Freda crossed the courtyard to one of the ruined corner-towers, and
finding the staircase still practicable, continued her wanderings,
with cautious steps, along the top of the broken castle-wall. She got
along easily as far as the thatched roof of a big barn. But here her
crutch slipped on the snow and went crashing through a
tarpaulin-covered hole in the thatch, carrying its owner with it, into
a loft half-filled with hay. There was no way of escape until somebody
came by to rescue her. Freda therefore could do nothing but look down
into the hazy light of the barn below; and presently, nursed into a
comfortable warmth by the hay, she fell asleep.
She was awakened by being shaken pretty roughly, while a voice cried
close to her ear:
“Now, then, I’ve got you; and if I let you get home with a whole bone
in your little thievish body, you may think yourself jolly lucky, I
can tell you.”
Having recognised the voice as Dick’s, Freda was not alarmed by the
assumed ferocity of his tone. Besides, he had evidently mistaken her
for somebody else. So she shook herself free from the hay, and sat up
and looked at him. By that time he had got used to the gloom of the
loft, and to her surprise, he drew back so quickly that he risked
falling off the ladder. A little more contemplation, and then he
murmured:
“Of course--it’s the hair!”
The net in which, in primitive fashion, she was accustomed to tuck
away her hair, had been lost in her tumble through the roof, and her
red-brown locks, which had a pretty, natural wave, had fallen about
her ears and given to her pale face quite a new character. Dick,
however, was not a young fellow looking idly at a pretty girl, but a
man full of responsibilities and anxieties.
“You said last night,” he began abruptly, “that you had heard
something at the ‘Barley Mow’ about us and your father. What was it?”
She answered in a low, modest voice, but without any fear.
“You say my father is quarrelling with you. You wish to find out all
his movements. Then if I tell you about them, I am betraying my own
father!”
“I warn you that your principles won’t agree with his any more than
they do with mine. Do as you _would be_ done by is what you were
taught at the convent, I suppose. Do as you _are_ done by is the motto
we live by here.”
“It seems very dreadful,” whispered Freda, “to do things that are
wrong and not to mind!”
And the young man perceived that she had tears in her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” said he gently. “I shouldn’t have said what I have to you
but that I wanted you to go back to your convent before you hear
anything more to pain you. I want to take you to Presterby this
afternoon, without your seeing my cousin Bob.”
“Ah!” cried Freda with a start. “Your cousin! Tell me, is he good to
you? Are you fond of him?”
“Not particularly. That answer will do to both questions.”
“Then why do you stay here? Would it not be better for you to go away?
They say--do they not say, that he makes you work for his advantage?”
He paused a few moments, and his face grew graver. Then he said
abruptly: “Supposing I were to tell you that I am content to be taken
advantage of, and that I’d rather live on here anyhow than like a
prince anywhere else. I tell you,” he went on, with the ring of
passion in his voice, “I love every foot of ground about here as you
love your convent and your nuns; the stones of this old place are my
religion. And so I shall live on here in some sort of hole-and-corner
fashion, bringing grist to a mill that gives me neither honour nor
profit, until----”
He stopped short. Freda was deeply moved; but she only asked him, in a
constrained voice, if he would let her come down the ladder. He ran
rapidly down, held the ladder firm for her, and gently assisted her as
she came near the ground, taking her crutch and returning it to her
when her feet touched the floor.
“Poor little lame girl!” said he softly, and the words brought sobs
into her throat. “Why, you’re crying! I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“No-o, no,” said Freda, drawing herself away. “Let me go, please.”
“Well, say that we’re friends first.”
Freda raised her eyes, but her glance passed Dick and remained fixed
on a face that appeared at the window beyond. A young man, with sandy
hair and moustache, was looking in with a cynical grin. Dick turned
quickly, when he saw the change on the girl’s face. His own expression
altered also.
“Bob! Back already!” he cried.
The young man had climbed in. Nodding at his cousin, with a glance at
Freda which she found exceedingly offensive, he asked:
“Well, and who is the little girl?”
Perhaps the girl’s mind, having retained a child-like purity, was able
at once to detect the taint in that of Robert Heritage; but certainly
the persistent stare of his small grey eyes, which he honestly
believed to be irresistible, affected her no more than the gleam of a
couple of marbles; while every other feature of his face, from the
obtrusively pointed nose to the thin-lipped mouth, seemed to her to
betray ugly qualities, the names of which she scarcely knew. He, on
his side, regarded her face with a bold, critical stare, which changed
into contempt the moment he caught sight of her crutch. Dick grew red
with anger.
