by Ellen Wood
“Tush!” said he, testily. “Help me over.”
I wished I dared tell him all. Jumping across myself, I assisted him down. Not that it would have answered any end if I did tell.
“Shall I walk with you as far as the houses, sir?”
“No, thank ye, lad. I want to be independent as long as I can. Come you both over in good time on Friday. Perhaps we can get an hour or two’s shooting.”
Friday came, and we had rather a jolly day than not, what with shooting and feasting. Gisby drew near to join us in the cover, but his master civilly told him that he was not wanted and need not hinder his time in looking after us. Never a word did old Westerbrook say that day of Fred, and he put on his best spirits to entertain us.
But in going away at night, when Tod had gone round to get the bag of partridges, which old Westerbrook insisted on our taking home, he suddenly spoke to me. We were standing at his front-door under the starlight.
“What made you say the other day that Fred was not guilty?”
“Because, sir, I feel sure he was not. I am as sure of it as though Heaven had shown it to me.”
“He was with the gang of poachers: Gisby saw him shoot,” said the old man, with emphasis.
“Gisby may have been mistaken. And Fred’s having been with the poachers at the moment was, I think, accidental.”
“Then why, if not guilty, did he go away?”
“Fear sent him. What would his word have been against Gisby’s dying declaration? You remember what a hubbub there was, sir — enough to frighten any man away, however innocent he might be.”
“Allow, for argument’s sake, that your theory is correct, and that he was frightened into going into hiding, why does he not come out of it? Gisby is alive and well again.”
Ah, I could not speak so confidently there. “I think he must be dead, sir,” I said, “and that’s the truth. If he were not, some of us would surely have heard of him.”
“I see,” said the old gentleman, looking straight up at the stars. “We are both of the same mind, Johnny — that he is dead. I say he might have died that night: you think he went away first and died afterwards. Not much difference between us, is there?”
I thought there was a great deal; but I could not tell him why. “I wish we could hear of him, sir — and be at some certainty.”
“So do I, Johnny Ludlow. He was brought up at my knee; as my own child.”
On our way home, Tod with the bag of game slung over his shoulder, we came upon Mr. Holland near the Parsonage, with Edna Blake and the children. They had been to Farmer Page’s harvest-home. Whilst the parson talked to Tod, Edna snatched a moment with me.
“Have you heard any news, Johnny?”
“Of him? Never. We can’t make it out.”
“Perhaps we never shall hear,” she sighed. “Even if he reached the coast in safety, he may not have got over to the other side. A great many wrecks took place about that time: our weekly paper was full of them. It was the time of the equinoctial gales, and — —”
“Come along, Johnny!” called out Tod, at this juncture. “We must get on. Good-night, Edna: good-night, you youngsters.”
The next day, Saturday, we went to Worcester, the Squire driving us, and there saw Gisby as large as life. The man had naturally great assumption of manner, and latterly he had taken to dress in the fashion. He was looming up High Street, booted and spurred, his silver-headed whip in his hand. Taking off his hat with an air, he wished the Squire a loud good-morning, as if the town belonged to him, and we were only subjects in it.
“I should think Westerbrook has never been fool enough to make his will in Gisby’s favour!” remarked the Squire, staring after him. “Egad, though, it looks like it!”
“It is to be hoped, sir, that he would make it in Fred’s,” was Tod’s rejoinder. And the suggestion put the pater out.
“Make it in Fred’s,” he retorted, going into one of his heats, and turning sharply round on the crowded pavement near the market-house, by which he came into contact with two women and their big butter-baskets. “What do you mean by that, sir? Fred Westerbrook is beyond the pale of wills, and all else. It’s not respectable to mention his name. He — bless the women! What on earth are these baskets at?”
They seemed to be playing at bumps with the Squire; baskets thick and threefold. Tod went in to the rescue, and got him out.
It was a strange thing. It really was. Considering that for the past day or two something or other had arisen to bring up thoughts of Fred Westerbrook, it was strange that the strangest of all things in connection with him was yet to come.
