"Euphrasia or Aphra Orrin (as she was called) arrived in a few days.
But she brought with her three hare-brained sisters, concerning whom, if their brother had breathed so much as one word, neither Aphra nor any of them should ever have set foot within my door. I should have claimed my granddaughter, at that time cared for by a decent working woman named Edgar--and for whose upkeep I subscribed according to my means. I should have taken her, I say, and trained her up to fulfil my needs. Between us, Jeremy and I could have done it.*
* "I say nothing of the return and death of my daughter Bell. Save that she left the parish and returned burdened with a brat, her coming had no interest for me, though the neighbours made a foolish work about it, going so far as to give me an ill name on account of my treatment of her!"
"But Aphra was a clever woman, and as soon as I saw her, and as soon as she had spoken with Jeremy, I knew for certain that there would be no turning her out. She meant to stay at Deep Moat Grange, and stay she would and did, she and her yelping litter of she-whelps. Of her I only asked one thing, that she should confine their vagaries to the s.p.a.ce contained between the pond and the moat. The house had now been put into some repair, the drawbridge restored, and we were safe within our own guards and barriers. As for the country clatter, we took no heed to that. Besides, whenever there was a fair or promising market, it was agreed that (for my character"s sake) I should be found with my lawyer in Edinburgh, or in the company of some other decent, producible people.
"The advantages of the Grange for our business are manifold. Firstly, should this fall into the hands of a successor actuated by a like hatred of humanity and lack of moral prejudice, and supposing him to be served by the same able though irresponsible tools which I have used, I would point out that from either road, that to Bewick to the right or that through the woods to Longwood on the left, there is direct water carriage to the secluded lawn beneath Deep Moat Grange. In case of necessity, supposing that the "accident" has befallen on the Bewick road, you can load your boat by the bridge near to the darkest part of the wood behind the Bailiff"s houses, and then, sculling lightly, you are carried all the way by the current of the Backwater without leaving a trace. If the game has been played on the highway to the right, then there is equally good going across the pond. It is recommended that the boat, being probably heavily burdened, should return by the north side, where I have planted certain rows of weeping willows, which not only afford a grateful shade, but are seemly in the circ.u.mstances.
"It was, however, Miss Orrin (a clever woman in her way) who had the best idea as to the final disposition of the frail but compromising relicts of mortality, thus appropriately transported under my weeping willows to their final resting beds. She made perennial flower pots of them, and nowhere could be seen such display of varied beauty as she obtained from cold, useless clay!
"Personally, I have always been opposed to the general uselessness of graveyards and cemeteries. Nothing is better suited to enrich the soil than the material which Jeremy supplied. It is far before phosphates, about which there has been so much talk these last years. So I was greatly content when Miss Orrin--to whom of necessity I had to confide the secret of Jeremy"s unfortunate tendencies, in order that she might use her influence to direct it for our mutual advantage--discovered a means at once of security and of utility by planting ma.s.ses of lilies in heart-shaped plots all about, wherever Jeremy had found it necessary to disturb the soil. I believe that Miss Orrin attached some subtle meaning to the lilies. Indeed had I not prevented her, she would even have made the plots of the shape and size of coffins--which certainly shows a trace of the family failing.
"But this was, of course, impossible. I had, how ever, good reason to be content with our new arrangement. The old, difficult (though perfectly safe) interment in a doubly tenanted grave, with all its annoyances of being on the spot myself, of scaling walls and keeping Jeremy to his labour, was all done away with. Deep Moat certainly became, as it were, a self-contained factory for spinning the money which is the G.o.d of this world. Ah, it was a peaceful and a happy time. Within and without, everything went like clockwork. I began to be respected, too--at a certain distance from home, that is. For I had taken care to engage the simplest and honestest soul in the world for my grieve or bailiff, and when Jeremy and I were not out on our more immediate business, Simon Ball and I frequented markets and bought all that was necessary for the home farm. To be exact, he bought and I paid.
"But the beginning of evil days was at hand. I have always noticed it.
