A Tale of a Lonely Parish Part 29

"Yes," said poor Mrs. G.o.ddard, beginning to sob again, "but Walter--my husband--thinks that I--I care for Mr. Juxon--he is so jealous," cried she, again covering her face with her hands. The starting tears trickled through her fingers and fell upon her black dress. She was ashamed, this time, for she hated even to speak of such a possibility.

"I understand," answered Mr. Ambrose gravely. It certainly did not strike him that it might be true, and his knowledge of such characters as Walter G.o.ddard was got chiefly from the newspapers. He had often noticed in reports of trials and detailed descriptions of crimes that criminals seem to become entirely irrational after a certain length of time, and it was one of the arguments he best understood for demonstrating that bad men either are originally, or ultimately become mad. To men like the vicar, almost the only possible theory of crime is the theory of insanity. It is positively impossible for a man who has pa.s.sed thirty or forty years in a quiet country parish to comprehend the motives or the actions of great criminals. He naturally says they must be crazy or they would not do such things. If G.o.ddard were crazy enough to commit a forgery, he was crazy enough for anything, even to the extent of suspecting that his wife loved the squire.

"I think," said Mr. Ambrose, "that if you agree with me it will be best to warn Mr. Juxon of his danger."

"Of course," murmured Mrs. G.o.ddard. "You must warn him at once!"

"I will go to the Hall now," said the vicar bravely. "But--I am very sorry to have to dwell on the subject, my dear lady, but, without wishing in the least to know where the--your husband is, could you tell me anything about his appearance? For instance, if you understand what I mean, supposing that Mr. Juxon knew how he looked and should happen to meet him, knowing that he wished to kill him--he might perhaps avoid him, if you understand me?"

The vicar's English was a little disturbed by his extreme desire not to hurt Mrs. G.o.ddard's feelings. If the squire and his dog chanced to meet Walter G.o.ddard they would probably not avoid him as the vicar expressed it; that was a point Mr. Ambrose was willing to leave to Mrs. G.o.ddard's imagination.

"Yes--must you know?" she asked anxiously.

"We must know that," returned the vicar.

"He is disguised as a poor tramp," she said sorrowfully. "He wears a smock-frock and an old hat I think. He is pale--oh, poor, poor Walter!"

she cried again bursting into tears.

Mr. Ambrose could say nothing. There was nothing to be said. He rose and took his hat--the old tall hat he wore to his parishioners' funerals.

They were very primitive people in Billingsfield.

"I will go at once," he said. "Believe me, you have all my sympathy--I will do all I can."

Mary G.o.ddard thanked him more by her looks than with any words she was able to speak. But she was none the less truly grateful for his sympathy and aid. She had a kind of blind reliance on him which made her feel that since she had once confided her trouble and danger nothing more could possibly be done. When he was gone, she sobbed with relief, as before she had wept for fear; she was hysterical, unstrung, utterly unlike herself.

But as the vicar went up towards the Hall he felt that he had his hands full, and he felt moreover an uneasy sensation which he could not have explained. He was certainly no coward, but he had never been in such a position before and he did not like it; there was an air of danger about, an atmosphere which gave him a peculiarly unpleasant thrill from time to time. He was not engaged upon an agreeable errand, and he had a vague feeling, due, the scientists would have told him, to unconscious ratiocination, which seemed to tell him that something was going to happen. People who are very often in danger know that singular uneasiness which warns them that all is not well; it is not like anything else that can be felt. No one really knows its cause, unless it be true that the mind sometimes reasons for itself without the consciousness of the body, and communicates to the latter a spasmodic warning, the result of its cogitations.

To say to the st.u.r.dy squire, "Beware of a man in a smock-frock, one G.o.ddard the forger, who means to murder you," seemed of itself simple enough. But for the squire to distinguish this same G.o.ddard from all other men in smock-frocks was a less easy matter. The vicar, indeed, could tell a strange face at a hundred yards, for he knew every man, woman and child in his parish; but the squire's acquaintance was more limited. Obviously, said Mr. Ambrose to himself, the squire's best course would be to stay quietly at home until the danger was pa.s.sed, and to pa.s.s word to Policeman Gall to lay hands on any particularly seedy-looking tramps he happened to see in the village. It was Gall's duty to do so in any case, as he had been warned to be on the look-out. Mr. Ambrose inwardly wondered where the man could be hiding. Billingsfield was not, he believed, an easy place to hide in, for every ploughman knew his fellow, and a new face was always an object of suspicion. Not a gipsy tinker entered the village but what every one heard of it, and though tramps came through from time to time, it would be a difficult matter for one of them to remain two days in the place without attracting a great deal of attention. It was possible that Walter G.o.ddard might have been concealed for one night in his wife's house, but even there he could not have remained hidden for two days without being seen by Mrs. G.o.ddard's two women servants. The vicar walked rapidly through the park, looking about him suspiciously as he went. G.o.ddard might at that very moment be lurking behind any one of those oaks; it would be most unpleasant if he mistook the vicar for the squire. But that, the vicar reflected, was impossible on account of his clerical dress. He reached the Hall in safety and stood looking down among the leafless trees, waiting for the door to be opened.

