Helen rang the bell one evening and Maria answered the summons.
"Papa thinks he would like a little supper, Maria, as we dined early
to-day. Bring up a tray. There is a cold chicken, I think!"
"Yes, 'm," said Maria, and disappeared, but was back in a few minutes.
"If you please, 'm, Mrs Millett says there is no cold chicken, 'm."
"Indeed?" said Helen wonderingly. "Very well, then, the cold veal pie."
"Yes, 'm."
Maria disappeared, and came back again. "Please, 'm, Mrs Millett says
there is no veal pie."
"Then tell her to make an omelette."
"Yes, 'm." Maria left the room and came back. "Please, 'm, Mrs
Millett says there's no eggs, and it's too late to get any more."
"Ask Mrs Millett to come here," said Helen; and the old lady came up,
looking very red.
"Why, Millett," said Helen, "this is very strange. I don't like to find
fault, but surely there ought to have been a chicken left."
"I'm very glad you have found fault, Miss," said Mrs Millett, "for it's
given me a chance to speak. Yes; there ought to have been a chicken,
and the veal pie too; but I'm very sorry to say, Miss, they're gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes, Miss. I don't know how to account for it, but the things have
begun to go in the most dreadful way. Bread, butter, milk, eggs, meat,
everything goes, and we've all been trying to find out how, but it's no
good."
"This is very strange, Millett. Have you no idea how it is they go?"
"No, Miss; but Dan'l fancies it must be that rough boy who led Master
Dexter away. He says he's sure he caught sight of him in the dark last
night. Somebody must take the things, and he seems to be the most
likely, knowing the place as he does."
"This must be seen to," said Helen; and she told the doctor.
Consequently a watch was kept by the gardener and the groom, but they
found nothing, and the contents of the larder continued to disappear.
"If it were a man," said the doctor, on being told of what was going on,
"I'd set the police to work, but I hate anything of that kind with a
boy. Wait a bit, and he will get more impudent from obtaining these
things with impunity, and then he will be more easily caught."
"And then, papa?" said Helen.
"Then, my dear? Do you know that thin Malacca cane in the hall? Yes,
you do. Well, my dear, the law says it is an assault to thrash a boy,
and that he ought to be left to the law to punish, which means prison
and degradation. I'm going to take that cane, my dear, and defy the
law."
But somehow or another Master Bob Dimsted seemed to be as slippery as an
eel. He saw Peter one day and grinned at him from the other side of the
river. Two days later he was seen by Dan'l, who shook his fist at him,
and Bob said--
"Yah!"
"Have you heard from Master Dexter, Miss!" said Mrs Millett one
morning.
"No, Millett, and I am rather surprised. He promised so faithfully to
write."
"Ah, yes, Miss," said the old lady; "and he meant it, poor boy, when he
promised, but boys are such one's to forget."
Helen went into the library where she found the doctor biting the end of
his pen, and gazing up into a corner of the room.
"I don't seem to be getting on as I could wish, my dear. By the way, we
haven't heard from that young dog lately. He promised me faithfully to
write regularly."
Helen thought of Mrs Millett's words, but said nothing, and at that
moment Maria entered with the letters.
"From Dexter?" said Helen eagerly.
"Humph! No! But from Longspruce! I see: from Mr Mastrum."
The doctor read the letter and frowned.
Helen read it, and the tears stood in her eyes.
"The young scoun--"
"Stop, papa!" said Helen earnestly. "Do not condemn him unheard."
"Then I shall have to go on without condemning him, for we've seen the
last of him, I suppose."
"O papa!"
"Well, it looks like it, my dear; and I'm afraid I've made a great
mistake, but I don't like to own it."
"Wait, papa, wait!" said Helen.
"What does he say? Been gone a fortnight, and would not write till he
had had the country round thoroughly searched. Humph! Afraid he has
got to Portsmouth, and gone to sea."
Helen sighed.
"`Sorry to give so bad an account of him,'" muttered the doctor, reading
bits of the letter--"`treated him as his own son--seemed to have an
undercurrent of evil in his nature, impossible to eradicate--tried
everything, but all in vain--was beginning to despair, but still hopeful
that patience might overcome the difficulty--patience combined with
affectionate treatment, but it was in vain--after trying to persuade his
fellow-pupils one by one, and failing, he threatened them savagely if
they dared to betray him, and then he escaped from the grounds, and has
not been seen since.'"
There was a painful silence in the doctor's library for a few minutes.
"`Patience combined with affectionate treatment,'" read the doctor
again. "Helen, I believe that man has beaten and ill-used poor Dexter
till he could bear it no longer, and has run away."
"I'm sure of it, papa," cried Helen excitedly. "Do you think he will
come back!"
"I don't know," said the doctor. "Yes, I do. No; he would be afraid.
I'd give something to know how to go to work to find him."
"If you please, sir, may I come in?" said a pleasant soft voice.
"Yes, yes, Millett, of course. What is it?"
"Dan'l has been to say, sir, that he caught sight of that boy, Bob
Dimsted, crawling in the garden last night when it was dark, and chased
him, but the boy climbed one of the trained pear-trees, got on the wall,
and escaped."
"Confound the young rascal!" cried the doctor.
"And I'm sorry to say, sir, that two blankets have been stolen off
Master Dexter's bed."
