Deep Moat Grange Part 2

Davie the poacher raised his hand in a discouraged way to his throat, and caressed it, feeling it all over like a doctor.

"I'm feared ye are no worth thrippens!" he said.

CHAPTER III

THE BAILIFF OF DEEP MOAT GRANGE

Elsie and I cheered him. We would do what we could, which truly was not much. But I promised for my father, whose arm was long in Breckonside, reaching even to East Dene. But the poacher shook his head.

"They will get poor Davie. They will put it on him--yes, for sure!" he repeated. And from this melancholy conclusion he was not to be moved.

He offered to accompany us, however, on our search. And we were glad of that, because we were quite sure of his innocence, and in such a case the difference between three and two is very marked. Two--you want to get close and rub shoulders. Three--you scatter and look the hedges.

We advised the old poacher to hide his fish under the bank, but, with strong good sense, he refused.

"They are Davie's only chance," he said, "there is just a possibility that there's an _aw-li-bi_ in Davie's basket. He has catched so many of the Duke's trouts since three this morning that they may think he could not have had the time to make away with a man as well!"

As we went he told us how the post carrier had got his mail bags from Miss Harbishaw, the postmistress, on the stroke of three that morning--"a fearful sight in a mustard-coloured flannel dressing gown"--Davie described her. He himself had stood on the other side of the mail cart, well in the shadow.

"Did Miss Harbishaw see you?" Elsie asked.

"Well," said the poacher, "I would not just make so bold as to say.

She might have seen my legs, mixed up with Bess's piebald stockings.

But I keeped fairly quiet, not wanting her to spot the fishing basket on my back."

Davie was not stupid, and he saw clearly enough that it was the best thing he could do if Harry Foster were really dead, to go and help look for his murderer. So he came along with us, telling us of the talk he had had with the carrier in his cart.

"I was telling stories, and we were wonderful merry!" he admitted.

"How far did you go with him?" we asked.

"To where the road dives into the wood like a rabbit!" he answered.

"Here!" he cried, suddenly throwing up his hand.

And there, plain enough to be seen, were the marks of Davie's boot heels as he had leaped upon the bank from the post gig.

"Then I crossed the d.y.k.e and went down to the waterside."

From that point, as you may suppose, we followed carefully the marks of the wheels. The pony had been going no faster than a walk. The tracks were deeply impressed, and as it was damper under the trees, you could even see where Piebald Bess had been sparing her lame foot, which, of course, she would not have the chance of doing when pushed to a trot.

Then Davie came to a halt, Elsie just behind him. There was nothing particular, only the ground was pawed and cut about in little crescent discs, as if a horse had got wearied standing and wanted to get on.

Then beyond that the wheel ruts were much deeper than before.

"He has talked to somebody, he has taken other pa.s.sengers here," cried Davie, "and I never heard them--fool that I was--thinking of nothing but the Duke's silly trout in the burn yonder."

Without speaking we followed on, till the Brom Water, slow, deep, and still, lay before us. It was strictly preserved, and we boys dared not visit it for fear of the fishery watchers and keepers, who were up to all sorts of tricks to catch us. Only old hands like Davie dared such a thing, and even they chose their time.

The road went across a bridge, a high-arched, old-fashioned structure, which I liked coming over in our light cart, because of the curious "hunch" it gave you as if you were on a swing. And close in by the bridge and on the near side of it, we came at last on what we had come out to look for--the signs of a struggle, the wheel tracks confused and partly up on the bank, the traces of many feet, very indistinct owing to the hard, dry ground, and (what took all our eyes) a dark irregular patch on the left side of the road, which had filled and overflowed the deep furrow of a track.

It did not need any doctor's certificate to tell us that that was blood, and we knew very well that we stood where poor Harry Foster had been foully dealt with. But of the carrier himself we could see nothing. The pony had bounded ahead at full speed, and for Davie's sake we thought it best not to go farther. Because the people who were coming along the Breckonside road might easily cover over the tracks or destroy them, crowding to see.

So we went to meet the first of them at the place where Davie Elshiner had wished his benefactor a good morning and jumped on the bank, with the last jest on his lips. We were just in time. Codling, our fat policeman, was there, and he took up Davie on the spot, warning him that all he might say would be used against him.

