Deep Moat Grange

"But the beginning of evil days was at hand. I have always noticed it. Man cannot long be left in peace, even among the most favoured surroundings. Now I was doing no harm to any soul or body in all the surrounding parishes. Instead I did what good I could – spoke fairly and civilly, contributed freely to charities, helped more than one of my impoverished neighbours. But I will not conceal it from my successor (who alone is to read this manuscript) that all my good will was in vain, so far as gaining the affection and respect of the countryside was concerned. Yet for this, personally, I can conceive no reason. Those whom Jeremy took charge of were invariably strangers – men of loud, brawling character, generally semi-drunkards, trampling all laws of a quiet and respectable demeanour under their feet.

"While I myself, giving shelter to these poor creatures, the sisters Orrin – who without me would have been hunted from city to city – I, Howard Stennis, whose only dissipation or distraction was to weave the thronging fancies of flower and fruit into my napery – was no better respected than an outlaw dog. They called me the Golden Farmer, but it was with a sneer. None would willingly linger a moment to speak with me, not so much as one of Bailiff Ball's tow-headed urchins. If one of them met me in a lonesome path, as like as not he would set up a howl and dodge between my legs, running, tumbling, and making the welkin ring, as if I had been some black evil bogie!

"Yet, I am a man who all his life has loved children, and (with a few exceptions) carefully observed the courtesies as between man and man. When I consider how I have been served by friends and neighbours, many of whom I have repeatedly obliged, I am filled with surprise that I have kept the sphere of my operations so remote from my insulters. But then I have always, save perhaps in the case of my daughter Bell, been a forgiving man. Even now I cherish no enmity against those whose machinations have caused me to be suspected.

"It was about this time, when the first-planted lilies were beginning to sprout for the third season, that Jeremy, nosing, as usual, here and there, discovered the ancient underground rooms across the drawbridge. Immediately I saw the use they would be to us. Having been well brought up myself, I had always regretted the necessity of sending so many, mostly careless and godless men, to their account unwarned and unprepared. Such of them as could be induced to disgorge further sums of money besides those carried on their bodies might at least have some space for reflection and repentance. What I did not foresee was that the Orrins, with their low, mad-folks' cunning, would make use of these nests of chambers and hiding-places for their own ends, and thereby endanger everything which I had so wisely and so laboriously thought out.

"But for all that it was, as I have said, the beginning of the evil days.

"And as usual it was owing to my own carelessness. I have enough common sense to know that, nine times out of ten, men have themselves to thank for the misfortunes which befall them. It is only the born fool who goes from house to house and from friend to friend maundering about ill luck and an unkind Providence. Good luck, at least, is generally only the art of looking a good way ahead.

"I was away in Edinburgh, for the almanac told us that we were approaching the date of the Bewick Wakes. Jeremy was to make the acquaintance of a certain Lammermuir farmer with a well lined pocket-book. The lily bed, under which he was to lie, would just have made out Miss Aphra's pattern neatly – a thing concerning which she was most particular. I will not give his name; if this falls into the hands of a worthy successor he may one day scent the 'shot' out for himself. He speaks broad Lammermuir, wears glasses hooked round his ears, like a college professor, and generally has cut himself while shaving in more than one place. But at any rate he had a respite for the time being.

"For, without my knowledge, and quite apart from all my well-ordered designs, Jeremy in a mad, fierce fit fell suddenly upon the mail carrier betwixt Breckonside and Bewick. Very early in the morning it was done, and the place unsuitable and quite unsafe, being close by the bailiff's cottage. But that was not the worst. The mare belonging to the carrier postman (I knew him well, a decent quiet man, Henry Foster by name) ran wide and wild, made a circuit of the Deep Moat property and turned up in front of the school-house at Breckonside, the mail gig all blood and leaves, just as the innocent bairns were going in to say their morning's lessons.

"The rest of the business Jeremy had carried through well enough. He had sculled the body of Foster, properly covered with bark and brushwood, and laid it comfortably in the place intended for the Lammermuir farmer. He had taken the mail bags, such as appeared to have anything of value in them, turned them inside out, burned them in his baker's furnace, and hidden away the rings (which he could not melt) in some of his private caches.

"Yet when I asked him why he had done the deed at all, he would only reply, 'I saw Harry passing by, just when I had done whetting my knife, and I thought I would try it on him!'"

