Deep Moat Grange

"Exactly. What we wanted, was, of course, to keep our League select. No one very swell, but well connected, and all most careful about appearances – "

"And my grandson in Nigeria brought home a lot of crocodiles and a rare postage stamp, or a rare crocodile and a lot of postage stamps – I am not sure which. Anyway, I would not have it. I said he could not keep both in my house. He must give either to the Zoo. But I don't know – "

And so on. It was fun, and now I like to remember it, though it does fill up the pages of my note-book even when I am writing very small. Still, it is always something to do.

Well, Miss Orrin was dressed just like these ancient hydropathickers. Only, she was as alert as a fox and as demure as a mouse, in spite of being in a kind of mourning, with a big jet crucifix on a thick jet chain. That was the only thing about her that was not as sober and serious as a fifty-year-old tombstone. She had such a lot of jet ornaments about her, all cut into symbolic shapes, that she moved with a clitter-clatter, just like a little dog walking on a chain with fal-de-rals on its collar.

But, withal, she had such a grave air that I never once thought of laughing. Miss Aphra was not a person to laugh at in the gayest of times.

"Miss Stennis," she said, "I know you have not been well received at the house of your nearest relative. I am acquainted with all the long-continued ill-usage so unjustly dealt out to your mother and yourself. Long have I tried my best to bring your grandfather to a better frame of mind. But he is a dour old man – indurated, impervious to good influence. But what I was unable to do all these years, the near approach of death has brought about. When the angel Israfel passes upon his wings of darkness, then the heart hears and is afraid!"

At these last words she showed a countenance as it were transfigured. It was the first glimpse of her former madness that I observed about the woman.

"But what do you wish me to do?" I asked, knowing well that she would not seek me without a purpose.

"Your grandfather, Mr. Howard Stennis, is dying," she said solemnly. "He has had a stroke, and may pass away at any moment. Two doctors from Longtown and East Dene have come all the way to visit him. They give no hope. But he gets no rest, crying out constantly that he cannot die without seeing you. And you must come instantly. I am here to beseech you. Behold in me the spirit of a father pleading for a daughter's forgiveness."

She seized me by the arm. In a sudden access of terror, I wrenched myself free, and instantly Miss Orrin began to sob. She sank on her knees before me.

"I know I have no right to ask," she said. "You have been shamefully treated, and have no need to forgive. But as you hope for pardon yourself, hasten and come to your grandfather, that he may hear you pardon him before he dies. If not, the sin of his uneasy spirit will be upon your head! Besides" – her voice dropped to a whisper – "there is something that he wishes to confess to you concerning your mother. It is on his conscience. He cannot die without telling you. Come – come! By the forgiveness you hope for yourself, or for those dear to you, I bid you come!"

I lifted her up, and obeying a sudden impulse, I turned with her down the lane which led from the corner where she had surprised me, away from the school-house. I cannot tell you how I came to do it. I had expected – why, I know not – some one else to meet me there. Well, I suppose I may say – Joe Yarrow. And the thought that he was philandering his time away with those Caws made me ready for almost anything.

Besides, I had been to Moat Grange House before. I knew that Mr. Ablethorpe went there regularly, and that he had services with the poor mad folk. So I was not nearly so afraid of Aphra Orrin as I had been.

It was bright and clear still, though the morning was overcasting a little, as we passed through the meadows. There is a private road most of the way till you enter the woods of Deep Moat. The people of the Moat Grange, therefore, never had any need to cross Brom Common or go the way that we had always taken – Joe and I – on our expeditions and researches.

All the way Miss Orrin talked incessantly of my grandfather, of how that he had been like a saviour to her poor sisters and herself, receiving them when they would have been shut up in an asylum, and of a certainty would have died there. She spoke also of his kindness to herself.

"They call him the Golden Farmer," she said. "And of a truth that is what he has been to us, for his heart is of pure gold."

I ventured to suggest that the folk of the countryside held a very different opinion of Mr. Stennis. But I could not have made a more unfortunate remark. In a moment the fire of madness flashed up from her eyes. The colour fled her lips. Her fingers twitched as if drawn by wires. She was again the mad woman I had seen leading the procession of the little coffins. "The folk of the countryside!" she screamed. "Ranging bears, wild beasts of the field! Oh, I could tear them to pieces! Gangs of evil beasts, slow bellies, coming here roaring and mouthing, trampling my lily beds, uprooting everything, laying waste the labour of years. Oh, I would slay them with my hands – yes, root out and destroy, even as Sodom and as Gomorrah!"

And suddenly lifting up her hands with the action of a prophetess inspired, she chanted —

O daughter of Babylon,
Near to destruction,
Bless'd shall he be that thee rewards
As thou to us hast done.

Yea, happy, surely, shall he be,
Thy tender little ones,
Who shall lay hold upon, and them
Shall dash against the stones.

I trembled, as well I might, at the fury I had unwittingly kindled.

We were now in the woods, the main travelled road far behind us, a complexity of paths and rabbit tracks all about, and before us a green walk, dark and clammy, upon which the snow had hardly yet laid hold. On one side rose up the wall of an ancient orchard, which they said had been planted and built about by the monks of old. On the other was the moat, still frozen, only divided from us by an evergreen fence, untrimmed, thick, and high, probably contemporary with the orchard.

Suddenly, at the entrance to this green tunnel, Aphra Orrin turned and grasped me by both wrists. Her face, as it glowered down at me, had become as the face of a fiend seen fresh from the place of the Nether Hate.

