COMMOTION IN DEERHAM.
Lionel Verner was strolling out later in the day, and met the
shooting-party coming home. After congratulating them on their good
sport, he was turning home with them, when the gamekeeper intimated that
he should be glad to speak a word to him in private. Upon which, Lionel
let the gentlemen go on.
"What is it, Broom?" asked he.
"I'm much afeared, sir, if thing's are not altered, that there'll be
murder committed some night," answered Broom, without circumlocution.
"I hope not," replied Lionel. "Are you and the poachers again at issue?"
"It's not about the poachers, hang 'em! It's about Robin Frost, sir.
What on earth have come to him I can't conceive. This last few nights he
have took to prowling out with a gun. He lays himself down in the copse,
or a ditch, or the open field--no matter where--and there he stops, on
the watch, with his gun always pointed."
"On the watch for what?" asked Lionel.
"He best knows himself, sir. He's going quite cracked, it's my belief;
he have been half-way to it this long while. Sometimes he's trailing
through the brushwood on all fours, the gun ever pointed; but mostly
he's posted on the watch. He'll get shot for a poacher, or some of the
poachers will shoot him, as sure as it's a gun that he carries."
"What can be his motive?" mused Lionel.
"I'm inclined to think, sir, though he is Robin Frost, that he's after
the birds," boldly returned Broom.
"Then rely upon it that you think wrong, Broom," rebuked Lionel, "Robin
Frost would no more go out poaching, than I should go out thieving."
"I saw him trailing along last night in the moonlight, sir. I saw his
old father come up and talk to him, urging him to go home, as it seemed
to me. But he couldn't get him; and the old man had to hobble back
without Robin. Robin stopped in his cold berth on the ground."
"I did not think old Matthew was capable of going out at night."
"He did last night, sir; that's for certain. It was not far; only down
away by the brick-kilns. There's a tale going abroad that Dan Duff was
sent into mortal fright by seeing something that he took to be Rachel's
ghost; my opinion is, that he must have met old Frost in his white
smock-frock, and took him for a ghost. The moon did cast an uncommon
white shade last night. Though old Frost wasn't a-nigh the Willow Pool,
nor Robin neither, and that's where they say Dan Duff got his fright.
Formerly, Robin was always round that pool, but lately he has changed
his beat. Anyhow, sir, perhaps you'd be so good as drop a warning to
Robin of the risk he runs. He may mind you."
"I will," said Lionel.
The gamekeeper touched his hat, and walked away. Lionel considered that
he might as well give Robin the warning then; and he turned towards the
village. Before fairly entering it, he had met twenty talkative persons,
who gave him twenty different versions of the previous night's doings,
touching Dan Duff.
Mrs. Duff was at her door when Lionel went by. She generally was at her
door, unless she was serving customers. He stopped to accost her.
"What's the truth of this affair, Mrs. Duff?" asked he. "I have heard
many reports of it?"
Mrs. Duff gave as succinct an account as it was in her nature to give.
Some would have told it in a third of the time: but Lionel had patience;
he was in no particular hurry.
"I have been one of them to laugh at the ghost, sir a-saying that it
never was Rachel's, and that it never walked," she added. "But I'll
never do so again. Roy, he see it, as well as Dan."
"Oh! he saw it, too, did he," responded Lionel, with a good-natured
smile of mockery. "Mrs. Duff, you ought to be too old to believe in
ghosts," he more seriously resumed. "I am sure Roy is, whatever he may
choose to say."
"If it was no ghost, sir, what could have put our Dan into that awful
fright? Mr. Jan doesn't know as he'll overget it at all. He's a-lying
without a bit of conscientiousness on my bed, his eyes shut, and his
breath a-coming hard."
"Something frightened him, no doubt. The belief in poor Rachel's ghost
has been so popular, that every night fright is attributed to that. Who
was it went into a fainting fit in the road, fancying Rachel's ghost was
walking down upon them; and it proved afterwards to have been only the
miller's man with a sack of flour on his back?"
"Oh, that!" slightingly returned Mrs. Duff. "It was that stupid Mother
Grind, before they went off with the Mormons. She'd drop at her shadder,
sir, she would."
"So would some of the rest of you," said Lionel. "I am sorry to hear
that Dan is so ill."
