I never saw anything plainer in my life. It was not just opposite to
where I stood, but lower down towards the end of the Ravine. Amongst the
dark thick underwood of the rising bank it dodged about, just as if some
one who was walking carried it in his hand lifted up in front of him. A
round white light, exactly as the ghost's light was described to be. One
might have fancied it the light of a wax-candle, only that a candle
would flicker itself dim and bright by turns in the air, and this was
steady and did not.
If a ghost was carrying it, he must have been pacing backwards and
forwards; for the light confined itself to the range of a few yards.
Beginning at the environs of the black old yew-tree, it would come on
amidst the broom and shrubs to the group of alders, and then go back
again Timberdale way, sometimes lost to sight for a minute, as if hidden
behind a thicker mass of underwood, and then gleaming out afresh further
on in its path. Now up, now down; backwards and forwards; here, there,
everywhere; it was about as unaccountable a sight as any veritable ghost
ever displayed, or I, Johnny Ludlow, had chanced to come upon.
The early part of the night had been bright. It was the same night,
spoken of in the last chapter, when Hugh was being searched for. Up to
eleven o'clock the moon had shone radiantly. Since then a curious sort
of darkness had come creeping along the heavens, and now, close upon
twelve, it overshadowed the earth like a pall. A dark, black canopy,
which the slight wind, getting up, never stirred, though it sighed and
moaned with a weird unpleasant sound down the Ravine. I did not mind
the light myself; don't think I should much have minded the ghost: but
Luke Mackintosh, standing by me, did. Considering that he was a good
five-and-twenty years of age, and had led an out-of-door life, it may
sound queer to say it, but he seemed timid as a hare.
"I don't like it, Master Johnny," he whispered, as he grasped the fence
with an unsteady hand, and followed the light with his eyes. What with
the trees around us, and the pall overhead, it was dark enough, but I
could see his face, and knew it had turned white.
"I believe you are afraid, Luke!"
"Well, sir, so might you be if you knowed as much of that there light
as I do. It never comes but it bodes trouble."
"Who brings the light?"
"It's more than I can say, sir. They call it here the ghost's light.
And folks say, Master Johnny, that when it's seen, there's sure to be
some trouble in the air."
"I think we have trouble enough just now without the light, Luke; and
our trouble was with us before we saw that."
The Ravine lay beneath us, stretching out on either hand, weird,
lonesome, dreary, the bottom hidden in gloom. The towering banks,
whether we looked down the one we leaned over, or to the other opposite,
presented nothing to the eye but darkness: we knew the masses of trees,
bushes, underwood were there, but could not see them: and the spot
favoured by the restless light was too wild and steep to be safe for the
foot of man. Of course it was a curious speculation what it could be.
"Did you ever see the light before, Mackintosh?"
"Yes," he answered, "half-a-dozen times. Do you mind, Master Johnny, my
getting that there bad cut in the leg with my reaping-hook awhile agone?
Seven weeks I lay in Worcester Infirmary: they carried me there on a
mattress shoved down in the cart."
"I remember hearing of it. We were at Dyke Manor."
Before Luke went on, he turned his face to me and dropped his voice to
a deeper whisper.
"Master Ludlow, as true as us two be a-standing here, I saw the ghost's
light the very night afore I got the hurt. I was working for Mr. Coney
then, it was before I came into the Squire's service. Young Master
Tom, he came out of the kitchen with a letter when we was at our
seven-o'clock supper, and said I were to cut off to Timberdale with it
and to look sharp, or the letter-box 'ud be shut. So I had to do it,
sir, and I came through this here Ravine, a-whistling and a-holding my
head down, though I'd rather ha' went ten mile round. When I got out of
it on t'other side, on top of the zigzag, I chanced to look back over
the stile, and there I see the light. It were opposite then, on _this_
side, sir, and moving about in the same see-saw way it be now, for I
stood and watched it."
"I wonder you plucked up the courage to stand and watch it, Luke?"
"I were took aback, sir, all in a maze like: and then I started off full
pelt, as quick as my heels 'ud carry me. That was the very blessed night
afore I got the hurt. When the doctors was a-talking round me at the
infirmary, and I think they was arguing whether or not my leg must come
off, I telled 'em that I was afeared it wouldn't much matter neither
way, for I'd seen the ghost's light the past night and knowed my fate.
One of them, a young man he was, burst out laughing above my face as I
lay, and t'other next him, a grave gentleman with white hair, turned
round and hushed at him. Master Ludlow, it's all gospel true."
"But you got well, Luke."
