ISAAC OGDEN'S PUNISHMENT.
During what remained of the night, it is unnecessary to add that nobody
at Twistle Farm had rest. The search was continually renewed in various
directions, and always with the same negative result. Mr. Ogden began to
lose hope, and was more and more confirmed in his supposition that his
son must have perished in the bog. Jim returned to Shayton, where he
arrived about half-past four in the morning. When the hands assembled at
Ogden's mill, Mr. Jacob told them that the factory would be closed that
day, but that he would pay them their full wages; and he should feel
grateful to any of the men who would help him in the search for his
little nephew, who had unfortunately disappeared from Twistle on the
preceding evening, and had not been since heard of. He added, that a
reward of a hundred pounds would be given to any one who would bring him
news of the child. Soon after daylight, handbills were posted in every
street in Shayton offering the same reward. Mr. Jacob returned to Milend
from the factory, and prepared to set out for Twistle.
The sun rose in clear frosty air, and the moors were covered with snow.
Large groups began to arrive at the farm about eight o'clock, and at
nine the hill was dotted with searchers in every direction. It was
suggested to Mr. Ogden by a policeman that if he had any intention of
having the pond dragged, it would be well that it should be done at
once, as there was already a thin coat of ice upon it, and it would
probably freeze during the whole of the day and following night, so that
delay would entail great additional labor in the breaking of the ice. An
apparatus was sent up from Shayton for this purpose. Mr. Ogden did not
superintend this operation, but sat alone in his parlor waiting to hear
the result. There was a tap at the door, and the policeman entered.
"We've found nothing in the pond, Mr. Isaac, except--"
"Except what?"
"Only this whip, sir, that must belong to you;" and he produced the whip
with the steel hammer. "It may be an important hindication, sir, if it
could be ascertained whether your little boy had been playin' with it
yesterday evenin'. You don't remember seein' him with it, do you, sir?"
Mr. Ogden groaned, and covered his face with his hands. Then his whole
frame shook convulsively. Old Sarah came in.
"I was just askin' Mr. Ogden whether he knew if the little boy had been
playin' with this 'ere whip yesterday--we've found it in the pond; and
as I was just sayin', it might be a useful hindication."
Old Sarah looked at the whip, which lay wet upon the table. "I seed that
whip yistady, but I dunnot think our little lad played wi' it. He didn't
use playin' wi' that whip. That there whip belongs to his father, an'
it's him as makes use on it, and non little Jacob."
Mr. Ogden removed his hands from his face, and said, "The whip proves
nothing. I threw it into the pond yesterday myself."
The policeman looked much astonished. "It's a fine good whip, sir, to
throw away."
"Well, take it, then, if you admire it I'll make ye a present of it."
"I've no use for it, sir."
"Then, I reckon," said old Sarah, "as you 'aven't got a little lad about
nine year old; such whips as that is consithered useful for thrashin'
little lads about nine year old."
Mr. Ogden could bear this no longer, and said he would go down to the
pond. When he had left the room, old Sarah took up the whip and hung it
in its old place, over the silver spurs. The policeman lingered. Old
Sarah relieved her mind by recounting what had passed on the preceding
evening. "I am some and glad[9] as you brought him that there whip. Th'
sight of it is like pins and needles in 'is een. You've punished 'im
with it far worse than if you'd laid it ovver his shoulthers."
Mr. Ogden gave orders that every one who wanted any thing to eat should
be freely supplied in the kitchen. One of old Sarah's great
accomplishments was the baking of oat-cake, and as the bread in the
house was soon eaten up, old Sarah heated her oven, and baked two or
three hundred oat-cakes. When once the mixture is prepared, and the oven
heated, a skilful performer bakes these cakes with surprising rapidity,
and old Sarah was proud of her skill. If any thing could have relieved
her anxiety about little Jacob, it would have been this beloved
occupation--but not even the pleasure of seeing the thin fluid mixture
spread over the heated sheet of iron, and of tossing the cake
dexterously at the proper time, could relieve the good heart of its
heavy care. Even the very occupation itself had saddening associations,
for when old Sarah pursued it, little Jacob had usually been a highly
interested spectator, though often very much in the way. She had scolded
him many a time for his "plaguiness;" but, alas! what would she have
given to be plagued by that small tormentor now!
