Deep Moat Grange. Crockett Samuel Rutherford

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СКАЧАТЬ to keep people off, first told us to go back, and then asked where we were going.

      Elsie merely told him that so far as she knew the road went further – on to Bewick Upton, in fact.

      "Are you the kids that came across the moor and found this – and the prisoner?"

      To make him civil we told him we were, but that Davie Elshiner was surely innocent and would not harm a fly.

      "That's as may be," said the policeman; "what did he say when you woke him?"

      We told the man that Davie was afraid of being suspected, having been last seen with the missing man, also how he was sure that because he was a known poacher people would not believe him.

      "Aye," said the policeman, nodding his head dreadfully wisely, "indeed, he was right to say that. Ah, a bad conscience is our best friend! It is indeed!" And everything we could say in favour of Davie seemed just to tell against him, so that we had to be content with saying that he was the person least likely to do such a thing, because he would certainly be suspected, and that they might as well suspect us.

      This last remark seemed to impress the policeman, who pulled out a fat notebook and solemnly jotted it down before our eyes.

      "It's a good rule in our business," he said slowly, "to suspect the least likely persons. Thank you very much for your interesting communication – thank you very much, indeed!"

      "Ah, you're dotty!" I called out to him in a sudden fume of anger, and left him standing there and slowly buckling up the flap of the inside pocket in which he had stowed away his precious notebook.

      Now I am not going to pretend that Elsie and I found anything very grand that day, for we didn't. But at any rate we knew for certain how Dappled Bess came home, and where the leaves came from. It was all simple enough and quite natural. The poor beast had got a fright by the bridge on the Bewick road. She turned off it, therefore, as soon as she could. We found the wheel tracks leading away to the left along a rough moor track. The cart had been going fast, evidently empty or at least very lightly laden. For there was little depth to the impression even in fairly mossy places, but the rocks and stones were bumped and scarred with the iron tire as the wagon rebounded from side to side.

      We soon found ourselves making for the highway, which is known in our parts as the Old Military Road. It goes into Scotland to a place called Longtown, and beyond that, they say, to Edinburgh and Glasgow. But that I only knew from hearsay. At any rate it was old, and so were the woods all about it. Centuries old they were, and the fine old house among them was called Deep Moat Grange. It stood right in the middle, and had always been inhabited by rich folk. But, only a few years before, my father had done it all up for old Mr. Stennis, whom they called the Golden Farmer, because of the great deal of money he had made farming and dealing in cattle. He was living there now, and for that matter was Elsie's very own grandfather. We called him the Unnatural, because he would have nothing to do with her – all because of something her mother had done long ago, before Elsie was so much as born. But he was a lusty old cock bird, and being rich was much respected. He bred first-rate sporting terriers that brought in a power of money, my father said. We knew all about him, too, that is as much as any one knew, because Nance Edgar sometimes worked there by favour of the farm bailiff, Mr. Simon Ball.

      Elsie and I were standing at the turn of the road looking at the tracks of the wheels which Harry Foster's cart had made in the grass, when who should come up but the very man, Mr. Ball, the bailiff at Deep Moat Grange.

      He knew me, which was nothing extraordinary. They say I am the image of what my father was at my age, and, of course, everybody knows him. If they don't, he tells them, and sees if he can do business with them.

      Well, Mr. Ball came up and asked us what we were looking at, and when we had told him, he blurted out all in a gabble that he had seen the blue and red cart with the piebald mare come tearing over the moor road yesterday morning. He had been in the little "lantern" above the drying-room at the corn mill, which is so high that you can see over the tree tops and look right out on the moor. He thought it was a runaway, but when he had time to run down to the end of the avenue, he could only see it like a little square dab rocking and lurching from one side of the road to the other, and scraping trees and bushes like all possessed.

      "And has nobody come to tell you that poor Harry Foster is murdered?" I said.

      "I heard the men in the yard talking about some such suspicion," he said quite calmly, "but nobody has been here. You see, Master Yarrow, our old gov'nor, Mr. Stennis, has been up in London for three days seeing his lawyer, and he don't like folk coming about the Grange when he is from home!"

      "So I have heard," said I, "and he keeps some fine dogs there, too, to see that they don't."

      For my father had refused to deliver Mr. Stennis' goods, except at Mr. Ball's house, which was on the main road, and no tearing dogs kept.

      "Very like – very like," said Mr. Ball hastily; "and who may this fine young lady be – your sister? She seems to favour you, sir."

      "Elsie Stennis," says I, "and if she had her rights you know very well what she would be! Your young mistress!"

      "Elsie Stennis?" he gasped, "not poor Bell's daughter – and Robin's?"

      "The same!"

      "Bell and Robin Stennis – I mind them well. But where, how – "

      The bailiff stopped, all thrown out of gear, much more affected, indeed, than when it was a question of Harry Foster's death.

      "Well," he went on at last, "it's perhaps as well not asking. I might blurt things out. But I hope – I may say that I pray – that the day may come when you shall have your rights, young lady, and I shall see yon crew sent about their business to a madhouse. That's the fit place for such as they! There they go. I must be off. They will be at their processioning again, and Mr. Stennis will never forgive me if they come to a mischief or go off the premises!"

      We did not know then what he was talking about, but we could hear over the green tree tops the sound of a cornet playing a marching tune, and marvellously well, too.

      CHAPTER IV

      THE GOLDEN FARMER

      But that same night we got the full story, so far as she knew it, from Nance Edgar. It did not help us any in finding out what had become of poor Harry the carrier and his mail bags, but because it involved Elsie's father and mother I will admit that it interested me nearly as much.

      Nance Edgar was a weather-beaten woman of about fifty. She had lived nearly all her life in the fields, and was tanned like a leather schoolbag for carrying books. She was kindly, but you never could have told it on her. Only I knew because she had been kind to Elsie.

      Afterwards I found out that often she would go supperless to bed that Elsie might have something to eat when she came home from school.

      But when Nance Edgar talked it was with the curious kind of quiet I have noticed about the speech of gentlefolks. The other field workers said that she kept herself to herself. But in the furrow, or on the rig, she was kind to young ones or feeble folk who were not up to their work. So Nance, in spite of her aloofness, was not at all unpopular. She always had work, too, because she could be trusted with anything.

      So that very night I said to Elsie: "Let's have it out with Nance about your people. Your grandfather is as rich as can be. There may be money in it, and my father says you should never let that go a-begging. Besides you ought to know about your father and mother. It is only respectable if you are asked."

      "Oh, СКАЧАТЬ