"But I didn't think to," argued Luke. "And I see the light."
As he turned his face again, the old church clock at Timberdale struck
twelve. It seemed to come booming over the Ravine with quite a warning
sound, and Luke gave himself a shake. As for me, I could only wish one
thing--that Hugh was found.
Tod came up the zigzag path, a lantern in his hand; I whistled to let
him know I was near. He had been to look in the unused little shed-place
nearly at the other end of the Ravine; not for Hugh, but for the man,
Alfred Arne. Tod came up to us, and his face, as the lantern flashed
upon it, was whiter and graver than that of Luke Mackintosh.
"Did you see that, sir?" asked Luke.
"See what?" cried Tod, turning sharply. He thought it might be some
trace of Hugh.
"That there ghost light, sir. It's showing itself to-night."
Angry, perplexed, nearly out of his mind with remorse and fear, Tod gave
Luke a word of a sort, ordering him to be silent for an idiot, and put
the lantern down. He then saw the moving light, and let his eyes rest on
it in momentary curiosity.
"It's the ghost light, sir," repeated Luke, for the man seemed as if he
and all other interests were lost in that.
"The deuce take the ghost's light, and you with it," said Tod
passionately. "Is this a time to be staring at ghosts' lights? Get you
into Timberdale, Mackintosh, and see whether the police have news of the
child."
"Sir, I'd not go through the Ravine to-night," was Luke's answer. "No,
not though I knowed I was to be killed at to-morrow's dawn for
disobeying the order."
"Man, what are you afraid of?"
"Of that," said Luke, nodding at the light. "But I don't like the Ravine
in the night at no time."
"Why, that's nothing but a will-o'-the-wisp," returned Tod,
condescending to reason with him.
Luke shook his head. There was the light; and neither his faith in it
nor his fear could be shaken. Tod had his arms on the fence now, and was
staring at the light as fixedly as Luke had done.
"Johnny."
"What?"
"That light is carried by some one. It's being lifted about."
"How could any one carry it _there_?" I returned. "He'd pitch head over
heels down the Ravine. No fellow could get to the place, Tod, let alone
keep his footing. It's where the bushes are thickest."
Tod caught up the lantern. As its light flashed on his face, I could see
it working with new eagerness. He was taking up the notion that Hugh
might have fallen on that very spot, and that some one was waving a
light to attract attention. As to ghosts, Tod would have met an army of
them without the smallest fear.
He went back down the Ravine, and we heard him go crashing through the
underwood. Luke never spoke a word. Suddenly, long before Tod could get
to it, the light disappeared. We waited and watched, but it did not come
again.
"It have been like that always, Master Johnny," whispered Luke, taking
his arms off the fence. "Folks may look as long as they will at that
there light; but as soon as they go off, a-trying to get to see what it
is, it takes itself away. It will be seen no more to-night, sir."
He turned off across the meadow for the high-road, to go and do Tod's
bidding at Timberdale, walking at a sharp pace. Any amount of exertion
would have been welcome to Mackintosh, as an alternative to passing
through the Ravine.
It may be remembered that for some days we had been vaguely uneasy about
Hugh, and the uneasiness had penetrated to Mrs. Todhetley. Tod had made
private mockery of it to me, thinking she must be three parts a fool to
entertain any such fear. "I should like to give madam a fright," he said
to me one day--meaning that he would like to hide little Hugh for a
time. But I never supposed he would really do it. And it was only
to-night--hours and hours after Hugh disappeared, that Tod avowed to me
the part he had taken in the loss. To make it clear to the reader, we
must go back to the morning of this same day--Friday.
After breakfast I was shut up with my books, paying no attention to
anything that might be going on, inside the house or out of it. Old
Frost gave us a woeful lot to do in the holidays. The voices of the
children, playing at the swing, came wafting in through the open window;
but they died away to quietness as the morning went on. About twelve
o'clock Mrs. Todhetley looked in.
"Are the children here, Johnny?"
She saw they were not, and went away without waiting for an answer. Lena
ran up the passage, and I heard her say papa had taken Hugh out in the
pony-gig. The interruption served as an excuse for putting up the books
for the day, and I went out.
Of all young ragamuffins, the worst came running after me as I went
through the fold-yard gate. Master Hugh! Whether he had been in the
green pond again or over the house-roof, he was in a wonderful state;
his blue eyes not to be seen for mud, his straw-hat bent, his brown
holland blouse all tatters and slime, and the pretty fair curls that
Hannah was proud of and wasted her time over, a regular mass of tangle.
