From Squire to Squatter: A Tale of the Old Land and the New

Bob was out, and his mother was sitting reading the good Book by the light of a little black oil lamp. She looked very anxious, and said she felt so. Her laddie had “never said where he was going. Only just went away out, and hadn’t come back.”

It was Archie’s turn now to be anxious, when he thought of the gang, and the dark work they might be after. Bob was not among them, but who could tell that he would not join afterwards?

He bade the widow “Good-night,” and went slowly homewards thinking.

He found everyone in a state of extreme anxiety. Hours ago Tell had galloped to his stable door, and if there be anything more calculated to raise alarm than another, it is the arrival at his master’s place of a riderless horse.

But Archie’s appearance, alive and intact, dispelled the cloud, and dinner was soon announced.

“Oh, by the way,” said Archie’s tutor, as they were going towards the dining-room, “your old friend Bob Cooper has been here, and wants to see you! I think he is in the kitchen now.”

Away rushed Archie, and sure enough there was Bob eating supper in old Kate’s private room.

He got up as Archie’s entered, and looked shy, as people of his class do at times.

Archie was delighted.

“I brought the flies, and some new sorts that I think will do for the Kelpie burn,” he said.

“Well, I’m going to dine, Bob; you do the same. Don’t go till I see you. How long have you been here?”

“Two hours, anyhow.”

When Archie returned he invited Bob to the room in the Castle Tower. Kate must come too, and Branson with his fiddle.

Away went Archie and his rough friend, and were just finishing a long debate about flies and fishing when Kate and Peter, and Branson and Bounder, came up the turret stairs and entered the room.

Archie then told them all of what he had seen that night at the cottage.

“Mark my words for it,” said Bob, shaking his head, “they’re up to some black work to-night.”

“You mustn’t go yet awhile, Bob,” Archie said. “We’ll have some fun, and you’re as well where you are.”

Chapter Eight

The Widow’s Lonely Hut

Bob Cooper bade Archie and Branson good-bye that night at the bend of the road, some half mile from his own home, and trudged sturdily on in the starlight. There was sufficient light “to see men as trees walking.”

“My mother’ll think I’m out in th’ woods,” Bob said to himself. “Well, she’ll be glad when she knows she’s wrong this time.”

Once or twice he started, and looked cautiously, half-fearfully, round him; for he felt certain he saw dark shadows in the field close by, and heard the stealthy tread of footsteps.

He grasped the stout stick he carried all the firmer, for the poacher had made enemies of late by separating himself from a well-known gang of his old associates – men who, like the robbers in the ancient ballad —

“Slept all day and waked all night,And kept the country round in fright.”

On he went; and the strange, uncomfortable feeling at his heart was dispelled as, on rounding a corner of the road, he saw the light glinting cheerfully from his mother’s cottage.

“Poor old creature,” he murmured half aloud, “many a sore heart I’ve given her. But I’ll be a better boy now. I’ll – ”

“Now, lads,” shouted a voice, “have at him!”

“Back!” cried Bob Cooper, brandishing his cudgel. “Back, or it’ll be worse for you!”

The dark shadows made a rush. Bob struck out with all his force, and one after another fell beneath his arm. But a blow from behind disabled him at last, and down he went, just as his distracted mother came rushing, lantern in hand, from her hut. There was the sharp click of the handcuffs, and Bob Cooper was a prisoner. The lantern-light fell on the uniforms of policemen.

“What is it? Oh, what has my laddie been doin’?”

“Murder, missus, or something very like it! There has been dark doin’s in th’ hill to-night!”

Bob grasped the nearest policeman by the arm with his manacled hands. “When – when did ye say it had happened?”

“You know too well, lad. Not two hours ago. Don’t sham innocence; it sits but ill on a face like yours.”

“Mother,” cried Bob bewilderingly, “I know nothing of it! I’m innocent!”

But his mother heard not his words. She had fainted, and with rough kindness was carried into the hut and laid upon the bed. When she revived some what they left her.

It was a long, dismal ride the unhappy man had that night; and indeed it was well on in the morning before the party with their prisoner reached the town of B – .

Bob’s appearance before a magistrate was followed almost instantly by his dismissal to the cells again. The magistrate knew him. The police had caught him “red-handed,” so they said, and had only succeeded in making him prisoner “after a fierce resistance.”

