THE HERO PLAYS SECOND FIDDLE
Now, while Elsie was dancing the hours away in desperate danger of her
life and to the peril of her reason, Mr. Ablethorpe and I had not been
idle. That is, so far as was within our power to act or our knowledge
to foresee. He had allowed me to judge of the state of the rings which
had been passed through the furnace. I was still uncertain of their
portent till he produced an oval plaque with the mark V.R. upon it. It
was of brass, and had doubtless formed part of the single leathern sack
which Harry Foster kept open so as to take on to Bewick anything which
might be committed to his care _en route_.
There could be no doubt. We had found the murderer of Harry
Foster--that is, we had only to find who made the bread at Deep Moat
Grange in order to be sure of him. It was, indeed, a known thing that,
save on a rare occasion, the Moat Grange people made their own
bread--but whether in the shape of griddle-cakes, soda scones, or
properly baked oven loaves, no one knew. But Mr. Ablethorpe and I were
sure there would be no more difficulty. More than that we meant to
find out--the clew was the first one which had really promised well,
and we meant to follow it. That very night we got ready to go, even
though Mr. Ablethorpe ought now to have been at home, preparing for his
Sunday services, instead of doing detective business across country on
the strength of a few calcined rings and a brass plate.
* * * * *
It was about this time that my father, with torn and bleeding hands,
was working desperately at the bar of iron. His knife was worn to a
stump, but the open door of Elsie's cell tempted him with a terrible
sense of the unknown which was passing outside. Besides, he could not
tell at what moment Jeremy might return, and, shutting the door, shut
off at the same time his hopes of escape and of helping Elsie, whom he
saw already in the grasp of the midnight assassin.
Now if I were writing this to show what a hero I was, I should, of
course, have put my own part in the forefront. But as I was at the
time little better than a boy who does what he can, and it really was
my father who helped Elsie the most--and had done for some time--I am
not going to take away the credit from him. Mine is the proper sort of
father, that a fellow can be proud of. I think I would have done all
that he did if I had been there and had his chances. But then I
wasn't, and I hadn't. So Mr. Ablethorpe and I had just come along as
best we might--almost, but not quite, the day after the fair.
It was just before daybreak when my father worked his way through the
bar, and the fragments fell outward--stonework, plaster, cut iron--all
into the little cupboard. Of course, he had been working by the sense
of touch for hours. Many a time he had drawn the rough home-made file
raspingly across his wrist and hands. His face was stained with
dungeon mud, his hair uncropped and matted, his beard tangled, and, as
my mother said afterwards--
"If Mad Jeremy was a waur-looking creature than you, Joseph Yarrow, I
am none surprised that he frighted ye a' oot o' your leggings and
knee-breeks!"
When my father came out through the chamber which had so long been
Elsie's he groped about to find the entrance, his heart thumping--so he
owned to me--against his ribs lest the way should have been shut by the
madman, and he no better off than he had been before--nay, infinitely
worse, for the handiwork of the night would be sure to be discovered.
He had worked in the dark--furiously--without thought of covering up
his traces. But he had brought with him the iron bar which had been
his means of direct communication with Elsie from cell to cell.
It was cold weather, and the first drive of February wind as he stood
up in the ivy-covered ruin was, as my father expressed it, "like a dash
of water in the face to a man." The next instant he was through the
crumbling walls, startling the bats and sparrows with a shower of
debris, and lo! there before him he saw the house of Deep Moat
Grange--in a blaze!
Now comes out the deep and abiding loyalty of the man who had a name
for little else than driving a bargain hardly and keeping it to the
death. Perhaps, though, he looked upon it as that. Elsie had
supported him, fed him, given him drink, furnished him with tools, and
so now, though most men would have gone straight back to Breckonside to
seek for assistance, Joseph Yarrow--of whom I am proud to call myself
the son--struck right across the bridge and tore across the lawn among
the lily clumps straight for the front door of the burning house.
The staircase and hall were already filled with a stifling reek, but my
father could hear above him the crackling and dull roar of the flames,
hungry--like many wild beasts.
It was not dark, for the chamber door above was open, and the light of
the conflagration was reflected through. But plump in the middle of
the staircase my father encountered a man. It was Mad Jeremy going out
serenely enough, carrying the candle in one hand, and his precious
melodeon in the other. He saw my father. My father saw him. With one
intent to fight and slay they rushed at each other--Jeremy's wild
screech mingling with my father's roar as of a charging bull.
Neither got home. My father's iron bar would doubtless have broken the
madman's skull, but that, with his usual agility, he leaped to the
side. Jeremy smashed the heavy candle over my father's head, and fled
upstairs, not because he was afraid for himself, but in order to
protect the melodeon from the blow he saw coming.
"Ye shall na get it," he shouted. "It's nane o' yours. I paid good
money for it ower the counter o' your ain shop!"
And he fled upward through the flames, which seemed to wrap him round
without doing any harm. They seemed his element.
* * * * *
As I say, Mr. Ablethorpe and I came just too late. We had seen from
afar the burning house--at least, we had seen the "skarrow" in the
sky--the Grange itself lying (as all the world knows) at the very
bottom of Deep Moat Hollow, with the pond on one side and the woods all
about.
But once on our way, we had made haste, as indeed had many another.
However, we started earlier than the others, though my father, living
as it were next door, was far before any of us. Indeed, had it not
been for him---- Well, I will go on with my tale.
We rushed across the drawbridge, which, just as he had done, we found
down. We followed him across the lily plots. Right in the middle Mr.
Ablethorpe came a cropper. I was on the look-out. It was not the
first time that I had played at hide-and-seek there in difficult
circumstances, though never with the windows above crackling and the
flames licking the ivy and dry Virginia creeper off the walls, and the
smoke so thick that the landscape was almost blotted out by it.
I arrived, a little in front of the Hayfork Parson, on the threshold of
the door of Deep Moat Grange. And that is why I was the first to
welcome a pair of Lazaruses risen from the dead--one, a girl,
apparently truly dead, held in the arms of the wildest and most savage
man I had ever beheld, upon whose shoulder her head reclined, and in
whose menacing right hand was a rough bar of iron, pointed like a
chisel.
I think he did not see well. Or, coming out of all that strangeness of
the night, and the smoor and choking swirl of the smoke, he did not
know his own son. At any rate, he rushed at me with Elsie still in his
arms and the iron bar uplifted.
But Mr. Ablethorpe interposed from the flank, and catching him about
the waist, disarmed him.
"Mr. Yarrow!" he cried, "this is Joseph, your own son!"
My father blinked at me a moment, vaguely. Then, quite suddenly, he
thrust Elsie into my arms.
"There," he said, "take her. Be good to her. She calls you her
'Dearest Joe.' You will never deserve half your luck--you will never
know it. But as sure as my name is Joseph Yarrow, I will take it upon
me to see that you behave yourself decently well to that girl."
He was pretty much of a brick--father. At least, though he was only a
grocer, I don't know anybody else's father I would change him for. And
Elsie says so, too. I think, however--between ourselves--that he's
just a bit gone on Elsie himself, and thinks I'm not half good enough
for her.
Well, I'm not! I don't deny the fact; and as for Elsie--she encourages
us both in the belief.