The fall of snow had been heavy enough to fill up the smaller
inequalities of the ground, and the hills had that aspect of exquisite
smoothness and purity which would be degraded by any comparison. Under
happier circumstances, the clear atmosphere and brilliant landscape
would have been in the highest degree exhilarating; but I suppose
nobody at Twistle felt that exhilaration now. On the contrary, there
seemed to be something chilling and pitiless in that cold splendor and
brightness. No one could look on the vast sweep of silent snow without
feeling that _somewhere_ under its equal and unrevealing surface lay the
body of a beloved child.
The grave-faced seekers ranged the moors all day, after a regular system
devised by Mr. Jacob Ogden. The circle of their search became wider and
wider, like the circles from a splash in water. In this way, before
nightfall, above thirty square miles had been thoroughly explored. At
last, after a day that seemed longer than the longest days of summer,
the sun went down, and one by one the stars came out. The heavens were
full of their glittering when the scattered bands of seekers met
together again at the farm.
The fire was still kept alive in little Jacob's room. The little
night-gown still hung before it. Old Sarah changed the hot water in the
bed-warmer regularly every hour. Alas! alas! was there any need of these
comforts now? Do corpses care to have their shrouds warmed, or to have
hot-water bottles at their icy feet?
Mr. Ogden, who had controlled himself with wonderful success so long as
the sun shone, began to show unequivocal signs of agitation after
nightfall. He had headed a party on the moor, and came back with a
sinking heart. He had no hope left. The child must certainly have died
in the cold. He went into little Jacob's bedroom and walked about alone
for a few minutes, pacing from the door to the window, and looking out
on the cold white hills, the monotony of which was relieved only by the
masses of black rock that rose out of them here and there. The fire had
burnt very briskly, and it seemed to Mr. Ogden that the little
night-gown was rather too near. As he drew back the chair he gazed a
minute at the bit of linen; his chest heaved with violent emotion, and
then there came a great and terrible agony. He sat down on the low iron
bed, his strong frame shook and quivered, and with painful gasps flowed
the bitter tears of his vain repentance. He looked at the smooth little
pillow, untouched during a whole night, and thought of the dear head
that had pressed it, and might never press it more. Where was it resting
now? Was the frozen snow on the fair cheek and open brow, or--oh horror,
still more horrible!--had he been buried alive in the black and
treacherous pit, and were the dear locks defiled with the mud of the
bog, and the bright eyes filled with its slimy darkness for ever? Surely
he had not descended into _that_ grave; they had done what they could to
sound the place, and had found nothing but earth, soft and yielding--no
fragment of dress had come up on their boat-hooks. It was more endurable
to imagine the child asleep under the snow. When the thaw came they
would find him, and bring him to his own chamber, and lay him again on
his own bed, at least for one last night, till the coffin came up from
Shayton.
How good the child had been! how brutally Ogden felt that he had used
him! Little Jacob had been as forgiving as a dog, and as ready to
respond to the slightest mark of kindness. He had been the light of the
lonely house with his innocent prattle and gayety. Ogden had frightened
him into silence lately, and driven him into the kitchen, where he had
many a time heard him laughing with old Sarah and Jim, and been
unreasonably angry with him for it. Ogden began to see these things in a
different light. "I used him so badly," he thought, "that it was only
natural he should shun and avoid me." And then he felt and knew how much
sweet and pure companionship he had missed. He had not half enjoyed the
blessing he had possessed. He ought to have made himself young again for
the child's sake. Would it have done him any harm to teach little Jacob
cricket, and play at ball with him, or at nine-pins? The boy's life had
been terribly lonely, and his father had done nothing to dissipate or
mitigate its loneliness. And then there came a bitter sense that he had
really loved the child with an immense affection, but that the coldness
and roughness and brutality of his outward behavior had hidden this
affection from his son. In this, however, Mr. Ogden had not been quite
so much to blame as in the agony of his repentance he himself believed.
