Deep Moat Grange

At any rate, he felt bad, and I was sorry for him.

So I didn't throw the monstrous thingborium away, because he thought so much about it. I kept a tight hold of it, though, and said —

"Well, then, tell me if you know anything about my father!"

Mr. Ablethorpe sat down with his head between his hands, and groaned.

"Perfectly legitimate – perfectly legitimate – from your point of view," he said. "What am I to do? Seal of the confessional! I can't do it, yet I must satisfy Joseph."

Then he hit upon something.

"You know where the Rev. Cecil de la Poer lives," says he. "He is my spiritual director."

I knew him. The Reverend Cecil was another of the ultra-High Churchers, who lived about three miles off, and was a gentleman's private chaplain. He was, if possible, ten times more set on thingboriums et cetera than our Mr. Ablethorpe.

"Well," said the Hayfork, "I will write a private confession of all I know about the matter to my spiritual director. I will intrust you with the letter to deliver it to Mr. De la Poer. And if you open it, the sin will be on your head."

"That's all right," said I, cheerfully.

And he wrote something, and sealed, or, rather licked it, in an envelope which he had used for carrying his cards in. It was on one of these that he had written his confession. He went off home in a great hurry to put the thingborium into his safe, and I opened the letter to Mr. De la Poer behind the trunk of the first big tree.

All it said was just —

DEAR DE LA POER, – I have to communicate to you, under the seal of the confessional, that I have learned nothing whatever concerning Mr. Yarrow, of Breckonside village, at the house of Deep Moat Grange or elsewhere.

    Yours truly, R. ABLETHORPE.

So once more I had drawn blank.

CHAPTER XX

CONCERNING ELSIE

Now, I liked Mr. Ablethorpe, but after he had wrestled like that with his conscience, just to tell me that he knew nothing about the matter – well, I could have gone back and felled him. Why, his old conscience couldn't have made more fuss if he had known all about the murder – the hiding of the body – of a score of bodies, indeed. But then, with consciences, a fellow like me can't tell. It's like love, or sea-sickness, or toothache. If a fellow has never had them, he's no judge of the sufferings of those who have.

And that's what I always say to people when I hear of some new caper of the Hayfork Parson, or Rev. De la Poer, or any of that lot. "It's conscience," I say. "It takes them like that. It's uncommon, I grant, in Breckonside, but they've got it. So take a back seat, boys, and wait till the flurry's over!"

I am not going to go into detail of the search for my father, because what with the search for Harry Foster, and my father, and all that is yet to come, the book would just be all about folk trying to find out the mystery of the house on the farther side of the Deep Moat, and coming back, as they say in Breckonside, with their finger in their mouth.

Briefly, then, everybody searched and searched, but all to no purpose. Mad Jeremy was proved to have been miles away, and Mr. Stennis safe in Edinburgh, dining with his lawyer. He came home as full of rage as he could stick, and he threatened to bring actions for "effraction" and breaking open of lock-fast places, trespass, damage to property, and I don't know what all. But none of these things came to anything.

He threatened, but did not perform. And as for me, in those days I had enough to do with my mother, who had fallen into a frail state of both mind and body – she who had been so robust. And if it had not been for Elsie, who took care of her, coming to our house to do it, and even biding the night, I don't know what would have become of my mother.

You see, she had never believed that anything serious had really happened to my father, or that he was dead. And when any one tried to argue her out of it, she said: "Tell me, then, who it was that let the mare into the yard?"

And we dared not give her the answer that was uppermost in all our minds – that it was the murderer who had done it with my father's master-key.

I did not see much of Elsie, though she was in the same house with me, for I had the business to attend to, just as if my father was there – to take his place, I mean. Because I knew that he would wish it, so that if he came back he would be proud not to be able to put his finger on anything, and say, "This has suffered in your hands, Joe!"

Of course, I had men from Scotland Yard, and others searching for a long time. But they did no good except to prove that my father had left the fair at Longtown in good time, carrying with him (what was very curious) not the money in gold or notes, but a cheque payable to bearer on the bank at Thorsby. Well, that cheque had never been presented. This was fatal to our theory. For if my father had been killed for booty, he could only have had an old silver watch on him, with the guard made of porpoise bootlaces, and perhaps five or six shillings in silver; because he always gave trysts and fairs and markets a bad name, especially those so near the border as Longtown. They gathered, he declared, all the riffraff of two countries, besides all the Molly Malones and cutpurses that ever were born to be hanged.

This was all that could be got out of these wise men from London for the money I spent – my father's money, rather. They never traced him beyond half-way, where, at a lonely inn on the Crewe Moss, he had stopped to drink a cup of coffee and break a bite of bread before going farther.

Oh, I tell you that our big house, with its bricked yard, and all the fine, new outhouses, barns, storages for grain and fodder, was a lonesome place those days! And how much more lonesome the nights! I tell you that, after the men had gone home, the horses been foddered and bedded down in the stable, and the doors were locked (except the big centre one, which my mother would not allow to be touched), Bob Kingsman and I went about with a permanent crick in each of our necks, got by looking over our shoulders for a thing with a master-key, that could let in horses, and open doors, and leave no tracks behind it on the snow. It lurked in the dark when we turned corners, and many's the time we felt it spring on our shoulders out of the dusk of the rafters.

My, but Bob was scared! Me, too, when it came to pass – as it often did – that mother, in her moanings and wailings, sent me down to the yard gate to look for father. If anybody had spoken too suddenly to me then, I should have dropped. And as for Bob Kingsman, he slept in his little room with shuttered windows on both sides and barricaded doors, besides a perfect armoury of deadly weapons ready to his hand. He nearly shot himself more than once, monkeying with them.

