CHAPTER XXXIX
THE THING THAT SCRATCHED
Something living it was, and pretty active, too--no mistake about that.A dog? Possibly! But the next moment it stood erect on two feet likea man, and, turning slowly, peered all about. Then as suddenly itdropped down on all fours again and fell to the scraping. I could hearthe sound distinctly in that lonesome place, where the water in thepond was too thick and heavy even to ripple, and where only the owlcried regularly once in five minutes.
I could not have spoken if I had tried, and I did not try. My tonguedried up like a piece of old bark, and I knew what the Bible meant whenit said that sometimes a fellow's tongue clave to the roof of hismouth. Mine would, if the roof had not been as dry as a chip also.
You ask if I watched the Thing. You may take it for gospel that Icould not have turned my head or averted my eyes for all the wealth ofthe Indies, though that, I understand, is a poor country enough.
Well, I saw the Thing scramble from grave to empty grave, scratch ateach furiously, obscuring the dim phosphorescent glimmer. Then,standing erect, it flung up great clawlike hands with a ghoulishgesture of disappointment, moaning lamentably to the stars!
I tell you I dripped. My body trembled so that it shook the tree. Sowould yours have done, if you had been there--perhaps even a biggertree.
Then some noise from the opposite side of the Moat, or, perhaps, frombeyond the Pond, struck the ear of the Thing. I don't know how aspectre disappears. I never saw but that one, and since then I havelost all interest. But at any rate the Shape passed me at a longwolf's lope, making no noise and going fast. Right under my nose itslipped silently into the black deeps of the Pond. I think it sankunderneath, for the next moment I could see no more than a wet head, around, vague sphere that glistened faintly, turning this way and that,and very ghastly. _The Thing was swimming, and making no noise_.
Then I came to myself with a sudden revulsion. If there were, indeed,anything living on that Island of Deep Moat Grange--yet another of thathideous crew left free and alive--the sooner the world knew about itthe better. I had always thought, and my father had said that theofficial researches in the catacombs, called after the old CistercianMonks, had been much too summary.
The moisture came slowly back to my mouth. I was still scared, ofcourse, but I had got over the paralysis that comes with a firstsurprise. If the Thing could swim, I could run, though not quite sonoiselessly, as there was an abundance of brushwood which I had totraverse, while the wave undulated like oil off the creature's back, asfrom an otter crossing a stream. You never saw anything swim solightly and yet so fast.
It crossed the Pond obliquely, evidently making for the entrance of theBackwater. I could not follow directly. You see, I was constrained tocross at the drawbridge. But, between ourselves, I burned the pathunder my feet. I have many times run fast, but never so quickly asthen. Talk about second wind--second courage is worth ten of it anyday; quite as real, too, though less talked about.
It seemed a dreadful long way round about, and my heart was as much inmy mouth now lest I should lose _It_, as it had been before, lest _It_should find me.
But I got there just ahead.
As I expected it had turned down the long, straight cut of theBackwater, and was swimming straight toward me. Now, thought I, I willsurely see what the Thing is. But I could only make out--vague, round,and shining, a head that turned this way and that in swimming.
Suddenly the speed was checked. The swimmer, whatever it might be,turned sharply, searched a little, and appeared to hesitate. I took astep and bent forward to listen. A rotten branch cracked sharply undermy careless foot. There was a sort of "wallop" like a seal or sea lionturning off a spring-board into a pond. Then came the sharp click ofsliding iron. A square of darkness yawned in the canal bank.Something entered, and the door shut with several jerks like machineryin infrequent usage. The Thing had vanished. I was alone with the newterror of the woods of Deep Moat Grange.
Nevertheless I had had a certain lesson some time before. I could notagain be altogether deceived. It _was_ something human, though in allprobability just so much the more dangerous and cruel for that. He, orshe, knew the secret of the iron door which Mr. Ablethorpe had made meenter.
