Johnny Ludlow Sixth Series Part 14

"That will do nicely. Unless--Squire Todhetley invited you to go with him to Evesham one day, you know," broke off Katrine. "He may just fix upon Thursday."

"In that case we will take our walk on Friday."

A silence ensued. Their hearts were very full, and that makes speech reticent. Katrine glanced now and again at the pages of the "Vicar of Wakefield," which lay in her lap, but she did not read it. As to the barrister, he was looking at her; at the face that had become so dear to him. They might never meet again, nothing on earth might come of the present intimacy and the sweet burning longings, but he knew that he should remember her to the end of time. A verse of one of Moore's melodies pa.s.sed through his mind: unconsciously he began to hum it:

"O, that hallowed form is ne'er forgot Which first love traced; Still it, lingering, haunts the greenest spot On memory's waste."

"Here comes Joan to say tea is ready," interrupted Katrine.

They strolled indoors slowly, side by side. The tea-tray waited in the parlour. Mr. Barbary came in from the gun-room, and they all sat down to the table.

After tea he went back to the gun-room, Mr. Reste with him, leaving Katrine alone. She had the candles lighted and began to mend a piece of Mrs. Todhetley's valuable old lace. Presently Joan came in to ask a question.

"Miss Katrine, is it the brace of partridges or the pheasants that are to be cooked for supper? Do you know?"

"No, that I don't," said Katrine. "But I can ask."

Putting down her work, she went to the gun-room and gently opened the door. Upon which, she heard these remarkable words from Mr. Reste:

"I wouldn't hesitate at all if it were not for the moon."

"The moon makes it all the safer," contended Mr. Barbary. "Foes can't rush upon one unawares when the moon's shining. I tell you this will be one of the best possible nights for you."

"Papa, papa," hurriedly broke in Katrine, speaking through the dusk of twilight, "is Joan to cook the pheasants or the partridges?"

"The pheasants," he answered sharply. "Shut the door."

So the pheasants were dressed for supper, and very nice they proved with their bread-sauce and rich gravy. Mr. Barbary especially seemed to enjoy them; his daughter did not.

Poor Katrine's senses were painfully alert that night, as she lay listening after getting to bed. The words she had overheard in the gun-room seemed to her to bear but one meaning--that not only was her father going abroad into the wilds of danger, but Edgar Reste also. They had gone to their respective rooms early, soon after she went to hers; but that might be meant as a blind and told nothing.

By-and-by, she caught a sound as of the stairs creaking. Mr. Reste and her father were both creeping down them. Katrine flew to her window and peeped behind the blind.

They went out together by the back door. The bright moonbeams lay full upon the yard. Mr. Reste seemed to be attired like her father, in high leggings and a large old shooting-coat, no doubt borrowed plumes. Each of them carried a gun, and they stole cautiously out at the little side gate.

"Oh," moaned the unhappy Katrine, "if papa would but take better care of himself! If he would but leave off doing this most dreadful and dangerous thing!"

Whether Katrine fell asleep after that, or not, she could never decide: it appeared as though but a short time had elapsed, when she was startled by a sharp sound outside, close to the house. It might have been the report of a gun, but she was not sure. This was followed by some stir in the yard and covert talking.

"They are bringing in the game they have shot," thought Katrine, "but oh, I am thankful they have got back safely!" And she put the pillow over her head and ears, and lay shivering.

Squire Todhetley was as good and lenient a man at heart as could be found in our two counties, Warwickshire and Worcestershire; fonder of forgiving sins and sinners than of bringing them to book, and you have not read of him all these years without learning it. But there was one offence that stirred his anger up to bubbling point, especially when committed against himself. And that was poaching.

So that, when we got downstairs to breakfast at d.y.k.e Manor on the following morning, Wednesday, and were greeted with the news that some poachers had been out on our land in the night, and had shot at the keepers, it was no wonder the Squire went into a state of commotion, and that the rest of us partook of it.

"Johnny, tell Mack to fetch Jones; to bring him here instantly," fumed he. "Those Standishes have been in this work!"

I went to carry the orders to Mack in the yard. In pa.s.sing back, after giving them, I saw that the dog-kennel was empty and the chain lying loose.

"Where's Don?" I asked. "Who has taken him out?"

"Guess he have strayed out of hisself, Master Johnny," was Mack's answer. "He was gone when I come on this morning, sir, and the gate were standing wide open."

"Gone then?--and the gate open? Where's Giles?"

