"And good reason!" cried Elsie, firing up, "he gives the best and wisest advice, and it would tell on you, Master Joe, if you took it a little oftener."
"No wonder mother prefers Harriet Caw!" I muttered. And the next moment I would have given all that I had in possession to have recalled the words, but it is always that way with a tongue which runs too easily.
Turning, Elsie gave me one long look, hurt, indignant, almost anguished. Then she went slowly up the stairs, and in ten minutes her little chest and bundle of wraps were out on the yard pavement. I saw her bargaining with Rob Kingsman to take them across to Nance Edgar"s for her. And I think she took a shilling out of her lean purse to give him. I tell you I felt like a hog. I was a hog. I knew it and, shamefaced, betook me to the woods as to a sty.
I had wounded Elsie to the quick, and wronged my father also.... I did not believe that either of them would ever forgive me. For, of course, she would go straight and tell father. I did not feel that I could ever go back. At the wood edge I turned and looked once at the smoke curling up from the chimney of "the Mount" kitchen. It was so hot there was no fire in any of the other rooms. Ah, "_home, sweet, sweet home_"!
Then I peeped at the schoolhouse, and saw Mr. Mustard and Elsie walking slowly up to the front door together. She had had that extra lesson, the nature of which she had not thought fit to tell me. Then she would go--well, no matter where. It was all over between us at any rate.
Did you ever know such a fool? Why, yes--there was yourself, dear reader--that is, if you have been wise. If not, it may not even yet be too late to be foolish.
I wasted the day in the woods. That is, I took out my pocket-book, jerked my fountain pen into some activity, and scribbled verses. I was too proud to go back home. And I knew well that my father had accepted in its fullest sense the doctor"s advice, "Let him run!" He would neither send after me himself nor allow anyone else to meddle with my comings and goings.
It was curious and fascinating to linger about the Deep Moat Woods, once so terrible, now become a haunt of the sightseer and the day tripper. But I who had seen so much there, and heard more, who with beating heart had adventured so often into these darkling recesses, could not lose all at once the impression of brooding danger they had given me, ever since that first morning when Elsie and I crossed the road and plunged into them on the day of poor Harry Foster"s death.
I suppose it was the moody state of my mind (Elsie unkindly calls it "sulks") which led me to stay on and on till the afternoon became the evening, and the shadows of the trees over the pond became more and more gloomy--mere dark purple with blobs and blotches of fire where the sunset clouds showed between the leaves.
I stood leaning against the trunk of a tree, the branches bending down umbrella fashion all about me. In those days I was a limber young fellow enough, and could have acted model for an ill.u.s.trated-paper hero quite fairly--Childe Harold, the Master of Ravenswood, or one of those young Douglases to whom they brought in the Black Bull"s Head in the Castle of Edinburgh, as a sign that they must die.
Of course, I had no business to be there at that time of night, but my own loneliness and Elsie"s desertion made me stay on and on--miserable and cherishing my misery, petting my "sulks," and swearing to myself that I would never, _never_ give in--_never_ forgive Elsie, _never_ return to those who had so ill used and misunderstood me.
Yes, what a fool, if you like! But I wasn"t the first and I won"t be the last to feel and say just the same things.
Then, quick and chillish, like the breaking of cold sweat on a man, though he doesn"t know quite why, there pa.s.sed over me the thrill which tells a fellow that he is not alone. Yet anything more lonely than the Moat Pond ruins, with what remained of the square hulk of the tower cutting the sky--the same from which Jeremy had hurled himself--could not be imagined.
Nevertheless I did not breathe that night air alone. I was sure of that. The bats swooped and recovered, seeing doubtless the white blur of my face in the dusk of the tree shadows.