There was a week of watching, but Bob Dimsted was not caught, and the
doctor sternly said that he would not place the matter in the hands of
the police. But all the same the little pilferings went on, and Mrs
Millett came one morning, with tears in her eyes, to say that she
couldn't bear it any longer, for only last night a whole quartern loaf
had been taken through the larder bars, and, with it, one of the large
white jars of black-currant jam.
Mrs Millett was consoled with the promise that the culprit should soon
be caught, and two nights later Peter came in to announce to the doctor
that he had been so near catching Bob Dimsted that he had touched him as
he chased him down the garden, and that he would have caught him, only
that, without a moment's hesitation, the boy had jumped into the river
and swum across, and so escaped to the other side.
"Next time I mean to have him," said Peter confidently, and this he
repeated to Mrs Millett and Maria, being rewarded with a basin of the
tea which had just come down from the drawing-room.
It was just two days later that, as Helen sat with her work under the
old oak-tree in the garden--an old evergreen oak which gave a pleasant
shade--she became aware of a faint rustling sound.
She looked up, but could see nothing, though directly after there was a
peculiar noise in the tree, which resembled the chopping of wood.
Still she could see nothing, and she had just resumed her work, thinking
the while that Dexter would some day write, and that her father's
correspondence with the Reverend Septimus Mastrum had not been very
satisfactory, when there was a slight scratching sound.
She turned quickly and saw that a ragged-looking squirrel had run down
the grey trunk of the tree, while, as soon as it saw her, it bounded
off, and to her surprise passed through the gateway leading into the
yard where the old stable stood.
Helen Grayson hardly knew why she did so, but she rose and followed the
squirrel, to find that she was not alone, for Peter the groom was in the
yard going on tiptoe toward the open door of the old range of buildings.
He touched his cap on seeing her.
"Squir'l, Miss," he said. "Just run in here."
"I saw it just now," said Helen. "Don't kill the poor thing."
"Oh no, Miss; I won't kill it," said Peter, as Helen went back into the
garden. "But I mean to catch it if I can."
Peter went into the dark old building and looked round, but there was no
sign of the squirrel. Still a little animal like that would be sure to
go upwards, so Peter climbed the half-rotten ladder, and stood in the
long dark range of lofts, peering among the rafters and ties in search
of the bushy-tailed little creature.
He walked to the end in one direction, then in the other, till he was
stopped by an old boarded partition, in which there was a door which had
been nailed up; but he remembered that this had a flight of steps, or
rather a broad-stepped old wood ladder, on the other side, leading to a
narrower loft right in the gable.
"Wonder where it can be got," said Peter to himself; and then he turned
round, ran along the loft, dropped down through the trap-door, and
nearly slipped and fell, so hurried was his flight.
Half-across the yard he came upon Dan'l wheeling a barrow full of mould
for potting.
"Hallo! what's the matter?"
Peter gasped and panted, but said nothing.
"Haven't seen a ghost, have you?" said Dan'l.
"Ye-es. No," panted Peter.
"Why, you white-faced, cowardly noodle!" cried Dan'l. "What d'yer
mean?"
"I--I. Come out of here into the garden," whispered Peter.
Dan'l was going down the garden to the potting-shed, so he made no
objection, and, arrived there, Peter, with solemn emphasis, told how he
had gone in search of the squirrel, and that there was something up in
the loft.
"Yes," said old Dan'l contemptuously--"rats."
"Yes; I know that," said Peter excitedly; and his eyes looked wild and
dilated; "but there's something else."
Dan'l put down the barrow, and sat upon the soft mould as he gave his
rough stubbly chin a rub.
"Lookye here, Peter," he said; "did yer ever hear tell about ghosts
being in old buildings?"
"Yes," said Peter, with an involuntary shiver, and a glance across the
wall at a corroded weathercock on the top of the ancient place.
"Well, my lad, ghosts never comes out in the day-time: only o' nights;
and do you know what they are?"
Peter shook his head.
"Well, then, my lad, I'll tell you. I've sin several in my time. Them
as you hears and don't see's rats; and them as you sees and don't hear's
howls. What d'yer think o' that?"
"It wasn't a rat, nor it wasn't a howl, as I see," said Peter solemnly;
"but something gashly horrid, as looked down at me from up in the
rafters of that there dark place, and it made me feel that bad that I
didn't seem to have no legs to stand on."
"Tchah!" cried the gardener. "What yer talking about?"
"Anything the matter?" said the doctor, who had come up unheard over the
velvety lawn.
"Hush!" whispered Peter imploringly.
"Shan't hush. Sarves you right," growled Dan'l. "Here's Peter, sir,
just seen a ghost."
"Ah! has he?" said the doctor. "Where did you see it, Peter?"
"I didn't say it were a ghost, sir, I only said as I see something
horrid up at end of the old loft when I went up there just now after a
squir'l."
"Squirrel!" said the doctor angrily. "What are you talking about, man?
Squirrels live in trees, not in old lofts. You mean a rat."
"I know a squir'l when I see one, sir," said Peter; "and I see one go
'crost the yard and into that old stable."
"Nonsense!" said the doctor.
"Did you find it, Peter!" said Helen from under the tree.
"Find what?" said the doctor.
"A squirrel that ran from here across the yard."