Deep Moat Grange

It crossed the Pond obliquely, evidently making for the entrance of the Backwater. I could not follow directly. You see, I was constrained to cross at the drawbridge. But, between ourselves, I burned the path under my feet. I have many times run fast, but never so quickly as then. Talk about second wind – second courage is worth ten of it any day; quite as real, too, though less talked about.

It seemed a dreadful long way round about, and my heart was as much in my mouth now lest I should lose It, as it had been before, lest It should find me.

But I got there just ahead.

As I expected it had turned down the long, straight cut of the Backwater, and was swimming straight toward me. Now, thought I, I will surely see what the Thing is. But I could only make out – vague, round, and shining, a head that turned this way and that in swimming.

Suddenly the speed was checked. The swimmer, whatever it might be, turned sharply, searched a little, and appeared to hesitate. I took a step and bent forward to listen. A rotten branch cracked sharply under my careless foot. There was a sort of "wallop" like a seal or sea lion turning off a spring-board into a pond. Then came the sharp click of sliding iron. A square of darkness yawned in the canal bank. Something entered, and the door shut with several jerks like machinery in infrequent usage. The Thing had vanished. I was alone with the new terror of the woods of Deep Moat Grange.

Nevertheless I had had a certain lesson some time before. I could not again be altogether deceived. It was something human, though in all probability just so much the more dangerous and cruel for that. He, or she, knew the secret of the iron door which Mr. Ablethorpe had made me enter.

There was, therefore, at least one still left of the devil's brood in their ancient haunts, and the sooner that the world was warned, the better. Or, at least, I would tell my father, and he would get together a few determined men, who would not be afraid to act according to their consciences and the necessities of the case.

As for fear, it had clean gone from me. A kind of singing came into my head instead, but not in my ears, which seemed to act with extraordinary acuteness. After all it was splendid to know what no one else on earth knew. Besides, I would show them all, especially Elsie, what I could do, acting alone. They despised me, laughed at me, yet here was I I had been away all day, without food, without a soul thinking about me or caring for me. Nevertheless I, Joe Yarrow, whom everybody thought an idler, a mere waster of precious time, would spring this news upon the world!

And so I might, but for one thing.

To get away I had to pass the wall of the old orchard and the flagstone on which Mr. Ablethorpe and I had seen Mad Jeremy stamping down with such force. Now, if I had not been such a conceited young man (my father's words), or so taken up with getting the better of Elsie (that young person's own opinion), I would have known that any of the crew who knew the secret of the iron door and the bricked passage would also be sure to know that of the flagstone and the way out by the orchard.

But at any rate it did not occur to me at the time. I thought solely about getting home, arming a band, and coming to watch for the scratcher of the lily beds, the swimmer of the Backwater, the creature which had opened and shut the iron door – no easy task, as we knew, Mr. Ablethorpe and I.

So I skirted the water edge of the old orchard hastily. Some stones had rolled down from the coping, and the walking was difficult. But there was still a good deal of light, as soon as I had turned the corner. For the west was bright with a late golden afterglow. Quite useful it was.

I was just about the middle, just where the gates with their broken blazons had stood, for it had been a swell place once. Also there was a short cut across to the Bewick road. I passed between the damaged stone posts, which, however, still stood upright. As I did so, something sprang at me with the growl of a hungry tiger. I had hardly time to glance up, and even then I could see no more than a vaguely shining head, and an arm uplifted to strike, with something glittering in it like a crescent moon.

There was no time for defence. There was no time for escape. The Thing, beast, or man – more beast-like now than human – was upon me and bore me down. But even while the danger was in the air, I heard a sound which appeared to me not at all like a shot – more like a spit of fire when a log sparks on the hearth. And in a moment I was prone on my face, bruised and beaten down by the weight. I heard a jangle of steel. I supposed that I was wounded – that this was the end. And with the Thing heavy on the top of me, I fainted away.

CHAPTER XL

WANTED – A PENNY IN THE SLOT

When I came to myself the moon had risen – risen good and high, too – for it showed well above the orchard wall where it was broken, and over the palisades with which Hobby Stennis had mended it with his own hand.

Elsie was seated by me. She had opened up my coat, and undone my waistcoat and shirt at the neck. There was a pleasant coolness, and she was slopping about with a wet handkerchief – not very big, indeed, being one of her own, and better adapted for dabbing dry girls' eyes, than for recovering a man out of a faint.

I sat up.

"How did you come here?" I said.

"How did you?" she answered, very shortly; "lie still!"

"Shan't!"

"Still in the sulks?"

"I say, Elsie, what was that?"

"What?"

I was looking all about, you may be sure, and a little way off under the shadow of the great broken-down gates of the orchard, I saw a heap lie darkly, curiously loose and stretched out, a kind of wisp in the form of a man, something like a Guy Fawkes dragged through water instead of fire.

I pointed to it. The head, to my eyes at least, still glowed faintly phosphorescent.

"That!" I said briefly.

"That," said Elsie calmly, "is Mad Jeremy!"

I started up on my elbow in great astonishment.

"Then he wasn't dead after all, when he jumped into the water from the top of the tower the morning of the burning?"

"It seems not – it was only a little habit of his," said Elsie calmly, "but he is now! I killed him."

"Why?"

"Because he would have killed you, if I had not! He was waiting for you to pass. Only, as it happened, I had been waiting longest. I knew you were in the sulks, and came to find you. Besides – he killed my grandfather."

"But your grandfather – "

"No matter – he was my grandfather!"

"And what did you kill him with?" I was sitting up now, quite myself, and intensely curious. Elsie always says that merely wanting to know will restore me quicker than a whole apothecaries' hall.

She affected not to hear.

"You can't do without me after all!" she taunted. "I know."

"Don't you mind having killed him?" I asked. As for me I should have been fairly cut out of my mind if I had done as much.

"Of course I care," she answered; "didn't I tell you he killed my grandfather?"

Then it was that I began to believe that after all there was something in blood. And I resolved, there and then, that when Elsie and I were married I should behave, and give her no cause to take an odd shot at me.

"But what did you do it with?" It was the second time of asking.

"Dum-dum!" said she.

"What!" I cried; "then my father gave you that beautiful long-barrelled Webley he took from me?"

"Well, don't sulk about it – there's no time!" she cried. "Of course he gave it to me – as soon as you had gone out – said I might need it, with all the excitement among the Bewick pit folk. So I had a special pocket made for it, and I have carried it about ever since. This is the first chance I've had, though!"

I looked at her in astonishment. This was the girl who was afraid of mice.

"But don't you mind —that?" I pointed over my shoulder at the heap under the archway. The moon was creeping upward towards the zenith, and the light had now illuminated the dark face and wet, snaky curls of that which had been Mad Jeremy. I went nearer to look at him. I wanted to make sure that he was indeed dead.

The bullet had entered a trifle behind one ear, traversed the base of the skull, and come out by the opposite temple. This time there was no mistake – the creature was dead.

Two little crosses of white caught my eye, one over each bullet hole. She saw me bend down to examine them.