Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Turning to glance at Sanker, I found he had left the room. Whitney was balancing the guinea on his finger.

  “Fore-warned, fore-armed, Snepp,” he said. “Who the thief was, I can’t think; but I advise him not to begin his game again.”

  “Talking of warning, I should like to give one on my own score,” said Tod. “By-gones may be by-gones; I don’t wish to recur to them; but if I lose anything this half and can find the thief, I’ll put him into the river.”

  “What, to drown him?”

  “To duck him. I’ll do it as sure as my name’s Todhetley.”

  Vale dropped his handkerchief and stooped to pick it up again. It might have been an accident; and the redness of his face might have come of stooping; but I saw Tod did not think so. Ducking is the favourite punishment in Worcestershire for a public offender, as all the county knows. When a man misbehaves himself on the race-course at Worcester, they duck him in the Severn underneath.

  “The guinea would not be of much use to any one,” said Lacketer. “You couldn’t pass it.”

  “Oh, couldn’t you, though!” answered Whitney. “You’d better try. It’s worth twenty-one shillings, and they might give a shilling or two in for the antiquity of the coin.”

  “Gentlemen.”

  We turned to see the Doctor, standing there in his deep mourning, with his subdued red face. He came in to introduce a new master.

  The time went on. We missed Mrs. Frost; and Hall, the crabbed woman with the cross face, made a mean substitute. She had it all her own way now. The puddings had less jam in them, and the pies hardly any fruit. Little Landon fell ill; and one day, after hours, when some of us went up to see him, we found him crying for Mrs. Frost. He was only seven; the youngest in the school, and made a sort of plaything of; an orphan with no friends to see to him much. Illness had been Mrs. Frost’s great point. Any of us who were laid by she’d sit with half the day, reading nice stories, and talking to us of good things, just as our mothers might do. I know mine would if she had lived. However, we managed to get along in spite of Hall, hoping the Doctor would find her out and discharge her.

  Matters went on quietly for some weeks. No one lost anything: and we had almost forgotten there had been a doubt that we might lose something, when it occurred. The loss was Tod’s — rather curious, at first sight, that it should be, after his threat of what he would do. And Tod, as they all knew, was not one to break his word. It was only half-a-crown; but there could be no certainty that sovereigns would not go next. Not to speak of the disagreeable sense of feeling the thief was amongst us still, and taking to his tricks again.

  Tod was writing to Evesham for some articles he wanted. Bill Whitney, knowing this, got him to add an order for some stationery for himself: which came back in the parcel. The account, nine-and-tenpence, was made out to Tod (“Joseph Todhetley, Esquire!”), half-a-crown of it being Whitney’s portion. Bill handed him the half-crown at once; and Tod, who was busy with his own things and had his hands full, asked him to put it on the mantelpiece.

  The tea-bell rang, and they went away and forgot it. Only they two had been in the room. But others might have gone in afterwards. We were getting up from tea when Tod called to me to go and fetch him the half-crown.

  “It is on the mantelpiece, Johnny.”

  I went through the passages and turned into the box-room; a place where knots of us gathered sometimes. But the mantelpiece had no half-crown on it, and I carried the news back to Tod.

  “Did you take it up again, Bill?” he asked of Whitney.

  “I didn’t touch it after I put it down,” said Whitney. “It was there when the tea-bell rang.”

  They said I had overlooked it, and both went to the box-room. I followed slowly; thinking they should search for themselves. Which they did; and were standing with blank faces when I got in.

  “It has gone after my guinea,” Whitney was saying.

  “What guinea?”

  “My guinea. The one you saw. That disappeared a week ago.”

  Bill was not a fellow to make much row over anything; but Tod — and I, too — wondered at his having taken it so easily. Tod asked him why he had not spoken.

  “Because Lacketer — who was with me when I discovered the loss — asked me to be silent for a short time,” said Whitney. “He has a suspicion; and is looking out for himself.”

  “Lacketer has?”

  “He says so. I am sure he has. He thinks he could put his finger any minute on the fellow; but it would not do to accuse him without proof; and he is waiting for it.”

