Lost Sir Massingberd Volume Ii Part 3

"I don't think that is at all likely," replied the butler, grinning. "We haven't seen money at the Hall this many a day. As for valuables, Sir Ma.s.singberd had his big gold chain on, with a silver watch at the end of it, borrowed from me years ago, and my property."

It was remarkable how this ordinarily cautious and discreet person was changed in manner, as though he was well a.s.sured that he would never more have a master over him. Both Mr. Long and myself observed this.

"What time was your master usually accustomed to return home from his rounds in the preserves?"

"I did not sit up for him in general," returned Gilmore; "but when I have chanced to be awake, and to hear him come in, it was never later than three o'clock. His ordinary time was about half-past twelve, but it depended on what time he started. He left the Hall last night at about ten, and should, therefore, have returned a little after midnight. I never set eyes on him since nine o'clock, when he was in his own sitting-room reading."

"And when did _you_ see him last, Bradford?"

"When did I see Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath?" replied the old keeper, who had been chafing with impatience through his rival's evidence--"well, I see'd him last nine hours ago, at nearly twelve o'clock at night. I was on watch in the Old Plantation, and he came upon me sudden, as usual, with his long quick stride."

"Was there anything at all irregular about his manner or appearance; anything in the least degree different from what you always saw upon these occasions?"

"Nothing, whatever, sir. Look you, I knew my master well," [He had already begun to talk of him in the past tense!] "I could tell at a glance when he was put out more than usual, or when he had anything out of ordinary in hand; he never swore, saving your reverence's presence, what you may call _freely_ then. He might have knocked one down, likely enough, if you gave him the least cross, but he was not flush of his oaths. Now I never heard him in a better fettle in that respect than he was last night. He cussed the lad Jem Meyrick, who had come up to me away from Davit's Copse for a light to his pipe; and he cussed me too, for giving it him, up hill and down dale, and in particular he cussed Gr.i.m.j.a.w for being so old and slow that he couldn't keep up with him.

Sir Ma.s.singberd never waited for him, of course; but after he'd been with us a few minutes, the old dog came up puffin' and wheezin'; and when the Squire left us, it followed him as well as it could, but with the distance getting greater between them at every step. I watched them, for the moon made it almost as light as day, going straight for the Wolsey Oak, which was the direct way for the Home Spinney; and that was where Sir Ma.s.singberd meant to go last night, although he never got there, or leastways the watcher never saw him.

"Have you any reason to believe, keeper, that there were poachers in any part of the preserves last night?"

"No, sir," replied Oliver, positively. "On the contrary, I knows there wasn't, although Sir Ma.s.singberd was as suspicious of them as usual, or more so. Why, with Jack Larrup and d.i.c.k Swivel both in jail, and all the Larchers sent out of the parish, and Squat and Burchall at sea, where was they to come from?"

"Sir Ma.s.singberd must have had many enemies?" mused my tutor.

"Ay, indeed, sir," replied old Oliver, pursing his lips; "he held his own with the strong hand; so strong, however, as no man would contend against him. If Sir Ma.s.singberd has been killed, Mr Long, it was not in fair fight; he was too much feared for that."

"There has been a gang of gipsies about the place this long time, has there not?" quoth my tutor.

"There has, sir; but don't you think of gipsies and this here matter of Sir Ma.s.singberd as having anything to do with one another. They're feeble, f.e.c.kless bodies at the best. They ain't even good poachers, although my master always bid us beware of them. They would no more have ventured to meddle with the squire, than a flock of linnets would attack a hawk, that's certain."

My tutor had been setting down on paper brief notes of his conversation with these two men; but he now put the writing away from him, and inquired what steps, in their judgment, ought to be taken in the matter, and when.

"You know your master better than I. If he chanced to come back this afternoon, or to-morrow, or next day, from any expedition he may have chosen to undertake, would he not be much annoyed at any hue and cry having been made after him?"

"That he just would," observed the keeper with emphasis.

"I would not have been the man to make the fuss," remarked the butler, sardonically, "for more money than he has paid me these ten years."

