CRUNCH'EM CAN'T BE HAD.
Mr. Fenwick had intended to have come home round by Market Lavington,
after having deposited Miss Lowther at the Westbury Station, with
the view of making some inquiry respecting the gentleman with the
hurt shoulder; but he had found the distance to be too great, and
had abandoned the idea. After that there was not a day to spare till
the middle of the next week; so that it was nearly a fortnight after
the little scene at the corner of the Vicarage garden wall before he
called upon the Lavington constable and the Lavington doctor. From
the latter he could learn nothing. No such patient had been to him.
But the constable, though he had not seen the two men, had heard
of them. One was a man who in former days had frequented Lavington,
Burrows by name, generally known as Jack the Grinder, who had been
in every prison in Wiltshire and Somersetshire, but who had not,--so
said the constable,--honoured Lavington for the last two years, till
this his last appearance. He had, however, been seen there in company
with another man, and had evidently been in a condition very unfit
for work. He had slept one night at a low public-house, and had then
moved on. The man had complained of a fall from the cart, and had
declared that he was black and blue all over; but it seemed to be
clear that he had no broken bones. Mr. Fenwick therefore was all but
convinced that Jack the Grinder was the gentleman with whom he had
had the encounter, and that the grinder's back had withstood that
swinging blow from the life-preserver. Of the Grinder's companions
nothing could be learned. The two men had taken the Devizes road
out of Lavington, and beyond that nothing was known of them. When
the parson mentioned Sam Brattle's name in a whisper, the Lavington
constable shook his head. He knew all about old Jacob Brattle. A very
respectable party was old Mr. Brattle in the constable's opinion.
Nevertheless the constable shook his head when Sam Brattle's name was
mentioned. Having learned so much, the parson rode home.
Two days after this, on a Friday, Fenwick was sitting after breakfast
in his study, at work on his sermon for next Sunday, when he was told
that old Mrs. Brattle was waiting to see him. He immediately got up,
and found his own wife and the miller's seated in the hall. It was
not often that Mrs. Brattle made her way to the Vicarage, but when
she did so she was treated with great consideration. It was still
August, and the weather was very hot, and she had walked up across
the water mead, and was tired. A glass of wine and a biscuit were
pressed upon her, and she was encouraged to sit and say a few
indifferent words, before she was taken into the study and told to
commence the story which had brought her so far. And there was a
most inviting topic for conversation. The mill and the mill premises
were to be put in order by the landlord. Mrs. Brattle affected to
be rather dismayed than otherwise by the coming operations. The
mill would have lasted their time, she thought, "and as for them as
were to come after them,--well! she didn't know. As things was now,
perhaps, it might be that after all Sam would have the mill." But the
trouble occasioned by the workmen would be infinite. How were they to
live in the mean time, and where were they to go? It soon appeared,
however, that all this had been already arranged. Milling must of
course be stopped for a month or six weeks. "Indeed, sir, feyther
says that there won't be no more grinding much before winter."
But the mill was to be repaired first, and then, when it became
absolutely necessary to dismantle the house, they were to endeavour
to make shift, and live in the big room of the mill itself, till
their furniture should be put back again. Mrs. Fenwick, with ready
good nature, offered to accommodate Mrs. Brattle and Fanny at the
Vicarage; but the old woman declined with many protestations of
gratitude. She had never left her old man yet, and would not do so
now. The weather would be mild for awhile, and she thought that they
could get through. By this time the glass of wine had been sipped
to the bottom, and the parson, mindful of his sermon, had led the
visitor into his study. She had come to tell that Sam at last had
returned home.
"Why didn't you bring him up with you, Mrs. Brattle?" Here was a
question to ask of an old lady, whose dominion over her son was
absolutely none! Sam had become so frightfully independent that he
hardly regarded the word of his father, who was a man pre-eminently
capable of maintaining authority, and would no more do a thing
because his mother told him than because the wind whistled.
"I axed him to come up, not just with me, but of hisself, Mr.
Fenwick; but he said as how you would know where to find him if you
wanted him."
"That's just what I don't know. However, if he's there now I'll go to
him. It would have been better far that he should have come to me."
"I told 'un so, Mr. Fenwick, I did, indeed."
"It does not signify. I will go to him; only it cannot be to-day, as
I have promised to take my wife over to Charlicoats. But I'll come
down immediately after breakfast to-morrow. You think he'll be still
there?"
"I be sure he will, Mr. Fenwick. He and feyther have taken on again,
till it's beautiful to see. There was none of 'em feyther ever loved
like he,--only one." Thereupon the poor woman burst out into tears,
and covered her face with her handkerchief. "He never makes half so
much account of my Fan, that never had a fault belonging to her."
"If Sam will stick to that it will be well for him."
"He's taken up extraordinary with the repairs, Mr. Fenwick. He's in
and about and over the place, looking to everything; and feyther says
he knows so much about it, he b'lieves the boy could do it all out o'
his own head. There's nothing feyther ever liked so much as folks to
be strong and clever."