"Take me with you, Johnny!"
"I should think I would, like that! What have you been doing with
yourself?"
"Playing with the puppy. We fell down in the mud amongst the ducks.
Joe says I am to stop in the barn and hide myself. I am afraid to go
indoors."
"You'll catch it, and no mistake. Come, be off back again."
But he'd not go back, and kept running by my side under the high hedge.
When we came to the gate at the end of the field, I stood and ordered
him to go. He began to cry a little.
"Now, Hugh, you know you cannot go with me in that plight. Walk yourself
straight off to Hannah and get her to change the things before your
mamma sees you. There; you may have the biscuit: I don't much care for
it."
It was a big captain's biscuit that I had caught up in going through the
dining-room. He took that readily enough, the young cormorant, but he
wouldn't stir any the more for it: and I might have had the small object
with me till now, but for the appearance of the Squire's gig in the
lane. The moment Hugh caught sight of his papa, he turned tail and
scampered away like a young wild animal. Remembering Mrs. Todhetley's
foolish fear, I mounted the gate and watched him turn safely in at the
other.
"What are you looking at, Johnny?" asked the Squire, as he drove
leisurely up.
"At Hugh, sir. I've sent him indoors."
"I'm going over to Massock's, Johnny, about the bricks for that cottage.
You can get up, if you like to come with me."
I got into the gig at once, and we drove to South Crabb, to Massock's
place. He was not to be seen; his people thought he had gone out for the
day. Upon that, the Squire went on to see old Cartwright, and they made
us stop there and put up the pony. When we reached home it was past
dinner-time. Mrs. Todhetley came running out.
"Couldn't get here before: the Cartwrights kept us," called out the
Squire. "We are going to catch it, Johnny," he whispered to me, with a
laugh: "we've let the dinner spoil."
But it was not the dinner. "Where's Hugh?" asked Mrs. Todhetley.
"I've not seen Hugh," said the Squire, flinging the reins to Luke
Mackintosh, who had come up. Luke did all kinds of odd jobs about the
place, and sometimes helped the groom.
"But you took Hugh out with you," she said.
"Not I," answered the Squire.
Mrs. Todhetley's face turned white. She looked from one to the other of
us in a helpless kind of manner. "Lena said you did," she returned, and
her voice seemed to fear its own sound. The Squire talking with
Mackintosh about the pony, noticed nothing particular.
"Lena did? Oh, ay, I remember. I let Hugh get up at the door and drove
him round to the fold-yard gate. I dropped him there."
He went in as he spoke: Mrs. Todhetley seemed undecided whether to
follow him. Tod had his back against the door-post, listening.
"What are you alarmed at?" he asked her, not even attempting to suppress
his mocking tone.
"Oh, Johnny!" she said, "have _you_ not seen him?"
"Yes; and a fine pickle he was in," I answered, telling her about it.
"I dare say Hannah has put him to bed for punishment."
"But Hannah has not," said Mrs. Todhetley. "She came down at four
o'clock to inquire if he had come in."
However, thinking that it might possibly turn out to be so, she ran in
to ascertain. Tod put his hand on my shoulder, and walked me further
off.
"Johnny, did Hugh really not go with you?"
"Why, of course he did not. Should I deny it if he did?"
"Where the dickens can the young idiot have got to?" mused Tod.
"Jeffries vowed he saw him go off with you down the field, Johnny."
"But I sent him back. I watched him in at the fold-yard gate. You don't
suppose I could take him further in that pickle!"
Tod laughed a little at the remembrance. Mrs. Todhetley returned, saying
Hugh was not to be found anywhere. She looked ready to die. Tod was
inwardly enjoying her fright beyond everything: it was better than a
play to him. His particularly easy aspect struck her.
"Oh, Joseph!" she implored, "if you know where he is, pray tell me."
"How should I know?" returned Tod. "I protest on my honour I have not
set eyes on him since before luncheon to-day."
"_Do_ you know where he is, Tod?" I asked him, as she turned indoors.
"No; but I can guess. He's not far off. And I really did think he was
with you, Johnny. I suppose I must go and bring him in, now; but I'd
give every individual thing my pockets contain if madam had had a few
hours' fright of it, instead of a few minutes'."
The dinner-bell was ringing, but Tod went off in an opposite direction.
