by Ellen Wood
The small side-gate opened, and Mrs. Todhetley came in. Old Coney’s farm was only a stone’s-throw off, and she had run home alone. We people in the country think nothing of being abroad alone at night. The man emerged from the shade, and placed himself right in her path, on the gravel walk. They stood there together. I could see him better now: there was no moon, but the night was light; and it flashed into my mind that he was the same man I had seen Mrs. Todhetley with in the morning, as I went across the fields, with my rod and line. She was at the stile, about to descend into the Ravine, when he came up from it, and accosted her. He was a stranger; wearing a seedy, shabby black coat; and I had wondered what he wanted. They were still talking together when I got out of sight, for I turned to look.
Not long did they stand now. The gentleman went away; she came hastening on with her head down, a soft wool kerchief thrown over her cap. In all North Crabb, no one was so fearful of catching face-ache as Mrs. Todhetley.
“Who was it?” I called out, when she was under the window: which seemed to startle her considerably, for she gave a spring back, right on to the grass.
“Johnny! how you frightened me! What are you looking out at?”
“At that fellow who has just taken himself off. Who is he?”
“I do believe you have on nothing but your nightshirt! You’ll be sure to take cold. Shut the window down, and get into bed.”
Four times over, in all, had I to ask about the man before I got an answer. Now it was the nightshirt, now catching cold, now the open window and the damp air. She always wanted to be as tender with us as though we were chickens.
“The man that met me in the path?” she got to, at length. “He made some excuse for being here: was not sure whose house it was, I think he said: had turned in by mistake to the wrong one.”
“That’s all very fine; but, not being sure, he ought to mind his manners. He came rapping at the dining-room window like anything, and it woke me up. Had you been at home, sitting there, good mother, you might have been startled out of your seven senses.”
“So I should, Johnny. The Coneys would not let me come away: they had friends with them. Good-night, dear. Shut down that window.”
She went on to the side-door. I put down the window, opened it at the top, and let the white curtain drop before it. It was an hour or two before I got to sleep again, and I had the man and the knocking in my thoughts all the time.
“Don’t say anything about it in the house, Johnny,” Mrs. Todhetley said to me, in the morning. “It might alarm the children.” So I promised her I would not.
Tod came home at mid-day, not the Squire: and the first thing I did was to tell him. I wouldn’t have broken faith with the mother for the world; not even for Tod; but it never entered my mind that she wished me to keep it a close secret, excepting from those, servants or others, who might be likely to repeat it before Hugh and Lena. I cautioned Tod.
“Confound his impudence!” cried Tod. “Could he not be satisfied with disturbing the house at the door at night, but he must make for the window? I wish I had been at home.”
Crabb Ravine lay to the side of our house, beyond the wide field. It was a regular wilderness. The sharp descent began in that three-cornered grove, of which you’ve heard before, for it was where Daniel Ferrar hanged himself; and the wild, deep, mossy dell, about as wide as an ordinary road, went running along below, soft, green and damp. Towering banks, sloping backwards, rose on either side; a mass of verdure in summer; of briars, brown and tangled, in winter. Dwarf shrubs, tall trees, blackberry and nut bushes, sweet-briar and broom clustered there in wild profusion. Primroses and violets peeped up when spring came in; blue bells and cowslips, dog-roses, woodbine, and other sweet flowers, came later. Few people would descend except by the stile opposite our house and the proper zigzag path leading down the side bank, for a fall might have broken limbs, besides bringing one’s clothes to grief. No houses stood near it, except ours and old Coney’s; and the field bordering it just here on this side belonged to Squire Todhetley. If you went down the zigzag path, turned to the right, walked along the Ravine some way, and then up another zigzag on the opposite side, you soon came to Timberdale, a small place in itself, but our nearest post-town. The high-road to Timberdale, winding past our house from South Crabb, was twice the distance, so that people might sometimes be seen in the Ravine by day; but no one cared to go near it in the evening, as it had the reputation of being haunted. A mysterious light might sometimes be observed there at night, dodging about the banks, where it would be rather difficult for ordinary human beings to walk: some said it was a will-o’-the-wisp, and some said a ghost. It was difficult to get even a farm-servant to go the near way to Timberdale after dark.
