From Squire to Squatter Part 11

"Murder, missus, or something very like it! There has been dark doin's in th' hill to-night!"

Bob grasped the nearest policeman by the arm with his manacled hands.

"When--when did ye say it had happened?"

"You know too well, lad. Not two hours ago. Don't sham innocence; it sits but ill on a face like yours."

"Mother," cried Bob bewilderingly, "I know nothing of it! I'm innocent!"

But his mother heard not his words. She had fainted, and with rough kindness was carried into the hut and laid upon the bed. When she revived some what they left her.

It was a long, dismal ride the unhappy man had that night; and indeed it was well on in the morning before the party with their prisoner reached the town of B--.

Bob's appearance before a magistrate was followed almost instantly by his dismissal to the cells again. The magistrate knew him. The police had caught him "red-handed," so they said, and had only succeeded in making him prisoner "after a fierce resistance."

"Remanded for a week," without being allowed to say one word in his own defence.

The policeman's hint to Bob's mother about "dark doin's in th' hill" was founded on fearful facts. A keeper had been killed after a terrible _melee_ with the gang of poachers, and several men had been severely wounded on both sides.

The snow-storm that came on early on the morning after poor Bob Cooper's capture was one of the severest ever remembered in Northumbria. The frost was hard too all day long. The snow fell incessantly, and lay in drifts like cliffs, fully seven feet high, across the roads.

The wind blew high, sweeping the powdery snow hither and thither in gusts. It felt for all the world like going into a cold shower-bath to put one's head even beyond the threshold of the door. Nor did the storm abate even at nightfall; but next day the wind died down, and the face of the sky became clear, only along the southern horizon the white clouds were still ma.s.sed like hills and cliffs.

It was not until the afternoon that news reached Burley Old Farm of the fight in the woods and death of the keeper. It was a st.u.r.dy old postman who had brought the tidings. He had fought his way through the snow with the letters, and his account of the battle had well-nigh caused old Kate to swoon away. When Mary, the little parlour maid, carried the mail in to her master she did not hesitate to relate what she had heard.

Squire Broadbent himself with Archie repaired to the kitchen, and found the postman surrounded by the startled servants, who were drinking in every word he said.

"One man killed, you say, Allan?"

"Ay, sir, killed dead enough. And it's a providence they caught the murderer. Took him up, sir, just as he was a-goin' into his mother's house, as cool as a frosted turnip, sir."

"Well, Allan, that is satisfactory. And what is his name?"

"Bob Cooper, sir, known all over the--"

"Bob Cooper!" cried Archie aghast. "Why, father, he was in our room in the turret at the time."

"So he was," said the Squire. "Taken on suspicion I suppose. But this must be seen to at once. Bad as we know Bob to have been, there is evidence enough that he has reformed of late. At all events, he shall not remain an hour in gaol on such a charge longer than we can help."

Night came on very soon that evening. The clouds banked up again, the snow began to fall, and the wind moaned round the old house and castle in a way that made one feel cold to the marrow even to listen to.

Morning broke slowly at last, and Archie was early astir. Tell, with the Shetland pony and a huge great hunter, were brought to the door, and shortly after breakfast the party started for B--.

Branson bestrode the big hunter--he took the lead--and after him came the Squire on Tell, and Archie on Scallowa. This daft little horse was in fine form this morning, having been in stall for several days. He kept up well with the hunters, though there were times that both he and his rider were all but buried in the gigantic wreaths that lay across the road. Luckily the wind was not high, else no living thing could long have faced that storm.

The cottage in which widow Cooper had lived ever since the death of her husband was a very primitive and a very poor one. It consisted only of two rooms, what are called in Scotland "a b.u.t.t and a ben." Bob had been only a little barefooted boy when his father died, and probably hardly missed him. He had been sent regularly to school before then, but not since, for his mother had been unable to give him further education.

All their support was the morsel of garden, a pig or two, and the fowls, coupled with whatever the widow could make by knitting ribbed stockings for the farmer folks around. Bob grew up wild, just as the birds and beasts of the hills and woods do. While, however, he was still a little mite of a chap, the keepers even seldom molested him. It was only natural, they thought, for a boy to act the part of a squirrel or polecat, and to be acquainted with every bird's nest and rabbit's burrow within a radius of miles. When he grew a little older and a trifle bigger they began to warn him off, and when one day he was met marching away with a cap full of pheasant's eggs, he received as severe a drubbing as ever a lad got at the hands of a gamekeeper.

Bob had grown worse instead of better after this. The keepers became his sworn enemies, and there was a spice of danger and adventure in vexing and outwitting them.

