Johnny Ludlow Third Series Part 10

"His son's here," roared out pa.s.sionate Tod. "What the deuce is the meaning of this, sir?"

The man shot down the path like an arrow. Mrs. Todhetley--who had been walking on, seeming not to have caught the words, or to know whose the voice was, or where it came from--gazed round in all directions, her countenance curiously helpless. She ran up the rest of the zigzag, and went swiftly home across the field. Tod disentangled himself from the brambles, and drew a long breath.

"I think it's time we went now, Johnny." It was not often he spoke in that tone. He had always been at war tacitly with Mrs. Todhetley, and was not likely to favour her now. Generous though he was by nature, there could be no denying that he took up awful prejudices.

"It is something about money, Tod."

"I don't care what it is about--the fellow has no business to be prowling here, on my father's grounds; and he _shan't_ be, without my knowing what it's for. I'll watch madam's movements."

"What do you think it can mean?"

"Mean! Why, that the individual is some poor relation of hers, come to drain as much of my father's money out of her as he can. _She_ is the one to blame. I wonder how she dare encourage him!"

"Perhaps she can't help herself."

"Not help herself? Don't show yourself a fool, Johnny. An honest-minded, straightforward woman would appeal to my father in any annoyance of this sort, or to me, in his absence, and say 'Here's So-and-so come down upon us, asking for help, can we give it him?'--and there's no doubt the Squire _would_ give it him; he's soft enough for anything."

It was of no use contending. I did not see it quite in that light, but Tod liked his own opinion. He threw up his head with a haughty jerk.

"You have tried to defend Mrs. Todhetley before, in trifling matters, Johnny; don't attempt it now. Would any good woman, say any _lady_, if you will, subject herself to this kind of thing?--hold private meetings with a man--allow him to come tapping at her sitting-room window at night? No; not though he were her own brother."

"Tod, it may be her brother. She would never do anything wrong willingly."

"Shut up, Johnny. She never had a brother."

Of course I shut up forthwith, and went across the field by Tod's side in silence, his strides wide and indignant, his head up in the air. Mrs.

Todhetley was hearing Lena read when we got in, and looked as if she had never been out that morning.

Some days went on. The man remained near, for he was seen occasionally, and the servants began to talk. One remarked upon him, wondering who he was; another remarked upon him, speculating on what he did there. In a quiet country place, a dodging stranger excites curiosity, and this one dodged about as much as ever the ghostly light did. If you caught sight of him in the three-cornered plantation, he vanished forthwith to appear next in the Ravine; if he stood peering out from the trees on the bank, and found himself observed, the next minute he'd be crouching amongst the broom on the other side.

This came to be observed, and was thought strange, naturally; Hannah, who was often out with Hugh and Lena, often saw him, and talked to the other servants. One evening, when we were finishing dinner, the gla.s.s doors of the bow-window being open, Hannah came back with the children.

They ran across the gra.s.s-plat after the fawn--one we had, just then--and Hannah sat down in the porch of the side-door to wait. Old Thomas had just drawn the slips from the table, and went through the pa.s.sage to the side-door to shake them.

"I say," cried Hannah's voice, "I saw that man again."

"Where?" asked Thomas, between his shakes of the linen.

"In the old place--the Ravine. He was sitting on the stile at the top of the zigzag, as cool as might be."

"Did you speak to him? I should, if I came across the man; and ask what his business might be in these parts."

"I didn't speak to him," returned Hannah. "I'd rather not. There's no knowing the answer one might get, Thomas, or what he's looking after. He spoke to the children."

"What did he say to them?"

"Asked if they'd go away with him to some beautiful coral islands over the sea, and catch pretty birds, and parrots, and monkeys. He called them by their names, too--'Hugh' and 'Lena.' I should like to know how he got hold of _them_."

"I can't help thinking that he belongs to them engineering folk who come spying for no good on people's land: the Squire won't like it if they cut a railroad through here," said Thomas; and the supposition did not appear to please Hannah.

