Notwithstanding Colonel George's hopes, Tommy Fry remained dumb during
the next day, and the next, and the next; and Lady Eleanor became
seriously alarmed. She sent for the apothecary from the little
neighbouring town, by Colonel George's advice, and he duly arrived in
his yellow gig; but he frankly confessed that he could do nothing. So
he wisely went away, as Mrs. Fry indignantly put it, without leaving so
much as a drench behind him, or taking so much as a drop of blood from
the boy, whereas every one knew (or at any rate the villagers did) that
the evil spirit, which no doubt possessed poor Tommy, might have left
him if a convenient outlet had been made with a lancet, or if the boy
had swallowed a few doses of the nastiest possible medicine such as
evil spirits find it impossible to live with.
The doctor having failed, a local preacher was called in, who with the
assistance of certain of his flock screamed and sang and raved over
Tommy for several hours, making such a noise as set Lady Eleanor's
peacocks screaming till they could scream no more. The boy was at
first rather terrified, but as his helpers became more vehement and
their antics more grotesque, he lost his fright and was intensely
amused. Finally the whole congregation rose and, headed by the
preacher, rushed out of the house with wild cries that the evil spirit
had left Tommy and that they would hunt it out of the village. None
the less the boy remained dumb; so that the evil spirit, if ever it had
thought of going, had certainly changed its mind very quickly.
Both doctor and preacher having failed, Mrs. Fry was at her wits' end;
but her neighbours pointed out that witchcraft could be met only by
witchcraft; and a remark made by her nearest neighbour, Mrs. Mugford,
soon brought her round to their mind. "'Tisn't witchcraft," said Mrs.
Mugford very loudly in Mrs. Fry's hearing, "'tis a jidgment on evil
tongues, and the sins of parents that's visited on the children. The
mother goeth back and vor biting and slandering, and the mouth of the
innocent child is stopped." Mrs. Fry wept with rage as she heard the
words, for she had no answer ready. But she was more than ever
convinced from that moment that it was witchcraft which had wrought the
mischief in poor Tommy, and that only further witchcraft could undo it.
Despite the sad end of her pig, owing to the malignant influence of the
white witch of Gratton, she now lamented the death of the old man and
wished that he were back, if only for one day, that she might consult
him and show her contempt for Mrs. Mugford. As things were, she was
fain to fall back on her neighbours to learn where some wizard or wise
women of equal power could be discovered; and it was with dismay that
she found that not one of any repute was to hand nearer than the
borders of Dartmoor, fifty miles away. In vain she questioned hawkers,
waggoners, and the guards of the coaches, any passing folks in fact
that had seen the world; not one could enlighten her.
The neighbours, however, were ready enough with suggestions of their
own, of which the commonest was that Tommy's tongue should be split
with a silver sixpence. It is possible that some attempt might have
been made to perform this operation, for abundance of sixpences were
offered for the purpose; and there was a crooked one of the time of
Queen Anne from which great things were expected, for it was said to
have been given by the Queen herself when, touching children for the
King's Evil. Unfortunately, however, not one of these designs escaped
the keen ears of Mrs. Mugford, who at once communicated them to the
Corporal.
"'Tis not that I hold with them as slanders their neighbours, Mr.
Brimacott," she said, "nor that I bear no malice against them that
can't let a poor boy go to sea to sarve the King without a-saying that
his mother drave mun from home. I could tell of many in this parish as
isn't no better than they should be, and yet takes her Ladyship's
kindness and charity as if no one hadn't no right to it but themselves.
I could tell of such, but I won't, not I. But I'm not going to stand
by and see an innocent boy's tongue cut out of his mouth; though I
wouldn't say, Mr. Brimacott, but what there's tongues in the parish
that would be the better for cutting."
It was in this appalling form that the projected operation with the
sixpence made its way through the Corporal to Lady Eleanor, who was
horrified. She at once sent for both Mrs. Mugford and Mrs. Fry to get
at the truth of the story, and gave them such a scolding for their
folly and their quarrelsomeness that they departed weeping hand in
hand, in deep sympathy with each other as two thoroughly ill-used
women. They were a little frightened too, for though they had long
known Lady Eleanor as the gentlest and kindest of creatures, they now
found out that her beautiful face could be stern, and her voice sharp
and severe in rebuke; but for all their crying they knew in their
hearts that they liked her all the better for it.