Before me I could see the green lawn all trampled that had been Miss Orrin"s pride. The lilies were mostly uprooted to allow of the perquisitions of the law. But whether it was something supernatural (in which at the time I was quite in a mood to believe), or merely owing to the moving of a soil so pregnant with the exhalations of the marsh--certain it is that I saw the distinct outline of a man"s body, with limbs extended, lie in the same place where each of Miser Hobby"s "cases" had been interred. They were marked out with a kind of misty fire, like the phosphorus when a damp match won"t strike--not bright like the boiling swirl in a vessel"s wake. Each of them kept quite still. There was no movement save, perhaps, that of a star, when you see it through the misty air low on the horizon of the west, and kind of swaying, which after all may only have been in my head.
I don"t think I was particularly frightened at first. I had had some chemistry lessons with Mr. Ablethorpe, and we had gone pretty far on--boiling a penny in one kind of acid, and making limestone fizz with another--nitrochloric, or hydrochloric, I think. So I knew enough not to be frightened--at least not very badly. But what I saw next scared me stiff. I don"t hide the fact. And so it would have scared you!
_There was something on the lawn, dabbling among the shiny glimmer of the uprooted lily plots, crouching and scratching!_
CHAPTER x.x.xIX
THE THING THAT SCRATCHED
Something living it was, and pretty active, too--no mistake about that.
A dog? Possibly! But the next moment it stood erect on two feet like a man, and, turning slowly, peered all about. Then as suddenly it dropped down on all fours again and fell to the sc.r.a.ping. I could hear the sound distinctly in that lonesome place, where the water in the pond was too thick and heavy even to ripple, and where only the owl cried regularly once in five minutes.
I could not have spoken if I had tried, and I did not try. My tongue dried up like a piece of old bark, and I knew what the Bible meant when it said that sometimes a fellow"s tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. Mine would, if the roof had not been as dry as a chip also.
You ask if I watched the Thing. You may take it for gospel that I could not have turned my head or averted my eyes for all the wealth of the Indies, though that, I understand, is a poor country enough.
Well, I saw the Thing scramble from grave to empty grave, scratch at each furiously, obscuring the dim phosph.o.r.escent glimmer. Then, standing erect, it flung up great clawlike hands with a ghoulish gesture of disappointment, moaning lamentably to the stars!
I tell you I dripped. My body trembled so that it shook the tree. So would yours have done, if you had been there--perhaps even a bigger tree.
Then some noise from the opposite side of the Moat, or, perhaps, from beyond the Pond, struck the ear of the Thing. I don"t know how a spectre disappears. I never saw but that one, and since then I have lost all interest. But at any rate the Shape pa.s.sed me at a long wolf"s lope, making no noise and going fast. Right under my nose it slipped silently into the black deeps of the Pond. I think it sank underneath, for the next moment I could see no more than a wet head, a round, vague sphere that glistened faintly, turning this way and that, and very ghastly. _The Thing was swimming, and making no noise_.
Then I came to myself with a sudden revulsion. If there were, indeed, anything living on that Island of Deep Moat Grange--yet another of that hideous crew left free and alive--the sooner the world knew about it the better. I had always thought, and my father had said that the official researches in the catacombs, called after the old Cistercian Monks, had been much too summary.
The moisture came slowly back to my mouth. I was still scared, of course, but I had got over the paralysis that comes with a first surprise. If the Thing could swim, I could run, though not quite so noiselessly, as there was an abundance of brushwood which I had to traverse, while the wave undulated like oil off the creature"s back, as from an otter crossing a stream. You never saw anything swim so lightly and yet so fast.
It crossed the Pond obliquely, evidently making for the entrance of the Backwater. I could not follow directly. You see, I was constrained to cross at the drawbridge. But, between ourselves, I burned the path under my feet. I have many times run fast, but never so quickly as then. Talk about second wind--second courage is worth ten of it any day; quite as real, too, though less talked about.
It seemed a dreadful long way round about, and my heart was as much in my mouth now lest I should lose _It_, as it had been before, lest _It_ should find me.
But I got there just ahead.