One morning, when I was running through the Ravine with Tod in search of Tom Coney, we came slap against a man, who seemed to be sneaking there, for he turned short off, into the underwood, to hide himself. I knew him by his hat.
“Tod, that’s the man,” I whispered.
“What man, Johnny?”
“The one who came knocking at the window three nights ago.”
“Oh!” said Tod, carelessly. “He looks like a fellow who comes out with begging petitions.”
It might have been an hour after that. We had come up from the Ravine, on our side of it, not having seen or spoken to a soul, except Luke Mackintosh. Tod told me to stay and waylay Coney if he made his appearance, whilst he went again to the farm in search of him. Accordingly, I was sitting on the fence (put there to hinder the cattle and sheep from getting over the brink of the Ravine), throwing stones and whistling, when I saw Mrs. Todhetley cross the stile to go down the zigzag. She did not see me: the fence could hardly be gained for trees, and I was hidden.
Just because I had nothing to do, I watched her as she went; tall, thin, and light in figure, she could spin along nearly as quick as we. The zigzag path went in and out, sloping along the bank until it brought itself to the dell at a spot a good bit beyond me as I looked down, finishing there with a high, rough step. Mrs. Todhetley took it with a spring.
What next! In one moment the man with the black coat and hat had appeared from somewhere, and placed himself in front of her parasol. Before I could quit the place, and leap down after her, a conviction came over me that the meeting was not accidental: and I rubbed my eyes in wonder, and thought I must be dreaming.
The summer air was clear as crystal; not a bee’s hum just then disturbed its stillness. Detached words ascended from where they stood; and now and again a whole sentence. She kept looking each way as if afraid to be seen; and so did he, for that matter. The colloquy seemed to be about money. I caught the word two or three times; and Mrs. Todhetley said it was “impossible.” “I must, and I will have it,” came up distinctly from him in answer.
“What’s that, Johnny?”
The interruption came from Tod. All my attention absorbed in them, he stood at my elbow before I knew he was near. When I would have answered, he suddenly put his hand upon my mouth for silence. His face had a proud anger on it as he looked down.
Mrs. Todhetley seemed to be using entreaty to the man, for she clasped her hands in a piteous manner, and then turned to ascend the zigzag. He followed her, talking very fast. As to me, I was in a regular sea of marvel, understanding nothing. Our heads were hardly to be distinguished from the bushes, even if she had looked up.
“No,” she said, turning round upon him; and they were near us then, half way up the path, so that every word was audible. “You must not venture to come to the house, or near the house. I would not have Mr. Todhetley know of this for the world: for your sake as well as for his.”
“Todhetley’s not at home,” was the man’s answer: and Tod gave a growl as he heard it.
“If he is not, his son is,” said Mrs. Todhetley. “It would be all the same; or worse.”
“His son’s here,” roared out passionate Tod. “What the deuce is the meaning of this, sir?”
The man shot down
the path like an arrow. Mrs. Todhetley — who had been walking on, seeming not to have caught the words, or to know whose the voice was, or where it came from — gazed round in all directions, her countenance curiously helpless. She ran up the rest of the zigzag, and went swiftly home across the field. Tod disentangled himself from the brambles, and drew a long breath.
“I think it’s time we went now, Johnny.” It was not often he spoke in that tone. He had always been at war tacitly with Mrs. Todhetley, and was not likely to favour her now. Generous though he was by nature, there could be no denying that he took up awful prejudices.
“It is something about money, Tod.”
“I don’t care what it is about — the fellow has no business to be prowling here, on my father’s grounds; and he shan’t be, without my knowing what it’s for. I’ll watch madam’s movements.”
“What do you think it can mean?”
