CHAPTER VI.
DEAD SEA APPLES.
The two had advanced without thought to the foot of the tree whichFrank had indicated, and in doing so had quitted the shelter of therift, from which an open space a dozen yards in width now separatedthem. The deep shade of the yew-tree which stretched its arms abovethem still afforded some protection, the glare of the sun on themoorland intensifying its gloom and blackness. But such protection waspartial only; it could not avail against persons approaching the treeclosely.
The horror of the two may be imagined, therefore, when they awokesuddenly to this fact, and to the conviction that some one wasapproaching--nay, was already near. Before Jack's muttered warning hadwell been uttered, the sharp crack of a stick, broken under foot, andthe tones of voices drawing each moment nearer placed the dangerbeyond dispute.
For a moment the brothers stood as still as stones, the man's facegrowing hard and stern as he listened and comprehended too late thereckless folly he had committed in leaving a secure hiding-place atthat time of the day. His eyes traveled from the boy's, in which heread a pitiful alarm more overmastering if less intense than his own,to the space which separated him from the rift and from safety. Alas!he measured it with a despairing eye. A moment before he could havepassed that interval at a bound, and at will; now he recognized withan inward groan that the attempt was hopeless. A single step in thatdirection must place him at once in full view of those who wereapproaching.
Would they stop short of the tree which hid him? That seemed his onlychance. He set his teeth together, and gripped Jack's shoulder hard ashe listened, and heard them still come on--come on and come nearer.His brain sought desperately for some way, some plan of escape. At thelast moment, when all seemed lost, and less than a score of paces nowlay between him and the newcomers, he hit upon one which mightpossibly help him.
"It is that woman!" he hissed in Jack's ear. "Lie down and pretend tobe asleep! Take their attention for a moment only, and I may slipround this tree and reach another."
Jack, poor lad, was almost paralyzed with terror, but he understood;and he found one part of his instructions easy enough to execute. Hisknees were already so weak under him with fear and excitement that hesank to the ground under the pressure of his brother's hand, withscarce any volition of his own; and crouching in the shadow with hisknees drawn up to his chin, remained motionless with dismay.
For a moment after reaching the spot, Mistress Gridley and the butlerdid not see him. The boy sat deep in the shadow, and the sun shone intheir eyes as they crossed from one tree to another, and from thatone to the farthest of all. The butler had even begun the argumentafresh--they had been disputing about the removal of the treasure--andhad stuck his spade into the ground that he might lean upon it whilehe talked, when he espied the pale face shining in the gloom besidethe trunk, and started with affright. "Ha!" he exclaimed in a hightone, "what is that?"
The woman started too. Her mind was ill at ease; and it was strangethat the child should have chosen that particular square yard ofground to sit upon. But she recovered herself more quickly. "Youlittle brat!" she cried, peering at him with her eyes shaded, "whatare you doing here? Be off! Go to the house, and stay there till Icome, do you hear?"
"What is that!"--Page 118.]
The child did not move.
"Do you hear, you little booby?" she repeated angrily. "Get up and beoff before I give you something to remember me by!" As she spoke, sheadvanced a step nearer to him and raised her hand to strike him.
Still the child did not move: and the woman's hand fell harmless byher side. The peculiar pallor of the boy's face, a pallor heightenedby the shade in which he sat, his immobility, the strangeness of hisattitude and position, above all the fixed glare of his eyes, hadtheir effect upon her, scared and impressed as she already was by hisunexplained delivery from the closet. She hesitated and fell back astep.
The butler, who knew nothing of the closet episode, attributed themove to prudence. "Soft and easy," he muttered approvingly, "or hemay suspect something. It is odd he should be here."
"Suspect!" the woman answered with a shiver; for when a strong naturegives way to panic, the rout is complete. "I doubt he knows. The childis not canny," she added, staring at him in an odd, shrinking fashion.
The butler was at all times a coward, and without understanding thewoman's reasons he felt the influence of her fear. "Not canny!" hesaid uneasily; "why, what is the matter with him? Hi, Jack, my boy,what are you doing here?" he continued, addressing the lad with a poorattempt at good-fellowship. "Are you ill, or what is it?"
The boy did not move.
Gridley advanced gingerly towards him, as a timid man approaches astrange dog. When he came near, however, and saw that it really wasthe boy, little Jack Patten whom he had known from his birth, theassurance made him laugh at the woman's fears. "Come, get up, lad," hesaid roughly; "get up and go and play!"
He seized Jack by the collar and raised him to his feet. "Jump, lad,jump!" he said. "Be off! You will get the ague here. Go into the sunand play!"
The boy had shaken off his first terror. Frank, he thought, must besafe by this time. He kept his feet therefore, but hesitated in doubtwhat to do; standing, to outward view a sullen pale-faced child,beside the dark trunk of the yew. Gridley noticed that he kept his onehand closed, and acting on a momentary impulse asked him roughly whathe had there. The boy, without answering, opened his fingersmechanically, disclosing three tiny whinberries which he had pickedwhile he talked with his brother in the rift, and had involuntarilyretained in his hand ever since. The butler struck them out of hislittle palm with a disappointed "pish!" and turning him round by theshoulder sent him off with a push. "There, go and pick some more!" hesaid. "Be off! Be off!"
