Lost Sir Massingberd Volume Ii Part 4

"Well, sir, we must not make mischief; he was a young chap new at the business, a sort of grand-nevvy of mine by the wife's side. He'll do better next time, will young d.i.c.k Westlock. He was over-eager, that's all. And when you hear a cry in these woods, unless you are thoroughly accustomed to them, it may lead you a pretty dance: it takes a practised ear to tell rightly where it comes from."

"You should know me better, Bradford," returned I, "than to suppose I would bring a lad to harm by mentioning such a matter; but I should like to ask him a question or two, if you will point him out."

"There he is then, sir," answered Oliver, pointing to a good-looking, honest lad enough, but one who perhaps would scarcely have been considered sufficiently old for so trustworthy a part as sentinel of the home preserves, had he not been grand-nephew to the head keeper.

"Why, d.i.c.k," said I, "your uncle telly me that you took an owl for a poacher last night, and followed his voice all over the Chase."

"It wasn't no owl," sir, quoth d.i.c.k, stoutly; "it were the voice of a man, whosoever it was."

"Don't thee be a fool," exclaimed his uncle, roughly. "I tell thee it was a bird, and called like this;" and the keeper gave a very excellent imitation of the cry of an owl.

This was not greatly unlike the sound which had so recently affrighted my own ears; but then owls rarely cry in the daytime.

"d.i.c.k," cried I, "never mind your uncle; listen to me. If you thought it was a human voice, what do you think it said?"

"Well, I can't rightly say as it said anything; it seemed to me to be a sort of wobbling in the throat; and I thought it might be a sound among some poaching fellars, made with a bird-call, or the like of that."

"Supposing it said any word at all, d.i.c.k, what word was it most like?"

Mr. Richard Westlock looked as nonplused and embarra.s.sed as though I had propounded to him some extremely complicated riddle.

"Was it anything like 'Hel--p, hel--p?'" said I, imitating as well as I could those terrible tones.

"Bless my body," quoth Mr. Richard, slapping his legs with his hands, in admiration of my sagacity, "if them ain't the very words as it _did_ say!"

"What think you of that, Oliver Bradford?" inquired I, gravely.

"As the bell tinks, so the fool thinks," responded the head keeper, sententiously. "If you had asked d.i.c.k whether the word wasn't 'Jerusalem,' he would have said, 'Ay, that was the very word.'"

"Still," urged I, "since there may be something more than fancy in the thing, and the voice, if it was one, could not have come from under water, let the Park woods be thoroughly searched at once. There are men enough outside the gates to do that, without suspending the work that is going on here, and why should we lose time?"

The head keeper sulkily muttered something about not wanting a caddel of people poking their noses into every part of Fairburn Chase; then with earnest distinctness, as though the thought had only just struck him, "Besides, Mr. Meredith, let me tell you that they may get to know more than is good for them."

At these words, I cast an involuntary glance at the plantation within a few hundred feet of us, in the recesses of which dwelt Sinnamenta, Lady Heath.

"_You_ may know, sir," continued the keeper, translating my thought, "but everybody don't know, and it's much better that they shouldn't."

Certainly the objection was a grave one, and I was glad enough to perceive Mr. Long coming down from the Hall towards us, an authority by whom the question could be decided.

"You had better ask him yourself, Oliver," said I; for as my tutor had never spoken to me of the existence of the unfortunate maniac, I did not like to address him upon the subject. Bradford therefore went forward to meet him; and after they had had some talk together, Mr. Long beckoned me to him.

"I think with you, Peter," said he, "that in any case, we should lose no time in searching the Chase. If we do not discover what we seek, we can scarcely fail to find some trace of a struggle, if struggle there has been, between such a man as Sir Ma.s.singberd and whoever may have a.s.sailed him. If he has been murdered, it is, of course, just possible that the a.s.sa.s.sins threw the body into the water, although not here, since the ice would scarcely have formed over it like this; otherwise, they could not have removed it without leaving some visible trace. Do you, Bradford, and a couple of your own men, examine that plantation yonder thoroughly, so that it need not be searched again; and in the meantime I will go and fetch more help."

I have taken part in my time in many a "quest" for game, both large and little: I have sought on foot in the rook-crannies of the north for the hill-fox; I have penetrated the tangled jungles of Hindustan for tiger; I have stood alone, gun in hand, on the skirts of a tropical forest, not knowing what bird or beast the beaters within might chance at any moment to drive forth; but I have never experienced such excitement as that which I felt when, one of forty men, I walked from end to end of Fairburn Chase in search of its lost master.

