THE HOUSE OF DEATH
(_The last Testimony of Miser Hobby is continued and concluded_)
"It was in the days after the disappearance of Henry Foster, the
mail-post carrier between Bewick and Breckonside, that I became aware
of the increasing madness of those whom I had so rashly taken under my
roof and protection. The younger sisters, especially Honorine, thought
nothing of standing on walls screaming like peacocks, flapping their
arms, and declaring that they were winged angels, ready on a signal
from on high to fly upward into the blue. At such times Jeremy would
take to his fiddle and lock himself in the top rooms of the house,
especially affecting the tower chamber overlooking the Moat. He even
refused on several occasions to go to work, though the business
indicated was safe and remunerative enough. I had often observed with
great interest the home coming of young Jamie Caig, of Little
Springfield, a great taker of grass parks, a mighty dealer in
well-wintered sheep and fat bullocks. On one occasion I watched him
all the way from Longtown with the best part of a thousand pounds in
his pockets.
"I remember that he had on a shiny white mackintosh, and I thought he
would never leave the town, going into all sorts of foolish and
expensive cook shops and toy bazaars to buy trinkets and knick-knacks.
"Then, after all, at the arch of trees on the Pond Road where the way
narrows, there was no Jeremy--though I knew that the usual boat was
moored within twenty yards--fifteen to be exact. Thus Caig, the
younger, and his thousand pounds passed unharmed. In the dull light I
could see him put his hand into an open packet of candy and take out a
piece to suck it. He went by whistling, mocking at me, as it
were--only that he was such a grown-up babe.
"But there was worse to come. At some risk to myself I followed
behind. He never even looked over his shoulder, only quickening his
pace as he got near to the tumble-down, out-at-elbows steading of
Little Springfield which he had leased for himself.
"The inhabitants, one and all, must have been waiting for young Jamie
Caig. For before I could turn away a troop of children issued out and
rushed at him, taking him by escalade, routed out his pockets, even his
wife and sisters taking part, and he all the time laughing. I never
saw a more disgusting sight in my life.
"That night I broke in the door of Jeremy's room where he sat playing
on the flute, and, with a revolver in one hand to keep him in awe, I
thrashed him severely about the neck and shoulders with my cane. His
sister said that it was the only way to teach him obedience.
"Indeed, Miss Orrin was a sensible woman, and at this time remained my
only stand-by. So long as I supported the mad troop, I could count
upon her, even though it perilled her soul. She aided me with her
brother also, and from her I learned a thing about Jeremy which, though
I am generally brave enough, I will admit disquieted me.
"Jeremy had taken to digging under the lily roots with his finger
nails, and when checked for it by his sister, he said that he wanted to
see whether Lang Hutchins, Harry Foster, and the others were 'coming
up.' He added that there would be a resurrection some day, and he was
scratching to see how soon it would happen. He did not want it to come
unawares, when he was asleep, for instance.
"And he made even my well-trained blood run cold by laughing with
chuckling pleasure, declaring that 'when they stick their heads
through, Jeremy will be on hand to do his wark a' ower again! He will
twine a halter round their necks as they are sproutin' and fill their
mouths fu' o' clay. Then Jeremy will defy even Aphra to gar them rise
again. There's nae word o' twa resurrections, ye ken! So Jeremy will
do for them that time!'
"At other seasons, especially after he had been punished for scratching
in the soil, he would cry like a child. He generally did this when
Aphra whipped him. But in half an hour I would find him again among
the lily beds, his hands all bound up in fingerless gloves, but his ear
close down against the earth.
"'Wheesht--wheesht!' he would whisper, putting up a linen-wrapped stump
to stay me. 'Listen to them knocking--they are knocking to get oot.
Jeremy can hear them!'
"And though I raised him with the toe of my boot and made him be off
into the house, yet his words shook my nerves so that I had to go into
the weaving-chamber, where I was not myself till I had taken a good
long spell at the loom.
"After some of the later disappearances, notably that of Harry
Foster--for, as he was in some sort a public servant wearing a uniform,
the postman's case received attention out of all proportion to its
importance--the police would come about us, asking questions and taking
down notes and references. There was nothing serious in that, though I
was even asked to justify my _alibi_ by giving the employ of my time
during the day previous to 'the unfortunate occurrence'--unfortunate,
indeed, for me and for all concerned--Harry Foster included. As,
however, I had both lunched and supped with my old friend and lawyer,
Mr. Gillison Kilhilt, and afterwards slept at his house, I could not
have been more innocent if I had done the same with the Queen herself,
God bless her!
"But it was not the police, rate-supported and by law established (whom
I have always encouraged and aided in every possible way, entertaining
them, and facilitating their researches and departures), that annoyed
me. The little, mean, paltry spying of Breckonside and the
neighbourhood was infinitely more difficult to bear.
"For instance, there was a boy--a youth, I suppose I should call
him--one Joseph Yarrow, upon whose rich father I had long had my eye.
