within him by the soul-terrifying proximity of Boy Hugh's "Awfu'
Woman." So silently did they stand that Sal Kavannah heard nothing; and
with her ears still on the stretch she moved slowly away, following Tim
Kelly in the direction of Barnbogle.
Then was Vara's heart fairly torn in twain. Should she go first to
Mirren Douglas and Boy Hugh? Or should she strike across through the
dark woods towards Barnbogle? Then, like sweet music, there fell on her
ears the loud, hearty accents of the voice of Mistress Fraser.
[Illustration: The dark figure ran past them.]
"Weel, Mirren, an' hoo's a' wi' ye the nicht? Hearty, thank ye!
I hae brocht my guidman an' Gibby, oor auldest callant, ower by to
hearten ye up. Gibby is a brave bullock-baned hullion, no bonny ony
mair than the daddy o' him—but that like Tam Fraser, that he could na
deny him even if he was willin'. And that is a guid thing for a decent
woman's reputation!"
Vara could not catch Mirren Douglas's reply, but she could hear
Mistress Fraser's next words; for that voluble lady always spoke as if
it were all important that the next two parishes should have a chance
of benefiting by her wisdom.
"Hoots, no! Gie yoursel' nae thocht aboot the lassie. She has Gavin wi'
her, and I'se warrant she'll be keepin' her bit trysts, just as you and
me had in the days that's lang bygane. Come your ways in, Gibby. Dinna
stand hingin' a leg there!"
Sandyknowes was therefore safe so long as the Frasers remained. The way
was clear for Vara to run through the woods to warn Cleg. So, plucking
Gavin to her, she lifted him in her arms and ran towards Barnbogle as
hard as she could. But the wild beast and the "Awfu' Woman" had a long
start of her.
ADVENTURE LVII.
FIGHTING THE BEASTS.
General Theophilus Ruff was at home. He had, in fact, never been away.
That very morning his lawyer had visited Barnbogle, and had stayed all
day in the little brick addition, with two of his clerks within call
in the kitchen behind, writing and witnessing deeds. The General sent
Cleg into Netherby in the forenoon upon half-a-dozen errands, and in
the afternoon he told him that he was free to do what he wished with
his time. Whereupon Cleg went and got a pail of whitewash to brighten
up the byre and stables of Sandyknowes, a job which he had been
promising himself as a treat for a long time.
After the General had dismissed the solicitor and his two clerks
to go back to the town of Drumnith, he withdrew into his room and
occupied himself with the arrangement and docketing of multitudinous
papers. When Cleg came back he made his supper by himself in the brick
addition, and was just sitting down with the paper-covered threepenny
novel which represented literature to him, when the door opened and
the General came in with a roll of papers in his hand. His hair stood
nearly straight up, and his eyes were bloodshot and starting from his
head. A great change had come over him since the morning.
"Cleg," he said abruptly, "you are going to lose your place."
Cleg stood on his feet respectfully. He was not much astonished. He had
been waiting for an announcement like this ever since he found what
manner of man his impulsive master was. His first thought was that he
would be able largely to increase the flower business.
"Verra weel, sir," said Cleg, glancing straight at the General, who
stood commandingly in the doorway, looking, in spite of his disarray,
imposing enough in his undress uniform; "verra weel, sir. Ye hae been
kind to me."
"Ah," said the General, "I mean that ye are going to lose your master,
not that he wishes you to leave your place. I have a long journey to
depart upon. I am going upon active service in another world. Three
times yestreen I heard the black dog summon me below the window."
"That maun hae been Tam Fraser's collie," said Cleg promptly, "nesty
brute that he is. I'll put a chairge o' number five in his tail the
next time he comes yowlin' and stravagin' aboot here!"
"No," said the General, without paying much attention, "it was the
Death Dog, which only appears when one of my race is about to die.
My hours of life are numbered, or at least I believe they are, which
is exactly the same thing. You will find that you are not left with
the empty hand, Cleg, my man. See that ye use it as wisely as ye have
used my money. For I have proved you an honest lad, and that to the
hilt—never roguing your master of a pennyworth, high or low, indoor or
out, and saving of the Danish butter when you fried the fish."
