Deep Moat Grange

But this she didn't seem to think clever, or, indeed, to care about at all.

She only said, "Are all country boys as stupid as you are?"

To be called a boy like that made me angry, and I ran after her, determined to pay her out. I was going to show her that country boys could just be as sharp as there was any need for.

But quick as I was, this city girl was quicker, and she slipped across the road almost at the very place where we had found the last traces of poor Harry Foster. She dived among the underbrush by the stile, and I lost sight of her altogether.

But the next moment I heard a cry. You had better believe I wasted no time till I got there. I ran, opening a good, stout clasp knife that father had given me – or, if not "given" exactly, had seen me with, and not taken away from me. It comes to the same thing.

Well, just a little away across a green glade, all pine needles and sun dapplings, stood Mad Jeremy, and he had Harriet Caw by the arm. I went at him as fast as I could – which was a silly thing to do, for, of course, with his strength he could have done me up in two ticks of a clock. Only, as mostly happens when one does fine things, it was all over before I thought.

But when Mad Jeremy saw me, or, perhaps, before (I do not want to take credit for anything that isn't my due), he let go of Harriet Caw, saying just "She isn't the pretty one! What is she doing here?" And with a skip and a jump he was gone. That is, so far as I could see.

Then Harriet swooned away in my arms, toppling over like a ladder slipping off the side of a house. At least, I suppose that is what they call it. But at that time I had had no experience of swoons. For Elsie never went on like that. At all events, Harriet Caw clutched me about the neck, her fingers working as if they would claw off my collar, and she laughing and crying both at once. Funny it was, but though it made a fellow squirm – not altogether so horrid as you might think. But I did not know what to do. I tried hard to think whether it was the palms of her hands or the backs of her ears that you ought to rub, or whether I should lay her down or stand her up against a tree. I knew there was something. Then I got in a funk lest, after all, it should be the soles of her feet.

But Mad Jeremy had not altogether gone away. He had been watching, and now popped his head and shiny ringlets round a tree trunk, which brought me to myself.

"Ah – ha!" he cried, "I'll tell the pretty one about these goings on!"

And, quick as a flash, that brought Harriet Caw to herself, also. It did better than splashing water or rubbing hands. The moment before she had been all rigid like a lump of wood in my arms. But as soon as the words were out of Mad Jeremy's mouth, she was standing before me, her eyes flashing lightning, and her elbows drawn a little in to her sides.

Mad? Well, rather. She was hopping, just.

"So I'm not the pretty one," she said – whispered it, rather, with a husky sound, like frying bacon in her voice. "Oh, I see – that's why my eyes are like brown paint – varnished! Well, who's the pretty one? Answer me that!"

"I think he must mean Elsie!" I said, telling the truth just as briefly as I could.

"Elsie – oh, indeed! Elsie is the pretty one, is she, Master Joe?"

"Yes," I said, "she is!"

I was going on to tell her how much she would like Elsie, and how Elsie would love her, when suddenly Harriet Caw turned and marched off. I was going to follow her – indeed, I had to. For I wasn't going to be left in that gloomy glade with only the great tits and Mad Jeremy hiding among the trees.

But Harriet Caw turned round, and called out, "Go to Elsie, I don't want you! I dare you to speak to me! I will kill you, if you touch me!"

I told Harriet quite reasonably that I would not touch her for mints of money, and that all I wanted was just to find Mr. Ablethorpe, and pick up the parcel I had left at her grandfather's before going home.

It must have looked funny enough if any one had seen us. Well, Mad Jeremy did. For we could hear peal upon peal of wicked, sneering laughter pursue us, as we went in single file across the road, over the stile, and across the moor.

At the stile over the highroad I came up closer to Harriet, owing to a slight hesitation on her part, and the switch she gave her skirts to escape the contagion of my touch, was something to see. I had always thought I was something of a favourite wherever I went. So I took the worse with such treatment.

However, I put it down to Harriet Caw's having been brought up in London. My father always told me to watch out for London folk – you never could tell what they would be up to. Certainly not with Harriet.

CHAPTER XV

THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES – A GIRL!

Mr. Ablethorpe appeared to have had a much better time of it with Miss Constantia than I had had with her sister – perhaps, because she was younger by some minutes, and was quite conscious of being pretty, so didn't need to be told. Yet, when you come to think of it, I had done a heap more for Harriet Caw, than the Hayfork Minister for her sister. Had I not rushed to defend her from no less a foe than Mad Jeremy? And there were precious few in the two parishes of Breckonside and Breckonton who would have done the like. So she need not have run upstairs when she got home, pushing her step-grandmother aside and saying: "Out of the way, Susan Fergusson!" Neither had she any need to slam the door of her room, for it was her twin sister's as well as hers, at any rate.