There was, therefore, at least one still left of the devil's brood intheir ancient haunts, and the sooner that the world was warned, thebetter. Or, at least, I would tell my father, and he would gettogether a few determined men, who would not be afraid to act accordingto their consciences and the necessities of the case.
As for fear, it had clean gone from me. A kind of singing came into myhead instead, but not in my ears, which seemed to act withextraordinary acuteness. After all it was splendid to know what no oneelse on earth knew. Besides, I would show them all, especially Elsie,what I could do, acting alone. They despised me, laughed at me, yethere was I I had been away all day, without food, without a soulthinking about me or caring for me. Nevertheless I, Joe Yarrow, whomeverybody thought an idler, a mere waster of precious time, wouldspring this news upon the world!
And so I might, but for one thing.
To get away I had to pass the wall of the old orchard and the flagstoneon which Mr. Ablethorpe and I had seen Mad Jeremy stamping down withsuch force. Now, if I had not been such a conceited young man (myfather's words), or so taken up with getting the better of Elsie (thatyoung person's own opinion), I would have known that any of the crewwho knew the secret of the iron door and the bricked passage would alsobe sure to know that of the flagstone and the way out by the orchard.
But at any rate it did not occur to me at the time. I thought solelyabout getting home, arming a band, and coming to watch for thescratcher of the lily beds, the swimmer of the Backwater, the creaturewhich had opened and shut the iron door--no easy task, as we knew, Mr.Ablethorpe and I.
So I skirted the water edge of the old orchard hastily. Some stoneshad rolled down from the coping, and the walking was difficult. Butthere was still a good deal of light, as soon as I had turned thecorner. For the west was bright with a late golden afterglow. Quiteuseful it was.
I was just about the middle, just where the gates with their brokenblazons had stood, for it had been a swell place once. Also there wasa short cut across to the Bewick road. I passed between the damagedstone posts, which, however, still stood upright. As I did so,something sprang at me with the growl of a hungry tiger. I had hardlytime to glance up, and even then I could see no more than a vaguelyshining head, and an arm uplifted to strike, with something glitteringin it like a crescent moon.
There was no time for defence. There was no time for escape. TheThing, beast, or man--more beast-like now than human--was upon me andbore me down. But even while the danger was in the air, I heard asound which appeared to me not at all like a shot--more like a spit offire when a log sparks on the hearth. And in a moment I was prone onmy face, bruised and beaten down by the weight. I heard a jangle ofsteel. I supposed that I was wounded--that this was the end. And withthe Thing heavy on the top of me, I fainted away.
CHAPTER XL
WANTED--A PENNY IN THE SLOT
When I came to myself the moon had risen--risen good and high, too--forit showed well above the orchard wall where it was broken, and over thepalisades with which Hobby Stennis had mended it with his own hand.
Elsie was seated by me. She had opened up my coat, and undone mywaistcoat and shirt at the neck. There was a pleasant coolness, andshe was slopping about with a wet handkerchief--not very big, indeed,being one of her own, and better adapted for dabbing dry girls' eyes,than for recovering a man out of a faint.
I sat up.
"How did you come here?" I said.
"How did you?" she answered, very shortly; "lie still!"
"Shan't!"
"Still in the sulks?"
"I say, Elsie, what was _that_?"
"What?"
I was looking all about, you may be sure, and a little way off und
erthe shadow of the great broken-down gates of the orchard, I saw a heaplie darkly, curiously loose and stretched out, a kind of wisp in theform of a man, something like a Guy Fawkes dragged through waterinstead of fire.
I pointed to it. The head, to my eyes at least, still glowed faintlyphosphorescent.
"_That!_" I said briefly.
"That," said Elsie calmly, "is Mad Jeremy!"
I started up on my elbow in great astonishment.
"Then he wasn't dead after all, when he jumped into the water from thetop of the tower the morning of the burning?"
"It seems not--it was only a little habit of his," said Elsie calmly,"but he is now! _I_ killed him."
"Why?"
