CHAPTER XXVIII
SATURDAY, THE TENTH OF FEBRUARY
This was on the evening of Saturday, the tenth of February, a day neverto be forgotten by me and by many more. I will try to place here inorder the events which happened both at Deep Moat Grange and atBreckonside during the succeeding forty-eight hours. Of course, thereis some part that can only be guessed at, and part is known solely bythe maunderings of a criminal maniac. But still, I think, I have nowgot the whole pretty straight--as straight as it will ever be known onthis side time. At any rate, it is my account or none. For no oneelse can know what I know.
As Mr. Ablethorpe had informed me, he was at a standstill in hisresearches. And the reason was that Mr. Hobby Stennis, the "GoldenFarmer," as he was called, had departed on one of his frequent journeys.
So much was true. The master of Deep Moat Grange had indeed beenabsent for three days. But he had returned that same Saturday morningabout ten o'clock. He had been disgusted to find the house empty.Probably, also, he was in a very bad temper owing to the failure ofsome combination or other he had counted upon. He found nothingprepared for his reception. Miss Orrin and her sisters were gone, andMad Jeremy in one of his maddest and most freakish humours.
Now, of all times for arriving from a journey the noon is the worst.In the evening one dines. Later, one may have supper. Later still,one sleeps. In the morning everybody is astonished, and says: "Howbrisk and early you are to-day!" This pleases you, and you step aboutthe place and come in sharp-set for breakfast. But in the forenoon itis a long time till lunch or dinner. Every one is busy. The clothesin which you have attempted to sleep feel as if filled with fine sand.You want to kick somebody, and if there is nobody whom you canreasonably kick, you feel worse.
Well, this is how Hobby felt. He wanted breakfast, and Mad Jeremyinformed him that there was no bread. If he wanted any he could act asbaker and bake a batch for himself.
"Go and get me something to eat, you rascal!" cried Mr. Stennisthreateningly. And as he raised his riding-whip, Jeremy cowered. Butit was with his body only. His eyes kept on those of his master, andthey were those of a beast that has not been conquered--or, ifvanquished, not subdued.
With impish spitefulness he set about gathering together all the ortsand scraps of his own various disorganized meals, and brought them in,piled on a plate, to his master. Hobby Stennis was in no mood foramusement. He had his riding-whip still in his hand. He raised it,and, as one would strike a hound, he lashed Jeremy across the face.The madman did not flinch--he only stood, with a certain semblance ofmeekness, shutting his eyes as the blows descended, as a dog might.Once, twice, thrice, the whip cut across cheek and brow and jaw.Jeremy put up his fingers to feel the weals which rose red and angry.But he said nothing. Only his eyes followed his master as he went out.
"He raised his riding whip, and, as one would strike ahound he lashed Jeremy across the face."]
Mr. Stennis, still furiously angry, threw plate and contents out of thewindow. They fell in the muddy, ill-cared-for yard. The plateshivered, and Jeremy, after whimpering a little like a punished child,went outside also, got on his knees, and patiently gathered themtogether again, swinging his head with the pitiable and impotentvengeance of a child. Only Mad Jeremy was very far indeed from being achild.
Muttering to himself, Mr. Stennis strode away across the drawbridge,which still bore the footmarks of the mob which, in the time of hisillness, had crossed and recrossed it. Part of the balustrade had beenkicked away, and hung by a tough twisted oak splinter, yawning over theMoat to the swirl of the wet February wind.
He walked forward, never hesitating a moment, his switch still in hishand, cutting at the brownish last year's brackens which, havingdoubled over halfway up the stem, now trailed their broad leaves in thebleak, black February sop.
Straight for Mr. Ball's the master of the Grange took his way. Hefollowed the narrow path which, skirting the Backwater, crosses afield, and then drops over the high March dike into the road quiteclose to the cottage of Mr. Bailiff Ball. It was almost dinner-time,and with a word Mr. Stennis explained the situation. Mrs. Ball sweptall the too genial horde of children into the kitchen, and set herselfto serve a meal to the owner of the Grange and his bailiff.
The first plateful of Scots broth, with its stieve sustenance of peas,broad beans, and carrots, together with curly greens and vegetablesalmost without number, put some heart into Mr. Stennis--though hisanger against Jeremy for the insult offered to him in his own house didnot in the least cool.
"I always like broth that a man can eat conveniently with knife andfork," said Mr. Ball, striving to be agreeable. "Let me give youanother plateful, sir."
But Mr. Stennis declined. The thought of Jeremy and his plate of ortsreturned to his mind and he choked anew with anger.
"I will teach him!" he said aloud, frowning and pursing his mouth.