And though I did not like Constantia so well to start with, I must say that her conduct was a great contrast to that of her sister Harriet. I could not help remarking it. She came quite peaceably to the door with Mr. Ablethorpe. Then she went back and found his hat for him, which he had forgotten. And she stood smiling and waving adieux under the bunches of purple creepers about the porch – like – well, I declare, like the picture of "Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye!" in the "Keepsake" book.

And then, thinking it over, I took it all back and preferred in my heart the slam of Harriet's door. There was more meaning to it.

But Mr. Ablethorpe did not appear to notice. He thought that he had sown good seed on very promising soil.

"She seemed quite in favour of the Eastward position," he said thoughtfully, "and she understands our argument in favour of the 'Missale Romanum' and with regard to irregularly ordained clergy. The rest may follow in time."

And as for me, I hoped to goodness it would.

After that the Hayfork was very thoughtful all the way to the crossroads, where we separated, he to return to his lodging in Over Breckonton and I to go back to father's. Well, not just directly, of course. I had to look in at Nance Edgar's cottage at the Bridge End. It was my duty. Elsie was there, sitting reading by the window. She had been doing German or something with the schoolmaster's sister, and, for a wonder, was quite pleased to see me. She mostly wasn't, if I interrupted her when she was "studying." "Studying" with Elsie consisted in neither talking yourself, nor letting any other body talk.

The first thing that struck me was how much prettier Elsie was to look at than Harriet Caw, and, of course, than her sister. I told her so, thinking that she would be pleased. But instead, she faced about at once and laid down her book.

"Who is Harriet Caw?" she asked in a kind of icebergy voice, quite differently pitched from her usual.

Then I began, pleased as a kitten with a wool ball, to tell her all about it – how Mr. Ablethorpe had come and asked me off for the day from my father, how we had gone and helped at the haymaking. Then I made out a long yarn about finding the little package of rings which Mr. Ablethorpe had taken so carefully away with him.

"But they were more yours than his!" cried Elsie suddenly; "you should have brought them here to me. Then we would have found out what they were, and if they had anything to do with the – with Harry Foster. We were the first who found out anything, and now you go off with Mr. Ablethorpe – "

"Yes, Elsie," I said, a little taken aback by her tone, "but he seemed to know all about where to look, and he wouldn't tell me anything, though I asked."

"No, of course not," said Elsie sharply; "there will be a reward, you may depend. Then he will get it instead of you!"

I cried out against this, saying that she was not fair to Mr. Ablethorpe. But at the bottom of my heart I was not a bit sorry. The Hayfork Minister had such a curly head, and people made such a fuss about him – especially the women – that I wasn't a bit sorry to find that Elsie was not of their mind.

This gave me some assurance to go on.

"Well, and what did you do after that?" she said. And I was all on fire to tell her about the two granddaughters of Caleb Fergusson, who came all the way from London – how we had tea with them, how Mr. Ablethorpe stayed and talked with the one who thought no end of herself – that is to say, with Constantia, while I was compelled to go and keep the other one, Harriet, from getting into mischief.

At the very first word Elsie sat up straight in her chair. Then, even though I said nothing (it was no use entering into details) about Harriet Caw's taking my arm, Elsie pinched her lips and turned up her nose.

"You would like her awfully!" I said. "She's as nice as can be."

"Oh!" was all that Elsie said, and she reached for the knitting which lay within reach.

"Very likely!" she added as she adjusted the stitches, some of which had slipped off, owing to my having sat down on it when I first came in.

"Yes," I continued, in a kind of quick, fluttering voice – I could hear so much myself – "she comes from London, but she does not put on any airs. And she does not like me at all!"

"Ah," said Elsie, "and pray how did you find that out?"

So I told her all about Harriet running away because I was so stupid, and her meeting with Mad Jeremy. I said as little about my going at him with an open knife as I could. For, after all, that was a foolish thing to do. But I told Elsie about Harriet Caw fainting, and as much as I could remember about Harriet running home and slamming herself in her room.

And all the time the atmosphere in that room was getting more and more chilly, while Elsie herself would have frozen a whole shipful of beef and mutton right through the tropics.

"Well," I said when I had finished my tale, "she may have got a temper, but she is a nice girl and you will like her. We shall go and see her to-morrow – I told her about you, Elsie."

She flashed a look at me – like striking a vesta at night, it was.