In one long line, and at the distance of about twenty yards from one another, we plodded on slowly and steadily; and with eyes that left no bush unexamined. This work, which in summer would have been toil indeed, was rendered comparatively easy by the bareness of the season; the frost, too, made the swamps in the hollows safe to the tread, and the tangled underwood brittle before us. Many a sunken spot we found hidden in brake and brier, and scarcely known to the keepers themselves, such as might easily have held, and we could not but think how fitly, the Thing we feared to find, and sometimes, when one man called to his neighbours, the whole line would halt, and each could scarcely restrain himself from running in, and seeing with his own eyes what trace of the missing man it was which had provoked the exclamation. We began at the outskirts of the Park, and worked towards the Hall, so that the Home Spinney, which was the likeliest spot of all, since he had been last seen going in that direction, was reserved for the end. As the men approached it, the excitement increased; they almost ran over the large open s.p.a.ce in which stood the Wolsey Oak, extending its gnarled and naked arms aloft, as if in horror; but when they searched the coppice itself, and found the body of Gr.i.m.j.a.w, stiffened into stone since I last saw it, many of them were not so eager to push on. I had omitted to tell them of the wretched animal's death, and the effect of the sight upon them was really considerable.

That "the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense," is in nothing more true than in the emotion produced by the sufferings or decease of animals upon gentle folks and upon labouring persons. Greater familiarity with such spectacles, and perhaps, too, a larger experience of hardship and sorrow among his own fellow-creatures--which naturally tends to weaken his sense of pity for mere animals--prevents the peasant from being moved at all by some sights at which his superiors would be really shocked: a dead horse lying in the road is, to the stonebreaker, a dead horse, and nothing more; whereas, to him who goes by on wheels, unless he is a veterinary surgeon, the sight is positively distressing.

I am sure that the spectacle of half a dozen ordinary dead dogs would not have affected Oliver Bradford, for instance, in the least, while if they had been "lurchers," and given to poaching practices, such a funereal scene would have afforded him unmixed satisfaction. But when he saw Gr.i.m.j.a.w lying dead, and frozen, he shook his head very gravely, and bade us mark his words, "That that ere dog didn't die for nothing, but for a sign. That he would never have died, not he, if his master and constant companion had still had breath in him, and more than that, we should find, we might take his word for it, that that there body, and that of Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath, were not very far from one another."

There were murmurs of hushed and awe-struck adhesion to these remarks, but not a dissentient voice in all the company, and in a frame of mind which would now undoubtedly be called "sensational," and not in a broken line of march, as heretofore, but almost shoulder to shoulder, we entered the Home Spinney.

CHAPTER VII.

WHAT WAS IN THE COVERED CART.

If this true narrative of mine should chance to find its channel of publication in a hebdomadal periodical, and the end of the last chapter coincide with the end of the week, I am afraid I shall have unduly aroused the expectation of my readers, and kept them upon tenter-hooks during that period upon false pretences, or rather what may seem to be so. They will doubtless have promised themselves some ghastly spectacle (and I give them my honour that if they will only have patience they shall have it) to be presented in the very next page or two. It may disappoint them temporarily, to hear that though we searched the coppice, tree by tree, and left not one heap of leaves unstirred by our feet, that we found nothing, nothing. And yet I will venture to say, that if we had come upon that sight which all were so prepared for, the stiffened limbs of murdered Sir Ma.s.singberd, with his cruel face set for ever in death, and his hard eyes scowling up at the sky, it would scarcely have filled us with greater awe. It would have been a terrible sight, doubtless, but with every minute the terror would have faded, until at last it might have even melted into pity. He could at least have hurt no man more, being dead. But now that he was only Lost--still Lost--we looked at one another with dumb surprise, and over our own shoulders with misgivings. He was not above ground in all Fairburn Chase, that was certain; nor under water, for the dragging-parties had discovered no more than we. Any idea of suicide was quite out of the question; Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath was the last man to leave life before he was summoned, even if he really felt, as he averred, that there was no sort of risk in doing so. Wicked men have a tolerably high opinion of this world, notwithstanding their low views of the people that inhabit it; and the French philosopher who put an end to his not invaluable existence upon the ground that he had had enough of everything, was an exceptional case.

At the same time, the probabilities were immensely against the baronet's having voluntarily undertaken any expedition, considering the circ.u.mstances under which he must have set out--on foot, fatigued, and at so late an hour. If secrecy had been his object, it would have been far more easily secured by his departure at a less extraordinary time.

In the meanwhile, day after day pa.s.sed by without any tidings, and the mystery of his disappearance deepened and spread. Mr. Long was rather reserved upon the matter at first, professing to entertain little doubt that the wilful Squire would presently return, malicious and grim as ever; but as time went on, he began to grow uneasy, and seemed to find relief in conversing upon the subject, and suggesting more or less impossible contingencies.

"Do you remember, Peter," said he one morning at breakfast-time, "reading out to me, some months ago, an account of the murder of a certain lieutenant of the coast-guard by smugglers on the east coast; how he oppressed them and treated them with unnecessary cruelty for many, many months, until at last they took him away out of his bed by force, and carried him no man knew whither, and put him to death with tortures?"

"Yes," returned I, "perfectly well. They buried the poor wretch up to his neck in the sea-sand, and bowled stones at his head."