Mr. Ball was far too wise a man to ask a question. He kept his place,worked the out-farms, deserved the confidence of his master, andconvinced all the world that he had nothing to do with the ill-doingsof the garrison at the "Big Hoose" by carefully guarding his speech.As a matter of fact, he made it his business to know nothing except inwhich field to sow turnips, and the probable price he would get for thewintering sheep that ate them out of the furrows.
Never was a man better provided with deaf and blind sides than Mr.Bailiff Ball. And, being a man with a family, he had need of them atDeep Moat Grange.
So he did not inquire who it was that Mr. Hobby Stennis meant to teach,nor yet what was the nature of the proposed lesson. If knowledge ispower, carefully cultivated ignorance sometimes does not lack a certainpower also.
Mr. Stennis ate of the boiled mutton which followed, and of the boiledcabbage withal--of potatoes, mealy and white, such as became thebailiff of several large unlet farms, and a man whose accounts hadnever been called in question by so much as a farthing.
Mr. Stennis ate of pancakes with jam rolled inside, and of pancakes onwhich the butter fairly danced upon the saffron and russet surfaces, sohot were they from the pan. He drank pure water. He refused to smoke,which Mr. Ball did every day and all day long. Mr. Stennis was anexample--a man without vices.
Then these two, master and man--though by no means "like master, likeman"--strolled about the fields discussing what was to be done withthis parcel of bullocks, or what line of crops would do best on theNether Laggan Hill, or the Broomy Knowe. Mr. Bailiff Ball wishedheartily that his master would be gone. But he was not in a positionto tell him so. At last, after two o'clock, Mr. Stennis suddenly, andwithout any preliminaries, bade him "good-day" and so betook himselfthrough the misty willow copses along the Backwater, on which the hazeof spring was greening already, towards the house of Deep Moat Grange.
* * * * *
It was not the least of Elsie's troubles to keep herself "nice" in theback half of the monks' oven, near the bakehouse. Soap she had--awhole bar of it. And with the water which she dipped up from thetrap-door behind her bed, she washed her single turn-over collar againand again--as well as her handkerchiefs and other "whitethings"--drying them rapidly and well in front of the dividing wall ofthe oven.
Starch, however, was beyond her, and ironing also. Still she wasclean, which to Elsie Stennis was very near indeed to being godly.Jeremy had been idle for several days, but it chanced that that verySaturday morning he had set the furnace a-going, and had begun toprepare a batch of bread. Notwithstanding, he had been strangelyunsettled. He had looked in several times on Elsie, even bringing in alittle washing soda for her laundry work, but had departed alwayswithout saying anything of his intentions. Never on any occasion hadhe mentioned her fellow-prisoner, my father. And he, on his part, hadstrictly forbidden Elsie to say anything of their converse one withanother. Not that Elsie would have done that in any case. She had toomuch the instinct of playing the game.
Usually when Jeremy came in, he would bring with him
a Jew's-harp, and,curling himself up in one corner of the settle, he would extract tunesfrom that limited instrument with a strange weird combination of voiceand twang of the metallic tongue.
Or with a mandolin, of which he had somehow become possessed, he wouldlean against the table, stretch his long legs, shake back his snakycurls, swinging his body to and fro, and improvise such music as neverhas been heard on earth before.
But ever and anon, between bursts of strange melody--for there was acertain attraction in every sound he produced--he would return to thesubject of the new cargo of melodeons which had just been received atYarrow's, down in the village. He would have one he declared, whateverold Hobby might say, the skinflint--who would not let poor Jeremy havea single goldpiece of all he had won for him by his own strong hands.
He would let him see, however, when he came back, who was master. Andif he would not, then he, Jeremy Orrin, knew somebody--perhaps not sofar away--who would give him not only one, but many melodeons, for onesmell of the fresh air.
Elsie had the presence of mind not to appear to understand that hemeant my father. It was, evidently, one of Jeremy's worst days. AndElsie wished that she had been able to get her knife back from myfather, who had borrowed it the night before for a special piece offiling. The work was approaching completion, but just at the lastmoment he had come upon a bar of iron, buried, for what purpose hecould not imagine, in the thickness of the wall. It ran diagonally,and would need to be cut in two places before there was any chance ofthe passage being finished between their prison chambers.
But the bar once cut, and the passage clear, my father, who, as part ofhis business, was learned in locks, did not anticipate from Elsie'sdescription any serious trouble. The iron door and patent safety lockof his own prison house, recently arranged for by Mr. Stennis--heremembered the transaction--was, of course, beyond him. But if all wasas he had been given to expect, the fastenings of Elsie's door--whichcommunicated with the oven corridor--were of quite another type, andneed not detain him long.