But, even as I put the question, I caught sight of Giles at the stable pump, plunging his head and face into a pail of water. So I knew what had been the matter with _him_. Giles was a first-rate groom and a good servant, and it was very seldom indeed that he took more than was good for him, but it did happen at intervals.

Old Jones arrived in obedience to the summons, and stood on his fat gouty legs in the hall while the Squire talked to him. The faith he put in that old constable was surprising, whose skill and discernment were about suited to the year One.

His tale of the night's doings, as confirmed by other tales, was not very clear. At least, much satisfaction could not be got out of it. Some poachers congregated on a plot of land called d.y.k.e's Neck--why it should have been so named n.o.body understood--were surprised by the keepers early in the night. A few stray shots were interchanged, no damage being done on either side, and the poachers made off, escaping not only scot-free but unrecognised. This last fact bore the keenest sting of all, and the Squire paced the hall in a fury.

"You must unearth them," he said to Jones: "don't tell me. They can't have buried themselves, the villains!"

"No need to look far for 'em, Squire," protested Jones. "It's them jail-birds, the three Standishes. If it's not, I'll eat my head."

"Then why have you not taken up the three Standishes?" retorted the Squire. "Of course it is the Standishes."

"Well, your honour, because I can't get at 'em," said Jones helplessly.

"Jim, he is off somewhere; and d.i.c.k, he swears through thick and thin that he was never out of his bed last night; and t'other, Tom, ain't apperiently at home at all just now. I looked in at their kitchen on my way here, and that was all I could get out of Mary."

It was at this juncture that Katrine arrived, preparatory to her morning's work with Lena. Old Jones and the Squire, still in the hall, were chanting a duet upon the poachers' iniquity, and she halted by me to listen. I was sitting on the elbow of the carved-oak settle. Katrine looked pale as a sheet.

Girls, thought I, do not like to hear of these things. For I knew nothing then of her fears that the offenders had been her father and Mr.

Reste.

"If the poachers had been taken, sir--what then?" she said tremblingly to the Squire, in a temporary lull of the voices.

"What then, Miss Barbary? Why then they would have been lodged in gaol, and the neighbourhood well rid of them," was the impulsive answer.

"Snug and safe, miss," put in old Jones, shuffling on his gouty legs in his thick white stockings, "a-waiting to stand their trial next spring a.s.sizes at Worcester. Which it would be transportation for 'em, I hope--a using o' their guns indeed!"

"Were they known at all?" gasped Katrine. "And might not the gamekeepers have shot _them_? Perhaps have killed them?"

"Killed 'em or wounded 'em, like enough," a.s.sented Jones, "and it would be a good riddance of such varmint, as his worship says, miss. And a misfortin it is that they be _not_ known. Which is an odd thing to my mind, sir, considering the lightness o' the night: and I'd like to find out whether them there keepers did their duty, or didn't do it."

"I can't see the dog anywhere, father," interrupted Tod, dashing in at this moment in a white heat, for he had been racing about in search of Don.

"What, is the dog off?" exclaimed old Jones.

"Yes, he is," said Tod. "And if those poachers have stolen him, I'll try and get them hanged."

Leaving us to our commotion, Katrine Barbary pa.s.sed on to the nursery with Lena, where the lessons were taken. This straying away of Don made one of the small calamities of the day. Giles, put to the torture of confession, admitted that he remembered unchaining Don the past night as usual, but could not remember whether or not he locked the gate. Of course the probability was that he left it wide open, Mack having found it so in the morning. So that Mr. Don, finding himself at liberty, might have gone out promenading as early in the night as he pleased. Giles was ready to hang himself with vexation. The dog was a valuable animal; a prize for any tramp or poacher, for he could be sold at a high price.

We turned out on our different quests; old Jones after the poachers, I and Tod after Don: and the morning wore on.

Katrine went home at midday. This news of the night encounter between the keepers and the poachers had thrown her into a state of anxious pain--though of course the reader fully understands that I am, so far, writing of what I knew nothing about until later. That her father and Edgar Reste had been the poachers of the past night she could not doubt, and a dread of the discovery which might ensue lay upon her with a sick fear. The Standishes might have been included in the party; more than likely they were; Ben Gibbon also. Mr. Jim Standish had contrived to let Katrine believe that they were all birds of a feather, tarred with the same brush. But how could Edgar Reste have allowed himself to be drawn into it even for one night? She could not understand that.