“Remanded for a week,” without being allowed to say one word in his own defence.

The policeman’s hint to Bob’s mother about “dark doin’s in th’ hill” was founded on fearful facts. A keeper had been killed after a terrible melée with the gang of poachers, and several men had been severely wounded on both sides.

The snow-storm that came on early on the morning after poor Bob Cooper’s capture was one of the severest ever remembered in Northumbria. The frost was hard too all day long. The snow fell incessantly, and lay in drifts like cliffs, fully seven feet high, across the roads.

The wind blew high, sweeping the powdery snow hither and thither in gusts. It felt for all the world like going into a cold shower-bath to put one’s head even beyond the threshold of the door. Nor did the storm abate even at nightfall; but next day the wind died down, and the face of the sky became clear, only along the southern horizon the white clouds were still massed like hills and cliffs.

It was not until the afternoon that news reached Burley Old Farm of the fight in the woods and death of the keeper. It was a sturdy old postman who had brought the tidings. He had fought his way through the snow with the letters, and his account of the battle had well-nigh caused old Kate to swoon away. When Mary, the little parlour maid, carried the mail in to her master she did not hesitate to relate what she had heard.

Squire Broadbent himself with Archie repaired to the kitchen, and found the postman surrounded by the startled servants, who were drinking in every word he said.

“One man killed, you say, Allan?”

“Ay, sir, killed dead enough. And it’s a providence they caught the murderer. Took him up, sir, just as he was a-goin’ into his mother’s house, as cool as a frosted turnip, sir.”

“Well, Allan, that is satisfactory. And what is his name?”

“Bob Cooper, sir, known all over the – ”

“Bob Cooper!” cried Archie aghast. “Why, father, he was in our room in the turret at the time.”

“So he was,” said the Squire. “Taken on suspicion I suppose. But this must be seen to at once. Bad as we know Bob to have been, there is evidence enough that he has reformed of late. At all events, he shall not remain an hour in gaol on such a charge longer than we can help.”

Night came on very soon that evening. The clouds banked up again, the snow began to fall, and the wind moaned round the old house and castle in a way that made one feel cold to the marrow even to listen to.

Morning broke slowly at last, and Archie was early astir. Tell, with the Shetland pony and a huge great hunter, were brought to the door, and shortly after breakfast the party started for B – .

Branson bestrode the big hunter – he took the lead – and after him came the Squire on Tell, and Archie on Scallowa. This daft little horse was in fine form this morning, having been in stall for several days. He kept up well with the hunters, though there were times that both he and his rider were all but buried in the gigantic wreaths that lay across the road. Luckily the wind was not high, else no living thing could long have faced that storm.

The cottage in which widow Cooper had lived ever since the death of her husband was a very primitive and a very poor one. It consisted only of two rooms, what are called in Scotland “a butt and a ben.” Bob had been only a little barefooted boy when his father died, and probably hardly missed him. He had been sent regularly to school before then, but not since, for his mother had been unable to give him further education. All their support was the morsel of garden, a pig or two, and the fowls, coupled with whatever the widow could make by knitting ribbed stockings for the farmer folks around. Bob grew up wild, just as the birds and beasts of the hills and woods do. While, however, he was still a little mite of a chap, the keepers even seldom molested him. It was only natural, they thought, for a boy to act the part of a squirrel or polecat, and to be acquainted with every bird’s nest and rabbit’s burrow within a radius of miles. When he grew a little older and a trifle bigger they began to warn him off, and when one day he was met marching away with a cap full of pheasant’s eggs, he received as severe a drubbing as ever a lad got at the hands of a gamekeeper.

Bob had grown worse instead of better after this. The keepers became his sworn enemies, and there was a spice of danger and adventure in vexing and outwitting them.

Unfortunately, in spite of all his mother said to the contrary, Bob was firmly impressed with the notion that game of every kind, whether fur or feather, belonged as much to him as to the gentry who tried to preserve them. The fresh air was free; nobody dared to claim the sunshine. Then why the wild birds, and the hares and rabbits?

Evil company corrupts good manners. That is what his copy-book used to tell him. But Bob soon learned to laugh at that, and it is no wonder that as he reached manhood his doings and daring as a poacher became noted far and near.

