CHAPTER XI
THE IRON TRAPDOOR
The Hayfork Minister, who had laboured with equal determination to savethe crop of a true-blue Presbyterian and to make me a good Churchman,evidently knew his way about the precincts of the Grange. He steppedthrough a gap in the hedge, jumped a half-dry ditch, and wound his waythrough the scattering brambles and underbrush as if he had been in hisown garden plot.
No coward, the Hayfork! It took me all my time to keep up with him,and I am a good jumper, too--nearly as good as Elsie.
We went down the side of the Moat Backwater. It is a curious place.It is not, you understand, the Brom Water itself. That comes down fromthe hills and wimples away across the plain, full of good fish, bothtrout and salmon, according to their season. But the Moat Backwaterconnects the pond or little loch which lies in front of the windows ofthe Grange with the Brom. Whether the connection is absolutelynatural, or whether it was originally made by the hand of man, I cannottell. Neither, so far as I know, can anybody else. But in some placesit certainly looks like the latter.
At any rate, whenever the Brom is in flood, it "backs up," as it were,into the Backwater, and so runs into the pond. It fills the Moatitself like a tide, and I believe on a few occasions it has even beenknown to overflow the greensward where the clumps of lilies are, rightup to the steps of the front door!
There is, of course, always some water in the Lane, which trenches themeadows and runs canalwise through the fringing woods. But at ordinarytimes the water in the Lane, as much of it as there is, finds its waytoward the Brom, owing to the feeding of the Grange Pond by localstreamlets. But in times of rain the current runs the other way. Thenthe Backwater runs brown and turgid into the pond till the lilies tugat their green anchor chains and the Moat itself is lipping full ofblack, peaty water from the hills.
To-day as we plunged into the shadow of the woods along the side of theBackwater, it held no more water than a burn in the summerheats--little and still clear, the minnows and troutlets balancing anddarting, joggling each other rudely from beneath favourite stones, orshouldering into well-situated holes in the bank, like peoplescrambling for seats at a play. Then a few yards farther on would comea deep brown pool with a curious greenish opal sheen lying like a scumon the surface, for all the world like two-coloured silk. This was thereflection of the leaves above. Very dense they were, so that thelight could hardly filter through between. Along the burnside it wasgenerally lighter. But the trees clustered deep and thick about thepools, as I suppose they do all the world over, whenever they get thechance.
"The water is lower than I have ever seen it!" I said, as it might be,just for something to say. But Mr. Ablethorpe did not answer a word.I could see him looking eagerly about him, evidently searching forsomething he had seen before, but for the moment could not find again.
I could not for the life of me imagine what it could be, nor yet why hehad been so keen to have me with him. It was not that he was afraid.That was plain enough. For he had been this way before, and that quiterecently. I knew by his spying this way and that for landmarks. And Iknew quite certain that it was not just that I might give him a handwith old Caleb Fergusson's harvest that he had asked me off from myhome work, or home play, whichever it might be.
All at once he stopped, sat down on a log, pulled out his knife andbegan to whittle at a branch of oak. Whatever it was he was lookingfor, he had either found it, or decided to give up the search.
We were sitting on a fallen tree trunk, close to the edge of theBackwater, and the pool beneath us was almost dry. The Lane ran out ofsight, getting smaller and smaller in what I have heard called"perspective"--that is, straight as if ruled on paper with a straightedge.
Then the Hayfork Minister asked me if I saw anything particular aboutthe water. I told him what I have just written, but I could not forthe life of me remember the word "perspective." He understood allright, though.
"Good," he said, "and does that suggest nothing else to the bold andinquiring mind of my friend Joseph?"
After looking awhile I answered that it seemed to me as if somebody hadcut the canal with spades just as Tim O'Hara and Mike Whelan did theditching and draining on my father's forage parks the winter beforelast.
"Right again, Joe!" he said, pleasedlike, and rumpled up my hair in away I don't let anybody do--except Elsie, who does as she likes,whether I like it or no. I pulled away my head angrily. But theHayfork Minister never minded.
"I can't tell you whether this has been dug out with a spade or not,"he said, putting a point on the oaken cudgel with his big "gully" knife(think of a minister with a knife like that!), "but this I can tellyou, that the hand of man has been here or hereabouts!"