CHAPTER XVII.

Mr. Juxon received the vicar in the library as he had received him on the previous day; but on the present occasion Mr. Ambrose had not been sent for and the squire's face wore an expression of inquiry. He supposed his friend had come to ask him the result of the interview with Mrs. G.o.ddard, and as he himself was on the point of going towards the cottage he wished the vicar had come at a later or an earlier hour.

"I have a message to give you," said Mr. Ambrose, "a very important message."

"Indeed?" answered the squire, observing his serious face.

"Yes. I had better tell you at once. Mrs. G.o.ddard sent for me this morning. She has actually seen her husband, who must be hiding in the neighbourhood. He came to her drawing-room window last night and the night before."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mr. Juxon. "You don't tell me so!"

"That is not the worst of the matter," continued the vicar, looking very grave and fixing his eyes on the squire's face. "This villainous fellow has been threatening to take your life, Mr. Juxon."

Mr. Juxon stared at the vicar for a moment in surprise, and then broke into a hearty laugh.

"My life!" he cried. "Upon my word, the fellow does not know what he is talking about! Do you mean to say that this escaped convict, who can be arrested at sight wherever he is found, imagines that he could attack me in broad daylight without being caught?"

"Well, no, I suppose not--but you often walk home at night, Mr.

Juxon--alone through the park."

"I think that dog of mine could manage Mr. G.o.ddard," remarked the squire calmly. "And pray, Mr. Ambrose, now that we know that the man is in the neighbourhood, what is to prevent us from finding him?"

"We do not know where he is," replied the vicar, thanking the inspiration which had prevented him from asking Mrs. G.o.ddard more questions. He had promised to save G.o.ddard, too, or at least not to facilitate his capture.

But though he was glad to be able to say honestly that he did not know where he was, he began to doubt whether in the eyes of the law he was acting rightly.

"You do not know?" asked the squire.

"No; and besides I think--perhaps--we ought to consider poor Mrs.

G.o.ddard's position."

"Mrs. G.o.ddard's position!" exclaimed Mr. Juxon almost angrily. "And who should consider her position more than I, Mr. Ambrose? My dear sir, I consider her position before all things--of course I do. But nothing could be of greater advantage to her position than the certainty that her husband is safely lodged in prison. I cannot imagine how he contrived to escape--can you?"

"No, I cannot," answered Mr. Ambrose, thrusting his hands into his pockets and biting his long upper lip.

"By the bye, did the fellow happen to say why he meant to lay violent hands on me?" inquired Mr. Juxon.

"Since you ask--he did. It appears that he saw you going into the cottage, and immediately became jealous--"

"Of me?" Mr. Juxon coloured a little beneath his bronzed complexion, and grew more angry. "Well, upon my word! But if that is true I am much obliged for your warning. Fellows of that sort never reason--he will very likely attack me as you say. It will be quite the last time he attacks anybody--the devil shall have his own, Mr. Ambrose, if I can help him to it--"

"Dear me! Mr. Juxon--you surprise me," said the vicar, who had never heard his friend use such strong language before.

"It is enough to surprise anybody," remarked the squire. "I trust we shall surprise Mr. G.o.ddard before night. Excuse me, but when did he express his amiable intentions towards me?"

"Last night, I believe," replied Mr. Ambrose, reluctantly.

"And when did he see me going into the cottage?"

"Yesterday afternoon, I believe." The vicar felt as though he were beginning to break his promise of shielding the fugitive, but he could not refuse to answer a direct question.

"Then, when he saw me, he was either in the cottage or in the park. There was no one in the road, I am quite sure."

"I do not know," said the vicar, delighted at being able to say so. He was such a simple man that Mr. Juxon noticed the tone of relief in which he denied any knowledge of G.o.ddard's whereabouts on the previous day as compared with his reluctance to answer upon those points of which he was certain.

"You are not anxious that G.o.ddard should be caught," said the squire rather sharply.

"Frankly," returned the vicar, "I do not wish to be instrumental in his capture--not that I am likely to be."

"That is none of my business, Mr. Ambrose. I will try and catch him alone. But it would be better that he should be taken alive and quietly--"

"Surely," cried the vicar in great alarm, "you would not kill him?"

"Oh no, certainly not. But my dog might, Mr. Ambrose. They are ugly dogs when they are angry, and they have a remarkable faculty for finding people who are lost. They used to use them in Russia for tracking fugitive serfs and convicts who escaped from Siberia."

Mr. Ambrose shuddered. The honest squire seemed almost as bloodthirsty in his eyes as the convict G.o.ddard. He felt that he did not understand Mr.