extreme anxiety. Hours ago Tell hadgalloped to his stable door, and if there be anything more calculated toraise alarm than another, it is the arrival at his master's place of ariderless horse.
But Archie's appearance, alive and intact, dispelled the cloud, anddinner was soon announced.
"Oh, by the way," said Archie's tutor, as they were going towards thedining-room, "your old friend Bob Cooper has been here, and wants to seeyou! I think he is in the kitchen now."
Away rushed Archie, and sure enough there was Bob eating supper in oldKate's private room.
He got up as Archie's entered, and looked shy, as people of his class doat times.
Archie was delighted.
"I brought the flies, and some new sorts that I think will do for theKelpie burn," he said.
"Well, I'm going to dine, Bob; you do the same. Don't go till I seeyou. 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 longdebate about flies and fishing when Kate and Peter, and Branson andBounder, 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 someblack 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 ofthe road, some half mile from his own home, and trudged sturdily on inthe starlight. There was sufficient light "to see men as treeswalking."
"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, roundhim; for he felt certain he saw dark shadows in the field close by, andheard the stealthy tread of footsteps.
He grasped the stout stick he carried all the firmer, for the poacherhad made enemies of late by separating himself from a well-known gang ofhis 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 wasdispelled as, on rounding a corner of the road, he saw the lightglinting cheerfully from his mother's cottage.
"Poor old creature," he murmured half aloud, "many a sore heart I'vegiven 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 beworse for you!"
The dark shadows made a rush. Bob struck out with all his force, andone after another fell beneath his arm. But a blow from behind disabledhim at last, and down he went, just as his distracted mother camerushing, lantern in hand, from her hut. There was the sharp click ofthe handcuffs, and Bob Cooper was a prisoner. The lantern-light fell onthe 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'sin 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; itsits but ill on a face like yours."
"Mother," cried Bob bewilderingly, "I know nothing of it! I'minnocent!"
But his mother heard not his words. She had fainted, and with roughkindness was carried into the hut and laid upon the bed. When sherevived some what they left her.
It was a long, dismal ride the unhappy man had that night; and indeed itwas well on in the morning before the party with their prisoner reachedthe town of B--.
Bob's appearance before a magistrate was followed almost instantly byhis dismissal to the cells again. The magistrate knew him. The policehad caught him "red-handed," so they said, and had only succeeded inmaking him prisoner "after a fierce resistance."
"Remanded for a week," without being allowed to say one word in his owndefence.
The policeman's hint to Bob's mother about "dark doin's in th' hill" wasfounded on fearful facts. A keeper had been killed after a terrible_melee_ with the gang of poachers, and several men had been severelywounded on both sides.
The snow-storm that came on early on the morning after poor Bob Cooper'scapture was one of the severest ever remembered in Northumbria. Thefrost was hard too all day long. The snow fell incessantly, and lay indrifts like cliffs, fully seven feet high, across the roads.
The wind blew high, sweeping the powdery snow hither and thither ingusts. It felt for all the world like going into a cold shower-bath toput one's head even beyond the threshold of the door. Nor did the stormabate even at nightfall; but next day the wind died down, and the faceof the sky became clear, only along the southern horizon the whiteclouds were still massed like hills and cliffs.
It was not until the afternoon that news reached Burley Old Farm of thefight in the woods and death of the keeper. It was a sturdy old postmanwho had brought the tidings. He had fought his way through the snowwith the letters, and his account of the battle had well-nigh caused oldKate to swoon away. When Mary, the little parlour maid, carried themail in to her master she did not hesitate to relate what she had heard.
Squire Broadbent himself with Archie repaired to the kitchen, and foundthe postman surrounded by the startled servants, who were drinking inevery word he said.
"One man killed, you say, Allan?"
"Ay, sir, killed dead enough. And it's a providence they caught themurderer. Took him up, sir, just as he was a-goin' into his mother'shouse, 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 inthe turret at the time."
"So he was," said the Squire. "Taken on suspicion I suppose. But thismust be seen to at once. Bad as we know Bob to have been, there isevidence enough that he has reformed of late. At all events, he shallnot 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, thesnow began to fall, and the wind moaned round the old house and castlein 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, withthe Shetland pony and a huge great hunter, were brought to the door, andshortly after breakfast the party started for B--.
Branson bestrode the big hunter--he took the lead--and after him camethe Squire on Tell, and Archie on Scallowa. This daft little horse wasin fine form this morning, having been in stall for several days. Hekept up well with the hunters, though there were times that both he andhis rider were all but buried in the gigantic wreaths that lay acrossthe road. Luckily the wind was not high, else no living thing couldlong have faced that storm.
The cottage in which widow Cooper had lived ever since the death of herhusband was a very primitive and a very poor one. It consisted only oftwo rooms, what are called in Scotland "a butt and a ben." Bob had beenonly a little barefooted boy when his father died, and probably hardlymissed him. He had been sent regularly to school before then, but notsince, 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 stockingsfor the farmer folks around. Bob grew up wild, just as the birds andbeasts of the hills and woods do. While, however, he was still a littlemite of a chap, the keepers even seldom molested him. It was onlynatural, they thought, for a boy to act the part of a squirrel orpolecat, and to
be acquainted with every bird's nest and rabbit's burrowwithin a radius of miles. When he grew a little older and a triflebigger they began to warn him off, and when one day he was met marchingaway with a cap full of pheasant's eggs, he received as severe adrubbing as ever a lad got at the hands of a gamekeeper.
Bob had grown worse instead of better after this. The keepers becamehis sworn enemies, and there was a spice of danger and adventure invexing and outwitting them.
Unfortunately, in spite of all his mother said to the contrary, Bob wasfirmly impressed with the notion that game of every kind, whether fur orfeather, belonged as much to him as to the gentry who tried to
From Squire to Squatter: A Tale of the Old Land and the New Page 10