THE DARK DEED IN THURSTON WOOD.
“Oh, how will crime engender crime! Throw guilt
Upon the soul, and, like a stone cast on
The troubled waters of a lake,
’Twill form in circles, round succeeding round,
Each wider than the first.”
_Colman._
A cold December wind was blowing to and fro the dead brown leaves in
Thurston Wood, a large tract of plantation that bounded the northern
and higher side of Squire Fuller’s park. Gaunt and grim loomed the
naked trees through the foggy air, and the long grass was wet and dank
with the perpetual drip of the moisture-laden boughs. The brief dark
day was rapidly deepening into night, but a darker deed was about to
be perpetrated in that lonely and sombre place.
Through the woods there flowed a broad and deep stream, fringed with
willows, elder bushes, hemlocks, and reeds. This was known as Thurston
Beck. Its rapid waters poured themselves over a rocky ledge, just
within the borders of the park, and falling in the form of a cascade
into a deep pit, filled it to the brim, overflowed rapidly through a
smaller channel, fed the extensive fish-ponds on the southern side,
and then again meandering through the valley of Waverdale, rippled and
bickered through the village of Nestleton, and a little beyond
Kesterton joined its waters to the River Ouse. There was a foot-path
through the wood close by the borders of the beck, and here it was
that Black Morris, gun in hand, and half resolved on suicide, found
himself face to face with Bill Buckley. Unable to restrain his anger,
Morris strode up to his now hateful companion, and hissed through his
set teeth,--
“Bill Buckley, stand off! I feel like murder to my fingers’ ends. What
right had you to trap me into your brutal attack on Farmer Crabtree?
you black villain!”
“Ho, ho!” said Buckley, his scowling features white with rage. “Two
can play at that game. Take care what you’re aboot, or ah’ll gi’e you
an oonce o’ leead! Thoo’s intiv it, an’ thoo can’t get oot on’t!” he
continued, with a mocking laugh.
“You lie!” said Black Morris. “Let them that did it swing for it:” for
he had settled in his own mind that Crabtree had got his death-blow,
“and I’ll lend a hand to help ’em.”
“Will you?” said Fighting Bill, drawing a step nearer. “If thoo means
to split, ah’ll let dayleet through the’ ribs. Thoo shared i’ t’ swag,
an’ thoo mun share i’ t’ danger.”
“My share o’ t’ swag,” said Morris, “has gone back to Farmer Crabtree,
and I wrote and told”----
“You black d----!” shouted Buckley, livid with passion, and, pointing
his gun at his unwary victim, shot him down like a dog! The blood
gushed from his face and temples, sprinkling the raiment of his
murderer; he fell heavily on the plashy grass with a shrill scream
which echoed and re-echoed through the lonely wood, until a thousand
voices seemed to curse the doer of the awful deed! Unrepentant and
unpitying, the assassin kicked the prostrate body, and with an oath
upon his lips, he rolled his victim into the rapid beck; a dull splash
succeeded, and the silent waters closed over their hapless burden and
went on their heedless way. Seizing his gun, Bill Buckley made rapid
strides along the borders of the stream, away from the stains of
blood, away from the park, and speedily put many miles between him and
the place which he had rendered horrible for evermore.
* * * * *
An hour after the perpetration of the dreadful deed, Philip Fuller
trod the sodden path through Thurston Wood, returning from his visit
to Sir Harry Elliott’s, after a day spent in copse and covert, and
still oppressed and depressed by the remembrances of his morning’s
interview with his angry father. With his gun across his shoulder he
was rapidly making his way homeward, when his foot struck suddenly
against some object in the grass, and he fell at full length across
the very spot where, just before, the gun of Bill Buckley had sped its
dreadful messenger, and laid his hapless victim low. Wet and muddy,
and stained, though he knew it not, with human blood, he rose to his
feet, and looking for the obstacle which had tripped him up, he found
a gun, and a few yards off, an old black felt cap. Suspicion was now
thoroughly aroused. He examined the ground more carefully, detected
the hue of blood in the pale moonlight which now and then vanquished
the veil of intervening cloud, noticed how the grass and weeds were
pressed down to the edge of the stream, and felt that he was gazing on
the results of some sad accident or hideous crime. He remembered the
fearful scream which he had heard on the still night air. “Murder!”
said he, turning sick and trembling with horror at the fearful
thought. At that moment a gust of wind blew suddenly, stirring the
shrubs and reeds. To his excited mind this was the motion of some
living being, his gun dropped from his hand and his first impulse was
to turn and flee. Re-assured, he resolved to leave the gun and cap
where he had found them, then to hasten to the hall and give the
alarm, and bring the servants and a constable to search the spot.
Seizing the gun which lay at his feet, Philip ran with speed towards
Waverdale Hall.
Crossing the park he met Piggy Morris, who was returning from a sale
of live stock, and was taking a short cut across Squire Fuller’s park,
despite the warning to trespassers, for in that direction there was no
right of way.
“Don’t go through Thurston Wood!” said Philip, running up to him in
hot haste.
The ex-farmer, slightly muddled by too long a halt at “The Plough,”
did not catch the drift of his expression, but understood him to
oppose his passage through the park. Under the influence of a little
Dutch courage, he laid hold on Philip to repel what he imagined was a
personal attack. A short scuffle succeeded, during which the gun fell
to the ground and was seized by Piggy Morris. Philip succeeded in
removing his apprehension, and the gun was being handed back, when
Morris suddenly exclaimed,--
“This is our Jack’s gun, as sure as eggs is eggs! How have you come by
that?”
Philip hastily told him what he had seen. Morris listened, thoroughly
sobered now, and laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder, he
hissed between his set teeth,--
“My son Jack is murdered! The son of the man who turned me off my
farm, the Philip Fuller that robbed my lad of his sweetheart, and that
threatened him before witnesses, is the man that did the deed!”
