FAMILY DISCIPLINE
As nobody had seen Deep Moat Grange since it had been taken over by Mr.
Hobby Stennis and the crew he had gathered about him, it may be as well
to describe it as I saw it--now that it is swept from off the face of
the earth.
The old, many-gabled, brick-built house was ivy-covered--in poor
repair, but clean. Curious-looking, stocking-shaped contrivances
cowled the chimneys, or such of them as were used. The Grange was set
so deep in the woods that when the wind blew with any violence, and
apparently from any quarter, it raced and gusted and whirled down the
chimneys so as to blow the faggots out on the hearths.
But without and within the house, it was anything but dirty. That is,
so far as I--no great judge, mayhap--could make out. At times Jeremy
Orrin, who now followed us, laughing and jeering, could work like a
demon, clearing up some debris. And Mr. Stennis kept poking his nose
here and there into the outhouses and cart sheds with a curious,
dithering thrill of apprehension, not at all like a master coming back
to his own house, or looking if his servants' work were well performed.
Still, if he looked for dirt, he found none. No, nor anything
else--except in the great barn, empty of everything (for the horse's
oats and bedding were kept in the stable). Here Mr. Stennis, tripping
along with his tread of a frightened hen, lifted a huge curtain of corn
sacks, thick and heavy, made after the pattern of those at church doors
abroad, and we went in.
As soon as we stood on the beaten floor of hard earth, we could not
take our eyes from what we beheld at the upper end. There was a kind
of altar, rudely shaped, with a table and a cross, all as if hewn with
an axe out of live wood, and painted black. On the table were the
little black coffins, each small as baby's toys, which we had seen the
mad women carry through the garden. Each of these had now a candle
burning upon it. But the central light, a little larger than the rest,
was protected about the flame by a curious contrivance made of red
paper glued upon bits of stick which gave it (from where we stood) the
appearance of a crimson lantern.
For the first time, I think Elsie was now a little frightened. And no
wonder, for suddenly we saw something appear in the dark of the big
empty barn, amid a curious pervading smell that I took to be incense,
but which might have been cockroaches. I liked bravely for Elsie to
feel like that. For she had been just all too secure and cock-a-hoop
up till now.
What we saw was a row of kneeling figures singing a strange wordless
chant, something between the wind in a score of keyholes and distant
dog kennels on a moon-light night. At any rate, it tried the little
girl's stomach. Because, quite suddenly she pitched forward on my
shoulder and cried: "O Joe, get me out of this!"
Then the next moment, just like thrusting a stick into a wasp's byke,
each of the black kneeling figures had snatched her candle and made
after us.
I don't know what might have happened. To me it was like a nightmare
till we found ourselves in the open courtyard again. This had seemed
creepy enough to me before. But now it was just like our own back
green, as homelike and as pleasant, with the open air and the waving
woods and all.
Within the barn we heard elricht squeaks and cries, like those of bats.
But outside the door, holding the heavy curtain back, so that we could
get out easily, stood a tall, masculine woman with gray, smoothly
brushed hair, dressed in a black blouse and skirt that had something
under them which looked like the haircloth covering of the chairs in
our second best parlour at home--the kind my father sits in and smokes
over his books and cash-box. She was the woman with the short skirt we
had seen watering the lilies when we looked across the black and oily
moat.
"This is Miss Orrin, my housekeeper," said Elsie's grandfather
automatically.
"Aphra Orrin!" said the lady, with a prim intonation, tossing her head
like one hurt in her pride, "one who hath been raised up to be a mother
to the orphan and the shelterless, to avenge the witless and those at
whom fools make a mock! _Be quiet, you there!_"
She sent the door of the barn clashing into its place with her foot,
and with the click of the well-oiled wards the screeching behind it
redoubled.
The tall woman sighed and folded her arms across her breast. There was
a certain weary dignity about her, and at first I could not believe
that she was really out of her mind, as all in Breckonside averred.
"They are worse than usual to-day," she said, with a careless nod of
the head in the direction of the barn, "but that will teach them. They
shall stay there till I come and fetch them out! No food for such as
they!"
She turned about and called hurriedly: "Jeremy! Jeremy!"
Then the big black man with the ringlets, the onyx eyes and gipsy's
skin, came bounding toward us. He seemed to arrive from the direction
of the moat, but from much farther round and nearer to the house than
the bridge by which we had crossed. He was grinning and holding his
hands behind him, like a child who fears to be punished. I soon
noticed that he was far more afraid of his sister than he had been of
Mr. Stennis and his riding whip.
"Show your hands!" The tall woman spoke in a tone of command. Jeremy
stood grinning before her. Then quite suddenly he began to cry. Big
tears rolled down his face.
"I haven't--I haven't, indeed, Aphra!" he whimpered. "I have only been
sailing boats on the moat! Indeed, I have!"
"_Show your hands!_"
She spoke so shortly that the great, cleanly built powerful giant
fairly quaked before her.
