THE BAILIFF OF DEEP MOAT GRANGE
Elsie and I cheered him. We would do what we could, which truly was
not much. But I promised for my father, whose arm was long in
Breckonside, reaching even to East Dene. But the poacher shook his
head.
"They will get poor Davie. They will put it on him--yes, for sure!" he
repeated. And from this melancholy conclusion he was not to be moved.
He offered to accompany us, however, on our search. And we were glad
of that, because we were quite sure of his innocence, and in such a
case the difference between three and two is very marked. Two--you
want to get close and rub shoulders. Three--you scatter and look the
hedges.
We advised the old poacher to hide his fish under the bank, but, with
strong good sense, he refused.
"They are Davie's only chance," he said, "there is just a possibility
that there's an _aw-li-bi_ in Davie's basket. He has catched so many
of the Duke's trouts since three this morning that they may think he
could not have had the time to make away with a man as well!"
As we went he told us how the post carrier had got his mail bags from
Miss Harbishaw, the postmistress, on the stroke of three that
morning--"a fearful sight in a mustard-coloured flannel dressing
gown"--Davie described her. He himself had stood on the other side of
the mail cart, well in the shadow.
"Did Miss Harbishaw see you?" Elsie asked.
"Well," said the poacher, "I would not just make so bold as to say.
She might have seen my legs, mixed up with Bess's piebald stockings.
But I keeped fairly quiet, not wanting her to spot the fishing basket
on my back."
Davie was not stupid, and he saw clearly enough that it was the best
thing he could do if Harry Foster were really dead, to go and help look
for his murderer. So he came along with us, telling us of the talk he
had had with the carrier in his cart.
"I was telling stories, and we were wonderful merry!" he admitted.
"How far did you go with him?" we asked.
"To where the road dives into the wood like a rabbit!" he answered.
"Here!" he cried, suddenly throwing up his hand.
And there, plain enough to be seen, were the marks of Davie's boot
heels as he had leaped upon the bank from the post gig.
"Then I crossed the dyke and went down to the waterside."
From that point, as you may suppose, we followed carefully the marks of
the wheels. The pony had been going no faster than a walk. The tracks
were deeply impressed, and as it was damper under the trees, you could
even see where Piebald Bess had been sparing her lame foot, which, of
course, she would not have the chance of doing when pushed to a trot.
Then Davie came to a halt, Elsie just behind him. There was nothing
particular, only the ground was pawed and cut about in little crescent
discs, as if a horse had got wearied standing and wanted to get on.
Then beyond that the wheel ruts were much deeper than before.
"He has talked to somebody, he has taken other passengers here," cried
Davie, "and I never heard them--fool that I was--thinking of nothing
but the Duke's silly trout in the burn yonder."
Without speaking we followed on, till the Brom Water, slow, deep, and
still, lay before us. It was strictly preserved, and we boys dared not
visit it for fear of the fishery watchers and keepers, who were up to
all sorts of tricks to catch us. Only old hands like Davie dared such
a thing, and even they chose their time.
The road went across a bridge, a high-arched, old-fashioned structure,
which I liked coming over in our light cart, because of the curious
"hunch" it gave you as if you were on a swing. And close in by the
bridge and on the near side of it, we came at last on what we had come
out to look for--the signs of a struggle, the wheel tracks confused and
partly up on the bank, the traces of many feet, very indistinct owing
to the hard, dry ground, and (what took all our eyes) a dark irregular
patch on the left side of the road, which had filled and overflowed the
deep furrow of a track.
It did not need any doctor's certificate to tell us that that was
blood, and we knew very well that we stood where poor Harry Foster had
been foully dealt with. But of the carrier himself we could see
nothing. The pony had bounded ahead at full speed, and for Davie's
sake we thought it best not to go farther. Because the people who were
coming along the Breckonside road might easily cover over the tracks or
destroy them, crowding to see.