If it had not been that he generally came in the company of my own
granddaughter Elsie, his neck would soon enough have been twisted. But
as it was, he put us to an enormous amount of trouble. One never knew
when he would be spying about, and once, by an unfortunate mistake of
my own, I introduced my granddaughter and this intrusive young
good-for-nothing into a barn of which our mad people had been making a
kind of chapel of Beelzebub.
"There was also a High-Church clergyman--a kind of mission priest, I
think he called himself--come north with a friend to convert the
Scotch. He took it into his head that, not making great progress with
the sane of the neighbourhood, he might perhaps have better luck with
Miss Aphra and her private asylum!
"And I must say that he had. The processions and peacock screamings
went on, but there was an end of skulls and little coffins and
crossbones knocked together like cymbals as they marched. Instead,
they had tables with crucifixes, and confessionals, and all sorts of
paraphernalia in gold lace and tags. Mr. Ablethorpe (that was the
High-Churchman's name) was pleased and proud. Four at once, sane or
insane, was an unprecedented increase to his scanty flock. And as for
him everything depended upon the proper taking of the sacraments, it
was all right. Honorine and the rest would take them, or anything
else, twenty times an hour.
"But in addition there was 'confession,' and you may be sure I went
carefully into that business with Miss Aphra. However, she reassured
me.
"'These poor ones' (so she always named her sisters, Honorine, Camilla,
and Sidonia) 'know nothing about it. And as for me, I confess only
what will not endanger the shelter of the roof which covers us.
Because of that I am willing, for some time longer, to retain
unconfessed and unforgiven sin on my soul!'
"This sounded all right to me. But, fool that I was, as usual my
confiding nature put me in danger. If I had suspected that some day
that same Mr. Ablethorpe, whom I had received and warmed like a snake
in my bosom, would carry off not only Honorine and her two mad
companions to one of his patent sisterhoods (even Aphra herself
fleeing, probably to join them later) leaving me (as I am at present)
alone with Jeremy to face the storm--well, I would have nipped in the
very bud the propagation of erroneous and Romanist doctrines. I have
always been conscientiously opposed to these in any case!
"It was the increasing waywardness of the entire Orrin family which
threatened to be the ruin of all my carefully planned scheme. If only
I could have kept them as I first got them--Jeremy docile and
comparatively easy of influence even in his hours of wildness, Aphra
sage and wise in counsel, with a firm hand over the others, and all
that property of Deep Moat Grange so excellently laid out, as if on
purpose for our operations!
"But, alas! Folly no more than wisdom will stand still. If only they
had been like my web, full of subtle combinations and devices which
none could work out in full beauty save myself, yet abiding still and
waiting for my hand without the changing of a stitch! The Orrins were
no more than my loom wherewith to spin gold--but--they would not bide
as they were during my absences, however short.
"The worst of it all was that, having once begun to operate on their
own accounts, though most unfortunately and ill advisedly, they would
no longer confine themselves to legitimate business. Not only Jeremy,
but even Aphra must needs try to realize the most fantastic and
impossible combinations, like some poor drudging weaver who should
attempt to execute one of my patterns. It was not in them, the
hare-brained, mauling crew, and naturally enough they spoiled the web.
"First of all, there was the affair of that young vagabond's father,
the rich shopkeeper at Breckonside--rich, that is, not as I am rich,
but rich for a little town village anchored down on a dozen miles
square of fertile lands between the Bewick marshes and the uplands of
Cheviot.
"Now, I had always had it in my head that some day a trifle might be
made out of this Joseph Yarrow, senior. But he was a bold,
straight-dealing man, who knew that the nearest bank, or a good
investment through his lawyer, was the best way of keeping his head
whole on his shoulders. He went and came ostentatiously along both our
roads, by night or day--it mattered little to him. He had never more
than five shillings and a brass watch in his pockets. All his business
he did by cheque, and he was not at all ashamed to enter a shop, or
even accost a man on the street of a town where he was known, and ask
for the loan of five shillings--which was certain to be returned on the
morrow, with a pot of home-made jam or some delicacy from the crowded
shelves of his shop.
"Most people liked dealing with this man Yarrow. As for me, I never
could bear him. He had a scornful eye, not questing, like his son's
(whose neck I could twist), but merely sneering--especially when, at
distant market towns, he would hear me addressed as 'Laird,' which is
my rightful title. At such times he would smile a little smile that
bit like vitriol, and turn away. And I knew well enough that he was
thinking and saying to himself--'Miser Hobby--Miser Hobby!' Still, had
I had the sense to look at the matter in the right light, this should
have cheered me--that he only _despised_ me, I mean. For if Joseph
Yarrow, the cleverest man in all the neighbourhood, was not calling me
'Murderer Hobby,' then I was safe from all the rest. But so curious a
thing is man, and so much harder to bear is scorn than the worst
accusation of crime, that it was often on my tongue tip to jolt his
self-complaisance with a little inkling of the truth.