"I don't care," said Davie. "I will tell all I know, and that's little enough--more shame to me for going after trouts with poor Harry so near his end."

The village men scattered to search the wood and the waterside, finding nothing but sundry "stances" where the angler had stood while fishing, and the nook in which he had slept among the bracken, with the marks of our feet as we went toward him from the stile.

We started off home without making any more discoveries, and as we went Elsie pointed up to the firs above our heads.

"What sort of leaves were in the cart when we saw it?" she asked me suddenly.

"Some kind of big, broad leaves--oak, I think," I answered, for indeed, I had paid no very great attention.

"Well," she said, "will you please tell me where big, broad leaves came from in Spar hawk Wood?"

And then I saw how true it was--the thing that she meant to say. There were only tall Scotch firs in the Sparhawk, and not a low-growing tree or one with a leaf upon it! Only pine needles and fir cones.

"We will come back in the morning," I said to Elsie, "and see what we can find. Piebald Bess never came back this road!"

"As, indeed, we might have seen before this by the single tracks," she added. And, indeed, it was no great discovery after all. But old Codling and the village men just took it for granted, and as many of the farmers and even my father came in conveyances there was soon no lack of tracks all over the road.

But Elsie and I kept our counsel and made tryst for the morning. It is terrible to get bitten with the wanting to find out things. The more you know the more you want to know.

Next morning it was still and clear, with a promise of heat. Elsie had asked Nance Edgar if she could go, but I had dispensed with asking my father. Indeed, so long as he was a.s.sured that I was the cleverest boy in school, and at the top of the topmost cla.s.s, he did not trouble much about me, having other things on his mind. And Mr. Mustard was always ready to tell him all that. Besides it was true. I was not so clever as Elsie, and I did not pretend to be. But I could lick everybody in Breckonside school into fits, and the master was cowed of my father. I think he would have let me sit on his tall hat!

This morning was a Friday, as I remember, and there were plenty of men searching the moor, prowling about the woods, some with picks and shovels, some just with their hands in their pockets. They were looking for Harry Foster. The East Dene police, too, were all about the edges of Sparhawk Wood, as important as if they knew all about it but wouldn't tell. One of them, posted by the big, black patch to keep people off, first told us to go back, and then asked where we were going.

Elsie merely told him that so far as she knew the road went further--on to Bewick Upton, in fact.

"Are you the kids that came across the moor and found this--and the prisoner?"

To make him civil we told him we were, but that Davie Elshiner was surely innocent and would not harm a fly.

"That's as may be," said the policeman; "what did he say when you woke him?"

We told the man that Davie was afraid of being suspected, having been last seen with the missing man, also how he was sure that because he was a known poacher people would not believe him.

"Aye," said the policeman, nodding his head dreadfully wisely, "indeed, he was right to say that. Ah, a bad conscience is our best friend! It is indeed!" And everything we could say in favour of Davie seemed just to tell against him, so that we had to be content with saying that he was the person least likely to do such a thing, because he would certainly be suspected, and that they might as well suspect us.

This last remark seemed to impress the policeman, who pulled out a fat notebook and solemnly jotted it down before our eyes.

"It's a good rule in our business," he said slowly, "to suspect the least likely persons. Thank you very much for your interesting communication--thank you very much, indeed!"

"Ah, you're dotty!" I called out to him in a sudden fume of anger, and left him standing there and slowly buckling up the flap of the inside pocket in which he had stowed away his precious notebook.

Now I am not going to pretend that Elsie and I found anything very grand that day, for we didn't. But at any rate we knew for certain how Dappled Bess came home, and where the leaves came from. It was all simple enough and quite natural. The poor beast had got a fright by the bridge on the Bewick road. She turned off it, therefore, as soon as she could. We found the wheel tracks leading away to the left along a rough moor track. The cart had been going fast, evidently empty or at least very lightly laden. For there was little depth to the impression even in fairly mossy places, but the rocks and stones were b.u.mped and scarred with the iron tire as the wagon rebounded from side to side.