Man cannot long be left in peace, even among the most favoured surroundings. Now I was doing no harm to any soul or body in all the surrounding parishes. Instead I did what good I could--spoke fairly and civilly, contributed freely to charities, helped more than one of my impoverished neighbours. But I will not conceal it from my successor (who alone is to read this ma.n.u.script) that all my good will was in vain, so far as gaining the affection and respect of the countryside was concerned. Yet for this, personally, I can conceive no reason. Those whom Jeremy took charge of were invariably strangers--men of loud, brawling character, generally semi-drunkards, trampling all laws of a quiet and respectable demeanour under their feet.
"While I myself, giving shelter to these poor creatures, the sisters Orrin--who without me would have been hunted from city to city--I, Howard Stennis, whose only dissipation or distraction was to weave the thronging fancies of flower and fruit into my napery--was no better respected than an outlaw dog. They called me the Golden Farmer, but it was with a sneer. None would willingly linger a moment to speak with me, not so much as one of Bailiff Ball"s tow-headed urchins. If one of them met me in a lonesome path, as like as not he would set up a howl and dodge between my legs, running, tumbling, and making the welkin ring, as if I had been some black evil bogie!
"Yet, I am a man who all his life has loved children, and (with a few exceptions) carefully observed the courtesies as between man and man.
When I consider how I have been served by friends and neighbours, many of whom I have repeatedly obliged, I am filled with surprise that I have kept the sphere of my operations so remote from my insulters. But then I have always, save perhaps in the case of my daughter Bell, been a forgiving man. Even now I cherish no enmity against those whose machinations have caused me to be suspected.
"It was about this time, when the first-planted lilies were beginning to sprout for the third season, that Jeremy, nosing, as usual, here and there, discovered the ancient underground rooms across the drawbridge.
Immediately I saw the use they would be to us. Having been well brought up myself, I had always regretted the necessity of sending so many, mostly careless and G.o.dless men, to their account unwarned and unprepared. Such of them as could be induced to disgorge further sums of money besides those carried on their bodies might at least have some s.p.a.ce for reflection and repentance. What I did not foresee was that the Orrins, with their low, mad-folks" cunning, would make use of these nests of chambers and hiding-places for their own ends, and thereby endanger everything which I had so wisely and so laboriously thought out.
"But for all that it was, as I have said, the beginning of the evil days.
"And as usual it was owing to my own carelessness. I have enough common sense to know that, nine times out of ten, men have themselves to thank for the misfortunes which befall them. It is only the born fool who goes from house to house and from friend to friend maundering about ill luck and an unkind Providence. Good luck, at least, is generally only the art of looking a good way ahead.
"I was away in Edinburgh, for the almanac told us that we were approaching the date of the Bewick Wakes. Jeremy was to make the acquaintance of a certain Lammermuir farmer with a well lined pocket-book. The lily bed, under which he was to lie, would just have made out Miss Aphra"s pattern neatly--a thing concerning which she was most particular. I will not give his name; if this falls into the hands of a worthy successor he may one day scent the "shot" out for himself. He speaks broad Lammermuir, wears gla.s.ses hooked round his ears, like a college professor, and generally has cut himself while shaving in more than one place. But at any rate he had a respite for the time being.
"For, without my knowledge, and quite apart from all my well-ordered designs, Jeremy in a mad, fierce fit fell suddenly upon the mail carrier betwixt Breckonside and Bewick. Very early in the morning it was done, and the place unsuitable and quite unsafe, being close by the bailiff"s cottage. But that was not the worst. The mare belonging to the carrier postman (I knew him well, a decent quiet man, Henry Foster by name) ran wide and wild, made a circuit of the Deep Moat property and turned up in front of the school-house at Breckonside, the mail gig all blood and leaves, just as the innocent bairns were going in to say their morning"s lessons.
"The rest of the business Jeremy had carried through well enough. He had sculled the body of Foster, properly covered with bark and brushwood, and laid it comfortably in the place intended for the Lammermuir farmer. He had taken the mail bags, such as appeared to have anything of value in them, turned them inside out, burned them in his baker"s furnace, and hidden away the rings (which he could not melt) in some of his private _caches_.