Sitting round the fire after supper, upon getting home from Worcester — it is a long drive, you know — and Tod had gone up to bed, dead tired, who should walk in but Duffham. He would not sit down, had no time; but told his business hastily. Dick Standish was dying, and had something on his conscience.
“I would have heard his confession,” said Duffham, “as I have heard that of many another dying man; but he seems to wish to make it to a magistrate. Either to a magistrate, or to old Mr. Westerbrook, he urged. But there’s no time to go up to the N. D. Farm, so I came for you, Squire.”
“Bless me!” cried the Squire, starting up in a commotion — for he thought a great deal of his magisterial duties, and this was a very unusual call. “Dick Standish dying! What can he have to say? He has been nothing but a poacher all his life, poor fellow! And what has Westerbrook to do with him?”
“Well,” said Duffham, in his equable way, “it strikes me that what he wants to say may affect Fred. Perhaps Standish can clear him.”
“Clear Fred Westerbrook! — clear an iniquitous young man who could turn poacher and murderer! What next will you say, Duffham? Here, Johnny, get my hat and coat. Dear me! Take down a confession! I wonder whether there’ll be any ink there?”
“Let me go with you, sir!” I said eagerly. “I will take my little pocket-inkstand — and some paper — and — and — everything likely to be wanted. Please let me go!”
“Well, yes, you can, Johnny. Don’t forget a Bible. Ten to one if he has one.”
There were three brothers of these Standishes, Tom, Jim, and Dick, none of them particularly well-doing. Tom was no better than a sort of tramp, reappearing in the village only by fits and starts; Jim, who had married Mary Picker, was likewise given to roving abroad, until found and brought back by the parish; Dick, as the Squire phrased it, was nothing but a poacher, and made his home mostly with Jim and Mary. The cottage — a tumble-down lodgment that they did not trouble themselves to keep in repair — was at our end of the parish half-a-mile away, and we put our best feet foremost.
Dick lay upon the low bed in the loft. His illness had been very short and sharp; it was scarcely a week yet since he was taken with it. Duffham had done his best; but the man was dying. Jim Standish was off on one of his roving expeditions, neither the parish nor the public knowing whither.
The Squire sat by the bed, taking down the man’s confession at a small table, by the light of a small candle. I and Duffham stood to hear it; Mary Standish was sent down to the kitchen. What he said cleared Fred Westerbrook — Duffham had no doubt gathered so much before he came for the Squire.
Just what Fred had told us of the events of the night, Dick Standish confirmed now. He and other poachers were out, he said, his brother Tom for one. They had bagged some game, and were about to disperse when they encountered Mr. Fred Westerbrook. He stayed talking with them, walking the same way that they did, when lo! they all fell into the ambush planned by Gisby. A fight ensued; and he — he, Dick Standish, now speaking, conscious that he was dying — he fired his gun at them, and the shot entered Gisby. They ran away then and were not pursued; a gun was fired after them, and it struck his brother Tom, but not to hurt him very much: not enough to disable him. He and Tom made themselves scarce at once, before daylight; and they did not come back till danger was over, and Gisby about again. Old Jones and other folks had come turning
the cottage inside out at the time in search of him (Dick), but his brother Jim swore through thick and thin that Dick had not been at home for ever so long. The Squire took all this down; and Dick signed it.
I was screwing the little inkstand up to return it to my pocket, when Mr. Holland entered, Mary Standish having sent for him. Leaving him with the sick man, we came away.
“Johnny, do you know, we might almost have made sure Fred Westerbrook was not guilty,” said the Squire, quite humbly, as we were crossing the turnip-field. “But why on earth did he run away? Where is he?”
“I think he must be dead, sir. What news this will be for Mr. Westerbrook.”
“Dear me yes! I shall go to him with it in the morning.”
When the morning came — which was Sunday — the Squire was so impatient to be off that he could hardly finish his breakfast. The master of the N. D. Farm, who no longer had energy or health to keep the old early hours, was only sitting down to his breakfast when the Squire got there. In his well-meaning but hot way, he plunged into the narrative so cleverly that old Westerbrook nearly had a fit.
