Dick o' the Fens: A Tale of the Great East Swamp

  CHAPTER NINETEEN.

  THE NEW HORROR.

  They did not know exactly where to go, for the guidance afforded by asound is very deceptive, but there had been the splash of water, so thatthe shot must have been from somewhere at the foot of the Toft, downwhere the meadow land gave place to rough marsh, bog, and reedy water.

  Dick listened as he ran; but there was no splash now--no sound offootstep.

  As the lads advanced the dawning light increased, and a startled birdflew out from the bushes, another from a tuft of dry grass; and oncemore there was the _chink_--_chink_ of a blackbird. The day wasawakening, and Dick Winthorpe asked himself what the dawn was to show.

  It was still dark enough to necessitate care, and over the mere as theyneared it a low mist hung, completely screening its waters as theyvainly attempted to pierce the gloom.

  Plash, plash through the boggy parts of the mere fringe, for Dick hadnot paused to follow any track, stumbling among tufts of grass and marshgrowth, they hurried on with eager eyes, longing to shout, but afraid,for there was a growing horror upon both the lads of having to beshortly in presence of some terrible scene.

  They neither of them spoke, but mutually clung together for support,though all the time there was a strange repugnance in Dick's breast ashe now began to realise the strength of the suspicion he entertained.

  But if they dared not shout, there was some one near at hand ready toutter a lusty cry, which startled them as it rang out of the gloom fromaway down by the labourers' cottages and the wheelwright's.

  "Ahoy! Hillo!" rang out.

  "Hillo, Hicky!" yelled Tom. "Here!"

  "Where away, lads?" came back; and then there was the dull low beat offeet, and they heard the wheelwright shout to his apprentice to followhim.

  The two little parties joined directly, to stand in the mist all pantingand excited, the wheelwright half-dressed, and his bare head rough fromcontact with the pillow.

  "Hey, lads," he cried, "was that you two shouting?"

  Dick tried to speak, but he could not frame a word.

  "No; we heard it from somewhere down here," panted Tom.

  "I heered it too," cried Jacob, "and wackened the mester."

  "Ay, that's a true word," cried Hickathrift. "What does it mean?"

  "Hicky," panted Dick in piteous tones, "I don't know--I'm afraid I--myfather's out here somewhere."

  "Hey! The squire?" cried Hickathrift with a curious stare at first oneand then the other. "Yow don't think--"

  He paused, and Dick replied in a whisper:

  "Yes, Hicky, I do."

  "Here, let's search about; it's getting light fast. Now, then," criedthe wheelwright, "yow go that way, Jacob; I'll go this; and you twolads--"

  "No, no," said Dick. "It must be somewhere close by here, near thewater. Let's keep together, please."

  "Aw reight!" muttered the wheelwright; and following Dick they went asclose to the water's edge as they could go, and crept along, with thebushes and trees growing more plain to view, and the sky showing onedull orange fleck as the advance guard of the coming glory of the morn.

  They went along for a couple of hundred yards in one direction, butthere was nothing to be seen; then a couple of hundred yards in theother direction, but there was nothing visible there. And as the lightgrew stronger they sought about them, seeing clearly now that theghastly figure Dick dreaded to find was nowhere as far as they couldmake out inshore.

  "Hillo!" shouted Hickathrift again and again; "squire!"

  There was no reply, and the chill of horror increased as the feelingthat they were searching in vain out and in pressed itself upon all, andthey knew that the man they sought must be in the water.

  "Here, howd hard," cried Hickathrift. "What a moodle head I am! You,Jacob, run back and let loose owd Grip."

  The apprentice ran back as hard as he could, and the group remained insilence till they saw him disappear behind the shed. Then there was aloud burst of barking.

  Hickathrift whistled, and the great long-legged lurcher came boundingover the rough boggy land, to leap at his master and then stand panting,open-mouthed, eager, and ready to dart anywhere his owner bade.

  "Here, Grip, lad, find him, then--find him, boy!"

  The dog uttered one low, growling bark, and then bounded off, hurryinghere and there in the wildest way, while the boys watched intently.

  "Will he find him, Hicky?" said Dick huskily.

  "Ay, or anyone else," said the wheelwright, who alternately watched thedog, and swept the surface of the mere wherever the mist allowed.

  "There! Look at that!" he cried, as, after a minute, the dog settleddown to a steady hunt, with his nose close to the ground, and rapidlyfollowed the track lately taken by someone who had passed.