As I expected it had turned down the long, straight cut of the Backwater, and was swimming straight toward me. Now, thought I, I will surely see what the Thing is. But I could only make out--vague, round, and shining, a head that turned this way and that in swimming.
Suddenly the speed was checked. The swimmer, whatever it might be, turned sharply, searched a little, and appeared to hesitate. I took a step and bent forward to listen. A rotten branch cracked sharply under my careless foot. There was a sort of "wallop" like a seal or sea lion turning off a spring-board into a pond. Then came the sharp click of sliding iron. A square of darkness yawned in the ca.n.a.l bank.
Something entered, and the door shut with several jerks like machinery in infrequent usage. The Thing had vanished. I was alone with the new terror of the woods of Deep Moat Grange.
Nevertheless I had had a certain lesson some time before. I could not again be altogether deceived. It _was_ something human, though in all probability just so much the more dangerous and cruel for that. He, or she, knew the secret of the iron door which Mr. Ablethorpe had made me enter.
There was, therefore, at least one still left of the devil"s brood in their ancient haunts, and the sooner that the world was warned, the better. Or, at least, I would tell my father, and he would get together a few determined men, who would not be afraid to act according to their consciences and the necessities of the case.
As for fear, it had clean gone from me. A kind of singing came into my head instead, but not in my ears, which seemed to act with extraordinary acuteness. After all it was splendid to know what no one else on earth knew. Besides, I would show them all, especially Elsie, what I could do, acting alone. They despised me, laughed at me, yet here was I I had been away all day, without food, without a soul thinking about me or caring for me. Nevertheless I, Joe Yarrow, whom everybody thought an idler, a mere waster of precious time, would spring this news upon the world!
And so I might, but for one thing.
To get away I had to pa.s.s the wall of the old orchard and the flagstone on which Mr. Ablethorpe and I had seen Mad Jeremy stamping down with such force. Now, if I had not been such a conceited young man (my father"s words), or so taken up with getting the better of Elsie (that young person"s own opinion), I would have known that any of the crew who knew the secret of the iron door and the bricked pa.s.sage would also be sure to know that of the flagstone and the way out by the orchard.
But at any rate it did not occur to me at the time. I thought solely about getting home, arming a band, and coming to watch for the scratcher of the lily beds, the swimmer of the Backwater, the creature which had opened and shut the iron door--no easy task, as we knew, Mr.
Ablethorpe and I.
So I skirted the water edge of the old orchard hastily. Some stones had rolled down from the coping, and the walking was difficult. But there was still a good deal of light, as soon as I had turned the corner. For the west was bright with a late golden afterglow. Quite useful it was.
I was just about the middle, just where the gates with their broken blazons had stood, for it had been a swell place once. Also there was a short cut across to the Bewick road. I pa.s.sed between the damaged stone posts, which, however, still stood upright. As I did so, something sprang at me with the growl of a hungry tiger. I had hardly time to glance up, and even then I could see no more than a vaguely shining head, and an arm uplifted to strike, with something glittering in it like a crescent moon.
There was no time for defence. There was no time for escape. The Thing, beast, or man--more beast-like now than human--was upon me and bore me down. But even while the danger was in the air, I heard a sound which appeared to me not at all like a shot--more like a spit of fire when a log sparks on the hearth. And in a moment I was p.r.o.ne on my face, bruised and beaten down by the weight. I heard a jangle of steel. I supposed that I was wounded--that this was the end. And with the Thing heavy on the top of me, I fainted away.
CHAPTER XL
WANTED--A PENNY IN THE SLOT
When I came to myself the moon had risen--risen good and high, too--for it showed well above the orchard wall where it was broken, and over the palisades with which Hobby Stennis had mended it with his own hand.
Elsie was seated by me. She had opened up my coat, and undone my waistcoat and shirt at the neck. There was a pleasant coolness, and she was slopping about with a wet handkerchief--not very big, indeed, being one of her own, and better adapted for dabbing dry girls" eyes, than for recovering a man out of a faint.
I sat up.