Dick o' the Fens Part 73

d.i.c.k tried to speak, but he could not frame a word.

"No; we heard it from somewhere down here," panted Tom.

"I heered it too," cried Jacob, "and wackened the mester."

"Ay, that's a true word," cried Hickathrift. "What does it mean?"

"Hicky," panted d.i.c.k in piteous tones, "I don't know--I'm afraid I--my father's out here somewhere."

"Hey! The squire?" cried Hickathrift with a curious stare at first one and then the other. "Yow don't think--"

He paused, and d.i.c.k replied in a whisper:

"Yes, Hicky, I do."

"Here, let's search about; it's getting light fast. Now, then," cried the wheelwright, "yow go that way, Jacob; I'll go this; and you two lads--"

"No, no," said d.i.c.k. "It must be somewhere close by here, near the water. Let's keep together, please."

"Aw reight!" muttered the wheelwright; and following d.i.c.k they went as close to the water's edge as they could go, and crept along, with the bushes and trees growing more plain to view, and the sky showing one dull orange fleck as the advance guard of the coming glory of the morn.

They went along for a couple of hundred yards in one direction, but there was nothing to be seen; then a couple of hundred yards in the other direction, but there was nothing visible there. And as the light grew stronger they sought about them, seeing clearly now that the ghastly figure d.i.c.k dreaded to find was nowhere as far as they could make out insh.o.r.e.

"Hillo!" shouted Hickathrift again and again; "squire!"

There was no reply, and the chill of horror increased as the feeling that they were searching in vain out and in pressed itself upon all, and they knew that the man they sought must be in the water.

"Here, howd hard," cried Hickathrift. "What a moodle head I am! You, Jacob, run back and let loose owd Grip."

The apprentice ran back as hard as he could, and the group remained in silence till they saw him disappear behind the shed. Then there was a loud burst of barking.

Hickathrift whistled, and the great long-legged lurcher came bounding over the rough boggy land, to leap at his master and then stand panting, open-mouthed, eager, and ready to dart anywhere his owner bade.

"Here, Grip, lad, find him, then--find him, boy!"

The dog uttered one low, growling bark, and then bounded off, hurrying here and there in the wildest way, while the boys watched intently.

"Will he find him, Hicky?" said d.i.c.k huskily.

"Ay, or anyone else," said the wheelwright, who alternately watched the dog, and swept the surface of the mere wherever the mist allowed.

"There! Look at that!" he cried, as, after a minute, the dog settled down to a steady hunt, with his nose close to the ground, and rapidly followed the track lately taken by someone who had pa.s.sed.

"But perhaps he is following our steps!" said d.i.c.k excitedly.

"Nay, not he. Theer, what did I tell you?" cried Hickathrift as the dog suddenly stopped by the water, opposite to a thick bed of reeds a dozen yards or so from the bank.

d.i.c.k turned pale; the wheelwright ran down to the edge of the mere; and as the dog stood by the water barking loudly, Hickathrift waded in without hesitation, the boys following, with Grip swimming and snorting at their side, and taking up the chase again as soon as he reached the reeds.

It was only a matter of minutes now before the dog had rushed on before them, disappeared in the long growth, and then they heard him barking furiously.

"Let me go first, Mester d.i.c.k," said Hickathrift hoa.r.s.ely. "Nay, don't, lad."

There was a kindly tone of sympathy in the great fellow's voice, but d.i.c.k did not give way. He splashed on through the reeds, his position having placed him in advance of his companions, and parting the tall growth he uttered a cry of pain.

The others joined him directly, and stood for a moment gazing down at where, standing on the very edge of the mere, d.i.c.k was holding up his father's head from where he lay insensible among the reeds, his face white and drawn, his eyes nearly closed, and his hands clenched and stretched out before him.

Hickathrift said not a word, but, as in similar cases before, he raised the inanimate form, hung it over his shoulder, and waded back to firm ground.

"Hey, Mester d.i.c.k," he said huskily, as he hurried towards his cottage, "I nivver thowt to hev seen a sight like this."

"No, no," cried d.i.c.k; "not there."

"Yes, I'll tak' him home to my place," whispered Hickathrift. "You'd scare your mother to dead. Here, Jacob, lad, don't stop to knock or ask questions, but go and tak' squire's cob, and ride him hard to town for doctor."

"Tell my father as you go by, Jacob," cried Tom excitedly; and as the apprentice dashed off, Tom's eyes met those of d.i.c.k.

"Don't look so wild and strange, d.i.c.k, old chap," whispered the lad kindly; and he laid a hand upon d.i.c.k's shoulder, but the boy shrank from him with a shudder which the other could not comprehend.

Hickathrift shouted to his wife, who had risen and dressed in his absence, and in a short time the squire was lying upon a mattress with Hickathrift eagerly searching for the injury which had laid him low; but when he found it, the wound seemed so small and trifling that he looked wondering up at d.i.c.k.

"That couldn't have done it," he said in a whisper.

The wheelwright was wrong. That tiny blue wound in the strong man's chest had been sufficient to lay him there helpless, and so near death that a feeling of awe fell upon those who watched and waited, and tried to revive the victim of this last outrage.

It was a terrible feeling of helplessness that which pervaded the place.

There was nothing to do save bathe the wounded man's brow and moisten his lips with a little of the smuggled spirit with which most of the coast cottages were provided in those distant days. There was no blood to staunch, nothing to excite, nothing to do but wait, wait for the doctor's coming.

Before very long Farmer Tallington arrived, and as he encountered d.i.c.k's eyes fixed upon him he turned very pale, and directly after, when he bent over the squire's couch and took his hand, the lad saw that he trembled violently.

"It's straange and horrible--it's straange and horrible," he said: "only yesterday he was like I am: as strong and well as a man can be; while now--Hickathrift, my lad, do you think he'll die?"

The wheelwright shook his head--he could not trust himself to speak; and d.i.c.k stood with a sensation of rage gathering in his breast, which made him feel ready to spring at Farmer Tallington's throat, and accuse him of being his father's murderer.

"The hypocrite--the cowardly hypocrite!" he said to himself; "but we know now, and he shall be punished."

The boy's anger was fast growing so ungovernable that he was about to fly out and denounce his school-fellow's father, but just then a hasty step was heard outside, and a familiar voice exclaimed:

"Where is my husband?"

The next minute Mrs Winthorpe was in the room, wild-eyed and pale, but perfectly collected in her manner and acts.

"How long will it be before the doctor can get here?" she said hoa.r.s.ely, as she pa.s.sed her arm under the injured man's neck, and pressed her lips to his white brow.

"Hickathrift's lad went off at a hard gallop," said Farmer Tallington in a voice full of sympathy. "Please G.o.d, Mrs Winthorpe, we'll save him yet."

d.i.c.k uttered a hoa.r.s.e cry and staggered out of the room, for the man's hypocrisy maddened him, and he knew that if he stayed he should speak out and say all he knew.

As he reached the little garden there was a step behind him, a hand was laid upon his shoulder, another grasped his arm.