"Thank ye," said Cleg, "I am no o' high family, ye see. Nae dowgs come
aboot when the Kellys dee that I ken o', but if your yin bothers ye
I'll shoot him. Gin Rab Wullson the polissman hears tell o' it, he'll
be at us to tak' oot a leesence for him."
The General held out his hand.
"Good-bye," he said, "it is likely that I'll be waiting for you on the
waterside when you land. I have a tryst to-day with the old Ferryman.
The Black Dog has looked my way. I hear the lapping of the water
against the boat's sides, and I have coined my gold for drachmas to pay
my passage."
"Guidnicht, sir," answered Cleg, briskly; "will ye hae herrin' or bacon
to your breakfast the morn's mornin'?"
Cleg was accustomed to the General's megrims, and did not anticipate
anything special from this solemn harangue.
"Nae fears, sir," he said, encouragingly; "you tak' your comfortable
sleep; the black collie will never trouble ye. I'll leave the outer
door on the jar, an' faith! I'll hae a shot at him if he comes youchin'
aboot this hoose."
"Come up, Cleg," said Theophilus Ruff, as he stood by the door, "come
up in a quarter of an hour, and I'll take my pipe as usual."
"Aye, General," said Cleg, "I'll be up. Did ye say herrin'?"
The General went out without answering, and Cleg turned unconcernedly
to his immediate business of scouring the pans and setting the kitchen
to rights. He was naturally neat-handed, and by this time no work,
indoors or out, came wrong to him.
He was whistling cheerily and burnishing a tin skillet when a slight
noise at the outer door startled him. He dropped the can, and it rolled
with a clatter under the dresser.
"That dowg o' Fraser!" he said to himself. "I'll 'Black Dog' him!"
But before he could rise he felt his arms pinioned from behind, and
ere he could make any effective resistance he was thrown upon his
back on the floor. Cleg struggled gallantly, and it might have proved
successfully; but the face which looked hatefully into his took from
him in a moment all power of resistance.
It was his father's face, livid with hate and vile determination. Tim
Kelly coolly directed Sal Kavannah to sit upon the lad's feet, while
he himself trussed up his hands and arms as if he had been a fowl
ready for the market. Cleg suffered all this without showing the least
concern. He had no hope of pity. But he steeled himself to be silent,
and faithful to his benefactor.
His father shut the kitchen door. Then he looked carefully round the
brick house, and seemed infinitely relieved to find the door into the
house unlocked, as the General had left it when he went out for Cleg to
follow.
Presently Tim Kelly came back and kneeled by his son's side.
"Now, young serpent," he said, "the reckoning day has come at long and
last 'twixt you and me! You have got to tell me where the old chap
keeps his keys, and that mighty sharp—or I will see the colour of your
blood, sorrowful son o' mine though you be!"
But Cleg maintained a steady silence. Whereupon his father set his
fingers to his throat.
"I know a way to make you speak," he said. "Sal, take him by the feet
and throw him over that bed."
Sal Kavannah did as she was bid, and between them they threw Cleg
across his own bed with his head hanging down on the other side.
"Don't ye be thinking," said his father, bending over him, "that
because I had the ill luck to be father to the likes o' you, that will
do ye any good."
Cleg still held his peace, biting speech down with a proud, masterful
heart. He was resolved that, even if he killed him, his father should
not draw a single word out of him.
At that moment a loud clang sounded through the archway which led into
the dark house of Barnbogle. Cleg's eyes went in spite of him towards
the door. He knew that in a moment more the General would appear in the
doorway; and he feared that his father would kill him with the revolver
which, when on business errands, he always carried attached to his
waist by a leather strap.
Cleg started up as far as he could for his bonds and his father's
fierce clutch upon his throat.
"General," he cried, "run back to the strong-room—back as fast as you
can to the strong-room!"
Then Cleg heard with gratitude the sound of retreating footsteps
outside in the passage.
Timothy Kelly rose from his knees with an oath. He felt that he had
been tricked. His revolver was in his hand, and he pointed it at
his son's forehead. His fore-finger hooked itself on the trigger.
Cleg Kelly instinctively shut his eyes not to see the flash. But Sal
Kavannah jerked up her companion's arm.
"You waste time, man," she said; "through the door after the old
fellow!"
Tim Kelly lifted the slant-headed bar of iron which he had brought with
him to be inserted, if need were, under the sashes of the windows; and
as he ran out of the kitchen he struck his son heavily over the head
with this, leaving him lying in his blood upon the bed.