So we went to meet the first of them at the place where Davie Elshiner
had wished his benefactor a good morning and jumped on the bank, with
the last jest on his lips. We were just in time. Codling, our fat
policeman, was there, and he took up Davie on the spot, warning him
that all he might say would be used against him.
"I don't care," said Davie. "I will tell all I know, and that's little
enough--more shame to me for going after trouts with poor Harry so near
his end."
The village men scattered to search the wood and the waterside, finding
nothing but sundry "stances" where the angler had stood while fishing,
and the nook in which he had slept among the bracken, with the marks of
our feet as we went toward him from the stile.
We started off home without making any more discoveries, and as we went
Elsie pointed up to the firs above our heads.
"What sort of leaves were in the cart when we saw it?" she asked me
suddenly.
"Some kind of big, broad leaves--oak, I think," I answered, for indeed,
I had paid no very great attention.
"Well," she said, "will you please tell me where big, broad leaves came
from in Spar hawk Wood?"
And then I saw how true it was--the thing that she meant to say. There
were only tall Scotch firs in the Sparhawk, and not a low-growing tree
or one with a leaf upon it! Only pine needles and fir cones.
"We will come back in the morning," I said to Elsie, "and see what we
can find. Piebald Bess never came back this road!"
"As, indeed, we might have seen before this by the single tracks," she
added. And, indeed, it was no great discovery after all. But old
Codling and the village men just took it for granted, and as many of
the farmers and even my father came in conveyances there was soon no
lack of tracks all over the road.
But Elsie and I kept our counsel and made tryst for the morning. It is
terrible to get bitten with the wanting to find out things. The more
you know the more you want to know.
Next morning it was still and clear, with a promise of heat. Elsie had
asked Nance Edgar if she could go, but I had dispensed with asking my
father. Indeed, so long as he was assured that I was the cleverest boy
in school, and at the top of the topmost class, he did not trouble much
about me, having other things on his mind. And Mr. Mustard was always
ready to tell him all that. Besides it was true. I was not so clever
as Elsie, and I did not pretend to be. But I could lick everybody in
Breckonside school into fits, and the master was cowed of my father. I
think he would have let me sit on his tall hat!
This morning was a Friday, as I remember, and there were plenty of men
searching the moor, prowling about the woods, some with picks and
shovels, some just with their hands in their pockets. They were
looking for Harry Foster. The East Dene police, too, were all about
the edges of Sparhawk Wood, as important as if they knew all about it
but wouldn't tell. One of them, posted by the big, black patch to keep
people off, first told us to go back, and then asked where we were
going.
Elsie merely told him that so far as she knew the road went further--on
to Bewick Upton, in fact.
"Are you the kids that came across the moor and found this--and the
prisoner?"
To make him civil we told him we were, but that Davie Elshiner was
surely innocent and would not harm a fly.
"That's as may be," said the policeman; "what did he say when you woke
him?"
We told the man that Davie was afraid of being suspected, having been
last seen with the missing man, also how he was sure that because he
was a known poacher people would not believe him.
"Aye," said the policeman, nodding his head dreadfully wisely, "indeed,
he was right to say that. Ah, a bad conscience is our best friend! It
is indeed!" And everything we could say in favour of Davie seemed just
to tell against him, so that we had to be content with saying that he
was the person least likely to do such a thing, because he would
certainly be suspected, and that they might as well suspect us.
This last remark seemed to impress the policeman, who pulled out a fat
notebook and solemnly jotted it down before our eyes.
"It's a good rule in our business," he said slowly, "to suspect the
least likely persons. Thank you very much for your interesting
communication--thank you very much, indeed!"
"Ah, you're dotty!" I called out to him in a sudden fume of anger, and
left him standing there and slowly buckling up the flap of the inside
pocket in which he had stowed away his precious notebook.
