HOW ELSIE DANCED FOR HER LIFE
The white and gold walls of the drawing-room of Deep Moat Grange, though tarnished by time, and with spots of mould beginning to outline themselves again for want of Aphra Orrin"s careful hand, gave back gaily enough the mellow glow of a hundred candles all of wax.
"Dance, Elsie woman!" cried Mad Jeremy, emptying a tumbler at a gulp.
"But first drink ye also, la.s.sie. That will bring back your bonnie colour! What has come to ye, bairn? Ye are pale as a bit snaw-drap that sets its head through a wreath at a d.y.k.e-back. But red, red, red as ony rose shall ye be, I"se warrant ye! Dance, la.s.sie, dance!"
And with a jingle of bells he struck in the "Reel o" Bogie." Elsie did no more than set her lips to her gla.s.s. But she obeyed, for Jeremy was in no mood to be countered. Then, taking up her gown daintily on both sides, as the dance ordains, she danced it alone. And every time as she turned, her eyes caught the door of the weaving-room, and the heart within her became as water for what she had seen through that little black mark of exclamation which was the keyhole.
Yet somehow the situation stirred her, too. There is a vast deal of desperate courage in a woman. A man laughs at this because he is exempt from the fears of mice and minor creeping things. He may as well think, as he often does, the better of himself, on the strength of the beard on his chin. But in the desperate pa.s.ses of life, woman is apt to lead the forlorn hopes. And why should she not? Her kind have been accustomed to them ever since, in the forlorn coppices outside Eden, one Eve gave birth to her firstborn, and called him--being, like a woman, deceived--"My possession."
And with the blank midnight pressing against the huge windows of the facade, and the white lights and red candle stems reflected a thousand times in the sullen moat, Elsie danced. The irregular wind moaned about the house, and as the brand-new melodeon whined and crew, flinging a weird rhythm to the tremulous candle flames, something like the fast-running "Broom o" the Cowdenkynwes," "Logan Braes," "Green Grows the Rushes," or "Bonnie Dundee," emerged. Elsie danced to them all. She danced as the fluted candles burned down nearer to their sockets.
And all the while, now with one leg on the table, and swinging his body to the time of the music, or crouched in a corner nursing his melodeon against him as if he were a beast ready for the spring, Jeremy beat the measure with his foot.
Sometimes he would spring up and sing a stave which struck him, in a high, screeching voice--sometimes drain a cup of wine or spirits out of the nearest bottle, stopping in the midst to wave the half-filled gla.s.s about his head, and complete his chant. Sometimes it went like this--
"His mother from the window looked, With all the longing of a mother; His little sister, weeping walked The greenwood path to meet her brother.
"They sought him east, they sought him west, They sought him a" the forest thorough; They only saw the cloud o" nicht, They only heard the roar of Yarrow!"
Then, as the night went past, Elsie prayed for the time to go faster.
She saw the candles blink and dwindle; she saw the windows stand out more blankly. In her brain there grew up a fear of the dark, after the light should be extinguished, when she should find herself alone with that wild being who had murdered her grandfather. Her hope was in the morning light. If she could only dance till then!
Well it was for her that, as a child, she had danced, as a gnat over a pool, as a b.u.t.terfly among the flowers of the garden. Light of foot, and ready, she had learned all as by nature. And now, with the candles going out one by one, and the bitterness of death rising like a tide in her heart--barred in, the door locked, utterly forsaken--she had yet to smile and dance--dance and dance--to the lilt and stress of Mad Jeremy"s noisy instrument.
The jangle of bells thrilled her as he struck with a clash as of steel weapons into "Roy"s Wife of Aldevaloch," or an irony of fiendish laughter as he shouted the refrain of "Duncan Grey," lifting a hand fleeringly from the German-silver keys, with a glance of terrible import.
"Ha, ha, the wooin" o"t!"
It was, indeed, a memorable wooing, but Elsie smiled and danced tirelessly, her young body lithe and swift to the turn, her feet nimble and dainty. The last tune pleased the madman. With a "Hooch" of triumph, he sprang to his feet, marching up and down the room, playing all the time with desperate energy.