"In a word," observed my tutor, "you are both come here to s.h.i.+ft the responsibility of a public search from your own shoulders to mine. Very good. I accept it. Let sufficient hands be procured at once, Bradford, to search the Chase and grounds, and drag the waters. And you, Gilmore, must accompany me, while I set seals on such rooms as may seem necessary up at the Hall."

The butler was for moving away on the instant with a "_Very_ well, sir,"

but Mr. Long added, "Please to wait in Mrs. Myrtle's parlour for me. We must go together."

"I don't like the look of that man Gilmore at all, sir," observed I, when the two had left the room.

"No, nor I, Peter," returned my tutor, sententiously, as he set about collecting tapes and sealing-wax; "I am afraid he is a rogue in grain."

Now, that was not by any means, or rather was very far short of, what I meant to imply; what I had had almost upon my burning lips was, "Don't you think he has murdered Sir Ma.s.singberd?" But the moment had gone by for putting the question, even if Mr. Long had not begun to whistle--a sure sign with him that he did not wish to speak upon the matter any further, just at present.

CHAPTER V.

THE STONE GARDEN.

When Mr. Long took his departure with Gilmore, he did not ask me to accompany him, and a.s.sist in an undertaking which was likely to be somewhat laborious. Perhaps he wished if the baronet did chance to return in a fury, that he alone should bear the brunt of it. Perhaps he thought there might be things at the Hall I had better not see, or perhaps he wished to observe the butler's behaviour at leisure. I think, however, he could scarcely have expected me to stay at home with my books, while such doings as he had directed were on the point of taking place. Euripides was doubtless in his day a sensation dramatist, but the atrocities of Medea could not enchain me, with so much dreadful mystery afoot in my immediate neighbourhood. Her departure through the air in a chariot drawn by winged dragons, was indeed a striking circ.u.mstance; but how much more wonderful was the disappearance of Sir Ma.s.singberd, who had departed no man knew how!

The news had spread like wildfire through the village. Numbers of country folk were hanging about the great gates of the avenue, drinking in the impromptu information of the lodge-keeper; but they did not venture to enter upon the forbidden ground. The universal belief among them was, I found, that their puissant lord would soon reveal himself.

Doubting Castle, it was true, was for the present without its master; but it was too much to expect that he would not return to it. The whole community resembled prisoners in that fortress, who, although temporarily relieved of the tyrant's presence, had little hope but that he was only gone forth upon a ramble, and would presently return with renewed zest for human flesh. The general consternation, however, was extreme, and such as would probably not have been excited by the sudden and unexplained removal of a far better man. The rumour had already got abroad that there was to be an immediate search in the park, and that Oliver Bradford had been empowered to select such persons as he thought fit to a.s.sist in the same. There were innumerable volunteers for this undertaking, princ.i.p.ally on account of the excessive attraction of the work itself, which promised some ghastly revelation; and secondarily, for the mere sake of getting into Fairburn Chase at all--a demesne as totally unknown to the majority of those present as the Libyan Desert.

The elders indeed remembered the time when a public footpath ran right through the Chase, "close by the Heronry, and away under the Wolsey Oak, and so through Davit's Copse, into the high road to Crittenden," said one, "whereby a mile and a half was wont to be saved." "Ay, or two mile," quoth another; "and Lawyer Moth always said as though the path was ours by right, until Sir Ma.s.singberd got his son made a king's clerk in London, which shut his mouth up and the path at the same time."

"Ay," said a third, mysteriously, "and it ain't too late to try the matter again, in case the property has got _into other hands_."

This remark brought back at once the immediate cause of their a.s.sembling together, and I began to be made the victim of cross-examination. To avoid being compelled to give my own opinion (which I had already begun to think a slander) upon the matter in hand, I took my leave as quietly as could be, and escaped, whither they dared not follow me, through the griffin-guarded gates. All within was, as usual, silent and deserted. A few leaves were still left to flutter down in eddies from the trees, or hop and rustle on the frosty ground, but their scarcity looked more mournful than utter bareness would have done. It was now the saddest time of all the year; the bleak east wind went wailing overhead; and underneath, the soil was black with frost. Instead of pursuing the avenue to the frontdoor of the Hall, where, as it seemed, I was not wanted, I took a foot-track to the left, which I knew led to that bowling-green whither I had been previously invited by Sir Ma.s.singberd, although I had not taken advantage of his rare courtesy. If he did now appear, no matter in what state of mental irritation, he could scarcely quarrel with me for doing the very thing he had asked me to do. Had I known, however, the character of the place in which I found myself, I should have reserved my visit for a less eerie and mysterious occasion.