Now I am not going to pretend that Elsie and I found anything very
grand that day, for we didn't. But at any rate we knew for certain how
Dappled Bess came home, and where the leaves came from. It was all
simple enough and quite natural. The poor beast had got a fright by
the bridge on the Bewick road. She turned off it, therefore, as soon
as she could. We found the wheel tracks leading away to the left along
a rough moor track. The cart had been going fast, evidently empty or
at least very lightly laden. For there was little depth to the
impression even in fairly mossy places, but the rocks and stones were
bumped and scarred with the iron tire as the wagon rebounded from side
to side.
We soon found ourselves making for the highway, which is known in our
parts as the Old Military Road. It goes into Scotland to a place
called Longtown, and beyond that, they say, to Edinburgh and Glasgow.
But that I only knew from hearsay. At any rate it was old, and so were
the woods all about it. Centuries old they were, and the fine old
house among them was called Deep Moat Grange. It stood right in the
middle, and had always been inhabited by rich folk. But, only a few
years before, my father had done it all up for old Mr. Stennis, whom
they called the Golden Farmer, because of the great deal of money he
had made farming and dealing in cattle. He was living there now, and
for that matter was Elsie's very own grandfather. We called him the
Unnatural, because he would have nothing to do with her--all because of
something her mother had done long ago, before Elsie was so much as
born. But he was a lusty old cock bird, and being rich was much
respected. He bred first-rate sporting terriers that brought in a
power of money, my father said. We knew all about him, too, that is as
much as any one knew, because Nance Edgar sometimes worked there by
favour of the farm bailiff, Mr. Simon Ball.
Elsie and I were standing at the turn of the road looking at the tracks
of the wheels which Harry Foster's cart had made in the grass, when who
should come up but the very man, Mr. Ball, the bailiff at Deep Moat
Grange.
He knew me, which was nothing extraordinary. They say I am the image
of what my father was at my age, and, of course, everybody knows him.
If they don't, he tells them, and sees if he can do business with them.
Well, Mr. Ball came up and asked us what we were looking at, and when
we had told him, he blurted out all in a gabble that he had seen the
blue and red cart with the piebald mare come tearing over the moor road
yesterday morning. He had been in the little "lantern" above the
drying-room at the corn mill, which is so high that you can see over
the tree tops and look right out on the moor. He thought it was a
runaway, but when he had time to run down to the end of the avenue, he
could only see it like a little square dab rocking and lurching from
one side of the road to the other, and scraping trees and bushes like
all possessed.
"And has nobody come to tell you that poor Harry Foster is murdered?" I
said.
"I heard the men in the yard talking about some such suspicion," he
said quite calmly, "but nobody has been here. You see, Master Yarrow,
our old gov'nor, Mr. Stennis, has been up in London for three days
seeing his lawyer, and he don't like folk coming about the Grange when
he is from home!"
"So I have heard," said I, "and he keeps some fine dogs there, too, to
see that they don't."
For my father had refused to deliver Mr. Stennis' goods, except at Mr.
Ball's house, which was on the main road, and no tearing dogs kept.
"Very like--very like," said Mr. Ball hastily; "and who may this fine
young lady be--your sister? She seems to favour you, sir."
"Elsie Stennis," says I, "and if she had her rights you know very well
what she would be! Your young mistress!"
"Elsie Stennis?" he gasped, "not poor Bell's daughter--and Robin's?"
"The same!"
"Bell and Robin Stennis--I mind them well. But where, how----"
The bailiff stopped, all thrown out of gear, much more affected,
indeed, than when it was a question of Harry Foster's death.
"Well," he went on at last, "it's perhaps as well not asking. I might
blurt things out. But I hope--I may say that I pray--that the day may
come when you shall have your rights, young lady, and I shall see yon
crew sent about their business to a madhouse. That's the fit place for
such as they! There they go. I must be off. They will be at their
processioning again, and Mr. Stennis will never forgive me if they come
to a mischief or go off the premises!"
We did not know then what he was talking about, but we could hear over
the green tree tops the sound of a cornet playing a marching tune, and
marvellously well, too.