"This beats fiddlin"!" he cried. "The Herodias quean was leaden-footed to you, la.s.sie! And noo Jeremy will play ye something o" his ain; and you, wee Elsie, shall dance to the movin" o" the speerit! Wave your airms and smile, Elsie, for I am the laird, and ye are the leddy!"
With one spring, he landed featly on the tall mantelpiece, where, mopping and mowing, swinging his instrument now high over his head, and now lower than his knees, Mad Jeremy seemed more like the sculptured gargoyle of some devil come alive than anything of human stock or human mothering.
The fire was black out, but on the hearth the shape of the burned violin lay in a black heap like a dead, dangerous beast. For the head and neck had twisted themselves back as if in agony, the black pegs looking as if they could sting. They seemed to watch the door of the weaving room into which their destroyer had gone. And certainly they had not been unavenged. For their sake, the madman"s knife had bitten deep and keen. There was little need now for the head to twist itself as the tightening strings had pulled it, as the fire had left it. All was wiped out. And, as if in recognition of the fact, its master stirred the black ashes with his toe before he struck into a wild saturnalia of sound, to which Elsie danced like a Bacchante, with the last remnants of her girl"s strength.
It was still far from the dawn, which is a laggard in February throughout Scotland. The red candles began to go out one by one. Fear surged tumultuous in Elsie"s heart--as, indeed, well it might--to find herself thus shut up with the murderer of her grandfather, whose dead body she knew lay behind the nearest door, and the red candles going out one by one.
There remained only the huge centre one, a special purchase of Aphra"s.
And still the madman grimaced, crossing and uncrossing his legs on the high mantel-piece. Still he swung his instrument--still he called on Elsie to dance. But now the girl was utterly fatigued. Without a sign of giving way, something seemed to crack somewhere--in her head, perhaps, or about her heart. She sank unconscious on the floor in a heap.
Mad Jeremy halted in the middle of a bar; bent forward to look at the girl to see whether or no she was pretending. Then, leaping down from the mantel-shelf with the same graceful ease as he had mounted, he strode to the last great red candle, fit for a cathedral altar, which Aphra had set in the central candelabra. He took it down, and, after one keen look at the girl, he stepped over her prostrate body, on his way to resume his beloved melodeon, which he had left behind him when he had leaped down.
A smile of infinite cunning wreathed his lips.
"Baith the twa," he muttered, the smile widening to a grin. "She"s a bonnie la.s.sie, ay! and if Jeremy had ony thocht o" marryin" she wad be the la.s.s for him. But it"s safer no! Baith the twa will be best dead.
That will mak" the last of the Stennises gang tegither. She shall have a braw burial. There shall never be sic a Baalfire as Jeremy will licht for her--and weel she is deservin" o"t. For she danced blithe and brawly, even unto the breakin" o" the day!"
And he went on tiptoe to the door of the weaving room, unlocked it, and looked in, holding his flambeau high above his head. The light fell on the dead man, bent forward with his face half hidden in the web.
He held his head first to one side and then to the other, as an artist may, with pleasure and self-complaisance, admire a completed masterpiece.
Then he went out. Elsie still lay where she had fallen. The madman glanced once at her.
"It will e"en be the quicker. I will let her lie. She will never wauken. Leave the door open, Jeremy. It will mak" a graund draught.
Fare ye weel, bairn! Ye danced bonnie, and kind Jeremy is giein" ye your wages this nicht! The best o" a"--an easy way o" goin"!"
He took the candle in his left hand, and with the melodeon still in his right he went down to the chamber beneath. Here he filled his pockets with bank-notes in rolls, little sacks of gold, and clinking bags from a great safe which stood wide open--the bundle of keys which had belonged to its dead owner still in the lock. The Golden Farmer was plundered of his store.
Then, flinging all the inflammable stuff, furniture, and hangings in a heap in the centre, he drenched the pile with kerosene from a can he brought from the storehouse, throwing on shavings from his master"s workshop, kindling-wood from the kitchen, and, indeed, all combustibles he could lay hands upon.