Through the long, vaulted passages the villain ran, with his accomplice
in crime close upon his heels. The door which divided the little brick
building from the main house of Barnbogle closed after them. Something
like a tall, flitting white-robed figure seemed to keep a little way
before them. They followed till it vanished through the open door of
the strong-room. In a moment both Tim Kelly and Sal Kavannah darted in
after it, and immediately, with a clang which resounded through the
whole house, the door closed upon pursuers and pursued. Then, through
the silence which ensued, piercing even the thick walls of the old
mansion, ringing all over the country-side, came three loud screams of
heart-sickening terror. And after that for a space again there fell
silence upon the strange house of Barnbogle, with its mad master and
its devilish visitants like wild, predatory beasts of the night. But
Cleg Kelly heard nothing; for the blow from his father's arm had left
him, as it proved, wounded and nigh unto death.
* * * * *
Vara we left panting along the road upon her quest of mercy, listening
fearfully for the feet of the pursuer. She dared not leave Gavin
behind her, but toiled under his load all the way—now stumbling in the
darkness and now falling headlong. The lad cried bitterly, but Vara
persevered, for she had the vision of Cleg before her, helpless in the
hands of the cruel enemies who were also hers.
When she came to the main door of the house of Barnbogle she found it
barred and locked, while the gloomy front loomed above with the windows
like still blacker gashes on its front. However, she remembered Cleg's
description, and, taking Gavin by the hand, she ran as swiftly as she
could through the dense coppice round to the little brick addition.
She had just reached the closed door when the three shrieks of terrible
distress pealed out upon the night silences.
But Vara nerved herself, and, lifting the latch, pushed the kitchen
door open. There across the bed, within three feet of her, lay Cleg,
bound, bleeding, and insensible. Vara set down Gavin, sprang towards
Cleg, and took him up in her arms. Hastily she unloosed him from his
bonds, and dashed water upon his face. But his head fell heavily and
loosely forward, and it was with a terrible sinking of the heart that
the thought flashed upon her that her friend was already dead. The
house continued to resound with cries of fear, demoniac laughter,
screams of ultimate agony. At any moment the fiends who made them
might burst upon her. Yet she could not leave Cleg to the mercy of the
merciless.
With eager hands she tore the sheet from the bed, and, wrapping him in
it, she lifted him in her arms and staggered into the night. Gavin came
after her, speechless with fear, clutching tightly the skirts of her
dress.
So, fainting and staggering, Vara bore Cleg across the marsh and up to
the little house of Sandyknowes. She was just able to put Cleg Kelly
into the arms of Mirren Douglas and sink fainting on the floor.
When she came to herself Tam Fraser and the doctor from Netherby were
bending over her.
"What was the maitter—wha hurt the laddie?" asked Tam Fraser.
"The House! The terrible House!" was all that Vara could say.
Cleg Kelly was not dead. The doctor reported him to be suffering from a
severe concussion of the brain, which might probably prevent a return
to consciousness for some days.
A band of men hastily equipped themselves and set out for the house of
Barnbogle. They stole up to the door of the kitchen. It stood open, as
Vara had left it. The light streamed out upon the green foliage and
the trampled grass. But inside there was only silence, and all around
a wild scene of confusion. The skillet which Cleg had been burnishing
lay upon the hearthstone. There was blood upon the stones of the floor
where he had been thrown down, and again on the bed from which Vara had
lifted him. But about all the house there was only silence.
The blacksmith of the nearest village brought a forehammer, and with
great difficulty he and his apprentice broke a way into the house
itself through one of the barred upper windows. But the whole mansion
within was entirely in order. The iron fronts of the safes in the hall
had not been tampered with. The red iron door of the strong-room in
the rock underground was close and firm—far beyond the art of Netherby
smiths to burst open.
It was considered, therefore, that the General must be from home, on
one of his ever-recurring journeys, and that his servant Cleg had been
attacked by the ruffians who had run off at the sound of the alarm
raised by Vara.
Yet it was thought somewhat strange that, as the men came back through
the empty house, they should find an iron crowbar, stained with blood,
lying at the top of the steps which led to the strong-room.
ADVENTURE LVIII.
WITHIN THE RED DOOR.