“Not guilty!” he stammered, when he came to himself. “Fred not guilty! Only met the poachers by accident! — was not the man that shot Gisby! Why, that’s what Johnny Ludlow was trying to make me believe only a day or two ago!”
“Johnny was? Oh, he often sees through a stone wall. It’s true, anyway, Westerbrook. Fred never had a gun in his hand that night.”
“Then — knowing himself innocent, why on earth does he stay away?”
“Johnny thinks he must be dead,” replied the Squire.
Old Westerbrook gave a groan of assent. His trembling hands upset a cupful of coffee on the table-cloth.
They came on to church together arm-in-arm. Mr. Holland joined them, and told the news — Dick Standish was dead: had died penitent. Penitent, so far as might be, in the very short time he had given to repentance, added the clergyman.
But knowing that Fred was innocent seemed to have renewed his uncle’s lease of life. He was altogether a different man. The congregation felt quite electrified by some words read out by Mr. Holland before the General Thanksgiving: “Thomas Westerbrook desires to return thanks to Almighty God for a great mercy vouchsafed to him.” Whispering to one another in their pews, under cover of the drooped heads, they asked what it meant, and whether Fred could have come home? The report of Dick Standish’s confession had been heard before church: and Gisby and Shepherd received some hard words for having so positively laid the deed on Fred.
“I declare to goodness I thought it was Mr. Fred that fired!” said Shepherd, earnestly. “Moonlight’s deceptive, in course: but I know he was close again’ the gun.”
Yes, he was close to the gun: Dick Standish had said that much. Mr. Fred was standing next him when he fired; Mr. Fred had tried to put out his arm to stop him, but wasn’t quick enough, and called him a villain for doing it.
I was taking the organ again that day, if it concerns any one to know it, and gave them the brightest chants and hymns the books contained. The breach with Mr. Richards had never been healed, and the church had no settled organist. Sometimes Mrs. Holland took it; sometimes Mrs. Todhetley; once it was a stranger, who volunteered, and broke down over the blowing; and during the holidays, if we spent them at the Manor, it was chiefly turned over to me.
The Squire made old Westerbrook walk back to dine with us. Sitting over a plate of new walnuts afterwards — there was not much time for dessert on Sundays, before the afternoon service — Tod, calling upon me to confirm it, told all about Fred’s hiding in the church, and how he had got away. But we did not say anything of the money given him by Edna Blake: she might not have liked it. The Squire stared with surprise, and seemed uncertain whether to praise us or to blow us up sharply.
“Shut up in the church for three days and nights! Nothing to eat, except what you could crib for him! Got away at last in Mack’s smock-frock and boots! Well, you two are a pair of pretty conjurers, you are!”
“God bless ’em both for it!” cried old Westerbrook.
“But they ought to have told me, you know, Westerbrook. I could have managed much better — helped the poor fellow off more effectually.”
Tod gave me a kick under the table. He was nearly splitting, at hearing the Squire say this.
The first thing Mr. Westerbrook did was to insert sundry advertisements in the Times and other newspapers, about a hundred of them, begging and imploring his dear nephew (sometimes he worded it his “dear boy”) to return to him. Always underneath this advertisement wherever it appeared was inserted another: stating that all the particulars of the poaching affray which took place on a certain date (mentioning it) were known; that the poacher, Richard Standish, who shot Walter Gisby had confessed the crime, and that Gisby had not died of his wounds, but recovered from them. This was done with the view of letting Fred know that he might come back with safety. But he never came. The advertisements brought forth no answer of any kind.
The master of the N. D. Farm became very short with his bailiff as time went on. There was no reason to suppose that Gisby had intentionally accused Fred of the shot — he had really supposed it to come from Fred; nevertheless, Mr. Westerbrook took a great dislike to him, and was very short and crusty with him. Gisby did not like that, and they had perpetual rows. When we got home for the Christmas holidays, it was thought that Gisby would not be long on the N. D. Farm.