And with that he leaned over the edge right among the weeds and beganscraping away at the bank. It was coated over pretty regularly with agreyish mud which had come down with the last emptying of the pond.This was done periodically, with the avowed purpose of clearing out theMoat and Backwater. Mr. Ball saw to it, under the personalsuperintendence of Mr. Stennis. And all that day the mad people at theGrange were kept within doors, and the policies were strictly guarded.For the scour of the water escaping down the channel brought with itmultitudes of fish--not very large, it is true, but sufficient to be atemptation to every boy within miles. Such, however, was the terrorinspired by the inhabitants of Deep Moat Grange, and especially by DaftJeremy, that those who were bold enough to come at all, rather bravedthe dangers of the Duke's keepers at the infall of the Backwater intothe Brom, than dared to set a foot within those woodland shadows wherethey knew not what terrors might lurk.
The Hayfork Minister went on knocking off big flakes of dried mud withthe point of his stick. Then, whistling softly, he started to polishsomething with vigour. At first I could not in the least see what hewas after, but soon a good big square of reddish metal was laid bare.It was not upright in the bank, but leaned a little back, was very deepset, and I could see that it had been intended to slide in grooves. Atthe time I had no idea as to why it had been put there. But now I knowthat it must have been constructed for purposes of irrigation.
There was, in fact, an old vegetable garden and orchard, still partlyenclosed with crumbling walls, not two hundred yards off through thewoods. And there is little doubt that it had been the intention ofsome former travelled master of the Grange to cultivate his tablevegetables and fruits on the system of Southern Europe.
All, however, was now desolate.
Yet the iron plate in the bank, though mud-covered and rusty, had notstuck altogether. Indeed, looking at it closely, it was not difficultto see that it had recently been used. With the Hayfork Minister atone end of the oak branch, and myself at the other, we soon made itbudge with a smothered heave-ho! and revealed a regularly brickedtunnel leading apparently into the bowels of the earth.
"That is where you are to go, my son!" said Mr. Ablethorpe.
"Me!"
Mr. Ablethorpe nodded, and scraping away some leaves behind the fallentree on which we had been sitting together, he disinterred a coil ofstout cord, not thick, but very strong, with a red thread runningthrough it. "This has served," he said, "for heavier weights in moredangerous places!"
And without more ado he proceeded to knot it about my waist, as if hehad been accustomed to nothing else all his life. But I objected.Indeed, I had reason. For suppose Mad Jeremy, or Aphra Orrin, or Mr.Stennis himself were to come while I was up there--what then?
"You leave that to me, Joe," said the Hayfork Minister; "there is notone of them that would dare to touch me--no, nor you--while you are inmy company."
This was good enough to hear, and, in its way, comforting. But,somehow, at such a time the mind craves for proofs more absolute. Orto be somewhere else. Particularly the latter.
I think Mr. Ablethorpe saw something of my dismay on my face, forimmediately he stopped what he was doing, put his hand on my shoulder,and said, "Joe, would I send you into any danger I would not b
e readyto share myself?"
"No, I believe not, sir!" said I. For though he worried me like funabout being the right sort of Churchman, he was a rare good sorthimself, man and Churchman, too. At least I know about the first, andas for the Churchman, I am willing to take that on trust.
"Well, now," said he, "that's settled. In you go!"
"But what am I to do when I get in there?" I asked. For I had thoughtthat he was going to give me a proper explanation of everything--thewhys and the wherefores, and all about it.
"You are to crawl, Joe," he said, "because you can get in and I cannot,Joseph! That's the worst of going in for athletics at school, Joe--itmakes you grow such a whopping size afterwards when you stop them. Soyou are to crawl up there for me, and as soon as you find anything, youare to give the rope a tug, and I will pull you out! For it isn't soeasy as it looks to crawl backward down a hole of that size."
"But suppose," I faltered, my imagination rampant, and my voice failingme at the same moment, "suppose--that I should come on--on poor HarryFoster--with--with his throat cut--oh, what should I do?"
"You won't--more's the pity," he answered, quite coolly. "If Harry hadbeen in there, and you and I sitting here, we should have known it longere this. No such luck! Still, what you may _find_, is quite worththe trial. We shall at least learn something!"
Now I don't think that, since the visit Elsie and I paid to Deep MoatGrange, I was quite so eager to "learn something" as I had been. Butit was no use being a coward with the Hayfork Minister.
"In you go, Joe," he said, lowering me by the rope to the black mouthof the passage, "in with you, eel! And if you find anything portable,gave a tug, and if you want to come out _very_ suddenly, give two tugs."
I was halfway in as he said these words, and I instantly gave two tugs,but he only said, "Now, no monkey tricks, Joe. This is serious. Upwith you. Remember I am here!"
I was not at all likely to forget it. But I had much rather he hadbeen head foremost up that narrow tunnel, and I out in the green aislesof the forest waiting for him with a rope in my hands.