He was beyond the control of his mother. She could only advise him, read to him, pray for him; but I fear in vain. Only be it known that Bob Cooper really loved this mother of his, anomalous though it may seem.

Well, the keepers had been very harsh with him, and the gentry were harsh with him, and eke the law itself. Law indeed! Why Bob was all but an outlaw, so intense was his hatred to, and so great his defiance of the powers that be.

It was strange that what force could not effect, a few soft words from Branson, and Archie’s gift of the hare he had shot on his birthday, brought about. Bob Cooper’s heart could not have been wholly adamantine, therefore he began to believe that after all a gamekeeper might be a good fellow, and that there might even exist gentlefolks whose chief delight was not the oppression of the poor. He began after that to seek for honest work; but, alas! people looked askance at him, and he found that the path of virtue was one not easily regained when once deviated from.

His quondam enemy, however, Branson, spoke many a good word for him, and Bob was getting on, much to his mother’s delight and thankfulness, when the final and crashing blow fell.

Poor old widow Cooper! For years and years she had but two comforts in this world; one was her Bible, and the other – do not smile when I tell you – was her pipie.

Oh! you know, the poor have not much to make them happy and to cheer their loneliness, so why begrudge the widow her morsel of tobacco?

In the former she learned to look forward to another and a better world, far beyond that bit of blue sky she could see at the top of her chimney on a summer’s night – a world where everything would be bright and joyful, where there would be no vexatious rheumatism, no age, and neither cold nor care. From the latter she drew sweet forgetfulness of present trouble, and happy recollections of bygone years.

Sitting there by the hearth all alone – her son perhaps away on the hill – her thoughts used oftentimes to run away with her. Once more she would be young, once again her hair was a bonnie brown, her form little and graceful, roses mantling in her cheeks, soft light in her eyes. And she is wandering through the tasselled broom with David by her side. “David! Heigho!” she would sigh as she shook the ashes from her pipie. “Poor David! it seems a long, long time since he left me for the better land,” and the sunlight would stream down the big, open chimney and fall upon her skinny hands – fall upon the elfin-like locks that escaped from beneath her cap – fall, too, on the glittering pages of the Book on her lap like a promise of better things to come.

Before that sad night, when, while sitting up waiting for her son, she was startled by the sudden noise of the struggle that commenced at her door, she thought she had reason to be glad and thankful for the softening of her boy’s heart.

Then all her joy collapsed, her hopes collapsed – fell around her like a house of cards. It was a cruel, a terrible blow.

The policeman had carried her in, laid her on the bed with a rough sort of kindness, made up the fire, then gone out and thought no more about her.

How she had spent the night need hardly be said; it is better imagined. She had dropped asleep at last, and when she awoke from fevered dreams it was daylight out of doors, but darkness in the hut. The window and door were snowed up, and only a faint pale light shimmered in through the chimney, falling on the fireless hearth – a dismal sight.

Many times that day she had tried to rise, but all in vain. The cold grew more intense as night drew on, and it did its work on the poor widow’s weakened frame. Her dreams grew more bright and happy though, as her body became numbed and insensible. It was as though the spirit were rejoicing in its coming freedom. But dreams left her at last. Then all was still in the house, save the ticking of the old clock that hung against the wall.

The Squire speedily effected Bob Cooper’s freedom, and he felt he had really done a good thing.

“Now, Robert,” he told him, “you have had a sad experience. Let it be a lesson to you. I’ll give you a chance. Come to Burley, and Branson will find you honest work as long as you like to do it.”

“Lord love you, sir!” cried Bob. “There are few gentry like you.”

“I don’t know so much about that, Robert. You are not acquainted with all the good qualities of gentlefolks yet. But now, Branson, how are we all to get home?”

“Oh, I know!” said Archie. “Scallowa can easily bear Branson’s weight, and I will ride the big hunter along with Bob.”

So this was arranged.

It was getting gloamed ere they neared the widow’s lonesome hut. The Squire with Branson had left Archie and Bob, and cut across the frozen moor by themselves.

“How glad my mother will be!” said Bob.

And now they came in sight of the cottage, and Bob rubbed his eyes and looked again and again, for no smoke came from the chimney, no signs of life was about.