  "But perhaps he is following our steps!" said Dick excitedly.

  "Nay, not he. Theer, what did I tell you?" cried Hickathrift as the dogsuddenly stopped by the water, opposite to a thick bed of reeds a dozenyards or so from the bank.

  Dick turned pale; the wheelwright ran down to the edge of the mere; andas the dog stood by the water barking loudly, Hickathrift waded inwithout hesitation, the boys following, with Grip swimming and snortingat their side, and taking up the chase again as soon as he reached thereeds.

  It was only a matter of minutes now before the dog had rushed on beforethem, disappeared in the long growth, and then they heard him barkingfuriously.

  "Let me go first, Mester Dick," said Hickathrift hoarsely. "Nay, don't,lad."

  There was a kindly tone of sympathy in the great fellow's voice, butDick did not give way. He splashed on through the reeds, his positionhaving placed him in advance of his companions, and parting the tallgrowth he uttered a cry of pain.

  The others joined him directly, and stood for a moment gazing down atwhere, standing on the very edge of the mere, Dick was holding up hisfather's head from where he lay insensible among the reeds, his facewhite and drawn, his eyes nearly closed, and his hands clenched andstretched out before him.

  Hickathrift said not a word, but, as in similar cases before, he raisedthe inanimate form, hung it over his shoulder, and waded back to firmground.

  "Hey, Mester Dick," he said huskily, as he hurried towards his cottage,"I nivver thowt to hev seen a sight like this."

  "No, no," cried Dick; "not there."

  "Yes, I'll tak' him home to my place," whispered Hickathrift. "You'dscare your mother to dead. Here, Jacob, lad, don't stop to knock or askquestions, but go and tak' squire's cob, and ride him hard to town fordoctor."

  "Tell my father as you go by, Jacob," cried Tom excitedly; and as theapprentice dashed off, Tom's eyes met those of Dick.

  "Don't look so wild and strange, Dick, old chap," whispered the ladkindly; and he laid a hand upon Dick's shoulder, but the boy shrank fromhim with a shudder which the other could not comprehend.

  Hickathrift shouted to his wife, who had risen and dressed in hisabsence, and in a short time the squire was lying upon a mattress withHickathrift eagerly searching for the injury which had laid him low; butwhen he found it, the wound seemed so small and trifling that he lookedwondering up at Dick.

  "That couldn't have done it," he said in a whisper.

  The wheelwright was wrong. That tiny blue wound in the strong man'schest had been sufficient to lay him there helpless, and so near deaththat a feeling of awe fell upon those who watched and waited, and triedto revive the victim of this last outrage.

  It was a terrible feeling of helplessness that which pervaded the place.There was nothing to do save bathe the wounded man's brow and moistenhis lips with a little of the smuggled spirit with which most of thecoast cottages were provided in those distant days. There was no bloodto staunch, nothing to excite, nothing to do but wait, wait for thedoctor's coming.

  Before very long Farmer Tallington arrived, and as he encountered Dick'seyes fixed upon him he turned very pale, and directly after, when hebent over the squire's couch and took his hand, the lad
saw that hetrembled violently.

  "It's straange and horrible--it's straange and horrible," he said: "onlyyesterday he was like I am: as strong and well as a man can be; whilenow--Hickathrift, my lad, do you think he'll die?"

  The wheelwright shook his head--he could not trust himself to speak; andDick stood with a sensation of rage gathering in his breast, which madehim feel ready to spring at Farmer Tallington's throat, and accuse himof being his father's murderer.

  "The hypocrite--the cowardly hypocrite!" he said to himself; "but weknow now, and he shall be punished."

  The boy's anger was fast growing so ungovernable that he was about tofly out and denounce his school-fellow's father, but just then a hastystep was heard outside, and a familiar voice exclaimed:

  "Where is my husband?"

  The next minute Mrs Winthorpe was in the room, wild-eyed and pale, butperfectly collected in her manner and acts.

  "How long will it be before the doctor can get here?" she said hoarsely,as she passed her arm under the injured man's neck, and pressed her lipsto his white brow.

  "Hickathrift's lad went off at a hard gallop," said Farmer Tallington ina voice full of sympathy. "Please God, Mrs Winthorpe, we'll save himyet."