Cleg hovered long between life and death. The Netherby doctor made his
rounds twice a day in the direction of Sandyknowes in order to watch
the case. Vara and Mirren Douglas waited unweariedly upon him. It
seemed so strange a thing to them to see their lightsome, alert Cleg
thus lie senseless, speechless, turning his head only a little from
side to side occasionally, and keeping his eyes fixed steadfastly upon
the ceiling.
After the first night of stupor Cleg slept heavily and constantly for
nearly ten days, without being able either to speak or so much as tell
his own name.
The Netherby doctor raised each of the patient's eyelids when he came,
but the pupil remained dull. Every day the doctor would say, "Do not be
alarmed. This is a well-marked stage of the trouble, though no doubt it
is in this case somewhat unduly prolonged."
And so it proved, for Cleg did not come to himself until twelve days
after the night when Vara found him lying in the brick addition, with
the lamp lighted and signs of hideous outrage all about him on the
floor. A watch had been kept all the time by the county authorities
upon Barnbogle House, and every possible attempt had been made to
communicate with the owner. All places which he was known to visit had
been watched.
The steamers on the Caledonian Canal, the ferries to the Island of
Arran, the passenger boats to Orkney and Shetland had been carefully
examined; but so far it was all in vain. No one answering to the
description of General Theophilus Ruff could anywhere be found. Yet
there was nothing remarkable in this. For the mad General had been
in the habit of going off suddenly on tours by himself, by rail and
steamboat, without consulting any one. Upon his travels by sea he
had been distinguished by his habit of taking the officers under
his protection, and offering them advice upon the subject of their
profession, especially as to the proper way to handle a ship—advice
which, strangely enough, was not always received in good part.
But the mad soldier could nowhere be found. His lawyers continued
the search in other directions. They came to Netherby, and made very
particular inquiries as to the doings of Cleg during the day which had
ended so disastrously. Now it chanced that, even while Cleg himself lay
unconscious upon the bed at Sandyknowes, every hour of his day could
be accounted for; that is, up to the moment when he had gone home to
prepare supper for his master. The General had ordered a new fence of
barbed wire to be erected by the side of the railway, and Cleg had been
out all the forenoon superintending its erection, after having been
sent to Netherby by the General. He had been engaged in whitewashing
the office-houses at Sandyknowes in the afternoon.
So close was the inquiry, that the chief of the Netherby police asked
more than once of the detective employed by General Ruff's lawyers if
he had any cause for suspicion against the young man Kelly.
"None whatever," said the detective, "so far as I know. But I
understand that important testamentary dispositions will affect the
young man—that is, if he gets better and the General does not turn up."
Cleg did get better, but not suddenly or indeed speedily.
One morning, when the doctor came from Netherby, Cleg of his own accord
twitched an eyelid up and glanced at him.
"Doctor Sidey!" he said feebly, "have I been ill?"
Without answering, the doctor took his hand and bent over him.
His breathing was weak and irregular, but still perceptibly stronger.
"He'll do!" said Doctor Sidey of Netherby to Mirren Douglas, "but, mind
you, he is to be asked no questions till I can ask them myself."
So for nearly a week more Cleg lay in the dusky room, with the bees
humming drowsily outside the wall on sunny days, and the sounds of the
little farmyard of Sandyknowes coming to him softened by distance. Vara
looked in many times a day, as she passed the window to bring home the
cows, or going with a can to the well; and always at sight of her Cleg
smiled happily.
Or Mirren came in from the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron,
and Cleg smiled again. Then Vara brought him his low diet of milk and
cornflour. But she did not speak to him. He looked at her in a manner
so pathetic in its weakness that Mirren Douglas had often, perforce,
to go into a corner and dry her eyes with her apron.
"He used to be so strong and cheery!" she said, as if explaining the
matter to the world in general.
Then Vara would briskly leave the room to bid Boy Hugh hush his noisy
calls to the chickens outside. Whereat Cleg Kelly would shake his head;
but whether because Vara had left the room, or because he liked the
simple, cheerful sounds of the yard coming into his chamber, Mirren
Douglas did not know.
It was a clear morning, about seven o'clock, when Cleg came fully to
himself. The trees upon the slope opposite stood black and hard against
a pale green midwinter sky. Cleg watched the light grow clearer behind
them as a chill wind from the south swayed the branches away from him.
