Great was Lady Eleanor's distress when she heard from the Corporal what
had happened. "Ah, if only Colonel Fitzdenys had been here!" she
repeated more than once; but she could think of nothing that could be
done except to send a letter at once to the colonel to tell him the
whole story and to ask him to be present at Kingstoke, which lay close
to Fitzdenys, when the prisoner should be brought up next morning.
This was the Corporal's suggestion; but Lady Eleanor noticed that he
was unusually silent and subdued, and she was rather surprised when he
asked leave rather mysteriously to be absent from the house for the
rest of the day. But she trusted him so implicitly that she granted
his request without hesitation, and the Corporal, having sent off the
letter, went out for the evening by himself.
The truth was that he was bitterly hurt and indignant at the hard words
that Mrs. Mugford had used towards him, of having betrayed the children
to the witch on the moor. The bare idea that he should have been false
to his mistress and to the children, whom he worshipped, made him
furious; and he went out with the determination of giving Mrs. Mugford
a bit of his mind before night, but, like a wise man, not until he had
thought the matter well over during a solitary walk. So he made his
way through the woods and in due time came to the place where Dick had
pointed out to him the ragged man, whom he had found skulking in the
fern a short time before. Then it flashed across him suddenly that
this man might be the deserter, and he blamed himself for his stupidity
in not thinking of it at first. Once again he racked his brains to
remember where he had seen the man before, for certainly he had seen
him or some one very like him; and with his mind full of Mrs. Mugford
he suddenly recalled her son Henry, who had enlisted for a marine, and
had once come back on sick-leave. The more he thought of it, the more
certain he was that the man whom he had found was Henry Mugford, for
though he had not seen him for some years he had never heard that he
had been discharged. That would account for Mrs. Mugford's anxiety to
keep the Corporal out of the village, and to get the idiot arrested,
for it would probably be some days before a serjeant of Marines could
arrive from Plymouth, or the idiot himself could be sent there, to
decide if he were the deserter Henry Bale or not. And, as to the name,
the Corporal knew well enough by experience that men constantly
enlisted under assumed names, while Bale was a likely name for this
particular man to choose, as it had been Mrs. Mugford's own before she
married.
Thus reflecting, the Corporal turned along the path that led through
the woods lying above the village, stopped when he saw the roofs of the
cottages below him, and went down through the covert towards the hedge
that parted the cottage-gardens from it. It was dusk, so that he had
little difficulty in remaining unseen, and as he drew nearer to the two
cottages where Mrs. Fry and Mrs. Mugford lived, he heard the voices of
the pair in violent altercation in the garden below.
"You said so plain as could be that you'd a-share the two guineas with
me," Mrs. Fry was saying indignantly. "That's what you said."
"And don't I say that I'll give 'ee five shillings?" retorted Mrs.
Mugford, "and that's more than nine out of ten would give. 'Twas I
catched mun and not you. If I hadn't stopped mun in the road they'd
never have catched mun at all, and 'twas a chance then that he might
have killed me, mazed as he is. And you've a-taken pounds and pounds
from the gentry for the harm that was done your Tommy, and never given
me so much as a penny, though I've a-showed mun many times when you
wasn't in house."
"Well," said Mrs. Fry defiantly, "then we'll see what people say when I
tells what I've a-seen of a man coming round to your house night-times
these weeks and weeks, and you going out to mun with bread and mate.
I've a-seen mun, for all that you was so false."
Then they dropped their voices, and Mrs. Mugford appeared to be making
new offers. But the Corporal had heard enough. Keeping himself
carefully concealed he walked along the hedge until he found a rack
over it, which seemed to be well worn, leading down to the cottages
below, and by this rack he curled himself up in the bushes, and waited.
In a short time the village was dark and silent, for in those days
oil-lamps were never seen in a cottage; and the Corporal found waiting
rather cold work, but he had bivouacked on colder nights in the wars,
and lay patiently in his place. A little after ten the moon rose, but
it was full eleven o'clock before the Corporal heard the bushes rustle,
and at last made out a man creeping cautiously alongside the hedge.