“You didn’t get my telegram then?” he said shortly, interposing his
person to shield the girl from his cousin’s impudent gaze.
“No, I got no telegram. What was it about?”
“Come into the house and I’ll tell you.”
He moved to the door. Robert would not let him open it.
“What! and interrupt your studies of the maim, the halt, and the
blind?” he asked, in a low voice which, however, the girl’s quick ears
caught.
Freda had been reprimanded at the convent for occasional outbursts of
passion. But she had never yet felt the force of such a torrent of
indignation as seemed to sweep through her frame at this, the first
sneer at her infirmity she had ever heard. She scarcely noticed Dick’s
angry remonstrance; but raising her flushed face to Robert, she said:
“You can sneer at me now. Perhaps you will not when I am in the house
of my father, Captain Mulgrave.”
“Come, that’s rather strong, little girl,” he said coolly. “To be
Mulgrave’s daughter--which you may be for anything I know--is one
thing, but to live in his house is another. I can assure you he has
made no preparations for your reception.”
His insolent tone stung Freda to a greater heat of passion.
“Perhaps you are not in my father’s confidence,” she said in a voice
which shook a little. “If you had been, you might have known that he
was going to visit Josiah Kemm.”
Without waiting to see the effect of her words, Freda ran out of the
barn, across the court-yard, and up to the room she had slept in.
There she put on her hat and cloak, and after waiting some time in
fear lest she might be hunted out, stole out of the room and came, to
her disgust, face to face with Blewitt. He had on a thick coat and
riding-boots.
“I beg pardon, ma’am, but I was a-coming to inform you that I have
been hordered by Mr. ’Eritage to go to the Abbey with a letter for
your respected father, Captain Mulgrave. Now, ma’am, I should esteem
it a honour to be sent to a gentleman like Captain Mulgrave on any
hordinary errand. But knowing, as I happen to do, the himport of the
letter, I feel it very different, I assure you, ma’am.”
Freda was too unsophisticated to guess by what simple means Blewitt
had arrived at the knowledge he alluded to. But she was afraid he
wanted to tell her something she ought not to hear, and she
interrupted him hurriedly.
“Yes, I’m sure that all you say is quite--quite right,” she said
nervously. “But I--I am going out, and I cannot----”
“You cannot stay under the roof of such people as them. Which I was
sure, ma’am, that such would be your feelings. Barnabas Ugthorpe, the
farmer, has been here with his cart a-inquiring after you; and I know
where he is to be found now, if so be as you would like me to show you
how to get out by a private door.”
“Oh, yes, please show me out,” cried Freda piteously, delighted at the
thought of seeing her rough friend, whom she hoped to persuade to take
her on to the Abbey.
“I will do so, ma’am,” answered Blewitt, who by this promise forced
her to listen to him. “And if you could say a good word to the Captain
for me that would induce him for to take a hard-working man into his
service, why, I could tell him a many little tales about the goings on
in this house which would astonish him, and just show him how he
misplaced his confidence in some people I could name.”
“How can you think my father could listen to such things!” Freda broke
out indignantly.
“Well, ma’am, gentlemen’s ways is not always straight ways, when they
wants pertic’ler to know things,” said Blewitt, drily though
respectfully. “But the Captain’s a ’asty and ’aughty sort of gentleman
as you don’t always quite know where to have him! and when he gets
this letter, which threatens to do for him if he don’t give up all
dealings with Josiah Kemm immediate, why he’ll be in such a taking
that he’ll be more likely to do for me than to listen to anything what
I can say.”
“Why do you take the letter then?”
The fact was that Mr. Blewitt did not wish to be off with the old love
until he was quite sure of being on with the new. He put this to
Freda, however, in a nobler light.
“You see, ma’am,” said he, “so long as I take Mr. ’Eritage’s wages, I
must carry out his horders.”
“Yes, of course, of course,” said Freda, with almost a shriek of
delight as Blewitt opened a little side-door and she found herself out
of the house, standing in the snow under the grey old outer wall.
She found Barnabas just driving off from one of a group of cottages at
the bottom of the lane. At her cry he stopped, waiting for her to come
up.
“Barnabas!” she cried, quivering with anxiety, “won’t you drive me
over to the Abbey? Oh, do, do! You will, won’t you?”
The farmer scratched his ear.
“Happen one o’ t’ young gentlemen ’ll droive ye over.”
“Oh no,” said Freda quickly. “I wouldn’t go back there for anything in
the world!”
The farmer grinned, nodded, helped Freda into his cart, and started
off at a much better pace than they had made with Josiah Kemm’s old
mare the night before.