“Mean! Why, that the individual is some poor relation of hers, come to drain as much of my father’s money out of her as he can. She is the one to blame. I wonder how she dare encourage him!”
“Perhaps she can’t help herself.”
“Not help herself? Don’t show yourself a fool, Johnny. An honest-minded, straightforward woman would appeal to my father in any annoyance of this sort, or to me, in his absence, and say ‘Here’s So-and-so come down upon us, asking for help, can we give it him?’ — and there’s no doubt the Squire would give it him; he’s soft enough for anything.”
It was of no use contending. I did not see it quite in that light, but Tod liked his own opinion. He threw up his head with a haughty jerk.
“You have tried to defend Mrs. Todhetley before, in trifling matters, Johnny; don’t attempt it now. Would any good woman, say any lady, if you will, subject herself to this kind of thing? — hold private meetings with a man — allow him to come tapping at her sitting-room window at night? No; not though he were her own brother.”
“Tod, it may be her brother. She would never do anything wrong willingly.”
“Shut up, Johnny. She never had a brother.”
Of course I shut up forthwith, and went across the field by Tod’s side in silence, his strides wide and indignant, his head up in the air. Mrs. Todhetley was hearing Lena read when we got in, and looked as if she had never been out that morning.
Some days went on. The man remained near, for he was seen occasionally, and the servants began to talk. One remarked upon him, wondering who he was; another remarked upon him, speculating on what he did there. In a quiet country place, a dodging stranger excites curiosity, and this one dodged about as much as ever the ghostly light did. If you caught sight of him in the three-cornered plantation, he vanished forthwith to appear next in the Ravine; if he stood peering out from the trees on the bank, and found himself observed, the next minute he’d be crouching amongst the broom on the other side.
This came to be observed, and was thought strange, naturally; Hannah, who was often out with Hugh and Lena, often saw him, and talked to the other servants. One evening, when we were finishing dinner, the glass doors of the bow-window being open, Hannah came back with the children. They ran across the grass-plat after the fawn — one we had, just then — and Hannah sat down in the porch of the side-door to wait. Old Thomas had just drawn the slips from the table, and went through the passage to the side-door to shake them.
“I say,” cried Hannah’s voice, “I saw that man again.”
“Where?” asked Thomas, between his shakes of the linen.
“In the old place — the Ravine. He was sitting on the stile at the top of the zigzag, as cool as might be.”
“Did you speak to him? I should, if I came across the man; and ask what his business might be in these parts.”
“I didn’t speak to him,” returned Hannah. “I’d rather not. There’s no knowing the answer one might get, Thomas, or what he’s looking after. He spoke to the children.”
“What did he say to them?”
“Asked if they’d go away with him to some beautiful coral islands over the sea, and catch pretty birds, and parrots, and monkeys. He called them by their names, too— ‘Hugh’ and ‘Lena.’ I should like to know how he got hold of them.”
“I can’t help thinking that he belongs to them engineering folk who come spying for no good on people’s land: the Squire won’t like it if they cut a railroad through here,” said Thomas; and the supposition did not appear to please Hannah.
“Why you must be as silly as a turkey, old Thomas! Engineers have no need to hide themselves as if they were afraid of being took up for murder. He has about as much the cut of an engineer as you have, and no more: they don’t go about looking like Methodist parsons run to seed. My opinion is that he’s something of that sort.”
“A Methodist parson!”
“No; not anything half so respectable. If I spoke out my thoughts, though, I dare say you’d laugh at me.”
“Not I,” said Thomas. “Make haste. I forgot to put the claret jug on the table.”
“Then I’ve got it in my head that he is one of them seducing Mormons. They appear in neighbourhoods without the smallest warning, lie partly concealed by day, and go abroad at night, persuading all the likely women and girls to join their sect. My sister told me about it in a letter she wrote me only three days ago. There has been a Mormon down there; he called himself a saint, she says; and when he went finally away he took fifteen young women with him. Fifteen, Thomas! and after only three weeks’ persuasion! It’s as true as that you’ve got that damask cloth in your hand.”