"Because he would have killed you, if I had not! He was waiting foryou to pass. Only, as it happened, I had been waiting longest. I knewyou were in the sulks, and came to find you. Besides--he killed mygrandfather."
"But your grandfather----"
"No matter--he _was_ my grandfather!"
"And what did you kill him with?" I was sitting up now, quite myself,and intensely curious. Elsie always says that merely wanting to knowwill restore me quicker than a whole apothecaries' hall.
She affected not to hear.
"You can't do without me after all!" she taunted. "I know."
"Don't you mind having killed him?" I asked. As for me I should havebeen fairly cut out of my mind if I had done as much.
"Of course I care," she answered; "didn't I tell you he killed mygrandfather?"
Then it was that I began to believe that after all there was somethingin blood. And I resolved, there and then, that when Elsie and I weremarried I should behave, and give her no cause to take an odd shot atme.
"But what did you do it with?" It was the second time of asking.
"Dum-dum!" said she.
"What!" I cried; "then my father gave you that beautiful long-barrelledWebley he took from me?"
"Well, don't sulk about it--there's no time!" she cried. "Of course hegave it to me--as soon as you had gone out--said I might need it, withall the excitement among the Bewick pit folk. So I had a specialpocket made for it, and I have carried it about ever since. This isthe first chance I've had, though!"
I looked at her in astonishment. This was the girl who was afraid ofmice.
"But don't you mind--_that_?" I pointed over my shoulder at the heapunder the archway. The moon was creeping upward towards the zenith,and the light had now illuminated the dark face and wet, snaky curls ofthat which had been Mad Jeremy. I went nearer to look at him. Iwanted to make sure that he was indeed dead.
The bullet had entered a trifle behind one ear, traversed the base ofthe skull, and come out by the opposite temple. This time there was nomistake--the creature was dead.
Two little crosses of white caught my eye, one over each bullet hole.She saw me bend down to examine them.
"That's the Geneva pattern," she said calmly. "It's plaster from my'First Aid to the Wounded' case. I always carry it--so convenient.Now let us go back and tell Mr. Yarrow!"
"Before we start," I said, "I think you had better give me that pistol,and after this you stick to your First Aids!"
"If I had stuck to my First Aids," she retorted, "you wouldn't haveneeded any aids--first, second, or third!"
However, she handed over the revolver, "not (as she said) because shewas afraid of it, but because it weighed down her pocket so much it wasmaking her walk lopsided!"
* * * * *
There is ever so much to tell--about how Elsie and I quarrelled andmade up--that of course. How Mr. Yarrow, senior, would and Mrs. Yarrowwouldn't. How my mother pestered me about Harriet Caw, and Mr. Mustardpestered Elsie on his own account. Then, there is all about how wewere at last rid of the Caw girls, Harriet and Constantia both, and whorid us of them. That is a ripping part. There isn't so much battle,murder, and sudden death in all this, but it's even more interesting,especially the part where Elsie and I decided to take our fate into ourown hands. It all came right enough in the end, of course, or Ishouldn't be writing like this, looking out on the sheep pasturing onthe Cheviot slopes, and listening to the whaups crying.
But for certain private reasons Elsie and I want a little more moneythis year. She is sewing away like a house on fire, with her feet onthe fender by the hearth. So if you want to know about it, just pestersome editor man to get us to write it all out for him. And we will doit gladly.
As for me, I am working up quite a good business connection on thisside of the border for my father. You see, Elsie couldn't stand theneighbourhood of Breckonside and Deep Moat Grange after what hadhappened. And, indeed, I don't blame her. Her opinion on mice, blackbeetles, and the two Caw girls, particularly Harriet, is stillunchanged--even though Harriet--but there, I really _can't_ go on withthe story without another penny in the slot.
It is quite enough to say that Aphra Orrin got imprisonment for life inan asylum for criminal lunatics, that I got Elsie, and that Elsie seemsin a fair way to get what will take her thoughts, once and for all, offthe gloomy woods and terrible waters which surround the house of DeepMoat Grange.
THE END
_Butler and Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London_
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