Lost Sir Massingberd: A Romance of Real Life. v. 2/2

by James Payn

  CHAPTER VI.

  THE SEARCH.

  Shrinking away from the body of the unhappy Grimjaw, and fleeing fromthe solitary spot in which it lay, I ran down towards the Heronry,where, in the distance, I could now perceive a number of personsassembled upon the lake-side. Below and above it, the stream flowed onas usual; but the larger area of water which contained the island, wasfrozen over with a thin coating of ice. This was being broken by menarmed with long and heavy poles, after which the work of dragging thewater was commenced. The scene was as desolate as the occupation wasghastly and depressing. Perched upon stony slabs of their now leaflesshome, the huge birds watched the proceedings with grave and serious air:at first, they imagined, I think, that the thing was done for their ownbehoof, and to the end that they might supply themselves with fish asusual; but the appearance of the grappling-irons disabused them of thisidea. Now one, and now another, unable to restrain their curiosity,would rise slowly and warily into the air, and making a circuit over ourheads, return to their old position to reflect, with head aside, uponwhat they had seen. The presence as spectators of these giganticcreatures, certainly increased the weird and awful character of theemployment in which we were engaged, and struck quite a terror into thevillage folk, who were unaccustomed to see them in such close proximity.Still the work was not gone about by any means in reverent and solemnsilence. If any man wishes his neighbours to speak their mind about himthoroughly and unreservedly, I should say, judging from what I heard onthat occasion, Let him disappear, and be dragged for. It is not socertain he is dead, that any delicacy need be exercised in telling theseverest truths about him; nor yet is there sufficient chance of hisreappearance to make folks reticent through fear. Only when the dragshalted a little, meeting with some hidden obstruction, all tongues weresilent, and pale faces clustered about the toilers, expecting that thedreadful thing they sought was about to be brought to land.

  "I thought we had him then," said one of the men, after an occasion ofthis sort; "but it was only a piece of stone."

  "It might have been his _heart_, for all that," muttered another,cynically; and a murmur of "Ay, that's true," went round them all.

  "Has anybody been about the Home Spinney this morning?" inquired I ofOliver Bradford, who had just given up his place at the ropes to a freshman.

  "No, sir, nor last night either, as it turns out. It will be bad forsomebody if Sir Massingberd does return, and finds out that the watcherwho ought to have been there was wiled away elsewhere by what he thoughtwas poachers holloing to one another--some owl's cry, as I should judge.And to-day, I doubt if a creature has been near the place, for none ofmy men seem to fancy going there alone."

  "And who _was_ the watcher there last night, Oliver?"

  "Well, sir, we must not make mischief; he was a young chap new at thebusiness, a sort of grand-nevvy of mine by the wife's side. He'll dobetter next time, will young Dick Westlock. He was over-eager, that'sall. And when you hear a cry in these woods, unless you are thoroughlyaccustomed to them, it may lead you a pretty dance: it takes a practisedear to tell rightly where it comes from."

  "You should know me better, Bradford," returned I, "than to suppose Iwould bring a lad to harm by mentioning such a matter; but I should liketo ask him a question or two, if you will point him out."

  "There he is then, sir," answered Oliver, pointing to a good-looking,honest lad enough, but one who perhaps would scarcely have beenconsidered sufficiently old for so trustworthy a part as sentinel of thehome preserves, had he not been grand-nephew to the head keeper.

  "Why, Dick," said I, "your uncle telly me that you took an owl for apoacher last night, and followed his voice all over the Chase."

  "It wasn't no owl," sir, quoth Dick, stoutly; "it were the voice of aman, whosoever it was."

  "Don't thee be a fool," exclaimed his uncle, roughly. "I tell thee itwas a bird, and called like this;" and the keeper gave a very excellentimitation of the cry of an owl.

  This was not greatly unlike the sound which had so recently affrightedmy own ears; but then owls rarely cry in the daytime.

  "Dick," cried I, "never mind your uncle; listen to me. If you thought itwas a human voice, what do you think it said?"

  "Well, I can't rightly say as it said anything; it seemed to me to be asort of wobbling in the throat; and I thought it might be a sound amongsome poaching fellars, made with a bird-call, or the like of that."

  "Supposing it said any word at all, Dick, what word was it most like?"

  Mr. Richard Westlock looked as nonplused and embarrassed as though I hadpropounded to him some extremely complicated riddle.

  "Was it anything like 'Hel--p, hel--p?'" said I, imitating as well as Icould those terrible tones.

  "Bless my body," quoth Mr. Richard, slapping his legs with his hands, inadmiration of my sagacity, "if them ain't the very words as it _did_say!"

  "What think you of that, Oliver Bradford?" inquired I, gravely.

  "As the bell tinks, so the fool thinks," responded the head keeper,sententiously. "If you had asked Dick whether the word wasn't'Jerusalem,' he would have said, 'Ay, that was the very word.'"