Bending, he struck a match on the smooth of his corduroy trousers, and in a moment the flame mounted with a roar. Jeremy stood in the doorway chuckling, long enough to make sure that it had taken.
"Ay, ay, a bonnie funeral pyre! That they will hae, baith the twa!" he said. "The last o" the Stennises! A bonnie la.s.s she was--but Jeremy couldna be fashed wi" women folk--na, na, Aphra and her wad never agree."
The draught drew upward through the silent house. It increased to a wind, sucking toward the flames. He could hear the crackling. With a return of his mad humour he began to dance.
He waved his melodeon, making the bells leap and jangle. And in the pale gleam of the still half-smothered flames he flickered down the stairs in the direction of the hall of Deep Moat Grange.
Mad Jeremy had made an end of the House of Stennis.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
THE HERO PLAYS SECOND FIDDLE
Now, while Elsie was dancing the hours away in desperate danger of her life and to the peril of her reason, Mr. Ablethorpe and I had not been idle. That is, so far as was within our power to act or our knowledge to foresee. He had allowed me to judge of the state of the rings which had been pa.s.sed through the furnace. I was still uncertain of their portent till he produced an oval plaque with the mark V.R. upon it. It was of bra.s.s, and had doubtless formed part of the single leathern sack which Harry Foster kept open so as to take on to Bewick anything which might be committed to his care _en route_.
There could be no doubt. We had found the murderer of Harry Foster--that is, we had only to find who made the bread at Deep Moat Grange in order to be sure of him. It was, indeed, a known thing that, save on a rare occasion, the Moat Grange people made their own bread--but whether in the shape of griddle-cakes, soda scones, or properly baked oven loaves, no one knew. But Mr. Ablethorpe and I were sure there would be no more difficulty. More than that we meant to find out--the clew was the first one which had really promised well, and we meant to follow it. That very night we got ready to go, even though Mr. Ablethorpe ought now to have been at home, preparing for his Sunday services, instead of doing detective business across country on the strength of a few calcined rings and a bra.s.s plate.
It was about this time that my father, with torn and bleeding hands, was working desperately at the bar of iron. His knife was worn to a stump, but the open door of Elsie"s cell tempted him with a terrible sense of the unknown which was pa.s.sing outside. Besides, he could not tell at what moment Jeremy might return, and, shutting the door, shut off at the same time his hopes of escape and of helping Elsie, whom he saw already in the grasp of the midnight a.s.sa.s.sin.
Now if I were writing this to show what a hero I was, I should, of course, have put my own part in the forefront. But as I was at the time little better than a boy who does what he can, and it really was my father who helped Elsie the most--and had done for some time--I am not going to take away the credit from him. Mine is the proper sort of father, that a fellow can be proud of. I think I would have done all that he did if I had been there and had his chances. But then I wasn"t, and I hadn"t. So Mr. Ablethorpe and I had just come along as best we might--almost, but not quite, the day after the fair.
It was just before daybreak when my father worked his way through the bar, and the fragments fell outward--stonework, plaster, cut iron--all into the little cupboard. Of course, he had been working by the sense of touch for hours. Many a time he had drawn the rough home-made file raspingly across his wrist and hands. His face was stained with dungeon mud, his hair uncropped and matted, his beard tangled, and, as my mother said afterwards--
"If Mad Jeremy was a waur-looking creature than you, Joseph Yarrow, I am none surprised that he frighted ye a" oot o" your leggings and knee-breeks!"
When my father came out through the chamber which had so long been Elsie"s he groped about to find the entrance, his heart thumping--so he owned to me--against his ribs lest the way should have been shut by the madman, and he no better off than he had been before--nay, infinitely worse, for the handiwork of the night would be sure to be discovered.
He had worked in the dark--furiously--without thought of covering up his traces. But he had brought with him the iron bar which had been his means of direct communication with Elsie from cell to cell.
It was cold weather, and the first drive of February wind as he stood up in the ivy-covered ruin was, as my father expressed it, "like a dash of water in the face to a man." The next instant he was through the crumbling walls, startling the bats and sparrows with a shower of debris, and lo! there before him he saw the house of Deep Moat Grange--in a blaze!