I used to tell him that it was all nonsense. For, at any rate, a ghost wouldn't care for repeating rifles, or even 12-inch guns, let alone his old horse pistols, that would go off but one time in four.

But he only said, "Fudge, Joe! Ghosts don't need master-keys. They use keyholes, as a rule."

To which I answered that they couldn't put Dapple through a keyhole, as she, at least, was not a ghost, but hearty, and taking her oats well. He did not know exactly what to reply to this, but contented himself with saying, with the true Bob Kingsman doggedness —

"Well, if he comes, I will plug him."

"Then," said I, "if so be you do, see that it isn't the master you are loosing off at!"

For somehow it struck me that, after all, my father might have his reasons for keeping out of the way. He told us so little of his affairs, and I was always a great one for mysteries, anyway. If there was none about a thing, I didn't mind making up one. It didn't strain me any!

Yet now, when I come to think of it, these days with Elsie were very happy ones. Not that I got much out of it, but just the happiness of being in the same house with her. She was seldom out of my mother's room, except when she went downstairs to bring something – such as a soothing drink or a cloth-covered, india-rubber bag with hot water for her feet in the cold weather. Elsie slept in a little child's cot with a folding-down end at the foot of my mother's big bed. It was one of mother's queer ways about this time that she expected my father back all the time, and always had his place made down and his night things laid out every evening.

It was nice, though, to meet Elsie on the stairs. I dare say you have not forgotten how frequently, with an Elsie in the house, or any one like her, young people are apt to meet on the stairs, particularly at the dusky corner where the grandfather's clock is – you remember the place, just where you cannot be seen, either from above or below.

Of course, Elsie was cross with me, and said that she would go back to Nance's if I did not behave – that I ought to be thinking of other things, which was true enough. But, for all that, she did not alter her times of coming and going up and down the stairs, and she knew I had a watch. Ah, well, such days pass all too soon! But they are good while they last. And now, when I lie awake, I like to think it all over, taking every single time by itself. We were very young and very innocent then. We did not know what was the matter with us. As for Elsie, she would have boxed my ears if I had dared to tell her that I was in love with her; and I would have blushed to say the word.

She was my comrade, my friend, especially my sister – which is always a good lead with a nice girl. At least, I have found it so. Girls – the nice ones, I mean – are always longing to be somebody's sister – that is, if they have no brothers of their own. Then they know more about it, and are not nearly so keen. Actual brothers and sisters clout each other and fight like fun; but the kind of brother you can be to a nice girl sends poetry and flowers to his sister, and it is all right.

They drop the brothering after a bit, though. At least, that has been my experience – when, as it were, fraternity has served its purpose. Then I used to crib poems out of Keats and Byron and L.E.L., and change them about a bit to fit the "dear sister" dodge. And it worked first rate. Nobody ever found me out. And they asked no questions, because it was all so dreadful mysterious and romantic, and made their little hearts go pit-a-pat to have such a poetic brother. I was glad they did not ask me what I meant, because I never knew in the least myself.

However, this by the way of it.

It was first class to have Elsie right in the house, and a whole shelf-full of poetry down in the parlour cupboard, which father had taken over as part payment for a bad debt. The debt must have been a pretty bad one indeed for father to do such a thing. I think he meant some day to give them to the village library at Breckonside, but always put it off.

They came in as handy now as a hole in an orchard wall. And Elsie wondered why I had never shown myself quite so clever at school. I could easily have told her the reason, but didn't.

I had not found the shelf of poetry then, which father always kept locked. Besides, I did not want to muss up Elsie's young instincts, which were sprouting beautiful.

This was all very well, but the end of the Christmas holidays was approaching, when Elsie would need to go back to her teaching at Mr. Mustard's. I did not like to think about that. For not only would Elsie have to go back to the little Bridge End house where Nance Edgar lived, but I should have the whole care of my mother, which was no light matter.

And so I would have had; but one day old Mrs. Caleb Fergusson arrived. She had known mother from the time they were little girls together, and my mother called her Susy. And when she had heard all about the uselessness of Grace Rigley, our maid-of-all-work, who, really, said my mother, "was so handless that she dropped everything – worse than a man-body in a house! – and dirty! – and not to be trusted to rise in the morning! – and no washer, bless you! But oh, the trouble o' servant lassies in the country! Certes, it's enough to turn your hair grey! And grey mine would have been but that I ken my poor good-man is coming back, and it would never do for him to find me worn lookin' and aged like!"

And mother tried her best to smile. And I was as sorry as if it had all been my fault, just to see her.

Well, there was nothing but talk of this kind between Mistress Caleb Fergusson from the Common Farm and my mother. And I thought they were settled for hours, as comfortable as two old hens chunnering among the warm dust by a bankside. So, as I got pretty tired of such talk, I sneaked out, and made a pretence to look at the firm's books – though John Brown, our cashier, knew all about them a thousand times better than I did. From there I stepped over to the packing and despatching department, where I put off the best part of an hour.

For though I can stand the steady ditter-clatter of old folks' tongues for a good while in the dark – when I can sit near Elsie and, if she will let me (as a brother) hold her hand – it takes me all I know to put in ten minutes of it in broad daylight, my poor mother with her eye on me (her only hope and pride!), and telling the Pride every other minute for goodness' sake not to fidget in his seat!

Well, what I am going to tell is almost unbelievable. But when I came in, there in the little room that had been my father's office – which he had placed at the right hand of the entrance door, and as far away from the kitchen as possible, on account of Grace Rigley and her like – sat Elsie.