Nearer and nearer he came, straight to the rack in the hedge, where
after pausing for a moment to listen, he was beginning to scramble up;
when the Corporal suddenly laid hold of his ankles, brought him
sprawling down, rolled him into the hedge-trough, and was instantly on
top of him, with his knee on his chest and his hand on his throat. The
unfortunate creature was too much paralysed by fright to resist; and
the Corporal soon dragged his face round into the moonlight and saw
that he had caught the man that he wanted.
"So you've come here again, Henry Bale," said the Corporal; "I told you
that it would be the worse for you, if you did."
"My name's Mugford," gasped the man, now struggling a little.
"And when did you get your discharge?" asked the Corporal; "and why are
you hanging about the woods instead of living with your mother like an
honest man? But when you're back at Plymouth they'll know you as Henry
Bale fast enough, I'll warrant."
The man trembled, and begged abjectly for mercy; but the Corporal only
pulled out a knife, without relaxing his hold on his throat, turned him
over on his face, and cut his waistband. "Now," he said, "the best
thing that you can do is to surrender and come quietly along with me.
Give me your hands." And pulling a piece of twine from his pocket he
tied the man's thumbs together behind his back. Then raising him to
his feet he shoved him over the rack in the hedge, and led him past
Mrs. Mugford's windows, where a rushlight was burning, into the road
and so to the stables at Bracefort. There he locked his prisoner into
a separate loose-box with a barred window, having first tied his wrists
before him, instead of his thumbs behind him; and then he sought out
pen and paper and wrote; a letter to Colonel Fitzdenys, which, though
it was not very long, took him much time to write, and ran as follows:--
"Honoured Col.--these are to inform you that I have the deserter Henry
Bale saf under lock and kay which is all at present from your honour's
most ob't humble serv't.--J. BRIMACOTT."
He put the letter into his pocket, and drawing a mattress before the
door of the loose-box, went fast asleep on it till dawn, when he called
a sleepy stable-boy from the rooms above and bade him ride over with
the letter to Fitzdenys Court.
By eight o'clock Colonel Fitzdenys arrived at a gallop from Fitzdenys
Court. Having seen and questioned the Corporal's prisoner, who made a
full confession, he left a message that he would return as soon as
possible, and that he would want to see Mrs. Fry and Tommy; after which
he rode back again, as fast as he had come, to Kingstoke. There his
business was soon finished, for when the idiot was brought up before
him (which he had already arranged to be done) he was able to discharge
him directly, since he himself had ascertained that the true deserter
had been captured. But none the less he gave the serjeant a guinea to
console him for his disappointment in having caught the wrong man.
Then he went to speak to the idiot's mother and to tell her how sorry
he was for the mistake that had been made; for the two had been locked
up all night in Kingstoke. She did not receive him kindly, however,
for all that she said was: "It's very well to be sorry now, and I don't
say, sir, that it's no fault of yours, but they've agone nigh to kill
my boy with their doings;" and indeed the idiot was so weak and white
that he could hardly stand. Still more distressed was she when Colonel
Fitzdenys told her that she could not go yet, but that she must first
visit Bracefort Hall. She tried hard to obtain his leave to go to her
own place at once, but he insisted, though with all possible kindness,
that she must come with him to the Hall, and that then she should be
free to go where she would. So very reluctantly she got into a
market-cart with her son, who sat like a lifeless thing beside her, and
was driven off, while Colonel Fitzdenys cantered on before them.
When the market-cart reached the door of the Hall, Lady Eleanor was
there waiting to welcome her and to thank her for all that she had done
for her own children; but the woman only said coldly that she was very
welcome, and seemed to have no thought but for her idiot son, who
remained sunk in the same abject condition. They brought him wine,
which revived him enough to set him crying a little, but he would take
no notice of anything. For a moment the woman softened, when Dick and
Elsie came in and thanked her prettily for the kindness that she had
shown to them, and she tried to rouse her son to take notice of them.
But he only went on crying; and she was evidently much distressed.
Then the Corporal came to say that Mrs. Fry was come and had brought
Tommy with her; on which Colonel Fitzdenys told the woman outright that
she had been accused of bewitching the boy and depriving him of his
speech. The woman's hard manner at once returned, and she laughed loud
and scornfully.