And I must explain here what he knew of it, though he did not tell me
then. Walking through the fold-yard that morning, he had come upon
Master Hugh, just emerging from the bed of green mud, crying his eyes
out, and a piteous object. Hannah had promised Hugh that the next time
he got into this state she would carry him to the Squire. Hugh knew
she'd be sure to keep her word, and that the upshot would probably be
a whipping. Tod, after gratifying his eyes with the choice spectacle,
and listening to the fears of the whipping, calmly assured the young
gentleman that he was "in for it," at which Hugh only howled the more.
All in a moment it occurred to Tod to make use of this opportunity to
frighten Mrs. Todhetley. He took Hugh off to the barn, and told him
that if he'd hide himself there until the evening, he'd not only get him
off his whipping, but give him all sorts of good things besides. Hugh
was willing to promise, but said he wanted his dinner, upon which Tod
went and brought him a plate of bread-and-butter, telling Molly, who
cut it, that it was for himself. Tod left him devouring it in the dark
corner behind the waggon, particularly impressing upon him the fact
that he was to keep close and make no sign if his mamma, or Hannah, or
anybody else, came to look for him. One of the men, Jeffries, was at
work in the barn, and Tod, so to say, took him into confidence, ordering
him to know nothing if Master Hugh were inquired for. As Hannah and
Jeffries were at daggers drawn, and the man supposed this hiding was to
spite her, he entered into it with interest.
There were two barns at Crabb Cot. One some way down the road in front
of the house was the store barn, and you've heard of it before in
connection with something seen by Maria Lease. It was called the yellow
barn from the colour of its outer walls. The other, of red brick, was
right at the back of the fold-yard, and it was in this last that Tod
left Hugh, all safe and secure, as he thought, until told he might come
out again.
But now, when Tod went into the dining-room to luncheon at half-past
twelve--we country people breakfast early--at which meal he expected the
hue and cry after Hugh to set in, for it was the children's dinner,
he found there was a hitch in the programme. Mrs. Todhetley appeared
perfectly easy on the score of Hugh's absence, and presently casually
mentioned that he had gone out with his papa in the pony-gig. Tod's
lips parted to say that Hugh was not in the pony-gig, but in a state
of pickle instead. Prudence caused him to close them again. Hannah,
standing behind Lena's chair, openly gave thanks that the child was got
rid of for a bit, and said he was "getting a'most beyond her." Tod bit
his lips with vexation: the gilt was taken off the gingerbread. He went
to the barn again presently, and then found that Hugh had left it.
Jeffries said he saw him going towards the lane with Master Ludlow, and
supposed that the little lad had taken the opportunity to slip out of
the barn when he (Jeffries) went to dinner, at twelve o'clock. And thus
the whole afternoon had gone peaceably and unsuspiciously on; Mrs.
Todhetley and Hannah supposing Hugh was with the Squire, Tod supposing
he must be somewhere with me.
And when we both appeared at home without him, Tod took it for granted
that Hugh had gone back to his hiding-place in the barn, and a qualm of
conscience shot through him for leaving the lad there so many hours
unlooked after. He rushed off to it at once, while the dinner-bell was
ringing. But when he got there, Jeffries declared Hugh had not been back
to it at all. Tod, in his hot way, retorted on Jeffries for saying so;
but the man persisted that he could not be mistaken, as he had never
been away from the barn since coming back from dinner.
And then arose the commotion. Tod came back with a stern face, almost as
anxious as Mrs. Todhetley's. Hugh had not been seen, so far as could be
ascertained, since I watched him in at the fold-yard gate soon after
twelve. That was nearly seven hours ago. Tod felt himself responsible
for the loss, and sent the men to look about. But the worst he thought
then was, that the boy, whose fears of showing himself in his state of
dilapidation Tod himself had mischievously augmented, had lain down
somewhere or other and dropped asleep.
It had gone on, and on, and on, until late at night, and then had
occurred that explanation between Tod and his step-mother told of in the
other paper. Tod was all impulse, and pride, and heat, and passion; but
his heart was made of sterling gold, just like the Squire's. Holding
himself aloof from her in haughty condemnation, in the matter of the
mysterious stranger, to find now that the stranger was a man called
Alfred Arne, _his_ relative, and that Mrs. Todhetley had been generously
taking the trouble upon herself for the sake of sparing him and his
father pain, completely turned Tod and his pride over.
