Deep Moat Grange

"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 thought that he was going to give me a proper explanation of everything – the whys 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 – it makes you grow such a whopping size afterwards when you stop them. So you are to crawl up there for me, and as soon as you find anything, you are to give the rope a tug, and I will pull you out! For it isn't so easy as it looks to crawl backward down a hole of that size."

"But suppose," I faltered, my imagination rampant, and my voice failing me at the same moment, "suppose – that I should come on – on poor Harry Foster – with – with his throat cut – oh, what should I do?"

"You won't – more's the pity," he answered, quite coolly. "If Harry had been in there, and you and I sitting here, we should have known it long ere this. No such luck! Still, what you may find, is quite worth the trial. We shall at least learn something!"

Now I don't think that, since the visit Elsie and I paid to Deep Moat Grange, I was quite so eager to "learn something" as I had been. But it was no use being a coward with the Hayfork Minister.

"In you go, Joe," he said, lowering me by the rope to the black mouth of 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. Up with you. Remember I am here!"

I was not at all likely to forget it. But I had much rather he had been head foremost up that narrow tunnel, and I out in the green aisles of the forest waiting for him with a rope in my hands.

CHAPTER XII

THE BRICKED PASSAGE

Now I don't know whether you have ever been up a drain pipe which just takes you, and no more. I suppose you have – in nightmares, after supping on cold boiled pork and greens, or some nice little digestible morsel like that. But really awake, and with the birds singing on the trees, the winds lightly scented with bog myrtle and pine and bracken breathing all about you – to be told to shove yourself up a built rabbit hole, not knowing what you may come on the next time you put out your hand! – Well, Hayfork Minister or no Hayfork – I had the hardest row to hoe that time! I don't think any fellow, even if he has climbed all the mountains that are, has any right to let a boy in for a thing like that without telling him beforehand. And smiling about it all the time, as if he were merely sending you into Miss Payne's to buy butter-scotch!

I felt as if I could have killed him the first half-dozen "creeps" I took. And what was the worst of his cheek, he shoved me behind with the oak branch, which he had sharpened, and said, "Go on!"

If I could have got him then – up a drain – me with that same oak goad, I would have given it to him – cheerful, I would. Cheerful is no name for it!

Inside the tunnel the bricks were not all of the same size. Some had dropped a little and pinched my shoulders. Some were wanting altogether. And that fiend of a Hayfork, at the mouth, all safe outside with the rope's-end in his hand kept singing up to me, "A-a-all right – a-a-right – it will get wider as you get farther in!"

Much he knew! Had he been up, I'd like to know?

However, he was right as it happened – right without knowing anything about it. The passage did widen a bit. I found offshoots – smaller passages leading I don't know where. And I didn't put in my hand to feel, having a dislike to be bitten by water rats – or any other kind of rats. And it was an awful "ratty" place that, by the smell of it.

Also, for all that Mr. Ablethorpe said, I was in mortal fear of coming across poor Harry's leg, or of Mad Jeremy arriving and "settling" Mr. Ablethorpe, without my knowing anything about it. And when I came out – I should find myself face to face with the oily curls, the sneering lip, and – specially, with the knife I had seen gleaming in his teeth when he swam the Moat to make an end of Elsie and me.

I wasn't frightened, of course. Only I just thought what a fool I was to be there. I am not the first, nor will I be the last to think the same thing – when, like me, they are doing something dreadful noble and heroic.

There were curious side passages, as I say, on each side of the tunnel along which I was crawling – oh, so slowly. Some of these were narrow and smooth, where a brick had fallen out, and smelled "rat" yards off. I did not meddle with these. But there were bigger offshoots, too, properly bricked round and as tight as ninepence – no rats there.

Well, it was in one of these that I came on my first treasure-trove. I felt a lot of things all tied together in a rough bag or cloth – heavy, too, and of course all clammy with moisture or mould or something like that. No wonder – I felt all green-mouldy myself, after only a minute or two.

I tugged at the rope, and, almost before I knew it, I was out again in the dancing speckle of the sunshine sifted through the leaves. Blinded by the sudden glare which sent blobs of colour dancing across my eyeballs, as if I had looked at the sun, I did not realize for a moment that I had brought anything with me.