"That's only their lies," she said. "How should I take away a boy's
speech? they'm all agin me and my boy; that's all it is."
"Well, they say that he can't speak," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "You
shall tell him to speak yourself, and then we shall be able to judge."
So Mrs. Fry was called in and told to hold her tongue, and Tommy, who
had hidden himself in her skirts, was brought forward. The woman no
sooner saw him than her eyes gleamed, and she said: "That's the one who
throwed stones at my boy and called mun thafe. He not spake? He can
spake well enough if he has a mind, I'll warrant mun."
"But his mother says that he cannot," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "See for
yourself," and he led the trembling boy forward. "Tell him to speak to
you."
"Spake, boy," said the woman not very amiably. "You can spake well
enough, can't 'ee?"
"Yas," said Tommy nervously, to his mother's intense surprise.
"There! what did I tell 'ee?" said the woman contemptuously. "'Twas
only their lies. He can spake so well as you and I."
Mrs. Fry, much taken aback, seized hold of the boy in amazement; but he
begged so hard to be let go as to leave no doubt that his speech was
restored; and Lady Eleanor lost no time in sending him off with his
mother.
Then Lady Eleanor again thanked the idiot's mother for all that she had
done for her own children, and asked what she could do for her; but the
woman would accept no money nor reward, nothing but a few cakes which
the children brought to her to take home for her son. Lady Eleanor
offered her everything that she could think of, even to a remote
cottage in the woods where she would certainly live undisturbed; but
the woman only begged that she might not be asked to say where she
lived nor to give any account of herself. She was quite alone with her
son, she said, and lived an honest harmless life. As to Tommy Fry, she
could not understand how any words of hers could have taken his speech
from him; it was nonsense, and the women were fools. Finally, she said
that if Lady Eleanor really wished to be kind she would let them go and
not try to find them again; but she faithfully promised that if
anything went wrong, she would come to her first for help.
So Lady Eleanor seeing that she was in earnest promised to do as she
had said; and the woman thanked her with real gratitude. Then Dick and
Elsie came in again to say good-bye, and the woman, taking her son by
the arm, led him away. He moved so feebly that Lady Eleanor offered
her a pony for him to ride, but his mother refused, though with many
thanks; so the two passed away slowly across the park, and disappeared.
"Well, there is Tommy Fry cured at any rate," said Colonel Fitzdenys.
"And I believe that the woman spoke the truth, when she said that she
did not know what she had done to him. And now I must see to this man
who is locked up in the stable."
But even while he spoke the Corporal came to say that Mrs. Mugford was
come, and begged to be allowed to see her Ladyship. So in the poor
thing came, crying her eyes out, to confess that her son in the stable
was the true deserter, and to beg her Ladyship to have mercy and not to
yield him up, giving such an account of the punishment that awaited him
as nearly turned Lady Eleanor sick; for those were rough days in the
army.
Colonel George meanwhile stood by without uttering a word; and when
Mrs. Mugford had crawled from the room, utterly broken down, and Lady
Eleanor turned to him with tears in her eyes, too much moved to speak,
he only shook his head.
"The fellow must be given up and sent back to his corps," he said. "He
has already got an innocent man into trouble, and even if he had not I
am bound in duty to send him back."
"Could you not do something to intercede for him and save him from this
horrible punishment?" asked Lady Eleanor. "I should be so thankful if
you would."
Colonel George hesitated. "I have no wish to harm the poor wretch," he
said, "but there are other men in the same case, very likely less
guilty, who have no one to intercede for them. It is a question of
discipline."
"Oh, don't be so hard," pleaded Lady Eleanor, "you who are always so
gentle. You, who have done so much for me, grant me this one little
thing more."
Colonel George looked at the beautiful face before him, and Lady
Eleanor knew that she had gained her point. "Well, well," he said at
last; "I will write on his behalf, and better still I will get my
father to write also, which will have more effect. But it is all
wrong," he added; "it is not discipline."
"I am quite sure that it will be all right," said Lady Eleanor with
great decision.
Colonel George shook his head smiling; but he and old Lord Fitzdenys
wrote, as he had promised; and it may as well be said that they
obtained pardon for Henry Mugford the deserter.