His self-accusation, like all sincere and genuine self-accusation, had a
touch of exaggeration in it. The wrong that he had done was attributable
quite as much to the temper of the place he lived in as to any peculiar
evil in himself as an individual man. He had spoiled his temper by
drinking, but every male in Shayton did the same; he had been externally
hard and unsympathetic, but the inhabitants of Shayton carried to an
excess the English contempt for the betrayal of the softer emotions. In
all that Ogden had done, in the whole tenor of his life and
conversation, he had merely obeyed the great human instinct of
conformity. Had he lived anywhere else--had he even lived at
Sootythorn--he would have been a different man. Such as he was, he was
the product of the soil, like the hard pears and sour apples that grew
in the dismal garden at Milend.
He had been sitting more than an hour on the bed, when he heard a knock
at the door. It was old Sarah, who announced the arrival of Mr. Prigley
and Mrs. Ogden. Mr. Prigley had been to fetch her from the place where
she was visiting, and endeavored to offer such comfort to her during the
journey as his heart and profession suggested. As on their arrival at
Milend there had been no news of a favorable or even hopeful kind, Mrs.
Ogden was anxious to proceed to Twistle immediately, and Mr. Prigley had
kindly accompanied her.
The reader may have inferred from previous pages of this history, that
although Mr. Prigley may have been a blameless and earnest divine, he
was not exactly the man best fitted to influence such a nature as that
of Isaac Ogden. He had little understanding either of its weakness or
its strength--of its weakness before certain forms of temptation, or its
strength in acknowledging unwelcome and terrible facts. After Mrs. Ogden
had simply said, "Well, Isaac, there's no news of him yet," the
clergyman tried to put a cheerful light on the subject by expressing the
hope that the boy was safe in some farm-house. Mr. Ogden answered that
every farm-house within several miles had been called at, and that
Twistle Farm was the last of the farms on the moor side. It was most
unlikely, in his opinion, that the child could have resisted the cold so
long, especially as he had no provisions of any kind, and was not even
sufficiently clothed to go out; and as he had certainly not called at
any house within seven or eight miles of Twistle, Mr. Ogden could only
conclude that he must have perished on the moor, and that the thick fall
of snow was all that had prevented the discovery of his body.
Mrs. Ogden sat down and began to cry very bitterly. The sorrow of a
person like Mrs. Ogden is at the same time quite frank in its
expression, and perfectly monotonous. Her regrets expressed themselves
adequately in three words, and the repetition of them made her litany of
grief--"Poor little lad!" and then a great burst of weeping, and then
"Poor little lad!" again, perpetually.
The clergyman attempted to "improve" the occasion in the professional
sense. "The Lord hath given," he said, "and the Lord hath taken away;"
then he paused, and added, "blessed be the name of the Lord." But this
brought no solace to Ogden's mind. "It was not the Lord that took the
lad away," he answered; "it was his father that drove him away."
The great agony came over him again, and he flung himself on his breast
upon the sofa and buried his face in the cushions. Then his mother rose
and came slowly to his side, and knelt down by him. Precious maternal
feelings, that had been, as it were, forgotten in her heart for more
than twenty years, like jewels that are worn no more, shone forth once
more from her swimming eyes. "Isaac, lad," she said, with a voice that
sounded in his ears like a far-off recollection of childhood,--"Isaac,
lad, it were none o' thee as did it,--it were drink. Thou wouldn't have
hurt a hair of his head." And she kissed him.
It was a weary night at Twistle. Nobody had any hope left, but they felt
bound to continue the search, and relays of men came up from Shayton for
the purpose. They were divided into little parties of six or eight, and
Mr. Jacob directed their movements. Each group returned to the house
after exploring the ground allotted to it, and Mr. Ogden feverishly
awaited its arrival. The ever-recurring answer, the sad shake of the
head, the disappointed looks, sank into the heart of the bereaved
father. About two in the morning he got a little sleep, and awoke in
half an hour somewhat stronger and calmer.