So all attempts to heal Tommy by magic were stopped; and meanwhile
Colonel George scoured the moor in all directions without the least
success in finding out anything about the strange woman and her idiot
son. He had ridden first to Cossacombe, which was twenty miles away on
the other side of the moor, and had heard that the woman had been seen
there occasionally, but the idiot never; in fact no one seemed to know
anything about him. He learned also that she had brought down some
honey for sale on the day following her appearance at Ashacombe, and
had bought a sack of oatmeal at the mill, which she had taken away on a
scarecrow of an Exmoor pony. There were of course sundry stories of
her, but these were dark and uncertain, and of no value for tracing her
to her dwelling place. Then Colonel George took long rides over the
moor, crossing it this way and that from end to end, in the hope of
finding what he sought; for he had made up his mind that this strange
couple were lodged somewhere in the waste of bog and heather. But he
failed to find the least trace of them; and indeed the moor is wide now
and was far wider and wilder and more desolate in those days, before
there was a fence or a ditch to be found in the whole of it. Then
stag-hunting began, and Colonel George felt confident that with so many
people galloping over the moorland in all directions he must certainly
learn something; but here again he was disappointed. Still he went on
trying day after day, and very often came home by Ashacombe, when he
did not fail to call at Bracefort Hall, where everybody was glad to see
him, whatever the failure of his efforts.
Thus a whole month passed away without any change in Tommy Fry or any
sign that might give hope of discovering the strange woman. Lady
Eleanor then became very unhappy indeed, and blamed herself for letting
her go without further inquiry.
Colonel George still insisted that all would soon right itself, for he
was pained to see how much Lady Eleanor took the matter to heart, but
in truth he too was at his wits' end. And indeed those two distressed
themselves over Tommy Fry far more than anybody else; for Mrs. Fry
gained great importance from her boy's misfortune. Folks from
neighbouring villages came to see for themselves if the story that they
had heard was true; and from time to time some gentleman passing to or
from the hunting-field would drop in, when Tommy was produced and
proved to be speechless, while Mrs. Fry told the tale with every
harrowing detail. The great Lord Fitzdenys himself came once, and the
doctor regained favour in Mrs. Fry's eyes by bringing another doctor to
see what he called "this interesting case;" and as none of the
gentlemen ever went away without giving a few pence to the boy and a
few shillings to his mother, the family of Fry gained both dignity and
profit. Nor were the Frys at first the only gainers, for, Tommy being
of a generous nature, there was an uncommon demand for Sally Dart's
toffee, until Mrs. Fry, perceiving how quickly his money disappeared,
thought it prudent to take care of it for him.
Then suddenly one day there came an event which revived all the hopes
of Colonel George and Lady Eleanor. For one beautiful evening while
Dick and Elsie were wandering with the Corporal round the fence of the
park to pick blackberries, they heard a strange whistling in the wood
beyond. At first they thought that it was a bird, but the Corporal
said that he had never heard such a bird in his life, though the sound
seemed to pass so swiftly from place to place that it was difficult to
think what it might be. They followed the sound along the fence for a
little way, and then suddenly the Corporal shaded his eyes with his
hand for a moment, and telling the children to wait till he came back,
ran away down the fence as fast as his lame leg would carry him, turned
into the wood by a hunting-gate and disappeared. The children wondered
for a time what could have happened, but discovering some very fine
ripe blackberries soon turned to picking and tasting them again, when
suddenly they heard the whistling close to them, and again still
closer; and presently there was a little rustle through the bushes, and
there stood the idiot before them, still whistling. They were at first
a little frightened, but too much astonished to cry out; and the ragged
creature (for he had just the same appearance as when they had first
seen him) grinned at them so kindly that they could not help smiling
back. He looked round him nervously for a moment and then holding up
his finger as if to bid them keep silence, he scrambled down from the
fence to them, and produced a rudely made cage of hazel-wands from
under his coat. This he opened, and took from it a bullfinch, which
perched on his finger without attempting to fly away. Then he whistled
a few notes and the bird began to pipe a little tune, though the man
was obliged to remind him of his note now and again. Then he whistled
few more notes and the bird piped another tune or part of one, after
which he lifted the bird to his face and the little creature laid its
beak against his lips. He then listened nervously for a few seconds,
shut he bird up in the cage again, put the cage into little Elsie's
hand, nodding and smiling all the time, jumped over the fence into the
wood and was gone.