The icicles hung long and strong from the eaves; one side of the hut was entirely overblown with drift, and the door in the other looked more like the entrance to some cave in Greenland north. Bad enough this was; but ah, in the inside of the poor little house the driven snow met them as they pushed open the door! It had blown down the wide chimney, covered the hearth, formed a wreath like a sea-wave on the floor, and even o’er-canopied the bed itself. And the widow, the mother, lay underneath. No, not dead; she breathed, at least.

When the room had been cleared and swept of snow; when a roaring fire had been built on the hearth, and a little warm tea poured gently down her throat, she came gradually back again to life, and in a short time was able to be lifted into a sitting position, and then she recognised her son and Archie.

“Oh, mother, mother!” cried Bob, the tears streaming over his sun-browned face, “the Maker’ll never forgive me for all the ill I’ve done ye.”

“Hush! Bobbie, hush! What, lad, the Maker no’ forgive ye! Eh, ye little know the grip o’ His goodness! But you’re here, you’re innocent. Thank Him for that.”

“Ye’ll soon get better, mother, and I’ll be so good. The Squire is to give me work too.”

“It’s o’er late for me,” she said. “I’d like to live to see it, but His will be done.”

Archie rode home the giant hunter, but in two hours he was once more mounted on Scallowa, and feathering back through the snow towards the little cottage. The moon had risen now, and the night was starry and fine.

He tied Scallowa up in the peat shed, and went in unannounced.

He found Bob Cooper sitting before the dying embers of the fire, with his face buried in his hands, and rocking himself to and fro.

“She – just blessed me and wore away.”

That was all he said or could say. And what words of comfort could Archie speak? None. He sat silently beside him all that livelong night, only getting up now and then to replenish the fire. But the poacher scarcely ever changed his position, only now and then he stretched out one of his great hands and patted Archie’s knee as one would pet a dog.

A week passed away, and the widow was laid to rest beneath the frozen ground in the little churchyard by the banks of the river. Archie went slowly back with Bob towards the cottage. On their way thither, the poacher – poacher now no more though – entered a plantation, and with his hunting-knife cut and fashioned a rough ash stick.

“We’ll say good-bye here, Master Archie.”

“What! You are not going back with me to Burley Old Farm?”

Bob took a small parcel from his pocket, and opening it exposed the contents.

“Do you know them, Master Archie?”

“Yes, your poor mother’s glasses.”

“Ay, lad, and as long as I live I’ll keep them. And till my dying day, Archie, I’ll think on you, and your kindness to poor poacher Bob. No, I’m not goin’ back to Burley, and I’m not going to the cottage again. I’m going away. Where? I couldn’t say. Here, quick, shake hands, friend. Let it be over. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

And away went Bob. He stopped when a little way off, and turned as if he had forgotten something.

“Archie!” he cried.

“Yes, Bob.”

“Take care of my mother’s cat.”

Next minute he leapt a fence, and disappeared in the pine wood.

Chapter Nine

The Whole Yard was Ablaze and Burning Fiercely

One year is but a brief span in the history of a family, yet it may bring many changes. It did to Burley Old Farm, and some of them were sad enough, though some were glad. A glad change took place for instance in the early spring, after Bob’s departure; for Rupert appeared to wax stronger and stronger with the lengthening days; and when Uncle Ramsay, in a letter received one morning, announced his intention of coming from London, and making quite a long stay at Burley, Rupert declared his intention of mounting Scallowa, and riding over to the station to meet him. And the boy was as good as his word. In order that they might be both cavaliers together, Uncle Ramsay hired a horse at D – , and the two rode joyfully home side by side.

His mother did not like to see that carmine flush on Rupert’s cheeks, however, nor the extra dark sparkle in his eyes when he entered the parlour to announce his uncle’s arrival, but she said nothing.

Uncle Ramsay Broadbent was a brother of the Squire, and, though considerably older, a good deal like him in all his ways. There was the same dash and go in him, and the same smiling front, unlikely to be dismayed by any amount of misfortune.

“There are a deal of ups and downs in the ocean of life,” Archie heard him say one day; “we’re on the top of a big wave one hour, and in the trough of the sea next, so we must take things as they come.”

Yes, this uncle was a seafarer; the skipper of a sturdy merchantman that he had sailed in for ten long years. He did not care to be called captain by anyone. He was a master mariner, and had an opinion, which he often expressed, that plain “Mr” was a gentleman’s prefix.