"Mr. Jan's in a fine way over him, sir. Mrs. Bascroft gave him just a
taste of weak brandy and water, and Mr. Jan, when he come to know it,
said we might just as well have give him pison; and he'd not answer for
his life or his reason. A pretty thing it'll be for Deerham, if there's
more lives to be put in danger, now the ghost have took to walk again!
Mr. Bourne called in just now, sir, to learn the rights of it. He went
up and see Dan; but nothing could he make of him. Would you be pleased
to go up and take a look at him, sir?"
Lionel declined, and wished Mrs. Duff good-day.
He could do the boy no good, and had no especial wish to look at him,
although he had been promoted to the notoriety of seeing a ghost. A few
steps farther he encountered Jan.
"What is it that's the matter with the boy?" asked Lionel.
"He had a good fright; there's no doubt about that," replied Jan. "Saw a
white cow on its hind legs, it's my belief. That wouldn't have been
much. The boy would have been all right by now, but the women drenched
him with brandy, and made him stupidly drunk. He'll be better this
evening. I can't stop, Lionel; I am run off my legs to-day."
The commotion in the village increased as the evening approached. Jan
knew that young Dan would be well--save for any little remembrance of
the fright which might remain--when the fumes of the brandy had gone
off; But he wisely kept his own counsel, and let the public think he was
in danger. Otherwise, a second instalment of the brandy might have been
administered behind Jan's back. To have a boy dying of fright from
seeing a ghost was a treat in the marvellous line, which Deerham had
never yet enjoyed. There had been no agitation like unto it, since the
day of poor Rachel Frost.
Brave spirits, some of them! They volunteered to go out and meet the
apparition. As twilight approached you could not have got into Mrs.
Duff's shop, for there was the chief gathering. Arguments were being
used to prove that, according to all logic, if a ghost appeared one
night, it was safe to appear a second.
"Who'll speak up to go and watch for it?" asked Mrs. Duff. "I can't. I
can't leave Dan. Sally Green's a-sitting up by him now; for Mr. Jan says
if he's left again, he shall hold me responsible. It don't stand to
reason as I can leave Sally Green in charge of the shop, though I can
leave her a bit with Dan. Not but what I'd go alone to the pond, and
stop there; _I_ haven't got no fear."
It singularly happened that those who were kept at home by domestic or
other duties, had no fear; they, to hear them talk, would rather have
enjoyed an encounter _solus_ with the ghost, than not. Those who could
plead no home engagement professed themselves willing to undertake the
expedition in company; but freely avowed they would not go alone for the
world.
"Come! who'll volunteer?" asked Mrs. Duff. "It 'ud be a great
satisfaction to see the form it appears in, and have that set at rest.
Dan, he'll never be able to tell, by the looks of him now."
"I'll go for one," said bold Mrs. Bascroft. "And them as joins me shall
each have a good stiff tumbler of some'at hot afore starting, to prime
'em again' the cold."
Whether it was the brave example set, or whether it was the promise
accompanying it, certain it was, that there was no lack of volunteers
now. A good round dozen started, filling up the Plough and Harrow bar,
as Mrs. Bascroft dealt out her treat with no niggard hand.
"What's a-doing now?" asked Bascroft, a stupid-looking man with red hair
combed straight down his forehead, and coloured shirt-sleeves, surveying
the inroad on his premises with surprise.
"Never you mind," sharply reproved his better half. "These ladies is my
visitors, and if I choose to stand treat round, what's that to you? You
takes _your_ share o' liquor, Bascroft."
Bascroft was not held in very great estimation by the ladies generally,
and they turned their backs upon him.
"We are a-going out to see the ghost, if you must know, Bascroft," said
Susan Peckaby, who made one of the volunteers.
Bascroft stared. "What a set of idiots you must be!" grunted he. "Mr.
Jan says as Dan Duff see nothing but a white cow; he telled me so
hisself. Be you a-thinking to meet that there other white animal on your
road, Mrs. Peckaby?"
"Perhaps I am," tartly returned Mrs. Peckaby.
"One 'ud think so. _You_ can't want to go out to meet ghostesses; you
be a-going out to your saints at New Jerusalem. I'd whack that there
donkey for being so slow, when he did come, if I was you."