“Weel, lassie,” he said, as they jogged along, “ye’ve made a better
conquest nor any scapegrace of a Heritage. That theer swell that was
so kind to ye at t’ ‘Barley Mow,’ he’s gone clear creazed about ye.
When Ah left ye at t’ farm last neght, Ah fahnd him on t’ road,
mahnding for to get to Presterby. Ah towd him he couldn’t the neght,
an’ Ah tuck him back; an’ t’ missus, when she’d satisfied herself he
warn’t a woman in disguise, was moighty civil. An’ he said sooch
things abaht yer having a sweet little feace, an’ he said he should
call at t’ Abbey to see ye.”
“Barnabas,” said Freda suddenly, “why did you look so mysterious last
night when I told you that he had something to do with the
government?”
The farmer gave her an alarmed glance, as he had done the night
before, and said in a cautious tone:
“Ye’ve gotten a pair of sharp ears, an’ they hear more’n there’s ony
need. Ye didn’t reeghtly unnerstand, lass.”
After this there came a long pause, during which Freda puzzled herself
as to what the inhabitants of this district had been doing, to have
such a fear of the government. It was getting dark when Barnabas broke
the long silence by saying, as he pointed with his whip to the summit
of a hill they were about to ascend:
“T’ Abbey’s oop top o’ theer.”
Freda was too much agitated to answer except by a long-drawn breath.
The Abbey! Her father’s home! A terrible presentiment, natural enough
after the scant experience she had had of his care, told her that
there was no welcome waiting. She crouched down in the cart and clung
to the farmer’s arm.
“Barnabas,” she whispered, “I’m afraid to go on. Drive slowly; oh, do
drive slowly!”
But the robust farmer only laughed and jogged on at the same pace. The
road, however, grew in a few minutes so steep that they could only
proceed very slowly, and Barnabas got down to lead the horse and
lighten his burden as he ploughed his way up. Traffic between the
little town of Presterby and its neighbours had been so much hindered
by the blockade of snow, that there were no wheel-marks on the white
mass before them.
“Soomun’s been riding oop a horseback, though,” said Barnabas, as he
looked at the print of hoofs.
“Perhaps the man Blewitt from the farm,” suggested Freda. “He said he
was going to ride to the Abbey.”
“Oh, ay,” said the farmer with interest. “If he was cooming, noa doubt
it’s him. Hey,” he went on, in a different tone, “Ah think Ah hear his
voice oop top theer! He’s fell aht wi’ soomun by t’ sounds, Ah fancy.”
He stopped the cart a moment to listen. Plainly both Freda and he
could hear the voices of men in angry discussion, the one coarse and
loud, the other lower and less distinguishable.
“My father!” cried Freda, trembling.
“A’ reeght, lass, a’ reeght; doan’t ye be afraid. We’ll be oop wi ’em
in a breace o’ sheakes.”
“Barnabas! Make haste, make haste! They’re quarrelling, fighting
perhaps!” cried the girl in passionate excitement.
“Weel, Ah’ll go and see,” answered the farmer who, knowing more than
his little companion did of the reckless and violent character of the
disputants, was in truth as much excited as she was.
“He’s carrying a letter which he said would enrage my father!” cried
Freda in a tremulous voice to Barnabas, who was already some paces
ahead, running up the hill as fast as he could.
The road lay between stone walls of fair height, and was full of
curves and windings; so that it would have been impossible, even in
broad daylight, for the farmer to see the two men until he was close
upon them. He was not yet out of Freda’s sight when a sharp report,
followed by a second, and then by a hoarse cry, broke upon their ears.
There was silence for a moment, and then the sound of galloping hoofs
upon the snow. A riderless horse, bearing a man’s saddle, came down
the hill, with nostrils dilated and frightened eyes. Barnabas, who
considered a horse as rather more a fellow-creature than a man, set to
work to stop the animal before making his way to the human beings.
This accomplished, he tied the horse to the gate of a field a few
yards higher up, and quickening his pace again, reached the top of the
hill.
Here, in the middle of the road, were two figures, the one prone on
the ground, the other kneeling in the snow beside him.
The kneeling man started and rose to his feet as Barnabas came up. He
held in his left hand an open letter, and in his right a revolver,
which, without resistance, he allowed the farmer to take.
“Captain Mulgrave!”
The Captain only nodded. Barnabas went down in the snow beside the
second figure. He was on his face, but Barnabas knew, even before he
attempted to raise him, that it was Blewitt, the servant from
Oldcastle Farm.
He was dead.