The time of year, it is true, had no unfavourable influence upon the scene that presented itself, for all was clothed in garments of thickest green. Vast walls of yew shut in on every side a lawn of perfect smoothness; everything proclaimed itself to belong to that portion of the Hall property which was "kept up" by subsidy from without. The quaint oak-seats, though old, were in good repair; the yew hedges clipped to a marvel. Still nothing could exceed the sombre and funereal aspect of the spot. It seemed impossible that such a sober game as bowls could ever have been played there, or jest and laughter broken that awful stillness. The southern yew-screen was in a crescent form, at the ends of which were openings unseen from within the enclosed s.p.a.ce.

Pa.s.sing through one of these, I came upon what was called the Stone Garden. It took its name from four stone terraces, from the highest of which I knew that there must be a very extensive view. This s.p.a.ce was likewise covered with yew trees, clipped and cut in every conceivable form, after the vile taste of the seventeenth century. There was something weird in the aspect of those towering Kings and Queens--easily recognizable, however, for what they were intended--and of those maids of honour, with their gigantic ruffs and farthingales. One was almost tempted to imagine that they had been human once, and been turned into yew trees for their sins. The whole area was black with them; and a sense of positive oppression, notwithstanding the eager air which caught me sharply whenever I lost the shelter of one of these ungainly forms, led me on to the top terrace, where one could breathe freely, and have something else than yews to look upon.

Truly, from thence the scene was wide and fair. I stood at that extremity of the pleasure-grounds most remote from the Hall, and with my back to it. Before me lay a solitary tract of wooded park, thickly interspersed with planted knolls and coppices. Immediately beneath me was the thicket called the Home Spinney, the favourite haunt of hare and pheasant, and the spot in all the Chase most cherished by Sir Ma.s.singberd. He would have resented a burglary, I do believe, with less of fury than any trespa.s.s upon that sacred ground. Beyond the Spinney, and standing by itself, far removed from any other tree, was the famous Wolsey Oak. Why called so, I have not the least idea, for it had the reputation of being a vast deal older than the days of the famous Cardinal. Many a summer had it seen--

"When the monk was fat, And issuing shorn and sleek, Would twist his girdle tight, and pat The girls upon the cheek; Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's Pence, And numbered bead and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spence, And turned the cowls adrift."

Yet still was it said to be as whole and sound as a bell. It was calculated to measure over fourteen yards in circ.u.mference, and that for many feet from its base; while its height, although it had lost some of its upper branches, still far exceeded that of any other of its compeers. Beyond this tree, but at another great interval, was the wood known as the Old Plantation, where Oliver Bradford had last seen his master alive. I was looking down, then, upon the very route which Sir Ma.s.singberd had been seen to commence, but which he had never ended. It was to the Home Spinney he had been apparently bound, when something--none knew what--had changed his purpose. He would probably have pa.s.sed through it, and come up by that winding path yonder to the spot where I now stood; it was the nearest way home for him. Perhaps he had done so, although it was unlikely, since the watcher had not seen him. Perhaps those very yews behind me had concealed his murderers. Shut in by those unechoing walls of living green, no cry for aid would have been heard, even if Sir Ma.s.singberd had been the man to call for it; he would most certainly have never asked for mercy. But hark! what was that sound that froze the current of my blood, and set my heart beating and fluttering like the wings of a prisoned bird against its cage? Was it a strangled cry for "Help!" repeated once, twice, thrice, or was it the wintry wind clanging and grinding the naked branches of the Spinney?