The lad obeyed slowly, and with apparent reluctance. When he was outof sight, Gridley, who had stepped a few paces from the tree that hemight watch him the better, returned and picked up his spade. "There,he is gone!" he said, with an inquisitive look at the woman, whosemood puzzled him. "And if you will have the things up, it must bedone. Let us lose no more time."
He struck the spade into the ground, and began to dig, while hiscompanion watched him. But her face betrayed none of the greedyexcitement which had always marked it before when the treasure was inquestion. Instead, it wore a look of dread and expectation. Somethinglike grey fear lay like a shadow upon it, and left it only when theman stopped digging, and throwing down his spade, dragged a smallwhite bundle from the shallow hole he had made.
Then she showed at last some animation. "They _are_ there," shemuttered, her eyes beginning to burn. "I fancied----"
"Oh, they are here," he answered, chuckling as he stooped to unfastenthe napkin. "They are here, never fear! Safe bind safe find, you know,my lady."
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, however, when he fell backpale and trembling. A hideous look of disappointment and dismay tookin a moment the place of the gloating smile which had before distortedhis features. The napkin being untied disclosed three stones; no gold,no cups, no treasure, but only three stones!
For a moment the two stood silent and thunderstruck, gazing at thepebbles, which in their perfect worthlessness seemed to mock them.Then the man turned swiftly and suddenly on the woman, rage andsuspicion so transforming him, that he did not look like the sameperson. "You hag!" he cried, with lips which writhed under the efforthe made to control himself. "You thieving witch! This is your work!Where is my gold? Where is my gold, I say?" he repeated wildly. "Tellme, or I will murder you!" And he advanced upon her, his hands openingand shutting on the empty air.
His frantic gestures and the passion of his manner might have appalledeven a brave man. But the woman, who had evinced less surprise andmore fear on making the discovery, waved him back with the purestcontempt. "Fool!" she hissed, with a flash of scorn in her eyes, "doyou think that I should have played this farce with you?"
"But the gold?" he cried,
cowering away from her in a moment like thecraven he was. "It is gone, woman! It is gone, you see! If you havenot taken it, who has? For heaven's sake, say you have taken it, andhidden it somewhere else!"
She looked darkly at him, and the look did more to persuade him shewas innocent than any words. He wrung his hands and all but wept."Some one has taken it," he moaned. "It is gone, and I shall never seeit again!"
"What brought the boy sitting here?" she muttered on a sudden.
"Jack Patten?"
Mistress Gridley nodded with a strange look in her eyes. "Ay, littleJack. And he had three whinberries in his hand," she continued in thesame hushed tone. "Look about, if you are not afraid. Find thewhinberries, and something may come of it!"
He did not understand, but he saw she was in deadly earnest; and hewas a coward, and afraid of her. "The whinberries?" he stammered,edging a pace away from her. "What of them?"
"They are our gold cups," she muttered between fear and rage. "Thechild has bewitched them."
Gridley cried out "Nonsense." But all the same he looked quickly overhis shoulder. The sun was high and gave him courage. "The child?" hesaid; "why, I have known him from his birth!"
"Find the whinberries!" was all the answer she vouchsafed. And shepointed imperatively to the ground. "Find them, I say, if you are notafraid, man."
He went down on his knees and began to search. But the earth he hadthrown out of the hole lay thick on the ground, and he failed to findeven one of them. He rose, and told the woman so; and she nodded as ifshe had expected the answer.
He shuddered at that. He saw her afraid, and he knew she feared fewthings. Besides, she had all the influence over him which a strongmind is sure to possess over a weak one. Seeing her afraid he grewfearful also. Though he did not believe, he trembled. He rememberedhow strangely the boy had looked at him, how obstinately he hadrefused to speak, what an odd persistence he had shown in clinging tothat spot. Yet how had the boy known? How had he found the place?
Doubtfully he put that thought into words, and got his answer. "Howdid he get out of the wood closet when I locked him in last night?"Mistress Gridley asked contemptuously. "I left the door locked when Iwent to bed, and the boy inside. I found the door locked this morning,but the boy was in his own bed. That is not canny."
"He may have taken the cups without--without that," said the butler,glancing round him with a shiver.
"Then where are they?" the woman retorted swiftly. "Or do you meanthat he took them and hid them, and then came again and sat on theplace for us to find him? I tell you the lad can go through lockeddoors."
The butler was not convinced, but he trembled. He stood gnawing hisnails with a gloomy face, one thing only quite clear to him; thatwhether the child possessed the power which the woman attributed tohim or not, it was certainly he who had taken the treasure. Thisexcited such a degree of rage in Gridley's mind as fear alone keptwithin bounds. He longed to follow the child and force the secret andthe gold from him, and only the dread which the woman manifested kepthim from doing this on the instant. As it was, he stood undecided,turning over in his mind all the stories he had heard of strangepowers and weird possession--stories which then filled all thecountry-side, especially in lonely and ill-populated districts--andstriving to recollect whether anything in little Jack's history seemedto bring him within the scope of these marvellous narratives.
Mistress Gridley watched him for a time, but presently her patiencegave way. She bade him, fiercely, pick up the spade and come to thehouse; and together the two returned, each hating the other as thecause of a fruitless and unprofitable sin.
A Little Wizard Page 6