"Let go!" I heard Mr. Ablethorpe say, and I was quite unconscious what I was holding on to. Yet what I had found was little enough to the eye – a piece of rough sacking, roughly sewn about a quantity of metallic objects which jingled as Mr. Ablethorpe cut the outer covering open with his big "gully" knife.

"Money!" the thought came natural to a boy; "have I disinterred a treasure?"

And for the moment I was all ready to go back again to look for more.

But the blade went on cutting, and presently the contents tinkled out upon the bank – about a dozen and a half of copper rings, rather thick, and each made with a hook at the bottom. I could not imagine what they were for.

But Mr. Ablethorpe bounded upon them, examining each one before putting it in his pocket. Lastly he looked at the piece of canvas in which they had been wrapped, long and carefully.

"Ah!" he said, "that, I think, will do!"

And he closed the iron sliding door carefully, as it had been before, and thrusting his fingers into the shallow pool, he lifted up double handfuls of oozy mud and plastered it all over the entrance.

"When that is dry," he said, "it will take a clever man to tell where you have poked your nose this afternoon, Joseph!"

This seemed likely enough and satisfactory, from his point of view. But, as for me, I wanted very much to be told what it was all about.

So I asked him what it was I had found, and why he wanted me to crawl up there, at any rate.

"You found some copper rings and a piece of dirty canvas," he said, "neither more nor less. And I asked you to go up there because I was too fat to go myself. Were you nearly at the end, think you?"

I told him no – that the passage seemed to widen as it went farther on. I think that at these words he was nearly replacing the rope, which he had begun to coil, round my waist again.

But he looked at his watch, and shook his head.

"We have not the time to do it safely," he said; "but – let us see – if it widens as you say, Joseph, it is very likely that it has another opening."

He took a small plan out of his pocket, a tiny little measuring scale, nodded once or twice, and then began slowly to pace through the wood at right angles to the course of the Backwater.

All at once he dropped to the ground as if shot. I judged it best to efface myself, too, and that promptly. So I crawled behind a big pine tree, about whose roots the male ferns were growing tall, and, putting their thick scaly stems aside with my hand, I lay watching the heels of the boots which Mr. Ablethorpe wore.

He kept quite still, apparently intent upon something I could not see. Now, of course (you will not have noticed it), but I am very curious about things that don't concern me in the least – not to talk about, you understand, but just to know. So, as the ferns grew pretty continuously, and the pines held close together, shooting their indigo-blue umbrellas into the sky, I wriggled along till I could lay my hand on one of the minister's boot heels.

It was a foolish thing to do, for it nearly made him cry out. I saw him set his teeth to shut in the sound. He had a nerve, the Hayfork Minister, but I could see from his look that he would give it to me after for coming on him like that. However, it was some fun to see him in a funk.

And, indeed, with reason! For not more than a dozen yards down the slope, between us and the wall of the old orchard, I saw Mad Jeremy, on his knees, digging with his fingers, eager as a terrier at a rat hole.

Then I called to mind the mysterious crime of which Miss Aphra had found him guilty, and her stern accusation, "You've been digging again!" the day Elsie and I were at the Grange. Last of all, his repeated denial, his attempts to rub off the earth pellets, his sentence, tears, and punishment. Yes, I saw him digging with his fingers just as his sister had said.

Jiminy, how I wished I was at home!

I might wish, indeed, but there we were stuck and had to wait – Mr. Ablethorpe and I – till Mad Jeremy, having finished his task, stamped down the sods he had edged up at either side, and set with care a great square flagstone in its place.

Then he stood rubbing his hands together and grinning for some minutes, evidently well pleased with himself. A voice far away called:

"Jeremy! Jeremy!"

At the sound the smile was stricken from his face. The madman looked guiltily at his hands, and seeing the condition in which they were, he made straight for the Backwater, passing us within (I declare) four yards. But the bracken was thick and tall, and we lay close, so that Jeremy failed to see us. Besides, his mind was evidently ill at ease.

The voice from the direction of Deep Moat Grange continued to call: "Jeremy! Jeremy!" He did not reply, and we could hear him mutter, "What shall I say? What shall I say if she finds out?"