  Tod glanced at me, and I at him, both of us thinking of Vale.

  “Yesterday Lacketer lost something himself,” continued Whitney. “A shilling, I think it was. He went into a fine way over it, and said now he’d watch in earnest.”

  “Who is it he suspects?” asked Tod.

  “He won’t tell me; says it would not be fair.”

  “Well, I shall talk about my half-crown, if you and Lacketer choose to be silent over your losses,” said Tod, decisively. “And I’ll be as good as my word, and give the reptile a ducking if I can track him.”

  He went straight to the playground. It was a fine October evening, the daylight nearly gone, and the hunter’s moon rising in the sky. Tod told about his half-crown, and the boys ceased their noise to listen to him. He talked himself into a passion, and said some stinging things. “He suspected who it was, and he heard that Lacketer suspected, and he fancied that another or two suspected, and one knew; and he thought, now that affairs had come to this pitch, when nothing, put for a minute out of hand, was safe, it might be better for them all to declare their suspicions, and hunt the animal as they’d hunt a hare.”

  There was a pause when Tod finished. He was about the biggest and strongest in the school; his voice was one of power, his manner ready and decisive; so that it was just as though a master spoke. Lacketer came out from amongst them, looking white. I could see that in the twilight.

  “Who says I suspect? Speak for yourself, Todhetley. Don’t bring up my name.”

  “Do you scent the fox, or don’t you?” roared Tod back again, not at all in a humour to be crossed. “If you do, you must speak, and not shirk it. Is the whole school to lie under doubt because of one black sheep?”

  Tod’s concluding words were drowned in noise; applause for him, murmurs for Lacketer. I looked round for Vale, and saw him behind the rest, as if preparing to make a run for it. That said nothing: he was one of those quiet-natured fellows who liked to keep aloof from rows. When I looked back again, Sanker was standing a little forward, not far from Lacketer.

  “As good speak as not, Lacketer,” put in Whitney. “I don’t mind telling now that that guinea of mine has been taken; and you know you lost a shilling yourself. You say you could put your finger on the fellow.”

  “Speak!” “Speak!” “Speak!” came the shouts from all quarters. And Lacketer turned whiter.

  “There’s no proof,” he said. “I might have been mistaken in what I fancied. I won’t speak.”

  “Then I shall say you are an accomplice,” roared Tod, in his passion. “I intend to hunt the fellow to earth to-night, and I’ll do it.”

  “I don’t suspect any one in particular,” said Lacketer, looking as if he were run to earth himself. “There.”

  Great commotion. Lacketer was hustled, but got away and disappeared. Sanker went after him. Tod had been turning on Sanker, saying why didn’t he speak.

  “Half-a-crown is half-a-crown, and I mean to get mine back again,” avowed Tod. “If some of you are rich enough to lose your half-crowns, I’m not. But it isn’t that. Sovereigns may go next. It isn’t that. It is the knowing that we have a light-fingered, disreputable, sneaking rat amongst us, whose proper place would be a reformatory, not a school for honest men’s sons.”

  “Name!” “Proofs!” “Proofs!” “Name!” It was as if a torrent had been let loose. In the midst of the lull that ensued a voice was heard, and a name.
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  “Vale. Harry Vale.”

  Harding was the one to say it: a clever, first-class boy. You might have heard a pin drop in the surprise: and Harding went on after a minute.

  “I beg to state that I do not accuse Vale myself. I know nothing whatever about the case. But I have reason to think Vale’s name is the one that has been mentioned in connection with the losses last half.”

  “I know it is,” cried Tod, who had only wanted the lead, not choosing to take it himself. “Now then, Vale, make your defence if you can.”

  I dare say you recollect how hotly you used to take up a cause when you were at school yourselves, not waiting to know whether it might be right or wrong. Mrs. Frost said to us on one of these occasions she wondered whether we should ever be as eager to take up heaven. They pounced upon Vale with an awful row. He stood with his arm round one of the trees behind, looking scared to death. I glanced back for Sanker, expecting his confirming testimony, but could not see him, and at that moment Lacketer appeared again, peeping round the trees. Whitney called to him.

