The Weathercock Part 47

"Only me--Aleck Macey, sir."

"Yes, my lad? Have you brought a message from Mr Syme?"

"No, sir; I only wanted--I only thought--I--I--Doctor Lee, please let me come and wait with you till it's time to start."

Macey began falteringly, but his last words came out with a rush.

"Why not go back to bed, my lad, and get some rest--some sleep?"

"Rest?--sleep? Who is going to sleep when, for all we know, poor old Vane's lying helpless somewhere out on the moor. Let me come and stop with you."

For answer the doctor laid his hand upon Macey's shoulder, and they reached the Little Manor swing-gate and pa.s.sed up the avenue without a word.

There were lights burning in two of the front windows, and long before they reached the front door in the porch, it was opened, and a warm glow of light shone out upon the advancing figures. It threw up, too, the figure of Aunt Hannah, who, as soon as she realised the fact that there were two figures approaching, ran out and before the doctor could enlighten her as to the truth, she flung her arms round Macey's neck, and hugged him to her breast, sobbing wildly.

"Oh, my dear, my dear, where have you been--where have you been?"

As she spoke, she buried her face upon the lad's shoulder, while Macey looked up speechlessly at the doctor, and he, choked with emotion as he was, could not for some moments find a word to utter.

Still, clinging to him in the darkness Aunt Hannah now took tightly hold of the boy's arm, as if fearing he might again escape from her, and drawing him up toward the door from which the light shone now, showing Eliza and Martha both waiting, she suddenly grasped the truth, and uttered a low wail of agony.

"Not found?" she cried. "Oh, how could you let me, how could you! It was too cruel, indeed, indeed!"

Aunt Hannah's sobs broke out loudly now; and, unable to bear more, Macey glided away, and did not stop running after pa.s.sing the gate till he reached the rectory door.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

IN THE EARLY MORNING.

Churchwarden Rounds kept his word, for at the first break of day his vigorous arms sent the ting-tang ringing in a very different way to that adopted by old Chakes for the last few minutes before service commenced on Sunday morning and afternoon. And he did not ring in vain, for though the search was given up in the night the objections were very genuine. Everyone was eager to help so respected a neighbour as the doctor, and to a man the searchers surrounded him as he walked up to the church; even Wrench the carpenter, and Chakes the s.e.xton putting in an appearance in a different suit to that worn over-night and apparently none the worse for the cold plunge into peaty water they had had.

The rector was not present, and the little expedition was about to start, when Macey came running up to say that Mr Syme was close behind.

This decided the doctor to pause for a few minutes, and while it was still twilight the rector with Gilmore and Distin came up, the former apologising for being so late.

"I'm afraid that I fell asleep in my chair, Lee," he whispered. "I'm very sorry."

"There is no need to say anything," said the doctor sadly. "It is hardly daybreak even now."

Gilmore looked haggard, and his face on one side was marked by the leather of the chair in which he had been asleep. Macey looked red-eyed too, but Distin was perfectly calm and as neat as if he had been to bed as usual to enjoy an uninterrupted night's rest.

When the start was made, it having been decided to follow the same course as over-night, hardly a word was said, for in addition to the depression caused by the object in view, the morning felt chilly, and everything looked grim and strange in the mist.

The rector and doctor led the way with the churchwarden, then followed the rector's three pupils, and after them the servants and townspeople in silence.

Macey was the first of the rectory trio to speak, and he harked back to the idea that Vane must be caught in the brambles just as he had been when trying to make a short cut, but Gilmore scouted the notion at once.

"Impossible!" he said, "Vane wouldn't be so stupid. If he is lost on the moor it is because he slipped into one of those black bog holes, got tangled in the water-weeds and couldn't get out."

"Ugh!" exclaimed Macey with a shudder. "Oh, I say: don't talk like that. It's too horrid. You don't think so, do you, Distie? Why it has made you as white as wax to hear him talk like that."

Distin shivered as if he were cold, and he forced a smile as he said hastily:--

"No: of course I don't. It's absurd."

"What is?" said Gilmore.

"Your talking like this. It isn't likely. I think it's a great piece of nonsense, this searching the country."

"Why, what would you do?" cried Macey.

"I--I--I don't know," cried Distin, who was taken aback. "Yes, I do. I should drive over to the station to see if he took a ticket for London, or Sheffield, or Birmingham, or somewhere. It's just like him. He has gone to buy screws, or something, to make a whim-wham to wind up the sun."

"No, he hasn't," said Macey st.u.r.dily; "he wouldn't go and upset the people at home like that; he's too fond of them."

"Pish!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Distin contemptuously.

"Distie's sour because he is up so early, Gil," continued Macey. "Don't you believe it. Vane's too good a chap to go off like that."

"Bah! he is always changing about. Why, you two fellows call him Weatherc.o.c.k."

"Well!" cried Gilmore; "it isn't because we don't like him."

"No," said Macey, "only in good-humoured fun, because he turns about so.

I wish," he added dolefully, "he would turn round here now."

"You don't think as the young master's really drownded, do you?" said a voice behind, and Macey turned sharply, to find that Bruff had been listening to every word.

"No, I don't," he cried angrily; "and I'll punch anybody's head who says he is. I believe old Distie wishes he was."

"You're a donkey," cried Distin, turning scarlet.

"Then keep away from my heels--I might kick. It makes me want to with everybody going along as cool as can be, as if on purpose, to fish the best chap I ever knew out of some black hole among the bushes."

"Best chap!" said Distin, contemptuously.

"Yes: best chap," retorted Macey, whose temper was soured by the cold and sleeplessness of the past night.

Further words were stopped by the churchwarden's climbing up the sandy bank of the deep lane, and stopping half-way to the top to stretch out his hand to the rector whom he helped till he was amongst the furze, when he turned to help the doctor, who was, however, active enough to mount by himself.

The rest of the party were soon up in a group, and then there was a pause and the churchwarden spoke.

"If neither of you gentlemen, has settled what to do," he said, "it seems to me the best thing is to make a line of our-sens along top of the bank here, and then go steady right along towards Lenby--say twenty yards apart."

The doctor said that no better plan could be adopted, but added:--

"I should advise that whenever a pool is reached the man who comes to it should shout. Then all the line must stop while I come to the pool and examine it."