"Why you must be as silly as a turkey, old Thomas! Engineers have no need to hide themselves as if they were afraid of being took up for murder. He has about as much the cut of an engineer as you have, and no more: they don't go about looking like Methodist parsons run to seed.

_My_ opinion is that he's something of that sort."

"A Methodist parson!"

"No; not anything half so respectable. If I spoke out my thoughts, though, I dare say you'd laugh at me."

"Not I," said Thomas. "Make haste. I forgot to put the claret jug on the table."

"Then I've got it in my head that he is one of them seducing Mormons.

They appear in neighbourhoods without the smallest warning, lie partly concealed by day, and go abroad at night, persuading all the likely women and girls to join their sect. My sister told me about it in a letter she wrote me only three days ago. There has been a Mormon down there; he called himself a saint, she says; and when he went finally away he took fifteen young women with him. Fifteen, Thomas! and after only three weeks' persuasion! It's as true as that you've got that damask cloth in your hand."

Nothing further was heard for a minute. Then Thomas spoke. "Has the man here been seen talking with young women?"

"Who is to know? They take care _not_ to be seen; that's their craft.

And so you see, Thomas, I'd rather steer clear of the man, and not give him the opportunity of trying his arts on me. I can tell him it's not Hannah Baber that would be cajoled off to a barbarous desert by a man who had fifteen other wives beside! Lord help the women for geese! Miss Lena" (raising her voice), "don't you tear about after the fawn like that; you'll put yourself into a pretty heat."

"I'd look him up when I came home, if I were the Squire," said Thomas, who evidently took it all gravely in. "We don't want a Mormon on the place."

"If he were not a Mormon, which I'm pretty sure he is, I should say he was a kidnapper of children," went on Hannah. "After we had got past him over so far, he managed to 'tice Hugh back to the stile, gave him a sugar-stick, and said he'd take him away if he'd go. It struck me he'd like to kidnap him."

Tod, sitting at the foot of the table in the Squire's place, had listened to all this deliberately. Mrs. Todhetley, opposite to him, her back to the light, had tried, in a feeble manner, once or twice, to drown the sounds by saying something. But when urgently wanting to speak, we often can't do so; and her efforts died away helplessly. She looked miserably uncomfortable, and seemed conscious of Tod's feeling in the matter; and when Hannah wound up with the bold a.s.sertion touching the kidnapping of Hugh, she gave a start of alarm, which left her face white.

"Who is this man that shows himself in the neighbourhood?" asked Tod, putting the question to her in a slow, marked manner, his dark eyes, stern then, fixed on hers.

"Johnny, those cherries don't look ripe. Try the summer apples."

It was of no use at any time trying to put aside Tod. Before I had answered her that the cherries were ripe enough for me, Tod began at her again.

"Can you tell me who he is?"

"Dear me, no," she faintly said. "I can't tell you anything about it."

"Nor what he wants?"

"No. Won't you take some wine, Joseph?"

"I shall make it my business to inquire, then," said Tod, disregarding the wine and everything else. "The first time I come across the man, unless he gives me a perfectly satisfactory answer as to what he may be doing here on our land, I'll horse-whip him."

Mrs. Todhetley put the trembling fingers of her left hand into the finger-gla.s.s, and dried them. I don't believe she knew what she was about more than a baby.

"The man is nothing to you, Joseph. Why should you interfere with him?"

"I shall interfere because my father is not here to do it," he answered, in his least compromising of tones. "An ill-looking stranger has no right to be prowling mysteriously amongst us at all. But when it comes to knocking at windows at night, to waylaying--people--in solitary places, and to exciting comments from the servants, it is time some one interfered to know the reason of it."

I am sure he had been going to say _you_; but with all his prejudice he never was insolent to Mrs. Todhetley, when face to face; and he subst.i.tuted "people." Her pale blue eyes had the saddest light in them you can well conceive, and yet she tried to look as though the matter did not concern her. Old Thomas came in with the folded damask slips, little thinking he and Hannah had been overheard, put them in the drawer, and set things straight on the sideboard.

"What time tea, ma'am?" he asked.