Freaks on the Fells: Three Months' Rustication Part 18

"Why, Moggy, you are all wet!" said Fred, hastening towards her.

"Ay, I fell into a dub as I cam out o' the kirk. But, ech! sirs, I've heard blessed words this day."

The Sudberrys spent that evening in their usual way. They went to a particular spot, which Lucy had named the Sunny Knoll, and there learned hymns off by heart, which were repeated at night, and commented on by Mr Sudberry. After supper they all got into what is called "a talk."

It were presumptuous to attempt to explain what that means. Everyone knows what it is. Many people know, also, that "a talk" can be got up when people are in the right spirit, on any subject, and that the subject of all others most difficult to get up this "talk" upon, is religion. Mr Sudberry knew this; he felt much inclined at one time that night to talk about fishing, but he laid strong constraint on himself; and gave the conversation a turn in the right direction. The result was "a talk"--a hearty, free, enthusiastic communing on the Saviour, the soul, and eternal things, which kept them up late and sent them happy to bed--happier than they had yet been all that season.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER 19.

A STRANGE HOME-COMING.

Master Jacky made two discoveries next day, both of which he announced with staring eyes and in breathless haste, having previously dashed into the parlour like a miniature thunderbolt.

The first was that the bathing-pool was clean swept away by the floods, not a vestige of it being left. The whole family rushed out to see with their own eyes. They saw and were convinced. Not a trace of it remained. Even the banks of the little stream had been so torn and altered by gushing water and tumbling rocks that it was almost impossible to say where that celebrated pool had been. The rains having commenced again on Monday, (just as if Sunday had been allowed to clear up in order to let people get to church), the family returned to the house, some to read and sketch, Mr Sudberry and George to prepare for a fishing excursion, despite the rain.

The second discovery was more startling in its nature. Jacky announced it with round eyes and a blazing face, thus--

"Oh! ma, old Moggy's d-dyin'!"

The attractive power of "sweeties" and a certain fondness for the old woman in the boy's heart had induced Jacky to visit the hut so frequently, that it at last came to be understood, that, when the imp was utterly lost, he was sure to be at old Moggy's! He had sauntered down, indifferent to rain, to call on his friend just after discovering the destruction of the bathing-pool, and found her lying on the bundle of rags which const.i.tuted her bed. She was groaning woefully. Jack went forward with much anxiety. The old woman was too ill to raise herself; but she had sufficient strength to grasp the child's hand, and, drawing him towards her, to stroke his head.

"Hallo! Moggy, you're ill!"

A groan and a gasp was the reply, and the poor creature made such wry faces, and looked altogether so cadaverous, that Jacky was quite alarmed. He suggested a drink of water, and brought her one. Then, as the old woman poured out a copious stream of Gaelic with much emphasis, he felt that the presence of some more able and intelligent nurse was necessary; so, like a sensible boy, he ran home and delivered his report, as has been already described.

Lucy and Fred hastened at once to the hut of the old woman, and found her in truth in a high fever, the result, no doubt, of the severe wetting of the day before, and having slept in damp clothes. Her mind was wandering a little when Lucy knelt at her side and took her hand, but she retained sufficient self-control to look up and exclaim earnestly, "I can say'd noo--I can say'd noo! I can say, _Thy will be done_!"

She became aware, as she said so, that the visitor at her side was not the one she had expected.

"Eh! ye're no' Miss Flora."

"No, dear granny, but I am quite as anxious to help you, and Flora will come very soon. We have only just heard of your illness, and have sent a message to Flora. Come, tell me what is the matter; let me put your poor head right."

Old Moggy submitted with a groan, and Lucy, a.s.sisted by Fred, endeavoured to make her bed a little more comfortable, while the anxious and staring Jacky was sent back to the house for some tea and a dry flannel gown. Before his return, however, Flora Macdonald, who chanced to be in the neighbourhood, came in to see Moggy, and immediately took the case in hand, in a way that greatly relieved Fred and Lucy, because they felt that she was accustomed to such incidents, and thoroughly understood what to do.

Hobbs, who came in a few minutes later with the Sudberry medicine chest, was instantly despatched by Flora for the doctor, and George, who entered a few minutes after that, was sent about his business, as were also a number of gossips, whose presence would ere long have rendered the small hut unbearably warm, but for Flora's decision.