He had grown desperately frightened as the hours went on. The moon-lit
night had become dark, as I've already said, and the men could not
pursue their search to much effect. Tod did not cease his. He got a
lantern, and went rushing about as if he were crazy. You saw him come up
with it from the Ravine, and now he had gone back on a wild-goose chase
after the ghost light. Where was Hugh? Where could he be? It was not
likely Alfred Arne had taken him, because he had that afternoon got from
Mrs. Todhetley the fifty pounds he worried for, and she thought he had
gone finally off with it. It stood to reason that the child would be
an encumbrance to him. On the other hand, Tod's theory, that Hugh had
dropped asleep somewhere, seemed, as the hours crept on, less and less
likely to hold water, for he would have wakened up and come home long
ago. As to the Ravine, in spite of Tod's suspicions that he might be
there, I was sure the little fellow would not have ventured into it.
I stood on, in the dark night, waiting for Tod to come back again. It
felt awfully desolate now Luke Mackintosh had gone. The ghost light
did not show again. I rather wished it would, for company. He came at
last--Tod, not the ghost. I had heard him shouting, and nothing answered
but the echoes. A piece of his coat was torn, and some brambles were
sticking to him, and the lantern was broken; what dangerous places he
had pushed himself into could never be told.
"I wonder you've come out with whole limbs, Tod."
"Hold your peace, Johnny," was all the retort I got; and his voice rose
nearly to a shout in its desperate sorrow.
* * * * *
Morning came, but no news with it, no Hugh. Tod had been about all
night. With daylight, the fields, and all other seemingly possible
places, were searched. Tom Coney went knocking at every house in North
and South Crabb, and burst into cottages, and turned over, so to say,
all the dwellings in that savoury locality, Crabb Lane, but with no
result. The Squire was getting anxious; but none of us had ventured to
tell him of our especial cause for anxiety, or to speak of Alfred Arne.
It appeared nearly certain now, to us, that he had gone with Alfred
Arne, and, after a private consultation with Mrs. Todhetley, Tod and I
set out in search of the man. She still wished to spare the knowledge of
his visit to the Squire, if possible.
We had not far to go. Mrs. Todhetley's fears went ranging abroad to
London, or Liverpool, or the Coral Islands beyond the sea, of which Arne
had talked to Hugh: but Arne was found at Timberdale. In an obscure
lodging in the further outskirts of the place, the landlord of which, a
man named Cookum, was a bad character, and very shy of the police, Arne
was found. We might have searched for him to the month's end, but for
Luke Mackintosh. When Luke arrived at Timberdale in the middle of the
night, ordered there by Tod to make inquiries at the police-station, he
saw a tipsy man slink into Cookum's house, and recognized him for the
one who had recently been exciting speculation at home. Luke happened to
mention this to Tod, not connecting Hugh with it at all, simply as a bit
of gossip: of course it was not known who Arne was, or his name, or what
he had been waiting for.
We had a fight to get in. Cookum came leaping down the crazy stairs, and
put himself in our way in the passage, swearing we should not go on. Tod
lifted his strong arm.
"I mean to go on, Cookum," he said, in a slow, quiet voice that had
determination in every tone of it. "I have come to see a man named Arne.
I don't want to do him any ill, or you either; but, see him, I will. If
you do not move out of my way I'll knock you down."
Cookum stood his ground. He was short, slight, and sickly, with a puffy
face and red hair; a very reed beside Tod.
"There ain't no man here of that name. There ain't no man here at all."
"Very well. Then you can't object to letting me see that there is not."
"I swear that you shan't see, master. There!"
Tod flung him aside. Cookum, something like an eel, slipped under Tod's
arm, and was in front of him again.
"I don't care to damage you, Cookum, as you must see I could do, and
force my way in over your disabled body; you look too weak for it. But
I'll either go in _so_, or the police shall clear an entrance for me."
The mention of the police scared the man; I saw it in his face. Tod kept
pushing on and the man backing, just a little.
"I won't have no police here. What is it you want?"
"I have told you once. A man named Arne."
"I swear then that I never knowed a man o' that name; let alone having
him in my place."
And he spoke with such passionate fervour that it struck me Arne did not
go by his own name: which was more than probable. They were past the
stairs now, and Cookum did not seem to care to guard them. The nasty
passage, long and narrow, had a door at the end. Tod thought that must
be the fortress.
"You are a great fool, Cookum. I've told you that I mean no harm to you
or to any one in the place; so to make this fuss is needless. You may
have a band of felons concealed here, or a cart-load of stolen goods;
they are all safe for me. But if you force me to bring in the police it
might be a different matter."
Perhaps the argument told on the man; perhaps the tone of reason it was
spoken in; but he certainly seemed to hesitate.
"You can't prove that to me, sir: not that there's any felons or things
in here. Show me that you don't mean harm, and you shall go on."
"Have you a stolen child here?"