Then, having pulled round the long tails of his coat, one after the other, he dried his hands carefully, held them up to see that they were clean, and took his way up the side of the Backwater toward the drawbridge, whistling as he went.

For me, I was scared out of a year's growth. But the Hayfork Minister, lifting himself out of the ferns, and dusting lightly the knees of his black cord trousers, pointed to the great flagstone on which the turf showed ragged edges, and said gravely: "The secret is there. That is the other end of the tunnel!"

He meant, I felt sure, to send me in again, in spite of all that we had seen.

As for me, however, I resolved to keep very clear of the Hayfork Minister. He was a nice man, Mr. Ablethorpe, and a pleasure to know. But to be in a drain pipe for his sake, with the fear of Mad Jeremy meeting one face to face half-way up, put too high a price on his friendship. I resolved, therefore, in future to cut Mr. Ablethorpe's acquaintance.

CHAPTER XIII

MEYSIE'S BAIRNS

At the time I had no idea how difficult this would be. But at any rate I wanted to find out for certain what it was that I had found. He could give me no other answer than that I would know in good time, and that in the meantime we were going to old Caleb Fergusson's for tea.

Now I make no objections to tea at any time – that is, a proper sit-down, spread-table, country tea – not one of those agonies at which you do tricks with a cup of tea, a plate, the edge of a chair, and a snippet of bread. I knew that at the Fergusson's I would find plenty to eat and drink.

We slid back through the woods, rising higher all the time as the land trended toward the moor. Then out and away across the road I could see far away to the right the roofs of Breckonside, shining like silver after a shower which must have passed over them, the winding Brom Water, the threaded roads, pale pink in colour, the dry stone dykes dividing the fields. Never had my native village seemed so small to me. Perhaps because I had just been in some considerable danger, a thing which enlarges the mental horizon. I looked for Elsie's house down there. But though I could see the silver glint of the water, I could not make out the cottage at the Bridge End. There was a mist, however, creeping up from the sea, so that in a little while, even as I looked, the whole valley became a pearl-grey lake, with only the tall ash trees and the solitary church spire standing up out of the smother.

We found old Caleb, an infrequent smile on his face, leaning over the bars of his yard gate.

"Them that hasna their hay weel covered," he chuckled, "runs a chance o' gettin' it sprinkled a wee!"

"Then," said Mr. Ablethorpe, "you owe me something for the afternoon's work I gave you!"

"Yon!" cried the old man, ungratefully, "caa ye that half a day's wark? But I'm far frae denyin' that, sic as it was, it helped. Ow, ay, it was aye a help! And at ony rate the hay's under cover – some thack-and-rape, and some in the new-fangled shed. But what's your wull? Ye are no seekin' wages, I'm thinkin'. Maybe ye want me to turn my coat and come doon to your bit tabernacle? Aweel, ye may want."

"Oh, no," said Mr. Ablethorpe, smiling. "I was just hoping that perhaps your good wife would brew us a cup of tea. I think both Joe and I would be the better of it."

You should have seen how the old farmer's face lit up. Hospitality was a beautiful thing to him. He rejoiced in that, at least. And if, as some folk say – not Mr. Ablethorpe – an elder is the same as a bishop, then the old Free Kirker had at least one of the necessary qualities. He was "given to hospitality." Whether he was, as is also required, "no striker," I would not just like to say, or to try.

But Caleb took us indoors out of the slight oncoming drizzle, which was beginning to spray down from the clouds, or creep up from the valleys – I am not sure which. At any rate, it was there, close-serried, wetting.

Now heretofore I had only seen Mrs. Caleb when she was ordered down from the long stack under the zinc-roofed shed, which her husband was never tired of declaiming against as "new-fangled," yet to which he owed that night the safety of his crop.

Mrs. Caleb was a good twenty years younger than her lord, still, indeed, bearing traces of that special kind of good looks which the Scots call "sonsiness." Susan Fergusson at five-and-forty was sonsy to the last degree. Her husband, twenty years older, was sun-dried and wind-dried and frost-bitten till he had become sapless as a leaf blown along the highway on a bask March day, when the fields are full of sowers, and the roads cloudy with "stoor."