Shocked, stunned, paralysed at the awful imputation, and at the
damning circumstantial evidence forthcoming, at that moment Philip
looked guilty, and Piggy Morris’s suspicions were confirmed.
“I’m not going to lose sight of you, young man,” said Morris, and
despite the solemn denial of the distressed and confounded youth,
Piggy Morris insisted on accompanying his “prisoner,” as he called
him, to Waverdale Hall. There the young man told his story to his
father. With a heart oppressed by forbodings of calamity, the squire
and a posse of servants accompanied them to Thurston Wood. While
Philip had been telling his story, Morris had noted the mire on his
shooting jacket and the blood upon his cuffs, and pointed them out to
the squire with more exultation than was befitting a bereaved father.
Piggy Morris, however, had not any great amount of affection for his
son. They found the cap, which Morris identified at once, and one of
the servants, picking up a gun, exclaimed, “Why, this is Master
Philip’s gun!” A hush as of death fell upon the party, broken first by
a groan from the agonised squire, then Piggy Morris seized Philip by
the arm, and dragging him to his father’s presence, cried, “Behold the
murderer of my son!”
“Hands off!” shouted Philip, stung beyond endurance, “It’s a hideous
lie!”
“Peace! my son,” said the squire, in accents which thrilled every
listener, by their concentrated grief and resolute dignity. “Mr.
Morris, you know where to find my son when he is wanted, and now,
good-night!”
A heavy cloud rested on all who dwelt within the mansion of Waverdale.
The servants of the establishment, from butler to stable-boy, from
housekeeper to scullery-maid, entertained a true affection and regard
for their kind-hearted and open-handed young master, and one and all
were in genuine distress. Squire Fuller, in a long and anxious
conference with his son, in which his own first agonising doubts were
removed and Philip’s innocence of the dreadful charge made clear to
himself, sat by his waning lamp far into the night. He was in sad
straits. The events of the morning, when he had threatened to
disinherit his boy, and now this new and grievous trouble, bowed his
spirit to the ground. His son’s erratic and mortifying connection with
the Methodists, the awfully damning evidence against him as to the
dark deed of Thurston Wood, the humiliating publicity which would
drag his honoured name through the mire of disgrace: these things,
coupled with the deep, strong love he had for Philip, stung his soul
to the quick. He had discarded religion, had imbibed a strong unbelief
in and contempt for prayer, and yet such is the native instinct of the
soul to cry unto the Lord in distress, that he could not refrain from
groaning aloud, “Lord, save my boy!” Thus the hours passed, until,
worn-out and weary, he slumbered in his chair. Waking as the grey
light of morning peeped through the heavy window curtains, he rose
with a bitter sigh and sought his chamber. Passing Philip’s bedroom
door, he paused as he heard a voice within, “Don’t! father, don’t!
Dear father! Lucy, my darling! Farewell! Adam Olliver, you have given
me a Saviour! Give me a father! What’s this? Blood! Morris! I didn’t
do it! Oh! oh! oh!”
The squire opened the door, sprang to the bed, and saw his son,
sitting up, with bloodshot eye-balls, scarlet face and hands lifted in
an imploring attitude. Squire Fuller perceived at a glance that his
son was raving in the madness of brain fever! To rouse the
housekeeper, call the servants, and to send the groom at a hard gallop
to fetch Dr. Jephson was the work of a moment, and then the wretched
father went back to keep anxious vigil by the bedside of his stricken
boy. Mrs. Bruce, the housekeeper, well-skilled in all the experiences
of a sick-room, applied ice and wet cloths to the sufferer’s burning
brow, and by and bye the paroxysm seemed partially to subside. Thus
they waited, waited in the darkened chamber, waited in silence, for
not one word did the squire utter, but sat with his eyes fixed on the
moaning youth, listening through hours that seemed ages, until he
heard the hoofs of a horse at a rapid gallop ringing on the road, and
knew that Dr. Jephson had arrived. Standing by his bed, with his hand
upon his patient’s wrist, and looking at the distended pupils of his
eyes, the doctor turned at last to speak to the statuesque father by
his side. The words, sad words, died upon his tongue. Anything but
hope spoken to that shrinking form would have killed him where he
stood!
* * * * *
There was sorrow also in the house of Piggy Morris. The weakly and
ailing mother mourned the loss of her first-born as only a mother may.
Could she have only known that he was prepared for his sudden and
terrible exit from the world she could have better borne the blow. To
her, Black Morris had not been a bad or cruel son. His love for his
mother was great and abiding, and had it not been for the evil set
into which their unhappy choice of a locality had thrown him, she
believed with reason, that he would have led a nobler and more
reputable life. Her gentle daughter, Mary, though sore crushed by this
bereavement, was sustained by the religious principles and experiences
obtained by means of the Methodist services in the village, and was
enabled to succour her weeping mother in this trying hour. Piggy
Morris himself, cannot be credited with any great amount of grief for
the loss of his son. His own harsh and repellant nature had loosened
his hold upon the wayward youth, and led to an open rebellion which
threatened an irreparable breach. His vindictive nature, however, was
quick to seize the opportunity, now offered, of revenging himself on
those who, according to his crooked notions of right and wrong, had
“ruined him,” by dismissing him from his ill-managed and wasted farm.
He would not hesitate to gird a halter beneath the grey locks of the
squire if he had the chance, and revelled in the prospect of dragging
the scion of the hated house of Fuller to the gallows, and
extinguishing the race for evermore. For Piggy Morris, to do him
justice, never doubted for a moment that Philip Fuller was guilty of
the dreadful tragedy which had flung a nameless horror over Thurston
Wood.