"I will--I will!" he repeated. "Yes, Aphra!"
And all the time he was evidently rubbing them together as hard as he
could. I could see his shoulders and elbows working. Then the tall
woman, losing all patience, snatched at his arms and pulled the hands
sharply forward. The marks of earth between the fingers and about the
nails were obvious. But Jeremy still continued to rub off the little
pellets of mould, raising his fingers and looking at them with an air
of surprise, as if he wondered how in the world the dirt had got there.
"You have been digging again!" cried Miss Orrin; "this is the third
time, and you are well aware of the penalty!"
"Oh, no, no!" cried the big man, catching her by the skirt, which she
swept away from him, the tears fairly rolling down his cheeks. "Whip
me, if you like, Aphra, but----"
"Go and shut yourself up in the dark hole," she said firmly; "see you
shut the door tight. I shall come round and lock it after a little!"
The great lout went away _boo-hooing_ like a "soft" schoolboy whom a
sturdier comrade has sent home provided with something substantial to
tell his mother. Anything more unlike the idea which we, in common
with all Breckonside, had formed of the dreaded "mounster" of the Moat
Grange, could not well be imagined.
Then his sister turned to us, and in the most conventional way possible
she asked us to go into the house "to drink a dish of tea!"
It was hardly the hour for this, but our long morning's jaunt in the
open air and varied excitements had not at all taken away our
appetites. We were literally as hungry as hunters.
I think, if Elsie and I had kept all our wits about us, that we should
have refused such an invitation. But children often do very bold
things through sheer thoughtlessness and curiosity. And we were little
more than children, for all our age.
But it all turned out well for us--indeed, even better than that. We
had supped so full of surprises that day, that at this point I think
hardly anything would have sufficed us or come up to our demands!
Perhaps an introduction to a company of sheeted ghosts, or an
invitation to take afternoon tea with blood-boltered Banquo, might have
filled the bill of our expectation.
As it fell out, nothing was ever more dull and orderly, Miss Orrin
showed us into a neatly arranged parlour, with the usual stuffy smell
from unopened windows. She left us a minute alone to examine the
knick-knacks, while she went elsewhere, doubtless to arrange matters
with her erring brother Jeremy. We were still in the dark as to the
crime he had committed, and, each remaining seated on the edge of a
chair, looked about us curiously, with our ears at a permanent full
cock.
Miss Orrin had pulled up the blinds, and through them we could see the
wide green lawn, broken here and there by the dense plots of lilies,
which almost formed groves in some places. The parlour was a large
room, covered with faded yellow paper, bearing traces of a blue flower,
perhaps wreaths of forget-me-nots, but all so faint that it was only a
strong imagination which could again body them forth. The furniture
was chiefly of old black oak, with an extraordinary number of chests
with various ornamental work round the walls. These had been covered,
presumably by Miss Orrin, with bright-coloured chintz of a salmon-pink
edged with frills and furbelows which somehow cheapened the high,
antique mantelpiece, the quaint corner cupboards, and the tall,
high-backed open chairs ranged at equal intervals about the room.
I am not sure if I have described all this aright. For, indeed, the
vague stuffy smell took us by the throats. Both Elsie and I were glad
when Mr. Stennis came back and bustled about, sniffing, growling, and
opening windows and doors.
One of these, that to the left of the wide fireplace, gave into a small
room full of curious wooden machinery to which our eyes were instantly
attracted.
"The old weaver's hand does not forget its cunning--the trade by which
he made his siller!" said Mr. Stennis, with a faint shadow of a smile,
the first we had seen cross his anxious face.
He showed us beautiful pieces of ornamental fabric, upon one of which
he was at present engaged, and even entered into a long explanation as
to his methods of working. Finally he sat down before the intricate
spider's web, and with a skilled click and wheeze sent the shuttle
flying for our benefit. I stood back a good way, but Elsie remained
close beside him. And I could not have believed it, if I had not seen
it--how in the joy of work the "laird" died out of the man, and the
little bow-backed weaver came again plain to the eye.
I turned about, conscious of some unknown interruption. There was a
faint creaking of the door, and through it I could see Miss Orrin, a
tray with tea dishes in her hands, glaring speechlessly at Elsie. The
young girl had laid an unconscious hand on her grandfather's arm. She
was asking him to explain something in the manipulation. But on the
face of the woman who stood without, watching, I surprised cold Death,
and as it were, Hell following after.
I felt that we had no real business in that house, neither Elsie nor I,
and that the sooner I got her safe back to Nance Edgar's, the better
pleased I should be. But Elsie was a difficult girl to shift till she
took it into her own head. Then with a beaming smile Miss Orrin came
into the parlour and began to lay the cloth.
"Ye will be hungry, bairns," she said, with a curious nervous laugh,
which reminded us unpleasantly of her sisters.
"Yes!" we answered together. But somehow I wasn't. The hunger had
left me.