A voice had terrified me in Fairburn Chase once before, which had turned out to be no mere fancy; but there was this horror about the present sound, that I seemed to dimly recognize it. It was the voice of Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath, with an awful change in it, as if a powerful hand were tightening upon his throat. It seemed, as I have said, to come from the direction of the copse beneath, and yet I determined to descend into it, rather than thread again the mazes of those melancholy yews. The idea of my a.s.sistance being really required never entered into my thoughts; what I wanted was to escape from this solitude, peopled only with unearthly cries, and regain the companions.h.i.+p of my fellow-creatures. How I regretted having left the society of those honest folk outside the gates! To remain where I was, was impossible; I should have gone mad. Fortunately, the Spinney was well-nigh leafless, and a bright but wintry sun penetrated it completely. I fled over its withered and frosted leaves, looking neither to left nor right, till I leaped the deep ditch that formed its southern boundary, and found myself in the open; then I stopped indeed quite short, for, before me, not ten paces from the Spinney, from which he must have just emerged, lay the body of Gr.i.m.j.a.w. It was still warm, but lifeless. There were no marks of violence about him; the struggle to extricate himself from the ditch, it is probable, had cost the wretched creature his little remaining vitality, weakened as he must have doubtless been by his previous night's lodging on the cold stone steps. But how had he come thither, who never moved anywhere out of doors, except with Sir Ma.s.singberd or Gilmore? and whither, led perhaps by some mysterious instinct, was he going when death had overtaken him--an easy task--and glazed that solitary eye, which had witnessed so much which was still a mystery to man?

Was it possible that he had perished in endeavouring to obey his master's cry for aid? that terrible "Help! help!" which rang in my ears a while ago, as I stood in the Stone Garden, and which rings, through half a century, in them now?

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEARCH.

Shrinking away from the body of the unhappy Gr.i.m.j.a.w, and fleeing from the solitary spot in which it lay, I ran down towards the Heronry, where, in the distance, I could now perceive a number of persons a.s.sembled upon the lake-side. Below and above it, the stream flowed on as usual; but the larger area of water which contained the island, was frozen over with a thin coating of ice. This was being broken by men armed with long and heavy poles, after which the work of dragging the water was commenced. The scene was as desolate as the occupation was ghastly and depressing. Perched upon stony slabs of their now leafless home, the huge birds watched the proceedings with grave and serious air: at first, they imagined, I think, that the thing was done for their own behoof, and to the end that they might supply themselves with fish as usual; but the appearance of the grappling-irons disabused them of this idea. Now one, and now another, unable to restrain their curiosity, would rise slowly and warily into the air, and making a circuit over our heads, return to their old position to reflect, with head aside, upon what they had seen. The presence as spectators of these gigantic creatures, certainly increased the weird and awful character of the employment in which we were engaged, and struck quite a terror into the village folk, who were unaccustomed to see them in such close proximity.

Still the work was not gone about by any means in reverent and solemn silence. If any man wishes his neighbours to speak their mind about him thoroughly and unreservedly, I should say, judging from what I heard on that occasion, Let him disappear, and be dragged for. It is not so certain he is dead, that any delicacy need be exercised in telling the severest truths about him; nor yet is there sufficient chance of his reappearance to make folks reticent through fear. Only when the drags halted a little, meeting with some hidden obstruction, all tongues were silent, and pale faces cl.u.s.tered about the toilers, expecting that the dreadful thing they sought was about to be brought to land.

"I thought we had him then," said one of the men, after an occasion of this sort; "but it was only a piece of stone."

"It might have been his _heart_, for all that," muttered another, cynically; and a murmur of "Ay, that's true," went round them all.

"Has anybody been about the Home Spinney this morning?" inquired I of Oliver Bradford, who had just given up his place at the ropes to a fresh man.

"No, sir, nor last night either, as it turns out. It will be bad for somebody if Sir Ma.s.singberd does return, and finds out that the watcher who ought to have been there was wiled away elsewhere by what he thought was poachers holloing to one another--some owl's cry, as I should judge.

And to-day, I doubt if a creature has been near the place, for none of my men seem to fancy going there alone."

"And who _was_ the watcher there last night, Oliver?"