar, Maria?"
"Sure!" she returned in surprise. "You don't think I could mistake him,
Master Johnny, do you? He wore that ugly seal-skin winter-cap of his
tied over his ears, and his thick grey coat. The coat was buttoned
closely round him. I have not seen him wear either since last winter."
That Ferrar must have gone into hiding somewhere seemed quite evident;
and yet there was nothing but the ground to receive him. Maria said she
lost sight of him the last time in a moment; both times in fact; and it
was absolutely impossible that he could have made off to the triangle or
elsewhere, as she must have seen him cross the open land. For that
matter I must have seen him also.
On the whole, not two minutes had elapsed since I came up, though it
seems to have been longer in telling it: when, before we could look
further, voices were heard approaching from the direction of Crabb Cot;
and Maria, not caring to be seen, went away quickly. I was still
puzzling about Ferrar's hiding-place, when they reached me--the Squire,
Tod, and two or three men. Tod came slowly up, his face dark and grave.
"I say, Johnny, what a shocking thing this is!"
"What is a shocking thing?"
"You have not heard of it?--But I don't see how you could hear it."
I had heard nothing. I did not know what there was to hear. Tod told me
in a whisper.
"Daniel Ferrar's dead, lad."
"_What?_"
"He has destroyed himself. Not more than half-an-hour ago. Hung himself
in the grove."
I turned sick, taking one thing with another, comparing this
recollection with that; which I dare say you will think no one but a
muff would do.
Ferrar was indeed dead. He had been hiding all day in the three-cornered
grove: perhaps waiting for night to get away--perhaps only waiting
for night to go home again. Who can tell? About half-past two, Luke
Macintosh, a man who sometimes worked for us, sometimes for old Coney,
happening to go through the grove, saw him there, and talked with him.
The same man, passing back a little before sunset, found him hanging
from a tree, dead. Macintosh ran with the news to Crabb Cot, and they
were now flocking to the scene. When facts came to be examined there
appeared only too much reason to think that the unfortunate appearance
of the galloping policeman had terrified Ferrar into the act;
perhaps--we all hoped it!--had scared his senses quite away. Look at it
as we would, it was very dreadful.
But what of the appearance Maria Lease saw? At that time, Ferrar had
been dead at least half-an-hour. Was it reality or delusion? That is (as
the Squire put it), did her eyes see a real, spectral Daniel Ferrar; or
were they deceived by some imagination of the brain? Opinions were
divided. Nothing can shake her own steadfast belief in its reality; to
her it remains an awful certainty, true and sure as heaven.
If I say that I believe in it too, I shall be called a muff and a double
muff. But there is no stumbling-block difficult to be got over. Ferrar,
when found, was wearing the seal-skin cap tied over the ears and the
thick grey coat buttoned up round him, just as Maria Lease had described
to me; and he had never worn them since the previous winter, or taken
them out of the chest where they were kept. The old woman at his home
did not know he had done it then. When told that he died in these
things, she protested that they were in the chest, and ran up to look
for them. But the things were gone.
XIX.
DAVID GARTH'S NIGHT-WATCH.
It was the following year, and we were again at Crabb Cot. Fever had
broken out at Dr. Frost's, and the school was dismissed. The leaves were
falling late that year, for November was nearly half through, and they
strewed the ground. But if the leaves were late, the frost was early.
The weather had come in curiously cold. Three days before the morning I
am about to speak of, the warm weather suddenly changed, and it was now
as freezing as January. It is not often that you see ice mingling with
the dead leaves of autumn. Both the ice and the leaves have to do
with what happened: and I think you often find that if the weather is
particularly unseasonable, we get something by which to remember it.
At the corner of a field between our house and North Crabb, stood a
small solitary dwelling, called Willow Brook Cottage: but the brook from
which it took its name was dry now. The house had a lonely look, and was
lonely; and perhaps that kept it empty. It had been unoccupied for more
than a year, when the Squire, tired of seeing it so, happened to say in
the hearing of James Hill, that new bailiff of ours, that he would let
it for an almost nominal rent. Hill caught at the words and said he
would be glad to rent it: for some cause or other he did not like the
house he was in, and had been wanting to leave it. At least, he said so:
but he was of a frightfully stingy turn, and we all thought the low rent
tempted him. Hill, this working bailiff, was a steady man, but severe
upon every one.
It was during this early frost that he began to move in. One morning
after breakfast, I was taking the broad pathway across the fields to
North Crabb, which led close by Willow Cottage, and saw Hill wheeling a
small truck up with some of his household goods. He was a tall, strong
man, and the cold was tolerably sharp, but the load had warmed him.
"Good morning, Master Johnny."
"Making ready for the flitting, Hill?"
Hill wheeled the truck up to the door, and sat down on one of the
handles whilst he wiped his face. It was an honest, though cross face;
habitually red. The house had a good large garden at its side, enclosed
by wooden palings; with a shed and some pigstys at the back. Trees
overshadowed the palings: and the fallen leaves, just now, inside the
garden and out were ankle-deep.
"A fine labour I shall have, getting the place in order!" cried Hill,
pointing to some broken palings and the overgrown branches. "Don't think
but what the Squire has the best of the bargain, after all!"
"You'd say that, Hill, if he gave you a house rent-free."
Hill took the key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and we went in.
This lower room was boarded; the kitchen was at the back; above were two
fair-sized chambers. One of them looked towards Crabb Ravine; the other
was only lighted by a skylight in the roof.
"You have had fires here, Hill!"
"I had 'em in every room all day yesterday, sir, and am going to light
'em again now. My wife said it must be done; and she warn't far wrong;
for a damp house plays the mischief with one's bones. The fools that
women be, to be sure!--and my wife's the worst of 'em."
"What has your wife done?"
"She had a bit of a accident yesterday, Master Johnny. A coming out with
a few things for this place, she stepped upon some ice, and fell; it
gave her ankle a twist, and she had to be helped home. I'm blest if
she's not a-saying now that it's a bad omen! Because she can't get about
and help shift the things in here, she says we shan't have nothing but
ill-luck in the place."
I had already heard of the accident. Hill's wife was a little shrinking
woman, mild and gentle, quite superior to him. She was a widow when he
married her a short time ago, a Mrs. Garth, with one son, David. Miss
Timmens, the schoolmistress at North Crab, was her sister. On the
previous morning a letter had come from Worcester, saying their mother,
Mrs. Timmens, was taken dangerously ill, and asking them to go over.
Miss Timmens went; Hill refused for his wife. How could he get along at
moving-time without her, he demanded. She cried and implored, but Hill
was hard as flint. So she had to remain at home, and set about her
preparations for removal; surly Hill was master and mistress too. In
starting with the first lot of movables--a few things carried in her
arms--the accident occurred. So that, in the helping to move, she was
useless; and the neighbours, ever ready to take part in a matrimonial
grievance, said it served Hill right. Any way, it did not improve his
temper.
"When do you get in here, Hill?"
"To-morrow, Master Johnny, please the pigs. But for the wife's
awk'ardness we'd ha' been in to-day. As to any help Davvy could give,
it's worth no more nor a rat's; he haven't got much more strength in him
nor one neither. Drat the boy!"
Leaving Hill to his task, I went on; and in passing Mrs. Hill's
dwelling, I thought I'd give a look in to inquire after the ankle. The
cottage stood alone, just as this other one did, but was less lonely,
for the Crabb houses were round about. Davy's voice called out, "Come
in."