SAM BRATTLE.
It was about eleven o'clock when Gilmore passed through the wicket
leading from the vicarage garden to the churchyard. The path he was
about to take crossed simply a corner of the church precincts, as it
came at once upon a public footway leading from the fields through
the churchyard to the town. There was, of course, no stopping the
public path, but Fenwick had been often advised to keep a lock on his
own gate, as otherwise it almost seemed that the vicarage gardens
were open to all Bullhampton. But the lock had never been put on. The
gate was the way by which he and his family went to the church, and
the parson was accustomed to say that however many keys there might
be provided, he knew that there would never be one in his pocket
when he wanted it. And he was wont to add, when his wife would tease
him on the subject, that they who desired to come in decently were
welcome, and that they who were minded to make an entrance indecently
would not be debarred by such rails and fences as hemmed in the
vicarage grounds. Gilmore, as he passed through the corner of the
churchyard, clearly saw a man standing near to the stile leading from
the fields. Indeed, this man was quite close to him, although, from
the want of light and the posture of the man, the face was invisible
to him. But he knew the fellow to be a stranger to Bullhampton. The
dress was strange, the manner was strange, and the mode of standing
was strange. Gilmore had lived at Bullhampton all his life, and,
without much thought on the subject, knew Bullhampton ways. The
jacket which the man wore was a town-made jacket, a jacket that had
come farther a-field even than Salisbury; and the man's gaiters had a
savour which was decidedly not of Wiltshire. Dark as it was, he could
see so much as this. "Good night, my friend," said Gilmore, in a
sharp cheery voice. The man muttered something, and passed on as
though to the village. There had, however, been something in his
position which made Gilmore think that the stranger had intended
to trespass on his friend's garden. He crossed the stile into the
fields, however, without waiting,--without having waited for half a
moment, and immediately saw the figure of a second man standing down,
hidden as it were in the ditch; and though he could discover no more
than the cap and shoulders of the man through the gloom, he was sure
he knew who it was that owned the cap and shoulders. He did not speak
again, but passed on quickly, thinking what he might best do. The
man whom he had seen and recognised had latterly been talked of as a
discredit to his family, and anything but an honour to the usually
respectable inhabitants of Bullhampton.
On the further side of the church from the town was a farmyard, in
the occupation of one of Lord Trowbridge's tenants,--a man who had
ever been very keen at preventing the inroads of trespassers, to
which he had, perhaps, been driven by the fact that his land was
traversed by various public pathways. Now a public pathway through
pasture is a nuisance, as it is impossible to induce those who use
it to keep themselves to one beaten track; but a pathway through
cornfields is worse, for, let what pains may be taken, wheat,
beans, and barley will be torn down and trampled under foot. And
yet in apportioning his rents, no landlord takes all this into
consideration. Farmer Trumbull considered it a good deal, and was
often a wrathful man. There was at any rate no right of way across
his farmyard, and here he might keep as big a dog as he chose,
chained or unchained. Harry Gilmore knew the dog well, and stood for
a moment leaning on the gate.
"Who be there?" said the voice of the farmer.
"Is that you, Mr. Trumbull? It is I,--Mr. Gilmore. I want to get
round to the front of the parson's house."
"Zurely, zurely," said the farmer, coming forward and opening the
gate. "Be there anything wrong about, Squire?"
"I don't know. I think there is. Speak softly. I fancy there are men
lying in the churchyard."
"I be a-thinking so, too, Squire. Bone'm was a growling just now like
the old 'un." Bone'm was the name of the bull-dog as to which Gilmore
had been solicitous as he looked over the gate. "What is't t'ey're up
to? Not bugglary?"
"Our friend's apricots, perhaps. But I'll just move round to the
front. Do you and Bone'm keep a look-out here."
"Never fear, Squire; never fear. Me and Bone'm together is a'most too
much for 'em, bugglars and all." Then he led Mr. Gilmore through the
farmyard, and out on to the road, Bone'm growling a low growl as he
passed away.
The Squire hurried along the high road, past the church, and in at
the Vicarage front gate. Knowing the place well, he could have made
his way round into the garden; but he thought it better to go to
the front door. There was no light to be seen from the windows; but
almost all the rooms of the house looked out into the garden at the
back. He knocked sharply, and in a minute or two the door was opened
by the parson in person.
"Frank," said the Squire.
"Halloo! is that you? What's up now?"
"Men who ought to be in bed. I came across two men hanging about your
gate in the churchyard, and I'm not sure there wasn't a third."