Meanwhile all this unusual bustle had the effect of diverting the mind of the patient, who ceased to groan, and took to wandering instead.

Leaving them all thus engaged, we must beg the reader to accompany us to a very different scene.

It is a dense thicket within the entrance of the pa.s.s, to which reference has been made more than once. Here a band of wandering beggars or gypsies had pitched their camp on a spot which commanded an extensive view of the high-road, yet was itself concealed from view by the dwarf-trees which in that place covered the rugged hill-side.

There was a rude hut constructed of boughs and ferns, underneath which several dark-skinned and st.u.r.dy children were at play. A dissipated-looking young woman sat beside them. In front of this hut a small fire was kindled, and over it, from a tripod, hung an iron pot, the contents of which were watched with much interest, and stirred from time to time by a middle-aged woman of forbidding aspect. Beside her stood our amiable friend with the squint and the broken nose, who has already been mentioned as having received a merited thrashing from Mr Sudberry.

"Yes, the little brute has come back," said the gypsy, grinding his teeth in a way that might have led one to suppose he would have been glad to have had the "little brute" between them.

"Serves ye right for stealin' him away!" said the woman.

"Serves me right!" echoed the man, bitterly. "Did I not vow that I would have my revenge on that old witch? Did she not stand up in court and witness again' me, so that I got two year for a job that many a fellow gits off with six months for?"

"Well, you know you deserved it!" was the woman's comforting rejoinder.

"You committed the robbery."

"So I did; but if that she-wolf had not made it out so bad, I'd have got off with six months. Ha! but I knew how to touch her up. I knew her weakness! swore, afore I left the dock, that I'd steal away the little cub she was so fond of--and _I did it_!"

There was a gleam of triumph in the gypsy's face as he said this, but it was quickly followed by a scowl when the woman said--

"Well, and much you have made of it. Here is the brat come back at the end o' five years, to spoil our harvest!"

"How could I know he'd do that? I paid the captain a goodish lump o'

tin to take him on a long voyage, and I thought he was so young that he'd forget the old place."

"How d'ye know that he hasn't forgot it?" inquired the woman.

"'Cause, I seed him not twenty miles from this, and heerd him say he'd stop at the Blue Boar all night, and come on here in the morning--that's to-morrow--so I come straight out to ask you wot I'm to do."

"Ha! that's like you. Too chicken-hearted to do any thing till I set you on, an' mean enough to saddle it on me when ye'r nabbed."

"Come, that's an old story!" growled the man. "You know wot _I_ am, and I knows wot _you_ are. But if something's not done, we'll have to cut this here part o' the country in the very thick o' the season, when these southern sightseers are ranging about the hills."

"That's true!" rejoined the woman, seriously. "Many a penny the bairns get from them, an there's no part so good as this. Ye couldn't _put him out o' the way_, could ye?"

"No," said the man, doggedly.

The woman had accompanied her question with a sidelong glance of fiendish meaning, but her eyes at once dropped, and she evinced no anger at the sharp decision of her companion's reply.

"Mother!" cried the young woman, issuing from the hut at the moment, "don't you dare to go an' tempt him again like that. Our hands are black enough already; don't you try to make them _red_, else I'll blab!"

The elder woman a.s.sumed an injured look as she said, "Who spoke of makin' them red? Evil dreaders are evil doers. Is there no way o'

puttin' a chick out o' the way besides murderin' him?"

"Hush!" exclaimed the man, starting and glancing round with a guilty look, as if he fancied the bare mention of the word "murder" would bring the strong arm of the law down on his head.

"I won't hush!" cried the woman. "You're cowards, both of you. Are there no corries in the hills to hide him in--no ropes to tie him with-- that you should find it so difficult to keep a brat quiet for a week or two?"

A gleam of intelligence shot across the ill-favoured face of the gypsy.

"Ha! you're a wise woman. Come, out with your plan, and see if I'm not game to do it."

"There's no plan worth speakin' of," rejoined the woman, somewhat mollified by her companion's complimentary remarks. "All you've to do is to go down the road to-morrow, catch him, and bring him to me. I'll see to it that he don't make his voice heard until we've done with this part of the country. Then we can slip the knot, and let the brat go free."

"I'll do it!" said the man, sitting down on a stone and beginning to fill his pipe.

"I thought he was dead!" said the woman.

"So did I; but he's not dead yet, an' don't look as if he'd die soon."