  “Here, Lacketer. Was it Vale you suspected?”

  “As much as I did anybody else,” doggedly answered Lacketer.

  It was taken as an affirmative. The boys believed the thief was found, and were mad against him. Vale spoke something, shaking and trembling like the leaves in the wind, but his words were drowned. He was not brave, and they looked ready to tear him to pieces.

  “My half-crown, Vale,” roared Tod. “Did you take it just now?”

  Vale made no answer; I thought he could not. His face frightened me; the lips were blue and drawn, his teeth chattered.

  “Search his pockets.”

  It was a simultaneous thought, for a dozen said it. Vale was turned out, and half-a-crown found upon him; no other money. The boys yelled and groaned. Tod, with his great strength, pushed them aside, as the coin was flung to him.

  “Shall I resume possession of this half-crown?” he asked of Vale, holding it before him in defiant mockery.

  “If you like. I — —”

  Vale broke down with a gasp and a sob. His piteous aspect might have moved even Tod.

  “Look here,” said he, “I don’t care in general to punish a coward; I regard him as an abject animal beneath me: but I cannot go from my word. Ducking is too good for you, Vale, but you shall have it. Be off to that tree yonder; we’ll give you so much grace. Let him start fair, boys, and then hound him on. It will be a fine chase.”

  Vale, seeming to be too confused and terror-stricken to do anything but obey, went to the tree, and then darted away in the direction of the river. It takes time to read all this; but scarcely a minute appeared to have passed since Tod first came out with Whitney, and spoke of the half-crown. Giving Vale the fair start, the boys sprang after him, like a pack of hounds in full cry. Tod, the swiftest runner in the school, was following, when he found himself seized by Sanker. I had stayed behind.

  “Have you been accusing Vale? Are you going to duck him?”

  “Well?” cried Tod, angry at being stopped.

  “It was not Vale who took the things. Vale! He is as innocent as you are. You’ll kill him, Todhetley; he cannot bear terror.”

  “Who says he is innocent?”

  “I do. I say it on my honour. It was another fellow, whose name I’ve been suppressing. This is your work, Johnny Ludlow.”

  I felt a sudden rush of repentance. A conviction that Sanker spoke nothing but the truth.

  “You said it was Vale, Sanker.”

  “I never did. You said it. I told you you’d better believe it was any other rather than Vale. And I meant it.”

  But that Sanker was not a fellow to tell a lie, I should have thought he told one then. The impression, resting on my memory, was that he acknowledged to its being Vale, if he had not exactly stated it.

  “You know you told me to be quiet, Sanker: you said, give him a chance.”

  “But I thought you were speaking of another then, not Vale. I swear it was not Vale. He is as honest as the day.”

  Tod, looking ready to strike me, waiting for no more explanation, was already off, shouting to the crew to turn, far more anxious now to save Vale than he had been to duck him.

  How he managed to arrest them, I never knew. He did do it. But for being the fleetest runner and strongest fellow, he could never have overtaken, passed, and flung himself back upon them, with his arms stretched out, words of explanation on his lips.

  The river was more than a mile away, taking the straight course over the fields, as a bird flies, and leaping fences and ditches. Vale went panting on, for it. It was as if his senses were scared out of him. Tod flew after him, the rest following on more gently. The school-bell boomed out to call us in for evening study, but none heeded it.

  “Stop, Vale! Stop!” shouted Tod. “It has been a mistake. Come back and hear about it. It was not you; it was another fellow. Come back, Harry; come back!”

  The more Tod shouted, the faster Vale went on. You should have seen the chase in the moonlight. It put us in mind of the fairy tales of Germany, where the phantom huntsman and his pack are seen coursing at midnight. Vale made for a part where the banks of the river are overshadowed by trees. Tod was only about thirty yards behind when he gained it; he saw him leap in, and heard the plunge.

  But when he got close, there was no sign of Vale in the water. Had he suddenly sunk? Tod’s heart stood still with fear. The boys were coming up by ones and twos, and a great silence ensued. Tod stript ready to plunge in when Vale should rise.

