Starvecrow Farm Part 57

Clyne's eyes sparkled. And tired as they were, the men answered to the call. Ten minutes before, they had crawled in, the picture of fatigue.

Now, as they crossed the pastures above the inn, and plunged into the little wood in which Henrietta had baffled Bishop, they clutched their cudgels with as much energy as if the chase were but opening. It mattered not that some wore the high-collared coats of the day, and two waistcoats under them, and had watches in their fobs; and that others tramped in smock frocks drawn over their fustian shorts. The same indignation armed all, great and small, rich and poor; and in a wonderfully short s.p.a.ce of time they were at the gate of Starvecrow Farm.

The house that, viewed at its best, had a bald and melancholy aspect, wore a villainous look now--perched up there in bare, lowering ugliness, with its blind gable squinting through the ragged fir-trees.

Bishop left a man in the road, and sent two to the rear of the crazy, ruinous outbuildings which clung to the slope. With Clyne and the other three he pa.s.sed round the corner of the house, stepped to the door and knocked. The sun's first rays were striking the higher hills, westward of the lake, as the party, with stern faces, awaited the answer. But the lake, with its holms, and the valley and all the lower spurs, lay grey and still and dreary in the grip of cold. The note of melancholy went to the heart of one as he looked, and filled it with remorse.

"Too late," it seemed to say, "too late!"

For a time no one came. And Bishop knocked again, and more imperiously; first sending a man to the lower end of the ragged garden to be on the look-out. He knocked a third time. At last a shuffling of feet was heard approaching the door, and a moment later old Hinkson opened it. He looked, as he stood blinking in the daylight, more frowsy and unkempt and to be avoided than usual. But--they noted with disappointment that the door was neither locked nor bolted; so that had they thought of it they might have entered at will!

"What is't?" he drawled, peering at them. "Why did you na' come in?"

Bishop pushed in without a word. The others followed. A glance sufficed to discover all that the kitchen contained; and Bishop, deaf to the old man's remonstrances, led the way straight up the dark, close staircase. But though they explored without ceremony all the rooms above, and knocked, and called, and sounded, and listened, they stumbled down again, baffled.

"Where's your daughter?" Bishop asked sternly.

"She was here ten minutes agone," the old man answered. Perhaps because the day was young he showed rather more sense than usual. But his eyes were full of spite.

"Here, was she?"

"Ay."

"And where's she now?"

"She's gone to t' doctor's. She be nursing there. They've no la.s.s."

"Nursing! Who's she nursing?" incredulously.

The old man grinned at the ignorance of the question.

"The wumman and the babby," he said.

"At Tyson's?"

"Ay, ay."

"The house in the hollow?"

"That be it."

While they were talking thus, others had searched the crazy outhouses, but to no better purpose. And presently they all a.s.sembled in the road outside the gate.

"Where's your dog, old lad?" asked one of the dalesmen.

The miser had shuffled after them, holding out his hand and begging of them.

"At the doctor's," he answered. "Her be fearsome and begged it. Ye'll give an old man something?" he added, whining. "Ye'll give something?"

"Off! Off you go, my lad!" Bishop cried. "We've done with you. If you're not a rascal 'tis hard on you, for you look one!" And when the old skinflint had crawled back under the fir-trees, "Worst is, sir,"

he continued, with a grave face, "it's all true. Tyson's away in the north--with a brother or something of that kind--so I hear. And his missus had a baby this ten days gone or more. He's a rough tyke, but he's above this sort of thing, I take it. Still, we'll go and question the girl. We may get something from her."

And they trooped off along the road in twos and threes, and turning the corner saw Tyson's house, below them--so far below them that it had, as always, the look of a toy house on a toy meadow at the bottom of a green bowl. Below the house the little rivulet that rose beside it bisected the meadow, until at the end of the open it lost itself in the narrow wooded gorge, through which it sprang in unseen waterfalls to join the lake below.

They descended the slope to the house; sharp-eyed but saying little. A trifle to one side of the door, under a window, a dog was kenneled. It leapt out barking; but seeing so many persons it slunk in again and lay growling.. A moment and the door was opened and Bess showed herself. She looked astonished, but not in any way frightened.

"Eh, masters!" she said. "What is it? Are you come after the young lady again?"

"Ay," Bishop answered. "We are. We want to know where you got the letter you gave Ann at the inn--to give to her?"

Perhaps Bess looked for the question and was prepared. At any rate, she betrayed no sign of confusion.

"Well," she said, "I can tell you what he was like that gave it me."

"A man gave it you?"

"Ay, and a shilling. And," smiling broadly, "he'd have given me something else if I'd let him."

"A kiss, I bet!" said Bishop.

"Ay, it was. But I said that'd be another shilling."

Clyne groaned.

"For G.o.d's sake," he said, "come to the point. Time's everything."

Bishop shrugged his shoulders.

"Where did you see him, my girl?" he asked.

"By the gate of the coppice as I was bringing the milk," she answered frankly. "'I'm her Joe,' he said. 'And if you'll hand her this and keep mum, here's a shilling for you.' And----"

"Very good," said Bishop. "And what was he like?"

With much cunning she described Walterson, and Bishop acknowledged the likeness. "It's our man!" he said, slapping his boot with his loaded whip. "And now, my dear, which way did he go?"

But she explained that she had met him by the gate--he was a stranger--and she had left him in the same place.

"And you can't say which way he went?"

"No," she answered. "Nor yet which way he came. I looked back to see, to tell the truth," frankly. "But he had not moved, and he did not move until I was out of sight. And I never saw him again. The boy had not been stolen then," she continued, "and I thought little of it."

"You should have told," Bishop answered, eyeing her severely. "Another time, my la.s.s, you'll get into trouble." And then suddenly, "Here, can we come in?"

She threw the door wide with a movement that disarmed suspicion.

"To be sure," she said. "And welcome, so as you don't make a noise to waken the mistress."

But when they stood in the kitchen it wore an aspect so neat and orderly that they were ashamed of their suspicions. The fire burned cheerfully on the wide hearth, and a wooden tray set roughly, but cleanly, stood on the corner of the long, polished table. The door of the shady dairy stood open, and afforded a glimpse of the great leaden milk-pans, and the row of shining pails.