  "Still," urged I, "since there may be something more than fancy in thething, and the voice, if it was one, could not have come from underwater, let the Park woods be thoroughly searched at once. There are menenough outside the gates to do that, without suspending the work that isgoing on here, and why should we lose time?"

  The head keeper sulkily muttered something about not wanting a caddel ofpeople poking their noses into every part of Fairburn Chase; then withearnest distinctness, as though the thought had only just struck him,"Besides, Mr. Meredith, let me tell you that they may get to know morethan is good for them."

  At these words, I cast an involuntary glance at the plantation within afew hundred feet of us, in the recesses of which dwelt Sinnamenta, LadyHeath.

  "_You_ may know, sir," continued the keeper, translating my thought,"but everybody don't know, and it's much better that they shouldn't."

  Certainly the objection was a grave one, and I was glad enough toperceive Mr. Long coming down from the Hall towards us, an authority bywhom the question could be decided.

  "You had better ask him yourself, Oliver," said I; for as my tutor hadnever spoken to me of the existence of the unfortunate maniac, I did notlike to address him upon the subject. Bradford therefore went forward tomeet him; and after they had had some talk together, Mr. Long beckonedme to him.

  "I think with you, Peter," said he, "that in any case, we should lose notime in searching the Chase. If we do not discover what we seek, we canscarcely fail to find some trace of a struggle, if struggle there hasbeen, between such a man as Sir Massingberd and whoever may haveassailed him. If he has been murdered, it is, of course, just possiblethat the assassins threw the body into the water, although not here,since the ice would scarcely have formed over it like this; otherwise,they could not have removed it without leaving some visible trace. Doyou, Bradford, and a couple of your own men, examine that plantationyonder thoroughly, so that it need not be searched again; and in themeantime I will go and fetch more help."

  I have taken part in my time in many a "quest" for game, both large andlittle: I have sought on foot in the rook-crannies of the north for thehill-fox; I have penetrated the tangled jungles of Hindustan for tiger;I have stood alone, gun in hand, on the skirts of a tropical forest, notknowing what bird or beast the beaters within might chance at any momentto drive forth; but I have never experienced such excitement as thatwhich I felt when, one of forty men, I walked from end to end ofFairburn Chase in search of its lost master.

  In one long line, and at the distance of about twenty yards from oneanother, we plodded on slowly and steadily; and with eyes that left nobush unexamined. This work, which in summer would have been toil indeed,was rendered comparatively easy by the bareness of the season; thefrost, too, made the swamps in the hollows safe to the tread, and thetangled underwood brittle before us. Many a sunken spot we fou
nd hiddenin brake and brier, and scarcely known to the keepers themselves, suchas might easily have held, and we could not but think how fitly, theThing we feared to find, and sometimes, when one man called to hisneighbours, the whole line would halt, and each could scarcely restrainhimself from running in, and seeing with his own eyes what trace of themissing man it was which had provoked the exclamation. We began at theoutskirts of the Park, and worked towards the Hall, so that the HomeSpinney, which was the likeliest spot of all, since he had been lastseen going in that direction, was reserved for the end. As the menapproached it, the excitement increased; they almost ran over the largeopen space in which stood the Wolsey Oak, extending its gnarled andnaked arms aloft, as if in horror; but when they searched the coppiceitself, and found the body of Grimjaw, stiffened into stone since I lastsaw it, many of them were not so eager to push on. I had omitted to tellthem of the wretched animal's death, and the effect of the sight uponthem was really considerable.

  That "the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense," is innothing more true than in the emotion produced by the sufferings ordecease of animals upon gentle folks and upon labouring persons. Greaterfamiliarity with such spectacles, and perhaps, too, a larger experienceof hardship and sorrow among his own fellow-creatures--which naturallytends to weaken his sense of pity for mere animals--prevents the peasantfrom being moved at all by some sights at which his superiors would bereally shocked: a dead horse lying in the road is, to the stonebreaker,a dead horse, and nothing more; whereas, to him who goes by on wheels,unless he is a veterinary surgeon, the sight is positively distressing.I am sure that the spectacle of half a dozen ordinary dead dogs wouldnot have affected Oliver Bradford, for instance, in the least, while ifthey had been "lurchers," and given to poaching practices, such afunereal scene would have afforded him unmixed satisfaction. But when hesaw Grimjaw lying dead, and frozen, he shook his head very gravely, andbade us mark his words, "That that ere dog didn't die for nothing, butfor a sign. That he would never have died, not he, if his master andconstant companion had still had breath in him, and more than that, weshould find, we might take his word for it, that that there body, andthat of Sir Massingberd Heath, were not very far from one another."

  There were murmurs of hushed and awe-struck adhesion to these remarks,but not a dissentient voice in all the company, and in a frame of mindwhich would now undoubtedly be called "sensational," and not in a brokenline of march, as heretofore, but almost shoulder to shoulder, weentered the Home Spinney.