"Yet when I asked him why he had done the deed at all, he would only reply, "I saw Harry pa.s.sing by, just when I had done whetting my knife, and I thought I would try it on him!""
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
THE HOUSE OF DEATH
(_The last Testimony of Miser Hobby is continued and concluded_)
"It was in the days after the disappearance of Henry Foster, the mail-post carrier between Bewick and Breckonside, that I became aware of the increasing madness of those whom I had so rashly taken under my roof and protection. The younger sisters, especially Honorine, thought nothing of standing on walls screaming like peac.o.c.ks, flapping their arms, and declaring that they were winged angels, ready on a signal from on high to fly upward into the blue. At such times Jeremy would take to his fiddle and lock himself in the top rooms of the house, especially affecting the tower chamber overlooking the Moat. He even refused on several occasions to go to work, though the business indicated was safe and remunerative enough. I had often observed with great interest the home coming of young Jamie Caig, of Little Springfield, a great taker of gra.s.s parks, a mighty dealer in well-wintered sheep and fat bullocks. On one occasion I watched him all the way from Longtown with the best part of a thousand pounds in his pockets.
"I remember that he had on a shiny white mackintosh, and I thought he would never leave the town, going into all sorts of foolish and expensive cook shops and toy bazaars to buy trinkets and knick-knacks.
"Then, after all, at the arch of trees on the Pond Road where the way narrows, there was no Jeremy--though I knew that the usual boat was moored within twenty yards--fifteen to be exact. Thus Caig, the younger, and his thousand pounds pa.s.sed unharmed. In the dull light I could see him put his hand into an open packet of candy and take out a piece to suck it. He went by whistling, mocking at me, as it were--only that he was such a grown-up babe.
"But there was worse to come. At some risk to myself I followed behind. He never even looked over his shoulder, only quickening his pace as he got near to the tumble-down, out-at-elbows steading of Little Springfield which he had leased for himself.
"The inhabitants, one and all, must have been waiting for young Jamie Caig. For before I could turn away a troop of children issued out and rushed at him, taking him by escalade, routed out his pockets, even his wife and sisters taking part, and he all the time laughing. I never saw a more disgusting sight in my life.
"That night I broke in the door of Jeremy"s room where he sat playing on the flute, and, with a revolver in one hand to keep him in awe, I thrashed him severely about the neck and shoulders with my cane. His sister said that it was the only way to teach him obedience.
"Indeed, Miss Orrin was a sensible woman, and at this time remained my only stand-by. So long as I supported the mad troop, I could count upon her, even though it perilled her soul. She aided me with her brother also, and from her I learned a thing about Jeremy which, though I am generally brave enough, I will admit disquieted me.
"Jeremy had taken to digging under the lily roots with his finger nails, and when checked for it by his sister, he said that he wanted to see whether Lang Hutchins, Harry Foster, and the others were "coming up." He added that there would be a resurrection some day, and he was scratching to see how soon it would happen. He did not want it to come unawares, when he was asleep, for instance.
"And he made even my well-trained blood run cold by laughing with chuckling pleasure, declaring that "when they stick their heads through, Jeremy will be on hand to do his wark a" ower again! He will twine a halter round their necks as they are sproutin" and fill their mouths fu" o" clay. Then Jeremy will defy even Aphra to gar them rise again. There"s nae word o" twa resurrections, ye ken! So Jeremy will do for them that time!"
"At other seasons, especially after he had been punished for scratching in the soil, he would cry like a child. He generally did this when Aphra whipped him. But in half an hour I would find him again among the lily beds, his hands all bound up in fingerless gloves, but his ear close down against the earth.
""Wheesht--wheesht!" he would whisper, putting up a linen-wrapped stump to stay me. "Listen to them knocking--they are knocking to get oot.
Jeremy can hear them!"
"And though I raised him with the toe of my boot and made him be off into the house, yet his words shook my nerves so that I had to go into the weaving-chamber, where I was not myself till I had taken a good long spell at the loom.