"They're up to nothing. They often sit and smoke there."
"These fellows were up to something. The man I saw plainest was a
stranger, and just the sort of man who won't do your parishioners any
good to be among them. The other was Sam Brattle."
"Whew--w--w," said the parson.
"He has gone utterly to the dogs," said the Squire.
"He's on the road, Harry; but nobody has gone while he's still going.
I had some words with him in his father's presence last week, and
he followed me afterwards, and told me he'd see it out with me. I
wouldn't tell you, because I didn't want to set you more against
them."
"I wish they were out of the place,--the whole lot of them."
"I don't know that they'd do better elsewhere than here. I suppose
Mr. Sam is going to keep his word with me."
"Only for the look of that other fellow, I shouldn't think they meant
anything serious," said Gilmore.
"I don't suppose they do, but I'll be on the look-out."
"Shall I stay with you, Frank?"
"Oh, no; I've a life-preserver, and I'll take a round of the gardens.
You come with me, and you can pass home that way. The chances
are they'll mizzle away to bed, as they've seen you, and heard
Bone'm,--and probably heard too every word you said to Trumbull."
He then got his hat and the short, thick stick of which he had
spoken, and turning the key of the door, put it in his pocket. Then
the two friends went round by the kitchen garden, and so through to
the orchard, and down to the churchyard gate. Hitherto they had seen
nothing, and heard nothing, and Fenwick was sure that the men had
made their way through the churchyard to the village.
"But they may come back," said Gilmore.
"I'll be about if they do," said the parson.
"What is one against three? You had better let me stay."
Fenwick laughed at this, saying that it would be quite as rational to
propose that they should keep watch every night.
"But, hark!" said the Squire, with a mind evidently perturbed.
"Don't you be alarmed about us," said the parson.
"If anything should happen to Mary Lowther!"
"That, no doubt, is matter of anxiety, to which may, perhaps, be
added some trifle of additional feeling on the score of Janet and the
children. But I'll do my best. If the women knew that you and I were
patrolling the place, they'd be frightened out of their wits."
Then Gilmore, who never liked that there should be a laugh against
himself, took his leave and walked home across the fields. Fenwick
passed up through the garden, and, when he was near the terrace which
ran along the garden front of the house, he thought that he heard
a voice. He stood under the shade of a wall dark with ivy, and
distinctly heard whispering on the other side of it. As far as he
could tell there were the voices of more than two men. He wished now
that he had kept Gilmore with him,--not that he was personally afraid
of the trespassers, for his courage was of that steady settled kind
which enables the possessor to remember that men who are doing deeds
of darkness are ever afraid of those whom they are injuring; but had
there been an ally with him his prospect of catching one or more of
the ruffians would have been greatly increased. Standing where he was
he would probably be able to interrupt them, should they attempt to
enter the house; but in the mean time they might be stripping his
fruit from the wall. They were certainly, at present, in the kitchen
garden, and he was not minded to leave them there at such work as
they might have in hand. Having paused to think of this, he crept
along under the wall, close to the house, towards the passage by
which he could reach them. But they had not heard him, nor had they
waited among the fruit. When he was near the corner of the wall, one
leading man came round within a foot or two of the spot on which he
stood; and, before he could decide on what he would do, the second
had appeared. He rushed forward with the loaded stick in his hand,
but, knowing its weight, and remembering the possibility of the
comparative innocence of the intruders, he hesitated to strike. A
blow on the head would have brained a man, and a knock on the arm
with such an instrument would break the bone. In a moment he found
his left hand on the leading man's throat, and the man's foot behind
his heel. He fell, but as he fell he did strike heavily, cutting
upwards with his weapon, and bringing the heavy weight of lead at the
end of it on to the man's shoulder. He stumbled rather than fell, but
when he regained his footing, the man was gone. That man was gone,
and two others were following him down towards the gate at the bottom
of the orchard. Of these two, in a few strides, he was able to catch
the hindermost, and then he found himself wrestling with Sam Brattle.
"Sam," said he, speaking as well as he could with his short breath,
"if you don't stand, I'll strike you with the life-preserver."
Sam made another struggle, trying to seize the weapon, and the parson
hit him with it on the right arm.
"You've smashed that anyway, Mr. Fenwick," said the man.
"I hope not; but do you come along with me quietly, or I'll smash
something else. I'll hit you on the head if you attempt to move away.
What were you doing here?"
Brattle made no answer, but walked along towards the house at the
parson's left hand, the parson holding him the while by the neck of
his jacket, and swinging the life-preserver in his right hand. In
this way he took him round to the front of the house, and then began
to think what he would do with him.