“Johnny, I want to tell you! I have had a letter. From him.”
The whisper came from Edna Blake. It was Christmas Eve; and we were in the church, a lot of us, sticking the branches of holly in the pews. The leaves had never seemed so green or the berries so red.
“Not from Fred?”
“Yes, I have. It came addressed to me about a week ago, with a ten-pound Bank of England note enclosed. There was only a line or two, just saying he had not been able to return it before, but that he hoped he was at length getting on: and that if he did get on, he should be sure to write again later. It was signed F. W. That was all. Neither his name was mentioned, nor mine, nor any address.”
“Where did it come from?”
“London, I think.”
“From London! Nonsense, Edna!”
“The post-mark was London. You are welcome to see the letter. I have brought it with me.”
Drawing the letter from her pocket under cover of her mantle, I took it to the porch. True enough; the letter had undoubtedly been posted in London. Calling Tod, we talked a little, and then told Edna that we both thought she ought to disclose this to Mr. Westerbrook.
“I think so too,” she said, “but I should not like to tell him myself — though his manner to me lately has been very kind. Will you tell him, Johnny? I will lend you the letter to show him. He will be sure to want to see it.”
“And he will have to know about the gold, Edna. The loan of that night.”
“Yes; it cannot be helped. I have thought it all over, and I see that there’s no help for its being known now. The letter alludes to it, you perceive.”
After that the advertisements were resumed. Mr. Westerbrook put some solicitor in London to work, and they were inserted in every known paper. Also in some of the American and Australian papers. Inquiries were made after Fred in London. But nothing came of it. As to old Westerbrook, he seemed to grow better, as if the suspense had stirred him up.
The months went on. Neither Fred nor news of him turned up. That he was vegetating somewhere beyond the pale of civilization, or else was at length really dead, appeared to be conclusive.
July. And we boys at home again for the holidays. The first news told us was, that Mr. Westerbrook and his bailiff had parted company. Gisby had said farewell to the N. D. Farm.
In the satisfaction of finding himself sole master, which he had not been for many a year, and to celebrate Gisby’s departure, Mr. Westerbrook gave a syllabub feast, inviting to it old and young, grown people and children. Syllabub feasts were tole
rably common with us.
It was an intensely hot day; the lawn was dotted with guests; most of them gathered in groups under the trees in the shade. Old Westerbrook, the Squire and Mrs. Todhetley, Parson and Mrs. Holland and Mr. Brandon were together under the great horse-chestnut tree. Edna Blake, of course, had the trouble of the parson’s children, and I was talking to her. Little tables with bowls of syllabub on them and cakes and fruit stood about. By-and-by, at sunset or so, we were to go in to a high tea.
It was getting on for two years since the night of Fred Westerbrook’s departure; and Edna was looking five times two years older. Worn and patient were the lines of her face. She was dressed rather poorly, as usual. She had never dressed much otherwise: but since that unlucky night her clothes had been made to last as I should think nobody else’s clothes ever lasted. Whether that ten pounds had absorbed all her funds (as it most likely had), or whether Edna had been saving up for that visionary, possible voyage to America and the home with Fred that was to follow it, I knew not, but one never saw her in new things now. To-day she wore a muslin that once had had rose-red spots on it, but repeated washings had diluted them to a pale pink; and the pink ribbons on her hat had faded too. Not but that, in spite of all, she looked a lady.
“Have you a headache, Edna?”
“Just a little,” she answered, putting her hand to her head. “Charley and Tom would race about as we came along, and I had to run after them. To be much under a blazing sun often gives me a headache now.”
I wondered to myself why the parson and his wife could not have ordered Charley and Tom to be still. Fathers and mothers never think their children can tire people.
“I want some more syllabub, Edna,” cried Charley, just then.
“And me too,” put in little Miles Stirling.
She got up patiently; ladled some of the stuff into two of the custard-cups, and gave one to each of the children, folding her handkerchief under little Stirling’s chin to guard his velvet dress. They stood at the table, two eager little cormorants, taking it in with their tea-spoons.