Unfortunately, in spite of all his mother said to the contrary, Bob was firmly impressed with the notion that game of every kind, whether fur or feather, belonged as much to him as to the gentry who tried to preserve them. The fresh air was free; n.o.body dared to claim the sunshine. Then why the wild birds, and the hares and rabbits?

Evil company corrupts good manners. That is what his copy-book used to tell him. But Bob soon learned to laugh at that, and it is no wonder that as he reached manhood his doings and daring as a poacher became noted far and near.

He was beyond the control of his mother. She could only advise him, read to him, pray for him; but I fear in vain. Only be it known that Bob Cooper really loved this mother of his, anomalous though it may seem.

Well, the keepers had been very harsh with him, and the gentry were harsh with him, and eke the law itself. Law indeed! Why Bob was all but an outlaw, so intense was his hatred to, and so great his defiance of the powers that be.

It was strange that what force could not effect, a few soft words from Branson, and Archie's gift of the hare he had shot on his birthday, brought about. Bob Cooper's heart could not have been wholly adamantine, therefore he began to believe that after all a gamekeeper might be a good fellow, and that there might even exist gentlefolks whose chief delight was not the oppression of the poor. He began after that to seek for honest work; but, alas! people looked askance at him, and he found that the path of virtue was one not easily regained when once deviated from.

His quondam enemy, however, Branson, spoke many a good word for him, and Bob was getting on, much to his mother's delight and thankfulness, when the final and crashing blow fell.

Poor old widow Cooper! For years and years she had but two comforts in this world; one was her Bible, and the other--do not smile when I tell you--was her pipie.

Oh! you know, the poor have not much to make them happy and to cheer their loneliness, so why begrudge the widow her morsel of tobacco?

In the former she learned to look forward to another and a better world, far beyond that bit of blue sky she could see at the top of her chimney on a summer's night--a world where everything would be bright and joyful, where there would be no vexatious rheumatism, no age, and neither cold nor care. From the latter she drew sweet forgetfulness of present trouble, and happy recollections of bygone years.

Sitting there by the hearth all alone--her son perhaps away on the hill--her thoughts used oftentimes to run away with her. Once more she would be young, once again her hair was a bonnie brown, her form little and graceful, roses mantling in her cheeks, soft light in her eyes. And she is wandering through the ta.s.selled broom with David by her side.

"David! Heigho!" she would sigh as she shook the ashes from her pipie.

"Poor David! it seems a long, long time since he left me for the better land," and the sunlight would stream down the big, open chimney and fall upon her skinny hands--fall upon the elfin-like locks that escaped from beneath her cap--fall, too, on the glittering pages of the Book on her lap like a promise of better things to come.

Before that sad night, when, while sitting up waiting for her son, she was startled by the sudden noise of the struggle that commenced at her door, she thought she had reason to be glad and thankful for the softening of her boy's heart.

Then all her joy collapsed, her hopes collapsed--fell around her like a house of cards. It was a cruel, a terrible blow.

The policeman had carried her in, laid her on the bed with a rough sort of kindness, made up the fire, then gone out and thought no more about her.

How she had spent the night need hardly be said; it is better imagined.

She had dropped asleep at last, and when she awoke from fevered dreams it was daylight out of doors, but darkness in the hut. The window and door were snowed up, and only a faint pale light shimmered in through the chimney, falling on the fireless hearth--a dismal sight.

Many times that day she had tried to rise, but all in vain. The cold grew more intense as night drew on, and it did its work on the poor widow's weakened frame. Her dreams grew more bright and happy though, as her body became numbed and insensible. It was as though the spirit were rejoicing in its coming freedom. But dreams left her at last.

Then all was still in the house, save the ticking of the old clock that hung against the wall.

The Squire speedily effected Bob Cooper's freedom, and he felt he had really done a good thing.

"Now, Robert," he told him, "you have had a sad experience. Let it be a lesson to you. I'll give you a chance. Come to Burley, and Branson will find you honest work as long as you like to do it."

"Lord love you, sir!" cried Bob. "There are few gentry like you."

"I don't know so much about that, Robert. You are not acquainted with all the good qualities of gentlefolks yet. But now, Branson, how are we all to get home?"

"Oh, I know!" said Archie. "Scallowa can easily bear Branson's weight, and I will ride the big hunter along with Bob."

So this was arranged.

It was getting gloamed ere they neared the widow's lonesome hut. The Squire with Branson had left Archie and Bob, and cut across the frozen moor by themselves.

"How glad my mother will be!" said Bob.