"That, after all, you should be at this work, Sam!"
"What work is it, then?"
"Prowling about my place, after midnight, with a couple of strange
blackguards."
"There ain't so much harm in that, as I knows of."
"Who were the men, Sam?"
"Who was the men?"
"Yes;--who were they?"
"Just friends of mine, Mr. Fenwick. I shan't say no more about 'em.
You've got me, and you've smashed my arm, and now what is it you're
a-going to do with me? I ain't done no harm,--only just walked about,
like."
To tell the truth, our friend the parson did not quite know what he
meant to do with the Tartar he had caught. There were reasons which
made him very unwilling to hand over Sam Brattle to the village
constable. Sam had a mother and sister who were among the Vicar's
first favourites in the parish; and though old Jacob Brattle, the
father, was not so great a favourite, and was a man whom the Squire,
his landlord, held in great disfavour, Mr. Fenwick would desire, if
possible, to spare the family. And of Sam, himself, he had had high
hopes, though those hopes, for the last eighteen months had been
becoming fainter and fainter. Upon the whole, he was much averse to
knocking up the groom, the only man who lived on the parsonage except
himself, and dragging Sam into the village. "I wish I knew," he said,
"what you and your friends were going to do. I hardly think it has
come to that with you, that you'd try to break into the house and cut
our throats."
"We warn't after no breaking in, nor no cutting of throats, Mr.
Fenwick. We warn't indeed!"
"What shall you do with yourself, to-night, if I let you off?"
"Just go home to father's, sir; not a foot else, s'help me."
"One of your friends, as you call them, will have to go to the
doctor, if I am not very much mistaken; for the rap I gave you was
nothing to what he got. You're all right?"
"It hurt, sir, I can tell ye;--but that won't matter."
"Well, Sam,--there; you may go. I shall be after you to-morrow, and
the last word I say to you, to-night, is this;--as far as I can see,
you're on the road to the gallows. It isn't pleasant to be hung, and
I would advise you to change your road." So saying, he let go his
hold, and stood waiting till Sam should have taken his departure.
"Don't be a-coming after me, to-morrow, parson, please," said the
man.
"I shall see your mother, certainly."
"Dont'ee tell her of my being here, Mr. Fenwick, and nobody shan't
ever come anigh this place again,--not in the way of prigging
anything."
"You fool, you!" said the parson. "Do you think that it is to save
anything that I might lose, that I let you go now? Don't you know
that the thing I want to save is you,--you,--you; you helpless, idle,
good-for-nothing reprobate? Go home, and be sure that I shall do the
best I can according to my lights. I fear that my lights are bad
lights, in that they have allowed me to let you go."
When he had seen Sam take his departure through the front gate, he
returned to the house, and found that his wife, who had gone to bed,
had come down-stairs in search of him.
"Frank, you have frightened me so terribly! Where have you been?"
"Thief-catching. And I'm afraid I've about split one fellow's back. I
caught another, but I let him go."
"What on earth do you mean, Frank?"
Then he told her the whole story,--how Gilmore had seen the men, and
had come up to him; how he had gone out and had a tussle with one
man, whom he had, as he thought, hurt; and how he had then caught
another, while the third escaped.
"We ain't safe in our beds, then," said the wife.
"You ain't safe in yours, my dear, because you chose to leave it; but
I hope you're safe out of it. I doubt whether the melons and peaches
are safe. The truth is, there ought to be a gardener's cottage on
the place, and I must build one. I wonder whether I hurt that fellow
much. I seemed to hear the bone crunch."
"Oh, Frank!"
"But what could I do? I got that thing because I thought it safer
than a pistol, but I really think it's worse. I might have murdered
them all, if I'd lost my temper,--and just for half-a-dozen
apricots!"
"And what became of the man you took?"
"I let him go."
"Without doing anything to him?"
"Well; he got a tap too."
"Did you know him?"
"Yes, I knew him,--well."
"Who was he, Frank?"
The parson was silent for a moment, and then he answered her. "It was
Sam Brattle."
"Sam Brattle, coming to rob?"
"He's been at it, I fear, for months, in some shape."
"And what shall you do?"
"I hardly know as yet. It would about kill her and Fanny, if they
were told all that I suspect. They are stiff-necked, obstinate,
ill-conditioned people--that is, the men. But I think Gilmore has
been a little hard on them. The father and brother are honest men.
Come;--we'll go to bed."