Nothing further was heard for a minute. Then Thomas spoke. “Has the man here been seen talking with young women?”
“Who is to know? They take care not to be seen; that’s their craft. And so you see, Thomas, I’d rather steer clear of the man, and not give him the opportunity of trying his arts on me. I can tell him it’s not Hannah Baber that would be cajoled off to a barbarous desert by a man who had fifteen other wives beside! Lord help the women for geese! Miss Lena” (raising her voice), “don’t you tear about after the fawn like that; you’ll put yourself into a pretty heat.”
“I’d look him up when I came home, if I were the Squire,” said Thomas, who evidently took it all gravely in. “We don’t want a Mormon on the place.”
“If he were not a Mormon, which I’m pretty sure he is, I should say he was a kidnapper of children,” went on Hannah. “After we had got past him over so far, he managed to ‘tice Hugh back to the stile, gave him a sugar-stick, and said he’d take him away if he’d go. It struck me he’d like to kidnap him.”
Tod, sitting at the foot of the table in the Squire’s place, had listened to all this deliberately. Mrs. Todhetley, opposite to him, her back to the light, had tried, in a feeble manner, once or twice, to drown the sounds by saying something. But when urgently wanting to speak, we often can’t do so; and her efforts died away helplessly. She looked miserably uncomfortable, and seemed conscious of Tod’s feeling in the matter; and when Hannah wound up with the bold assertion touching the kidnapping of Hugh, she gave a start of alarm, which left her face white.
“Who is this man that shows himself in the neighbourhood?” asked Tod, putting the question to her in a slow, marked manner, his dark eyes, stern then, fixed on hers.
“Johnny, those cherries don’t look ripe. Try the summer apples.”
It was of no use at any time trying to put aside Tod. Before I had answered her that the cherries were ripe enough for me, Tod began at her again.
“Can you tell me who he is?”
“Dear me, no,” she faintly said. “I can’t tell you anything about it.”
“Nor what he wants?”
“No. Won’t you take some wine, Joseph?”
“I shall make it my business to inquire, then,” said Tod, disregarding the wine and everything else. “The first time I come across the man, unless he gives me a perfectly satisfactory answer as to what he may be doing here on our land, I’ll horse-whip him.�
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Mrs. Todhetley put the trembling fingers of her left hand into the finger-glass, and dried them. I don’t believe she knew what she was about more than a baby.
“The man is nothing to you, Joseph. Why should you interfere with him?”
“I shall interfere because my father is not here to do it,” he answered, in his least compromising of tones. “An ill-looking stranger has no right to be prowling mysteriously amongst us at all. But when it comes to knocking at windows at night, to waylaying — people — in solitary places, and to exciting comments from the servants, it is time some one interfered to know the reason of it.”
I am sure he had been going to say you; but with all his prejudice he never was insolent to Mrs. Todhetley, when face to face; and he substituted “people.” Her pale blue eyes had the saddest light in them you can well conceive, and yet she tried to look as though the matter did not concern her. Old Thomas came in with the folded damask slips, little thinking he and Hannah had been overheard, put them in the drawer, and set things straight on the sideboard.
“What time tea, ma’am?” he asked.
“Any time,” answered Mrs. Todhetley. “I am going over to Mr. Coney’s, but not to stay. Or perhaps you’ll go for me presently, Johnny, and ask whether Mrs. Coney has come home,” she added, as Thomas left the room.
I said I’d go. And it struck me that she must want Mrs. Coney very particularly, for this would make the fifth time I had gone on the same errand within a week. On the morning following that rapping at the window, Mrs. Coney had news that Mrs. West, her married daughter, was ill, and she started at once by the rail to Worcester to visit her.
“I think I’ll go and look for the fellow now,” exclaimed Tod, rising from his seat and making for the window. But Mrs. Todhetley rose too, as one in mortal fright, and put herself in his way.