"Jeremy, Jeremy!" she cried. And at the sound of her voice it came to me that of a certainty I had fallen into a trap. This was not the road to the House of Deep Moat. I ought to have known better. I had been drawn hither solely to be murdered. I tried to scream, but could not. As in a dream, when one is chased by terrible things out of the Unknown, speech left me. I felt my knees weaken. And, indeed, had I been as strong as ever I was in my life, of what use would my strength have been? For there, at the entrance of the green tunnel, stood Mad Jeremy, smiling and licking his lips.

Meantime Aphra Orrin held me, shaking me to and fro as a terrier might a rat. She was as strong as most men – stronger, indeed, with the madness that was in her.

"Slay the daughter of Babylon! Slay her! Slay, and spare not!" she cried.

And while I stood thus, trembling violently, with that dreadful woman gripping my wrists so that she hurt them, Jeremy came leisurely up with his hands in his pockets – sauntering is the word that will best express it. He bent down and looked at me. For he was very tall. And I looked up at him with, I dare say, wide and terrified eyes. How indeed, could they be otherwise?

"Where is your knife?" cried Aphra Orrin. "Quick! Make an end – do as with the others! This is the last seed of iniquity. She will take from us our riches – all that should be ours – hard earned, suffered for, all that lies under the green turf – all you have won, Jeremy, and I have paid for twice over with weary nights of penance. That old man would steal it from us, from us who gained it for him, to give it all to this pretty china doll he calls his granddaughter!"

Had it been the will of Aphra Orrin at that moment, the opportunity would have been wanting for me to fill this copybook with these notes, to pass the weary time. For she loosened one hand, and snatched at the knife in Mad Jeremy's belt – the same we had once seen in his teeth when he swam the Deep Moat to get at Joe and me.

But happily, or so it appeared at the time, Mad Jeremy was in another humour. He thrust his sister off, and, as it seemed, with the lightest jerk of one hand he took me out of her clutches.

"Na, na," he said; "this dainty queen is far ower bonnie for a man like me to be puttin' the knife into as if she were a yearling grice. The knife for the lads that winna pay the ransom, if ye like. But a bonnie lass, and the heiress to a' the riches at the Grange – auld Hobby's hoards – I tell ye, her and me will do fine, Aphra! Let her be, Sis, or you and me will quarrel. Ay, ay, and maybe ye will find oot what the blade o' my gully knife is for. We will see if ye hae ony bluid o' your ain in your veins, Sis – you that's sae fond o' seein' the colour o' ither folks'!"

"Never – never! You lie, Jeremy!" cried Aphra. "I know nothing about that. I swear I am ignorant. As to Elsie Stennis, I did but jest. At any rate, she must not see her grandfather. He is in a foolish mood, and might take us from house and manor, roof and shelter, house and bedding – ay, all that by right belongs to us. Besides" – here she moved up closer to her brother – "she knows too much. She might prove a telltale, and then you, Jeremy, would be hanged – hanged by the neck till you were dead!"

She repeated the words with a space between each, sinking her voice till it ended in a hoarse whisper.

"Na, na!" cried Jeremy. "I but helpit the puir craiturs oot o' their misery. They cried na long. And then they wad be that pleased to hae nae mair trouble, but juist to lie doon agang the lily beds and forget a' the cares o' the warl'!"

"Hush, hush, Jeremy!" cried Aphra. "Think what you are saying, brother. But bethink yourself, brother dear, you must make an end now. The girl has heard too much, and that from your own lips."

Mad Jeremy ran his fingers through his long, glossy ringlets with something like a smirk.

"Na, na," he said, "I can better that! She shall bide in the cove behind the muckle oven, where three times a week Jeremy bakes the bread. She will be fine and warm there. Nothing to do but set her soles against the waa', and in a trice she will be as comfortable as a ha'penny breakfast roll. No like yin I could name – ha, ha! – freezin' in the – "

But this time Aphra fairly sprang upon him, putting her hand over his mouth to stop his speech.

"Oh, that I should be troubled with fools that know not their own folly," she cried – "I, that have given more than my life, almost my soul, for these poor things, my sisters and my brother, yet who will not be guided by me!"

Mad Jeremy laughed cunningly, or rather, perhaps, emitted a cackling sound.

"Be guided by you, Aphra?" he said. "No, and I don't think! Jeremy may be mad, but he kens a trick worth two of that. He will keep this little ladybird safe – oh, very safe, till the wedding dress is ready! Heiress if you like, sister. But then Jeremy will be the heir. And a bonnie, bonnie bride he will hae into the bargain. Come your ways, hinny – come your ways!"

He spoke to me with a curious, caressing voice, bowing low like a dancing master, with his broad bonnet in his hand, and making all sorts of ludicrous gestures to prove that I would be safe with him.

I did not know what to do. From the woman I had nothing to expect but a knife at my throat, and yet to accompany Mad Jeremy! That I could not do.

Suddenly I screamed aloud at the top of my voice, hoping that some one would hear me and come to my assistance. But Mad Jeremy only put his arm about me and covered my mouth with one great hairy paw.

"Gently then, lass – nane o' that, noo! It wanna do," he said, not angrily at all, but rather like one soothing an infant; "ye see there's nae workers in the fields thae winter days. And if there were hail armies, they wad kep wide o' the Deep Moat Wood, for they hae seen Jeremy gang in there a gye wheen times – ech, aye!"

And picking me up in his arms as easily as a babe, Mad Jeremy carried me into an ivy-covered ruin, and after that all was a labyrinth of passages and tunnels till I found myself in the place where I wrote these notes.

CHAPTER XXIII