"After some of the later disappearances, notably that of Harry Foster--for, as he was in some sort a public servant wearing a uniform, the postman"s case received attention out of all proportion to its importance--the police would come about us, asking questions and taking down notes and references. There was nothing serious in that, though I was even asked to justify my _alibi_ by giving the employ of my time during the day previous to "the unfortunate occurrence"--unfortunate, indeed, for me and for all concerned--Harry Foster included. As, however, I had both lunched and supped with my old friend and lawyer, Mr. Gillison Kilhilt, and afterwards slept at his house, I could not have been more innocent if I had done the same with the Queen herself, G.o.d bless her!
"But it was not the police, rate-supported and by law established (whom I have always encouraged and aided in every possible way, entertaining them, and facilitating their researches and departures), that annoyed me. The little, mean, paltry spying of Breckonside and the neighbourhood was infinitely more difficult to bear.
"For instance, there was a boy--a youth, I suppose I should call him--one Joseph Yarrow, upon whose rich father I had long had my eye.
If it had not been that he generally came in the company of my own granddaughter Elsie, his neck would soon enough have been twisted. But as it was, he put us to an enormous amount of trouble. One never knew when he would be spying about, and once, by an unfortunate mistake of my own, I introduced my granddaughter and this intrusive young good-for-nothing into a barn of which our mad people had been making a kind of chapel of Beelzebub.
"There was also a High-Church clergyman--a kind of mission priest, I think he called himself--come north with a friend to convert the Scotch. He took it into his head that, not making great progress with the sane of the neighbourhood, he might perhaps have better luck with Miss Aphra and her private asylum!
"And I must say that he had. The processions and peac.o.c.k screamings went on, but there was an end of skulls and little coffins and crossbones knocked together like cymbals as they marched. Instead, they had tables with crucifixes, and confessionals, and all sorts of paraphernalia in gold lace and tags. Mr. Ablethorpe (that was the High-Churchman"s name) was pleased and proud. Four at once, sane or insane, was an unprecedented increase to his scanty flock. And as for him everything depended upon the proper taking of the sacraments, it was all right. Honorine and the rest would take them, or anything else, twenty times an hour.
"But in addition there was "confession," and you may be sure I went carefully into that business with Miss Aphra. However, she rea.s.sured me.
""These poor ones" (so she always named her sisters, Honorine, Camilla, and Sidonia) "know nothing about it. And as for me, I confess only what will not endanger the shelter of the roof which covers us.
Because of that I am willing, for some time longer, to retain unconfessed and unforgiven sin on my soul!"
"This sounded all right to me. But, fool that I was, as usual my confiding nature put me in danger. If I had suspected that some day that same Mr. Ablethorpe, whom I had received and warmed like a snake in my bosom, would carry off not only Honorine and her two mad companions to one of his patent sisterhoods (even Aphra herself fleeing, probably to join them later) leaving me (as I am at present) alone with Jeremy to face the storm--well, I would have nipped in the very bud the propagation of erroneous and Romanist doctrines. I have always been conscientiously opposed to these in any case!
"It was the increasing waywardness of the entire Orrin family which threatened to be the ruin of all my carefully planned scheme. If only I could have kept them as I first got them--Jeremy docile and comparatively easy of influence even in his hours of wildness, Aphra sage and wise in counsel, with a firm hand over the others, and all that property of Deep Moat Grange so excellently laid out, as if on purpose for our operations!
"But, alas! Folly no more than wisdom will stand still. If only they had been like my web, full of subtle combinations and devices which none could work out in full beauty save myself, yet abiding still and waiting for my hand without the changing of a st.i.tch! The Orrins were no more than my loom wherewith to spin gold--but--they would not bide as they were during my absences, however short.
"The worst of it all was that, having once begun to operate on their own accounts, though most unfortunately and ill advisedly, they would no longer confine themselves to legitimate business. Not only Jeremy, but even Aphra must needs try to realize the most fantastic and impossible combinations, like some poor drudging weaver who should attempt to execute one of my patterns. It was not in them, the hare-brained, mauling crew, and naturally enough they spoiled the web.