"All the same, I laid it all up against him--some day I would catch him
coming home with a goodly sum. So, after long thought, I arranged that
a letter should be sent to warn him that one Steve Cairney, a slippery
'dealer' who had long owed him a large amount, would be at the Longtown
Fair to sell horses, and that it was now or never. The thing was true.
Nothing, indeed, could be truer. Jeremy was forewarned, and all should
have passed off easily and fitly as the drawing on of an old glove.
But because that fool Jeremy had seen instruments of music (of which he
is inordinately fond) by the score and gross in Yarrow's shop down at
Breckonside, he must needs put the man into a cell behind the Monks'
Oven, instead of finishing the matter out of hand. Aphra also mixed
herself up in the affair, urging Yarrow, who must have had an excellent
idea where he was, to sign the cheque they had found on him, as if that
made any difference! I know a man in Luxembourg who will give
two-thirds value on a cheque drawn on a sound account, and, in
addition, provide the signature from any reasonable copy. It is never
the first owners who lose with such things. There were plenty of
Yarrow's receipted bills about the house, and there need have been no
difficulty about that. But unhappily I was from home, and so
everything went to pigs and whistles.
"Then it pleased Miss Orrin to take a violent jealousy of my
granddaughter, Elsie Stennis, and to sequester her somewhere about the
premises, which, of course, brought the storm about our ears in full
force. With this folly, worse than any crime, I am glad to record that
I had nothing whatever to do. Doubtless the business was carried out
by Jeremy under the orders of his sister Aphra. I have at least this
to be thankful for, that as long as I retained the full and entire
direction of affairs Deep Moat Grange might have been called the vale
of peace and plenty.
"Then came Parson Ablethorpe, who in collusion, most likely, with his
missionary associate--De la Poer, I think he calls himself--spirited
off the women, Aphra last of all. It was a case of rats leaving a
sinking ship. Had it not been for the loss of Miss Aphra, for whose
character I had some respect, I should have been glad to see the last
of them. But as soon as the influence of his sister was removed,
Jeremy became wilder and madder than ever. I could see him on
moonlight nights creeping about among the lily clumps, digging here and
scraping there, his hands and feet bare and earth-stained. Then,
seated tailorwise among the mould, he would play strange music on his
violin, and laugh. On dark nights it was not much better. I could not
see him, it is true. But I could hear him digging and panting like a
wild beast, or laughing to himself, and then stopping suddenly to
croon, 'Down Among the Dead Men!'"
* * * * *
"This," said Mr. Fiscal McMath, "is the last entry in what purports to
be a narrative or diary." He turned to another leaf left behind in the
house and recovered by the searchers.
"Ah," he said, "here is yet another paragraph. It is dated 'February
10, morning," and runs as follows: "'Came home to an empty house.
Jeremy madder than ever, playing and laughing about the house--nothing
to eat. Dined with Ball at the bailiff's cottage. I did not like the
way Jeremy looked at me when I refused him money. But it is he or I
for the mastery. In case of anything happening, the lines which follow
contain my last will and testament: I die at peace with all men, and I
leave everything of which I die possessed to my granddaughter, Elsie
Stennis!
"(Signed)
"HOWARD (sometimes called Hobby) STENNIS."
"The wretch! The villain! The robber!" cried Aphra Orrin, for a
moment forgetting her role of penitent--"to take from us who earned in
order to give all to a stranger!"
"Elsie will never touch a penny of it!" I shouted, but my voice was
lost in the universal howl.
"The woman stands fully committed--take her away!" cried the sheriff.
He had glanced at his watch. It was in fact, long past his dinner
hour! As if moved by his hand policemen rapidly displaced the two
clergymen, and Aphra disappeared down a flight of stairs to the cells
below.
But, curiously enough, the mob had no thought of her. The reading of
Hobby Stennis' confession--so ghastly, perverted, cold-blooded, dead to
all moral sense, even triumphant, ending with the will which gave
everything to Elsie--had so incensed the people that there was a rush
when a kind of crack-witted preaching man from Bewick shouted, "Make an
end, ye people, make an end! Let none of the viper's brood escape!
She is a woman, this Elsie, and will breed the like--murderers and
monsters every one! She is a Stennis, and we have had enough of such.
To Breckonside! To the Bridge End! Find the heiress, chosen as the
fittest to succeed the man-slayers and make an end! Hang her quick to
a tree!"
I could now see what my father had meant by leaving the place so
hurriedly. Mr. Ablethorpe, who knew, had warned him of what was
coming. And that, as there was no other outlet for the passions of the
angry mob, Elsie might be in some temporary danger of violence and ill
usage, if of nothing worse. Therefore, he had hurried off, taking Rob
Kingsman with him. As for me, even while thinking these thoughts, I
was swept out of the doorway, and carried along by the throng, my feet
scarcely touching the ground. The mob, chiefly rough Bewick miners and
labourers, took the road toward the Bridge End of Brecksonside at a
trot, bawling "Death and vengeance!" against all of the blood of
Stennis.
And there was now but one of that name and race--Elsie!