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE HOUSE OF DEATH

(The last Testimony of Miser Hobby is continued and concluded)

"It was in the days after the disappearance of Henry Foster, the mail-post carrier between Bewick and Breckonside, that I became aware of the increasing madness of those whom I had so rashly taken under my roof and protection. The younger sisters, especially Honorine, thought nothing of standing on walls screaming like peacocks, flapping their arms, and declaring that they were winged angels, ready on a signal from on high to fly upward into the blue. At such times Jeremy would take to his fiddle and lock himself in the top rooms of the house, especially affecting the tower chamber overlooking the Moat. He even refused on several occasions to go to work, though the business indicated was safe and remunerative enough. I had often observed with great interest the home coming of young Jamie Caig, of Little Springfield, a great taker of grass parks, a mighty dealer in well-wintered sheep and fat bullocks. On one occasion I watched him all the way from Longtown with the best part of a thousand pounds in his pockets.

"I remember that he had on a shiny white mackintosh, and I thought he would never leave the town, going into all sorts of foolish and expensive cook shops and toy bazaars to buy trinkets and knick-knacks.

"Then, after all, at the arch of trees on the Pond Road where the way narrows, there was no Jeremy – though I knew that the usual boat was moored within twenty yards – fifteen to be exact. Thus Caig, the younger, and his thousand pounds passed unharmed. In the dull light I could see him put his hand into an open packet of candy and take out a piece to suck it. He went by whistling, mocking at me, as it were – only that he was such a grown-up babe.

"But there was worse to come. At some risk to myself I followed behind. He never even looked over his shoulder, only quickening his pace as he got near to the tumble-down, out-at-elbows steading of Little Springfield which he had leased for himself.

"The inhabitants, one and all, must have been waiting for young Jamie Caig. For before I could turn away a troop of children issued out and rushed at him, taking him by escalade, routed out his pockets, even his wife and sisters taking part, and he all the time laughing. I never saw a more disgusting sight in my life.

"That night I broke in the door of Jeremy's room where he sat playing on the flute, and, with a revolver in one hand to keep him in awe, I thrashed him severely about the neck and shoulders with my cane. His sister said that it was the only way to teach him obedience.

"Indeed, Miss Orrin was a sensible woman, and at this time remained my only stand-by. So long as I supported the mad troop, I could count upon her, even though it perilled her soul. She aided me with her brother also, and from her I learned a thing about Jeremy which, though I am generally brave enough, I will admit disquieted me.

"Jeremy had taken to digging under the lily roots with his finger nails, and when checked for it by his sister, he said that he wanted to see whether Lang Hutchins, Harry Foster, and the others were 'coming up.' He added that there would be a resurrection some day, and he was scratching to see how soon it would happen. He did not want it to come unawares, when he was asleep, for instance.

"And he made even my well-trained blood run cold by laughing with chuckling pleasure, declaring that 'when they stick their heads through, Jeremy will be on hand to do his wark a' ower again! He will twine a halter round their necks as they are sproutin' and fill their mouths fu' o' clay. Then Jeremy will defy even Aphra to gar them rise again. There's nae word o' twa resurrections, ye ken! So Jeremy will do for them that time!'

"At other seasons, especially after he had been punished for scratching in the soil, he would cry like a child. He generally did this when Aphra whipped him. But in half an hour I would find him again among the lily beds, his hands all bound up in fingerless gloves, but his ear close down against the earth.

"'Wheesht – wheesht!' he would whisper, putting up a linen-wrapped stump to stay me. 'Listen to them knocking – they are knocking to get oot. Jeremy can hear them!'

"And though I raised him with the toe of my boot and made him be off into the house, yet his words shook my nerves so that I had to go into the weaving-chamber, where I was not myself till I had taken a good long spell at the loom.

"After some of the later disappearances, notably that of Harry Foster – for, as he was in some sort a public servant wearing a uniform, the postman's case received attention out of all proportion to its importance – the police would come about us, asking questions and taking down notes and references. There was nothing serious in that, though I was even asked to justify my alibi by giving the employ of my time during the day previous to 'the unfortunate occurrence' – unfortunate, indeed, for me and for all concerned – Harry Foster included. As, however, I had both lunched and supped with my old friend and lawyer, Mr. Gillison Kilhilt, and afterwards slept at his house, I could not have been more innocent if I had done the same with the Queen herself, God bless her!