It was a little after eleven of the day, as Elsie judged by the light,when Jeremy came back after a somewhat prolonged absence. He broughther a piece of made bread--by which he meant bread bought from one ofthe vans that passed along the highway, but none of which came up tothe Moat Grange.
"Hae," he said, smiling curiously, "there's for you! I hae nae time tobe baking to-day. The maister's hame. Guid luck, an' lang life tohim!"
He was speaking very curiously, laughing all the time--not offeringthreats and complaints as he had been doing before.
"And see!" he cried out, suddenly. "He has brought Jeremy a presentwi' his ain hand--ay, wi' his ain hand he gied it him!"
And, lifting his finger, he drew it along three red weals on his browand cheek, one after the other, ending at the corner of the jaw beneaththe ear, from which a drop of blood trickled. And he laughed--all thetime he laughed.
"A bonnie present," he repeated, "think ye not so, bonnie birdie? Yenever gat the like, and him your ain grandfather. Ah, but he's kind toJeremy! And Jeremy will never forget it. Na--Jeremy followed him,like pussy cat after a plate of cream, to the March dyke, to the verydoor o' Bailiff Ball's house. Jeremy wadna let ony ill befall hismaister this day. If a _wulf_, or a lion, or a bear had leaped uponHobby Stennis, Jeremy wad hae strangled them like this--_chirt_--wi'his hands, as easy as ony thing. Ay, he wad that! For the kind kindpresent he fetched his faithfu' servant, naebody shall lay a hand onHobby Stennis this day--except, maybe, Jeremy himsel'--ay, maybe, juistJeremy himsel'. Ow, ay, but a' in the way o' kindness! the same asHobby himsel'!"
And with that he picked up his Jew's-harp and breathed a fierce angerand scorn into the familiar words that was positively shocking tolisten to--
Be it ever so humble, There's no place like ho-o-o-me.
And he stopped to laugh between the lines. Elsie says that it fairlyturned her cold to hear him. Though at that time she had, as sheremembers, no fear for herself--which, when you come to think of it,was a very curious circumstance indeed. But then her turn was yet tocome.
In Jeremy's absence, Elsie tried to tell my father all about it. Butthe coming and going of the madman that day were so uncertain, and hismoods so dangerous, that she could not get matters half explained; noryet any advice from my father, except not to cross the maniac, save inthe last extremity. He offered to pass her back the knife, but Elsie,hearing that one end of the bar was already severed, and the other wellthrough, refused, like the little brick she was, to take it.
Now, this part which follows can only be known imperfectly, because itconcerns what happened when Hobby Stennis went back to his own house ofthe Moat Grange. There were two other sources of information--Jeremy'swild talk afterwards to Elsie, and certain signs and marks not easy ofinterpretation, which, however, tend to confirm in most points themadman's version.
After Mad Jeremy had come back from watching his master carefully intothe house of the bailiff, he visited Elsie, and spoke the words, littlereassuring, which I have already written down.
Then going up to the great parlour, out of which opened Mr. Stennis'sweaving-room, he lit a lire of wood, which burned with much cheerfulblaze. In front of this he sat down, with his fiddle in his hand. Hehad only drawn the bow across it, and began to tune up when his masterwalked in.
Possibly the noise irritated Hobby Stennis's none too steady nerves.Possibly, also, he was nettled at Jeremy's insistent request for theloan of a couple of sovereigns in order to go down and "price" the newcargo of melodeons received at Yarrow's, in the village. They had beenordered by my father before his disappearance, to satisfy a temporarylocal musical fever, and had only just arrived.
How exactly the thing happened is not known, but, at any rate, it iscertain that Mr. Stennis refused to give Jeremy a farthing for any suchpurpose, and at the first sullen retort of the madman, turned fiercelyupon him, wrenched from his hands the violin on which he had beenfitfully playing and threw it on the fire. As the light dry woodcaught and the varnish crackled, Mr. Stennis strode off, fuming, to hisweaving-room to calm himself with a turn at the famous hand-loom. Hesat down before it, and as the shuttle began to pass back and forth,his passion fell away in proportion as the fascination of the perfecthandicraft gained on him.
But Jeremy stood gazing fixedly at the burning fiddle till the lastclear flame died out, and in the great fireplace only a double couch ofred ashes preserved the shape of a violin.
But, meantime, in the weaving-room the shuttle said _click-clack_ inthe great silence which seemed to have fallen all of a sudden upon DeepMoat Grange. In the red light, Jeremy stood erect, gazing entranced atthe shape of his beloved instrument outlined on the hearth, andfollowing one by one with his forefinger the ridged weals, from hischeek to his forehead and back again. And all about the twilight fellsuddenly dim.