"Come ben! This way, sir – and you, too, Joe," she cried, opening a door into an inner room, "ye will no hae seen Meysie's bairns?"

As I had never even heard of Meysie, I certainly had not.

But the goodwife's next words enlightened me.

"Caleb, ye see, was marriet afore he took up wi' me. 'Deed, his lassie Meysie is maybe aulder than I am mysel' – and a solit, sensible woman. But this is the first time her bairns hae comed sae far to see me!"

She flung the door open, and there, sitting one on a sofa, and the other on a footstool by the fire, I saw two grown-up young ladies – so at least they appeared to me. And I began to fear that my tea was going to cost me dear. For at that time conversation was a difficult art to me with anyone whom I could neither fight nor call names.

The girls – twenty or twenty-two they seemed – oh, ever so old – looked just as if they had been doing nothing. That is, the one with the straight-cut face, very dignified, who made a kind of long droopy picture of herself on the sofa, was reading a book, or pretending to, while the other on the stool did nothing but nurse her knees and look out at the window.

That was the one I liked best, though, of course, not like Elsie – I should think not, indeed. But she was little, she had a merry face, and I am sure she had been laughing just before we came in. Indeed, I am none so sure that she had not been listening at the keyhole and made a rush for the footstool.

"Bairns," said Mrs. Caleb the Second, "this is the Englishy minister, and a kind friend o' us auld folk. Though Caleb, your gran'dad, gies him awfu' spells o' argumentincation aboot things I ken nocht aboot! 'Deed, I wonder whiles that Maister Ablethorpe ever looks near us again!"

"Oh, no," said the Hayfork Minister, smiling, "it takes two to make an argument, and I never argue with Mr. Fergusson. I only receive instruction, as a younger from an elder!"

"Hear to him," cried the goodwife, "he doesna mean a word he is sayin' – I can aye tell by the glint in his e'e."

Then she introduced the girls in due form. One, the tall tired-looking girl on the sofa, was Constantia, and the little merry one was named Harriet. To my great astonishment they were of the same age, being twins.

It seemed as if I were to be left out altogether, but Harriet looked across at me and asked demurely if I were going to be a minister, too.

She was making fun of me, of course, and that is what I do not allow any girl to do. Only Elsie, and she is really too serious to abuse the privilege – not like this Harriet. I could see in a minute that she was a regular magpie – a "clip," as they say in Breckonside.

Meanwhile, Constantia did not say very much. She gave Mr. Ablethorpe her hand as if she were doing him a valuable kindness. And at this I could hear her sister gurgle. The next minute, Harriet was on her feet, and, taking me by the shoulder, she said: "Come on, Joe – Joe is your name, isn't it? That's good, for it's just the name I like best of all boys' names. Come on and help Susan Fergusson to get tea." That was the way she spoke of her grandmother – off-hand and kindly, with a glint of fun more in the manner than in the words.

"What's your other name?" I asked, because I did not like to call her Harriet so suddenly. Besides, I did not know how Elsie might take to all this. I was sure they would like one another no end. Because they were both the same kind of girl – jolly, so that almost any boy could get on with them. At least, that was what I thought at the time, not knowing any better.

"Caw," she said; "that is my name; same as a crow says 'Caw – Caw – Caw!' You needn't be surprised, I couldn't help it being my father's name. But it's short, and if you should forget it, you have only to go out and stand beneath a rookery, and you'll remember it in a minute. That is, unless you are deaf."

Then I told Harriet Caw my name, Joseph Yarrow, which she thought funny. And she gave me bread to cut while she stood by me and buttered it – doing everything so quickly, and talking all the time, that indeed it was very nice. And I wished Elsie had been there to laugh at Harriet's jokes, which seemed very funny to me then. But, oh, how stupid and feeble they seemed when I came to tell them to Elsie after! And Elsie wasn't a bit amused, as I had hoped. Girls hardly ever seem to get on with other girls as a fellow thinks they will. It is different with men. Now I got on first-class with Mr. Ablethorpe, even when I thought – but it's no matter about that now.