"But it was not the police, rate-supported and by law established (whom I have always encouraged and aided in every possible way, entertaining them, and facilitating their researches and departures), that annoyed me. The little, mean, paltry spying of Breckonside and the neighbourhood was infinitely more difficult to bear.

"For instance, there was a boy – a youth, I suppose I should call him – one Joseph Yarrow, upon whose rich father I had long had my eye. If it had not been that he generally came in the company of my own granddaughter Elsie, his neck would soon enough have been twisted. But as it was, he put us to an enormous amount of trouble. One never knew when he would be spying about, and once, by an unfortunate mistake of my own, I introduced my granddaughter and this intrusive young good-for-nothing into a barn of which our mad people had been making a kind of chapel of Beelzebub.

"There was also a High-Church clergyman – a kind of mission priest, I think he called himself – come north with a friend to convert the Scotch. He took it into his head that, not making great progress with the sane of the neighbourhood, he might perhaps have better luck with Miss Aphra and her private asylum!

"And I must say that he had. The processions and peacock screamings went on, but there was an end of skulls and little coffins and crossbones knocked together like cymbals as they marched. Instead, they had tables with crucifixes, and confessionals, and all sorts of paraphernalia in gold lace and tags. Mr. Ablethorpe (that was the High-Churchman's name) was pleased and proud. Four at once, sane or insane, was an unprecedented increase to his scanty flock. And as for him everything depended upon the proper taking of the sacraments, it was all right. Honorine and the rest would take them, or anything else, twenty times an hour.

"But in addition there was 'confession,' and you may be sure I went carefully into that business with Miss Aphra. However, she reassured me.

"'These poor ones' (so she always named her sisters, Honorine, Camilla, and Sidonia) 'know nothing about it. And as for me, I confess only what will not endanger the shelter of the roof which covers us. Because of that I am willing, for some time longer, to retain unconfessed and unforgiven sin on my soul!'

"This sounded all right to me. But, fool that I was, as usual my confiding nature put me in danger. If I had suspected that some day that same Mr. Ablethorpe, whom I had received and warmed like a snake in my bosom, would carry off not only Honorine and her two mad companions to one of his patent sisterhoods (even Aphra herself fleeing, probably to join them later) leaving me (as I am at present) alone with Jeremy to face the storm – well, I would have nipped in the very bud the propagation of erroneous and Romanist doctrines. I have always been conscientiously opposed to these in any case!

"It was the increasing waywardness of the entire Orrin family which threatened to be the ruin of all my carefully planned scheme. If only I could have kept them as I first got them – Jeremy docile and comparatively easy of influence even in his hours of wildness, Aphra sage and wise in counsel, with a firm hand over the others, and all that property of Deep Moat Grange so excellently laid out, as if on purpose for our operations!

"But, alas! Folly no more than wisdom will stand still. If only they had been like my web, full of subtle combinations and devices which none could work out in full beauty save myself, yet abiding still and waiting for my hand without the changing of a stitch! The Orrins were no more than my loom wherewith to spin gold – but – they would not bide as they were during my absences, however short.

"The worst of it all was that, having once begun to operate on their own accounts, though most unfortunately and ill advisedly, they would no longer confine themselves to legitimate business. Not only Jeremy, but even Aphra must needs try to realize the most fantastic and impossible combinations, like some poor drudging weaver who should attempt to execute one of my patterns. It was not in them, the hare-brained, mauling crew, and naturally enough they spoiled the web.

"First of all, there was the affair of that young vagabond's father, the rich shopkeeper at Breckonside – rich, that is, not as I am rich, but rich for a little town village anchored down on a dozen miles square of fertile lands between the Bewick marshes and the uplands of Cheviot.

"Now, I had always had it in my head that some day a trifle might be made out of this Joseph Yarrow, senior. But he was a bold, straight-dealing man, who knew that the nearest bank, or a good investment through his lawyer, was the best way of keeping his head whole on his shoulders. He went and came ostentatiously along both our roads, by night or day – it mattered little to him. He had never more than five shillings and a brass watch in his pockets. All his business he did by cheque, and he was not at all ashamed to enter a shop, or even accost a man on the street of a town where he was known, and ask for the loan of five shillings – which was certain to be returned on the morrow, with a pot of home-made jam or some delicacy from the crowded shelves of his shop.