Hastening away from Bascroft and his aggravating tongue, the expedition,
having drained their tumblers, filed out. Down by the pound--relieved
now of its caged inmate--went they, on towards the Willow Pond. The
tumblers had made them brave. The night was light, as the preceding one
had been; the ground looked white, as if with frost, and the air was
cold. The pond in view, they halted, and took a furtive glance,
beginning to feel somewhat chill. So far as these half glances allowed
them to judge, there appeared to be nothing near to it, nothing upon its
brink.
"It's of no good marching right up to it," said Mrs. Jones, the baker's
wife. "The ghost mightn't come at all, if it saw all us there. Let's get
inside the trees."
Mrs. Jones meant inside the grove of trees. The proposition was most
acceptable, and they took up their position, the pond in view, peeping
out, and conversing in a whisper. By and by they heard the church clock
strike eight.
"I wish it'ud make haste," exclaimed Susan Peckaby, with some
impatience. "I don't never like to be away from home long together, for
fear of that there blessed white animal arriving."
"He'd wait, wouldn't he?" sarcastically rejoined Polly Dawson.
"He'd----"
A prolonged hush--sh--sh! from the rest restored silence. Something was
rustling the trees at a distance. They huddled closer together, and
caught hold one of another.
Nothing appeared. The alarm went off. And they waited, without result,
until the clock struck nine. The artificial strength within them had
cooled by that time, their ardour had cooled, and they were feeling
chill and tired. Susan Peckaby was upon thorns, she said, and urged
their departure.
"_You_ can go if you like," was the answer. "Nobody wants to keep you."
Susan Peckaby measured the distance between the pond and the way she had
to go, and came to the determination to risk it.
"I'll make a rush for it, I think," said she. "I sha'n't see nothing.
For all I know, that quadruple may be right afore our door now. If
he----"
Susan Peckaby stopped, her voice subsiding into a shriek. She, and those
with her, became simultaneously aware that some white figure was bearing
down upon them. The shrieks grew awful.
It proved to be Roy in his white fustian jacket. Roy had never had the
privilege of hearing a dozen women shriek in concert before; at least,
like this. His loud derisive laugh was excessively aggravating. What
with that, what with the fright his appearance had really put them in,
they all tore off, leaving some hard words for him; and never stopped to
take breath until they burst into the shop of Mrs. Duff.
It was rather an ignominious way of returning, and Mrs. Duff did not
spare her comments. If she had went out to meet the ghost, sh'd ha'
stopped till the ghost came, _she_ would! Mrs. Jones rejoined that them
watched-for ghosts, as she had heered, never did come--which she had
said so afore she went out!
Master Dan, considerably recovered, was downstairs then. Rather pale and
shaky, and accommodated with a chair and pillow, in front of the kitchen
fire. The expedition pressed into the kitchen, and five hundred
questions were lavished upon the boy.
"What was it dressed in, Dan? Did you get a good sight of her face, Dan?
Did it look just as Rachel used to look? Speak up, Dan."
"It warn't Rachel at all," replied Dan.
This unexpected assertion brought a pause of discomfiture. "He's head
ain't right yet," observed Mrs. Duff apologetically; "and that's why
I've not asked him nothing."
"Yes, it is right, mother," said Dan. "I never see Rachel last night. I
never said as I did."
Another pause--spent in contemplating Dan. "I knowed a case like this,
once afore," observed old Miss Till, who carried round the milk to
Deerham. "A boy got a fright, and they couldn't bring him to at all.
Epsum salts did it at last. Three pints of 'em they give, I think it
was, and that brought his mind round."
"It's a good remedy," acquiesced Mrs. Jones. "There's nothing like
plenty of Epsum salts for boys. I'd try 'em on him, Mother Duff."
"Dan, dear," said Susan Peckaby insinuatingly--for she had come in along
with the rest, ignoring for the moment what might be waiting at her
door--"was it in the pound as you saw Rachel's ghost?"
"'Twarn't Rachel's ghost as I did see," persisted Dan.
"Tell us who it was, then?" asked she, humouring him.
The boy answered. But he answered below his breath; as if he scarcely
dared to speak the name aloud. His mother partially caught it.
"Whose?" she exclaimed, in a sharp voice, her tone changing. And Dan
spoke a little louder.
"It was Mr. Frederick Massingbird's!"