"Well, Peter, that frightful scene is constantly representing itself whenever I shut my eyes; only the head is that of Sir Ma.s.singberd. You cannot imagine how distressing it is to me now to go to bed, with the expectation of this re-enacting itself before I can get to sleep."

"Dear me, how dreadful!" returned I. "But does not the fact of your only recognizing the victim, convince you of the unreality of the thing? If you knew the faces of the smugglers, then indeed----"

"I do know them, Peter," interrupted my tutor gravely; "that is the worst of it; although it should, as you say, rather convince me of the imaginary character of the scene, since the actors in it have long been dead and gone, I believe. They are not smugglers, but gipsies. There is on Carew in particular, one unhappy man, into whose history I need not enter, but who once incurred the baronet's vengeance, and I am afraid it is but too likely perished in consequence. It is a sad story of deception on both sides; but it is certain that Sir Ma.s.singberd richly earned the hatred of the wandering people. I have no right, of course, to make any such charge, but Peter, I cannot help thinking that it is they who have made away with the Squire. I casually inquired in the village yesterday about the tribe that generally inhabit the fir-grove on the Crittenden Road, and it seems they left the place by night, on or about the very date of Sir Ma.s.singberd's disappearance."

My heart grew cold and heavy as a stone at these words, delivered though they were with vagueness, and without any threat of action to follow them, for the suspicion which my tutor now suggested had long ago taken firm root in my own mind. I would not, however, have given expression to it upon any account, and my present wish was to do away with this notion of the rector's as much as possible. I would not, perhaps, have a.s.sisted in the escape of the Cingari from punishment, if punishment they deserved, but neither would I have put out my hand to deliver them up.

The law had taken its wicked will of them often enough already, and in connection with this very man.

"Those who know these people best," said I, "such as Bradford and the keepers, do not think it at all probable that they would have had the courage to face Sir Ma.s.singberd. Even if they possessed it, what could they have done but have slain him? and if slain, where have they put him to?"

"G.o.d alone knows," said my tutor solemnly; "but the man at the pike at Crittenden says, I believe, that they had a covered cart with them, which they have never been known to have before."

I murmured something to the effect that the winter was coming on, and that it was likely enough that they should have procured for themselves some peripatetic shelter of that kind; but a nameless horror took hold upon me, in spite of myself, when Mr. Long rejoined, that he should think it his duty to have the gipsies followed, and a thorough examination of their effects to be made. I had not another word to say.

I seemed already to see poor old Rachel Liversedge standing in the felon's dock, avowing and glorying in her guilt, and defiant of the sentence which would consign her and hers to the same fate that had overtaken, with no such justice, Stanley Carew. Any hope of escape for them, I knew, was out of the question. They had not the means for speedy travel, while, in those days of superst.i.tion and intolerance, the Cingari were an object of animadversion and alarm, whithersoever they moved. That very day--acting upon information received concerning their present whereabouts--Mr. Long set out on horseback, accompanied by the parish constable, and Came up with the party whom he sought upon a certain common within twenty miles of Fairburn. The tribe, of whom I had only seen three grown-up members, were tolerably numerous, and the constable evinced his fitness for being a peace-officer by counselling the rector to do nothing rash, at least until reinforcements should permit of his doing so with safety. The sight, however, of the covered cart, placed, as it seemed, jealously in the very centre of the encampment, was too much for Mr. Long, who, to do him justice, was as bold as a lion, except where conventional "position," as in the case of Sir Ma.s.singberd, made him indisposed for action. He turned his horse straight for the desired object, in spite of the threatening looks of several men, who were tinkering about an immense fire, and was only stopped by the youngest of them starting up, and laying his hand imperatively upon his bridle-rein.

"Have you a warrant, Mr. Long," inquired the gipsy sternly, "that you ride through our camp, when all the rest of the common is open to you, and wish to pry into that poor place yonder, which is all we have of house and home?"

The rector had no sort of right for what he did, and was therefore proportionally indignant.

"Unhand my bridle, sirrah!" cried he. "What is your name, who seem to know mine so well, and yet who knows me so little, that you can imagine I am here in any other cause than that of Right and Justice?"

"My name is Walter Carew," replied the gipsy, still retaining his hold.

"Then that is warrant sufficient for what I do," cried my tutor excitedly, and raising his riding-whip as he spoke.

The swarthy face of the gipsy gleamed with pa.s.sion, and his unoccupied right hand sought his side, as if for a weapon. Mischief would undoubtedly have ensued, but that at that moment the curtains of the covered cart were parted by a skinny hand, and the voice of Rachel Liversedge was heard bidding the young man let the bridle go, and not spill parson's blood, which was as bad as wasting milk and water. Then she added, with mock courtesy: "Pray, come hither, Mr. Long; our doors are always open, and there can be no intrusion where there are only females and sickness."

"If that be all," returned my tutor in a softened tone, for though somewhat arbitrary, as it would now be thought, towards his inferiors, he was ever gentle to the s.e.x; "if that indeed be all, I shall not inflict my presence upon you long."[1]