"Most people liked dealing with this man Yarrow. As for me, I never could bear him. He had a scornful eye, not questing, like his son's (whose neck I could twist), but merely sneering – especially when, at distant market towns, he would hear me addressed as 'Laird,' which is my rightful title. At such times he would smile a little smile that bit like vitriol, and turn away. And I knew well enough that he was thinking and saying to himself – 'Miser Hobby – Miser Hobby!' Still, had I had the sense to look at the matter in the right light, this should have cheered me – that he only despised me, I mean. For if Joseph Yarrow, the cleverest man in all the neighbourhood, was not calling me 'Murderer Hobby,' then I was safe from all the rest. But so curious a thing is man, and so much harder to bear is scorn than the worst accusation of crime, that it was often on my tongue tip to jolt his self-complaisance with a little inkling of the truth.

"All the same, I laid it all up against him – some day I would catch him coming home with a goodly sum. So, after long thought, I arranged that a letter should be sent to warn him that one Steve Cairney, a slippery 'dealer' who had long owed him a large amount, would be at the Longtown Fair to sell horses, and that it was now or never. The thing was true. Nothing, indeed, could be truer. Jeremy was forewarned, and all should have passed off easily and fitly as the drawing on of an old glove. But because that fool Jeremy had seen instruments of music (of which he is inordinately fond) by the score and gross in Yarrow's shop down at Breckonside, he must needs put the man into a cell behind the Monks' Oven, instead of finishing the matter out of hand. Aphra also mixed herself up in the affair, urging Yarrow, who must have had an excellent idea where he was, to sign the cheque they had found on him, as if that made any difference! I know a man in Luxembourg who will give two-thirds value on a cheque drawn on a sound account, and, in addition, provide the signature from any reasonable copy. It is never the first owners who lose with such things. There were plenty of Yarrow's receipted bills about the house, and there need have been no difficulty about that. But unhappily I was from home, and so everything went to pigs and whistles.

"Then it pleased Miss Orrin to take a violent jealousy of my granddaughter, Elsie Stennis, and to sequester her somewhere about the premises, which, of course, brought the storm about our ears in full force. With this folly, worse than any crime, I am glad to record that I had nothing whatever to do. Doubtless the business was carried out by Jeremy under the orders of his sister Aphra. I have at least this to be thankful for, that as long as I retained the full and entire direction of affairs Deep Moat Grange might have been called the vale of peace and plenty.

"Then came Parson Ablethorpe, who in collusion, most likely, with his missionary associate – De la Poer, I think he calls himself – spirited off the women, Aphra last of all. It was a case of rats leaving a sinking ship. Had it not been for the loss of Miss Aphra, for whose character I had some respect, I should have been glad to see the last of them. But as soon as the influence of his sister was removed, Jeremy became wilder and madder than ever. I could see him on moonlight nights creeping about among the lily clumps, digging here and scraping there, his hands and feet bare and earth-stained. Then, seated tailorwise among the mould, he would play strange music on his violin, and laugh. On dark nights it was not much better. I could not see him, it is true. But I could hear him digging and panting like a wild beast, or laughing to himself, and then stopping suddenly to croon, 'Down Among the Dead Men!'"

*****

"This," said Mr. Fiscal McMath, "is the last entry in what purports to be a narrative or diary." He turned to another leaf left behind in the house and recovered by the searchers.

"Ah," he said, "here is yet another paragraph. It is dated 'February 10, morning," and runs as follows: "'Came home to an empty house. Jeremy madder than ever, playing and laughing about the house – nothing to eat. Dined with Ball at the bailiff's cottage. I did not like the way Jeremy looked at me when I refused him money. But it is he or I for the mastery. In case of anything happening, the lines which follow contain my last will and testament: I die at peace with all men, and I leave everything of which I die possessed to my granddaughter, Elsie Stennis!

"(Signed)

"HOWARD (sometimes called Hobby) STENNIS."

"The wretch! The villain! The robber!" cried Aphra Orrin, for a moment forgetting her role of penitent – "to take from us who earned in order to give all to a stranger!"

"Elsie will never touch a penny of it!" I shouted, but my voice was lost in the universal howl.

"The woman stands fully committed – take her away!" cried the sheriff.