  “Here’s his cap,” whispered one, picking it up from the bank.

  “He was a good swimmer; he must have been seized with cramp.”

  “Look here; they say there are holes in the river, just above this bend. What if he has sunk into one?”

  “Hold your row, all of you,” cried Tod, in a hoarse whisper that betrayed his fear. “Who’s to listen with that noise?”

  He was listening for a sound, watching for the faintest ripple, that might give indication of Vale’s rising. But none came. Tod stood there in his shirt till he shivered with cold. And the church clock struck seven, and then eight, and it was of no use waiting.

  It was a horrible feeling. Somehow we seemed, I and Tod, to be responsible for Vale’s death, I for having mistaken Sanker; Tod for entering upon the threatened ducking, and hounding the boys on.

  The worst was to come: going back to Dr. Frost and the masters with the tale; breaking it to Mr. and Mrs. Vale at Vale Farm. While Tod was dressing himself, the rest went on slowly, no one staying by him but me and Sanker.

  “It’s your doing more than mine,” Tod said, turning to Sanker in his awful distress. “If you knew who the thief was last half, you should have disclosed it; not have given him the opportunity to resume his game. Had you done so this could not have happened.”

  “I promised him then I should proclaim him if he did resume it; I have told him to-night I shall do it,” quietly answered Sanker. “It was Lacketer.”

  “Lacketer!”

  “Lacketer. And since my eyes were opened, it has seemed to me that all yours must have been closed, not to find him out. His manner was enough to betray him: only, I suppose — you wanted the clue.”

  “But, Sanker, why did you let me think it was Vale?” I asked.

  “You made the first mistake; I let you lie under it for Lacketer’s sake; to give him the chance,” said Sanker. “Who was to foresee you would go and tell?”

  It had never passed my lips, save those few words at the time when Tod questioned me. Harding was the one outside the porch who had overheard it; but he had kept it to himself until now, when he thought the time had come for speaking.

  What was to be done? — what was to be done? It seemed as if a great darkness had suddenly fallen upon us, and could never again be lifted. We had death upon our hands.

  “There’s just a chance,” said Tod, dragging his legs along like so much lead, and beginning with a sort of groa
n. “Vale may have made for the land again as soon as he got in, and come out lower down. In that case he would run home probably.”

  Just a chance, as Tod said. But in the depth of despair chances are caught at. If we cut across to the left, Vale Farm was not more than a mile off: and we turned to it. Absenting ourselves from school seemed as nothing. Tod went on with a bound now there was an object, a ray of hope; I and Sanker after him.

  “I can’t go in,” said Tod, when we came in front of the farm, a long, low house, with lights gleaming in some of the windows. “It’s not cowardice; at least, I don’t think it is. It’s —— Never mind; I’ll wait for you here.”

  “I say,” said Sanker to me, “what excuse are we to make for going in at this time? We can’t tell the truth.”

  I could not. Harry Vale stood alone; he had neither brother nor sister. I could not go in and tell his mother that he was dead. She was sitting in one of the front parlours, sewing by the lamp. We saw her through the window as we stole up to look in. But there was no time for plotting. Footsteps approached, and we only got back on the path when Mr. Vale came up. He was a tall, fine man, with a fair face and blue eyes like his son’s. What we said I hardly knew; something about being close by, and thought we’d call on our way home. Sanker had been there several times in the holidays.

  Mr. Vale took us in with a beaming face to his wife. They were the kindest-hearted people, liberal and hospitable, as most well-to-do farmers are. Mrs. Vale, rolling up her work, said we must take something to help us on our way home, and rang the bell. We never said we could not stop; we never said Tod was waiting outside. But there were no signs that Vale had gone home half-drowned.

  Two maids put the supper on the table, and Mrs. Vale helped them; for Sanker had summoned courage to say it was late for us to stop. About a dozen things. Cold ducks, and ham, collared-head, a big dish of custard, and fruit and cake. I couldn’t have swallowed a morsel; the lump rising in my throat would have hindered it. I don’t think Sanker could, for he said resolutely we must not sit down because of Dr. Frost.