He had a delicious sense of reposefulness and physical well-being. But
this was suddenly crossed and obliterated by the thought which came to
him that he had lost his place. How long had he been lying here? He
could not remember. His master—where was he? That hideous vision of his
old life which swept over him like a very eruption of devildom—was it a
dream, or a reality?
"The doctor! the doctor!" cried Cleg; "send for him quickly. I have
something I must tell him."
And Vara sped obediently away, putting forth all the strength in her
lithe young limbs to bring Doctor Sidey to Cleg Kelly as quickly as
possible.
When he came in he looked at Cleg quickly.
"Worse?" he queried, half to the patient and half to Mirren Douglas,
who stood by with folded hands.
"No," said Cleg, "not worse, doctor. But I have something to tell you
which cannot wait."
The doctor motioned Vara and Mirren out of the room. And then, in
hurried, breathless sentences, Cleg told the doctor of all that had
taken place on the night of the attack. He still thought that it had
been just the night before, and the doctor did not undeceive him.
"And the robbers are still in the house wi' my maister," Cleg asserted.
"I think he is shut up in the strong-room. If he doesna come oot soon
the room must be forced. But he never stays in it more than a night at
a time, so he is sure to come oot in the mornin'."
"What did you say?" cried the doctor, surprised out of himself.
"General Ruff in the strong-room—two robbers with him in the house!
Why, it is plainly impossible—it is three weeks on Tuesday since you
were hurt."
"The General was in the house when I was attacked," repeated Cleg. "I
heard him go into the strong-room and shut the door."
The doctor went into Netherby and telegraphed to the General's lawyers,
who lived in the larger town of Drumnith. The two heads of the firm
arrived by the next train, and, as a result of a conference with the
doctor and Cleg, an urgent message was sent to the great firm of safe
and strong-room makers who had engineered the safety appliances, to
come and open the room in which lay the most hidden treasures of
General Theophilus Ruff.
In response to this urgent application three skilled mechanicians came
down that same night, and by five in the morning they stood ready to
break in the door. The foreman of Messrs. Cox & Roskell's declared that
no power existed by which, in the absence of the keys and the knowledge
of the time and word combinations, the lock could be opened without
violence.
But the lawyers promptly decided that at all hazards the room must be
reached. So, very philosophically, the foreman proceeded to demolish
the work of his own hands and brain—the preparation and fitting of
which had cost him so many weeks.
He inserted two dynamite cartridges on either side of the red iron
door, boring holes for their reception in the rock itself, so that
the frame might be started bodily from its bed. Then he placed other
two under the step which led to the room. There were present only the
three artisans, the two lawyers from Drumnith of the firm of Hewitson &
Graham, together with Doctor Sidey, who had constituted himself Cleg's
representative, and had insisted either on having the regular police
called in or upon being present himself.
These six men stood far back from the house while the dynamite was
exploded. The foreman timed the fuse with his watch. Presently there
came a little jar of the earth, as if a railway train were passing
underneath. But the great bulk of the building stood firm. The lawyers
and the doctor were eager to run forward. But the foreman held them
back till the fumes had had time to clear out of the stone narrow
passages and to dissipate themselves through the glassless windows.
Then they went below, each carrying a lantern. The doctor had in
his pocket also a case of surgical instruments and the strongest
restoratives known to his art.
When they arrived in the passage they found the mighty iron door fallen
outward, frame and all. It lay with the time lock and the letter
attachment still in their places, leaving a black, cavernous opening,
into which the light of the bull's-eye lanterns refused to penetrate.
The foreman stooped as he came up.
"It's not a pennypiece the worse," he said, examining the fallen door
with professional solicitude.
But the doctor pushed him aside and entered. As he shed the light of
his lantern around he gasped like a man in extremity, for surely a
stranger or a more terrible sight the eyes of man had never looked upon.
Two dark forms, those of a man and a woman, were upon the floor, the
man prone on his face with his hands stretched out before him, the
woman crouched far back in the corner with her mouth wide open and her
eyes starting from her head with absolute and ghastly terror. Yet both
eyes and mouth were obviously those of a corpse. In the centre of the
room were three coffins laid upon narrow tables, the same that Cleg had
so often seen. But now they were all three open, and in each reclined
a figure arrayed in white, with the head raised on a level with the
coffin lid.