[Illustration: The bird began to pipe a little tune.]
The Corporal came back a few minutes later, very hot, out of breath,
and very nearly out of temper. He had caught sight of some one in the
wood, he said, a poacher or some one who had no business there, and
made sure to have caught him or at any rate to have found out who he
was. But when he heard the children's story he opened his eyes wide
and said that they had better go home at once; and that very same
evening he rode over to Fitzdenys Court with a letter from Lady Eleanor
to Colonel George. But the children were far too much taken up by the
bullfinch to think of anything else, for the bird took courage to pipe
a little to Dick's whistling, and then they discovered that one of his
tunes was "The British Grenadiers."
Colonel George duly came over next morning and was not a little
astonished to hear what had happened, but could not explain it in the
least. "The children will solve this mystery before I shall, you will
see," he said to Lady Eleanor, laughing, "and I may as well give up the
attempt."
"But do you not think that this proves these two people to be harmless
and innocent?" asked Lady Eleanor.
"You judged them to be so from the first," he answered, "and that is
sufficient for me."
Lady Eleanor hesitated for a moment, and then said that he must come
and see the bullfinch. So Elsie produced the bird with great pride,
and Colonel George recognised one tune as "The British Grenadiers" and
the other as part of "Lillibulero," the famous marching song which was
so popular with King William's soldiers. "Strange," he said, "that
both tunes should be marching tunes. What can it mean?"
But before they had done with the bullfinch, a frightened woman came
hurrying up with the news that old Sally Dart was taken bad. She had
got up as usual and begun to lay the fire, but the neighbours seeing no
more of her had entered the cottage and found her lying on the floor,
speechless, with one side of her face pulled down. Lady Eleanor at
once sent for the doctor, and walked down with Colonel George to see
what she could do; but as they came back they found that there was
fresh excitement in another quarter. The village preacher's cow had
also been taken bad; her calf was dead already, and it was doubtful if
the cow could be saved. Finally, Mrs. Mugford was seen weeping over
the ghastly heads of six or eight fowls which lay in a heap before her
door. The said fowls, so Colonel George ascertained from her, had
strayed away in the previous night, which she had never known them do
before, and the keeper had found the heads scattered about the wood not
far from an earth where an old vixen was known to have brought up a
litter of cubs. What could have possessed the fowls Mrs. Mugford
couldn't say, for her old stag (and she selected the head of a
venerable cock from the heap as she spoke, to give point to her remark)
was so sensible as a Christian almost.
"What a day of misfortunes!" said Lady Eleanor, as they left the
disconsolate woman.
"Yes, indeed," said Colonel George, "I only hope that they may end
here. Listen!" And as he spoke the voice of Mrs. Fry rose high from
the garden above.
"Yes," she said, "the mazed man was up to the park yesterday. The
young gentleman and the little lady seed mun; and the witch wasn't far
away, you may depend. She's a-witched mun all; that's what it is; and
now maybe," she added with a triumphant glance at the weeping Mrs.
Mugford, "there's some as won't be so sartain as they was as to the
doings of witches."
Lady Eleanor gave a little laugh, but turned suddenly grave, and asked
Colonel George anxiously, "Do you think that they really believe it?"
"There is no doubt that they believe it," he said quietly. "It is best
to face facts."
"But if it should lead to trouble?" said Lady Eleanor.
"Wait till the trouble comes," he said, "and then send for me. You may
be sure that I shall come."