“I shan’t go back to sea again,” he said next morning at breakfast.

“Fact is, brother, my owners think I’m getting too old. And maybe they’re right. I’ve had a fair innings, and it is only fair to give the young ones a chance.”

Uncle Ramsay seemed to give new life and soul to the old place. He settled completely down to the Burley style of life long before the summer was half over. He joined the servants in the fields, and worked with them as did the Squire, Walton, and Archie. And though more merriment went on in consequence, there was nevertheless more work done. He took an interest in all the boys’ “fads,” spent hours with them in their workshop, and made one in every game that was played on the grass. He was dreadfully awkward at cricket and tennis however; for such games as these are but little practised by sailors. Only he was right willing to learn.

There was a youthfulness and breeziness about Uncle Ramsay’s every action, that few save seafarers possess when hair is turning white. Of course, the skipper spent many a jolly hour up in the room of the Castle Tower, and he did not object either to the presence of old Kate in the chair. He listened like a boy when she told her weird stories; and he listened more like a baby than anything else when Branson played his fiddle.

Then he himself would spin them a yarn, and hold them all enthralled, especially big-eyed Elsie, with the sterling reality and graphicness of the narrative.

When Uncle Ramsay spoke you could see the waves in motion, hear the scream of the birds around the stern, or the wind roaring through the rigging. He spoke as he thought; he painted from life.

Well, the arrival of Uncle Ramsay and Rupert’s getting strong were two of the pleasant changes that took place at Burley in this eventful year. Alas! I have to chronicle the sad ones also. Yet why sigh? To use Uncle Ramsay’s own words, “You never know what a ship is made of until stormy seas are around you.”

First then came a bad harvest – a terribly bad harvest. It was not that the crops themselves were so very light, but the weather was cold and wet; the grain took long to ripen. The task of cutting it down was unfortunately an easy one, but the getting it stored was almost an impossibility. At the very time when it was ripe, and after a single fiercely hot day, a thunder-storm came on, and with it such hail as the oldest inhabitant in the parish could not remember having seen equalled. This resulted in the total loss of far more of the precious seed, than would have sown all the land of Burley twice over.

The wet continued. It rained and rained every day, and when it rained it poured.

The Squire had heard of a Yankee invention for drying wheat under cover, and rashly set about a rude but most expensive imitation thereof. He first mentioned the matter to Uncle Ramsay at the breakfast-table. The Squire seemed in excellent spirits that morning. He was walking briskly up and down the room rubbing his hands, as if in deep but pleasant thought, when his brother came quietly in.

“Hullo! you lazy old sea-dog. Why you’d lie in your bed till the sun burned a hole in the blanket. Now just look at me.”

“I’m just looking at you.”

“Well, I’ve been up for hours. I’m as hungry as a Caithness Highlander. And I’ve got an idea.”

“I thought there was something in the wind.”

“Guess.”

“Guess, indeed! Goodness forbid I should try. But I say, brother,” continued Uncle Ramsay, laughing, “couldn’t you manage to fall asleep somewhere out of doors, like the man in the story, and wake up and find yourself a king? My stars, wouldn’t we have reforms as long as your reign lasted! The breakfast, Mary? Ah, that’s the style!”

“You won’t be serious and listen, I suppose, Ramsay.”

“Oh, yes; I will.”

“Well, the Americans – ”

“The Americans again; but go on.”

“The Americans, in some parts where I’ve been, wouldn’t lose a straw in a bad season. It is all done by means of great fanners and heated air, you know. Now, I’m going to show these honest Northumbrian farmers a thing or two. I – ”

“I say, brother, hadn’t you better trust to Providence, and wait for a fair wind?”

“Now, Ramsay, that’s where you and I differ. You’re a slow Moses. I want to move ahead a trifle in front of the times. I’ve been looking all over the dictionary of my daily life, and I can’t find such a word as ‘wait’ in it.”

“Let me give you some of this steak, brother.”

“My plan of operations, Ramsay, is – ”

“Why,” said Mrs Broadbent, “you haven’t eaten anything yet!”

“I thought,” said Uncle Ramsay, “you were as hungry as a Tipperary Highlander, or some such animal.”