"Perhaps the Squire's tradesmen won't like all that. Is Mitchell
going to do it?"
"It ain't a doing in that way, Mr. Fenwick. The Squire is allowing
£200, and feyther is to get it done. Mister Mitchell is to see that
it's done proper, no doubt."
"And now tell me, Mrs. Brattle, what has Sam been about all the time
that he was away?"
"That's just what I cannot tell you, Mr. Fenwick."
"Your husband has asked him, I suppose?"
"If he has, he ain't told me, Mr. Fenwick. I don't care to come
between them with hints and jealousies, suspecting like. Our Fan says
he's been out working somewhere Lavington way; but I don't know as
she knows."
"Was he decent looking when he came home?"
"He wasn't much amiss, Mr. Fenwick. He has that way with him that he
most always looks decent;--don't he, sir?"
"Had he any money?"
"He had a some'at, because when he was working, moving the big lumber
as though for bare life, he sent one of the boys for beer, and I
see'd him give the boy the money."
"I'm sorry for it. I wish he'd come back without a penny, and with
hunger like a wolf in his stomach, and with his clothes all rags,
so that he might have had a taste of the suffering of a vagabond's
life."
"Just like the Prodigal Son, Mr. Fenwick?"
"Just like the Prodigal Son. He would not have come back to his
father had he not been driven by his own vices to live with the
swine." Then, seeing the tears coming down the poor mother's cheeks,
he added in a kinder voice, "Perhaps it may be all well as it is. We
will hope so at least, and to-morrow I will come down and see him.
You need not tell him that I am coming, unless he should ask where
you have been." Then Mrs. Brattle took her leave, and the parson
finished his sermon.
That afternoon he drove his wife across the county to visit certain
friends at Charlicoats, and, both going and coming, could not keep
himself from talking about the Brattles. In the first place, he
thought that Gilmore was wrong not to complete the work himself.
"Of course he'll see that the money is spent and all that, and no
doubt in this way he may get the job done twenty or thirty pounds
cheaper; but the Brattles have not interest enough in the place to
justify it."
"I suppose the old man liked it best so."
"The old man shouldn't have been allowed to have his way. I am in an
awful state of alarm about Sam. Much as I like him,--or at any rate
did like him,--I fear he is going, or perhaps has gone, to the dogs.
That those two men were housebreakers is as certain as that you sit
there; and I cannot doubt but that he has been with them over at
Lavington or Devizes, or somewhere in that country."
"But he may, perhaps, never have joined them in anything of that
kind."
"A man is known by his companions. I would not have believed it if
I had not found him with the men, and traced him and them about the
county together. You see that this fellow whom they call the Grinder
was certainly the man I struck. I tracked him to Lavington, and there
he was complaining of being sore all over his body. I don't wonder
that he was sore. He must be made like a horse to be no worse than
sore. Well, then, that man and Sam were certainly in our garden
together."
"Give him a chance, Frank."
"Of course, I will give him a chance. I will give him the very best
chance I can. I would do anything to save him,--but I can't help
knowing what I know."
He had made very little to his wife of the danger of the Vicarage
being robbed, but he could not but feel that there was danger.
His wife had brought with her, among other plenishing for their
household, a considerable amount of handsome plate, more than is,
perhaps, generally to be found in country parsonages, and no doubt
this fact was known, at any rate, to Sam Brattle. Had the men simply
intended to rob the garden, they would not have run the risk of
coming so near to the house windows. But then it certainly was true
that Sam was not showing them the way. The parson did not quite know
what to think about it, but it was clearly his duty to be on his
guard.
That same evening he sauntered across the corner of the churchyard
to his neighbour the farmer. Looking out warily for Bone'm, he stood
leaning upon the farm gate. Bone'm was not to be seen or heard, and
therefore he entered, and walked up to the back door, which indeed
was the only door for entrance or egress that was ever used. There
was a front door opening into a little ragged garden, but this was as
much a fixture as the wall. As he was knocking at the back door, it
was opened by the farmer himself. Mr. Fenwick had called to inquire
whether his friend had secured for him,--as half promised,--the
possession of a certain brother of Bone'm's, who was supposed to be
of a very pugnacious disposition in the silent watches of the night.
"It's no go, parson."
"Why not, Mr. Trumbull?"
"The truth is, there be such a deal of talk o' thieves about the
country, that no one likes to part with such a friend as that. Muster
Crickly, over at Imber, he have another big dog it's true, a reg'lar
mastiff, but he do say that Crunch'em be better than the mastiff, and
he won't let 'un go, parson,--not for love nor money. I wouldn't let
Bone'm go, I know; not for nothing." Then Mr. Fenwick walked back to
the Vicarage, and was half induced to think that as Crunch'em was not
to be had, it would be his duty to sit up at night, and look after
the plate box himself.