It is unnecessary to pursue the detail of these sufferings. The days
passed, but brought no news. Dr. Bardly came back from Wenderholme, and
seemed less affected than would have been expected by those who knew his
love and friendship for little Jacob. He paid, however, especial
attention to Mr. Isaac, whom he invited to stay with him for a few
weeks, and who bore his sorrow with a manly fortitude. The Doctor drank
his habitual tumbler of brandy-and-water every evening before going to
bed, and the first evening, by way of hospitality, had offered the same
refreshment to his guest. Mr. Ogden declined simply, and the offer was
not renewed. For the first week he smoked a great deal, and drank large
quantities of soda-water, but did not touch any intoxicating liquor. He
persevered in this abstinence, and declared his firm resolve to continue
it as a visible sign of his repentance, and of his respect to the memory
of his boy. He was very gentle and pleasant, and talked freely with the
Doctor about ordinary subjects; but, for a man whose vigor and energy
had manifested themselves in some abruptness and rudeness in the common
intercourse of life, this new gentleness was a marked sign of sadness.
When the Doctor's servant, Martha, came in unexpectedly and found Mr.
Ogden alone, she often observed that he had shed tears; but he seemed
cheerful when spoken to, and his grief was quiet and undemonstrative.
The search for the child was still actively pursued, and his mysterious
disappearance became a subject of absorbing interest in the
neighborhood. The local newspapers were full of it, and there appeared a
very terrible article in the 'Sootythorn Gazette' on Mr. Ogden's cruelty
to his child. The writer was an inhabitant of Shayton, who had had the
misfortune to have Mr. Jacob Ogden for his creditor, and had been
pursued with great rigor by that gentleman. He got the necessary data
from the policeman who had brought the whip back from the pond, and
wrote such a description of it as made the flesh of the Sootythorn
people creep upon their bones, and their cheeks redden with indignation.
The Doctor happened to be out of the house when this newspaper arrived,
and Mr. Isaac opened it and read the article. The facts stated in it
were true and undeniable, and the victim quailed under his punishment.
If he had ventured into Sootythorn, he would have been mobbed and
pelted, or perhaps lynched. He was scarcely safe even in Shayton; and
when he walked from the Doctor's to Milend, the factory operatives asked
him where his whip was, and the children pretended to be frightened, and
ran out of his way. A still worse punishment was the singular gravity of
the faces that he met--a gravity that did not mean sympathy but censure.
The 'Sootythorn Gazette' demanded that he should be punished--that an
example should be made of him, and so on. The writer had his wish,
without the intervention of the law.
After a few weeks the mystery was decided to be insoluble, and dismissed
from the columns of the newspapers. Even the ingenious professional
detectives admitted that they were at fault, and could hold out no hopes
of a discovery. Mr. Ogden had with difficulty been induced to remain at
the Doctor's during the prosecution of these inquiries; but Dr. Bardly
had represented to him that he ought to have a fixed address in case
news should arrive, and that he need not be wholly inactive, but might
ride considerable distances in various directions, which indeed he did,
but without result.
Mrs. Ogden remained at Milend, but whether from the strength of her
nature, or some degree of insensibility, she did not appear to suffer
greatly from her bereavement, and pursued her usual household avocations
with her accustomed regularity. Mr. Jacob went to his factory, and was
absorbed in the details of business. No one put on mourning, for the
child was still considered as possibly alive, and perhaps his relations
shrank from so decided an avowal of their abandonment of hope. The one
exception to this rule was old Sarah at Twistle, who clad herself in a
decent black dress that she had by her. "If t' little un's deead," she
said, "it's nobbut reight to put mysel' i' black for him; and if he
isn't I'm so sore in my heart ovver him 'at I'm fit to wear nought
else."