Well, it was a tea! The table was loaded from one end to the other. There were soda scones, light and hove up so as to make your teeth water. There were farrels of oat-cake, crisp and curly, with just the proper amount of browning on the side where the red ashes of the fire had toasted it. Four or five kinds of jams there were, all better one than the other. Old Caleb came in and ate quickly, sermonizing Mr. Ablethorpe all the time, and as long as he was there we were all as quiet as mice. But I am sure everyone was glad when he rose, tumbled things about on the window seat in search of his blue bonnet (which only he of all the countryside still wore), and finally went out to the hill. Before going he warned us to behave and to remember that, such as he was, we had one who deemed himself a minister among us.

But as soon as we were alone, up jumped Harriet Caw, and catching me round the waist, she cried, "Dance, Joseph – dance, Joe! He's gone. Never mind Granny Susan. She does not count!"

That was actually the way she spoke of her grandmother – or step-grandmother, rather. And, indeed, that good lady only laughed, and, shaking her head at the minister, repeated, what I afterwards found to be her favourite maxim – that "young folk would be young folk." The philosophy of which was that they would get over it all too soon.

The Hayfork Minister nodded back to Susan, and I was not sorry to see him (as I thought) much taken up with the picture-book girl, as in my heart I called Constantia. For in our house at home, up in the attic, there are a lot of old "Annuals" and "Keepsakes" – oh, I don't know how old, all in faded watered-silk covers loose at the back – some faded and some where the colour has run, but choke full of pictures of scenery, all camels and spiky palms and humpy camels, with "Palmyra" and "Carthage" written beneath time about. But these are not half bad, though deadly alike. The weary parts are the pictures of girls – leaning out of windows before they have done their washing and hair-brushing in the morning. I should just like to see my father catch them at it. That was called "Dreaming of Thee." And there were lots of others. "Sensibility" was a particularly bad one. She was spread all over a sofa, and had a canary on her finger. She had saved it from a little snappy-yappy spaniel – only just, for two tail feathers were floating down. And there were two big dewdrops of tears on her cheeks to show how sorry she was for the canary bird – or, perhaps, for the spaniel.

Anyway, it was the only time I ever really liked a spaniel.

Well, I needn't describe the others. At any rate, if you've ever seen the "Keepsake" kind of young women, you won't have forgotten them. You will cherish a spite, especially if you have had to stay in one room and choose between looking at them and flattening your nose against the window-panes, down which the water is running in big blobs, during a week of wet holiday weather.

Constantia was a "Keepsake" girl.

I suppose it must be, as it is with snakes. Some like them and some not. I don't. But I will never deny (not being, like Elsie, a girl) that Constantia was good looking. If (and the Lord have mercy on your soul!) you really liked that sort of thing, Constantia was just the sort of thing you would like.

CHAPTER XIV

BROWN PAINT – VARNISHED!

We had a merry afternoon and laughed – eh, how we laughed! I heard all about the girls, how they had just been at school, and how Constantia had just come home, full up of all the perfections, and deportment, and the 'ologies, and how many men wanted to marry her – were dying to, in fact! That might be all right. It was Harriet who told me – though that does not make it any the more likely to be true (I am sorry to say). For I can see that that young woman was trying to take me in all the time.

"But for the parson, we would have a dance!" whispered Harriet; "but as he will sit there and tell Stancy about her 'azure' eyes till all's blue, you and I can go for a walk instead – shall we?"

I didn't want to, you may imagine. The difficulty was how to say No. Indeed, Harriet never asked me. She had put on a smart little summer hat, and we were out on the moor quicker than I can write it.

"Mind you," she said, laying her hand confidingly (as I then thought) on my arm, "don't you ever dare to tell Stancy that her eyes are like to the vault of heaven, or like forget-me-nots wet with dew, or like turquoises, or the very colour of her sky-blue silk scarf. For, first of all, it's not true, and it is wrong to tell lies. More than that, she will tell me. And I like – well" (she added this bit softly, taking a long look at me) "never mind what I like. Perhaps it's as well that you shouldn't know."

Then she kicked away a pebble with the toe of one tiny boot and appeared to be embarrassed. I think, now, that she knew she had a pretty foot.

Anyway I began to be conscious she was a nice girl, and to be sorry for her – a way men have. Men are such wise things, and not vain at all.