  Dick uttered a hoarse cry and staggered out of the room, for the man'shypocrisy maddened him, and he knew that if he stayed he should speakout and say all he knew.

  As he reached the little garden there was a step behind him, a hand waslaid upon his shoulder, another grasped his arm.

  "I can't talk and say things, Dicky," said Tom in a low half-chokingvoice; "but I want to comfort you. Don't break down, old fellow. Thedoctor will save his life."

  This from the son of the man whom he believed to have shot his father!and the rage Dick felt against the one seemed to be ready to fall uponthe other. But as his eyes met those of his old school-fellow andcompanion full of sorrowful sympathy, Dick could only grasp Tom's hands,feeling that he was a true friend, and in no wise answerable for hisfather's sins.

  "Ay, that's right," said a low, rough voice. "Nowt like stickingtogether and helping each other in trouble. Bud don't you fret, MesterDick. Squire's a fine stark man, and the missus has happed him upwaarm, and you see the doctor will set him right."

  "Thank you, Hicky," said Dick, calming down; and then he stood thinkingand asking himself how he could denounce the father of his old friendand companion as the man who, for some hidden reason of his own, was theplotter and executor of all these outrages.

  At one moment he felt that he could not do this. At another there wasthe blank suffering face of his father before his eyes, seeming to askhim to revenge his injuries and to bring a scoundrel to justice.

  For a time Dick was quite determined; but directly after there camebefore him the face of poor, kind-hearted Mrs Tallington, who hadalways treated him with the greatest hospitality, while, as he seemed tolook at her eyes pleading upon her husband's behalf, Tom took his handand wrung it.

  "I'm going to stick by you, Dick," he said; "and you and I are going tofind out who did this, and when we do we'll show him what it is to shootat people, and burn people's homesteads, and hough their beasts."

  Dick gazed at him wildly. Tom going to help him run his own father downand condemn him by giving evidence when it was all found out!Impossible! Those words of his old companion completely disarmed himfor the moment, and to finish his discomfiture, just then FarmerTallington came out of the cottage looking whiter and more haggard thanbefore.

  He came to where the wheelwright was standing, and spoke huskily.

  "I can't bear it," he said. "It is too horrible. Might hev been me,and what would my poor lass do? Hickathrift, mun, the villain who doesall this must be found out."

  "Ay, farmer, but how?"

  "I don't know how," said the farmer, gazing from one to the other. "Ion'y know it must be done. If I'd gone on this morning I might havefound out something, but I went back."

  Dick gazed at him searchingly, but the farmer did not meet his eyes.

  "I've been straange and fidgety ever since my fire," continued thefarmer; "and it's med me get out o' bed o' nights and look round forfear of another. I was out o' bed towards morning last night, and as Ilooked I could see yonder on the mere what seemed to be a lanthorn."

  "You saw that?" said Dick involuntarily.

  "Ay, lad, I saw that," said the farmer, rubbing his hands togethersoftly; "and first of all I thowt it was a will-o'-the-wisp, but itdidn't go about like one o' they, and as it went out directly and cameagain, I thought it was some one wi' a light."

  "What, out on the watter?" said Hickathrift.

  "Yes, my lad; out on the watter," said the farmer; "and that med me sayto mysen: What's any one doing wi' a light out on the watter at thistime? and I could on'y think as they wanted it to set fire to some one'splaace, and I couldn't stop abed and think that. So I got up, and wentdown to the shore, got into my owd punt, and loosed her, and went outtorst wheer I'd seen the light."

  "And did you see it, mester?" said Hickathrift.

  "Nay, my lad. I went on and on as quietly as I could go, and round thereed-bed, but all was as quiet as could be."

  "Didn't you see the poont?" said the wheelwright.

  "What punt?" said Tom sharply.

  Hickathrift looked confused.

  "Poont o' him as hed the light, I meant," he said hurriedly.

  "Nay, not a sign of it," said Farmer Tallington; "and at last I turnedback and poled gently home, keeping a sharp look-out and listening allthe way, but I niver see nowt nor heered nowt. But if I'd kept out onthe waiter I should p'raps have seen and saved my poor owd neighbour."

  "You might, mebbe," said the wheelwright thoughtfully; while, aftergazing in the faces of the two men and trying to read the truth, Dickturned away with his suspicions somewhat blunted, to go to his mother'sside, and watch with her till the sound of hoofs on the rough track toldthat the messenger had returned.