COMMOTION IN DEERHAM.
Lionel Verner was strolling out later in the day, and met the shooting-party coming home. After congratulating them on their good sport, he was turning home with them, when the gamekeeper intimated that he should be glad to speak a word to him in private. Upon which, Lionel let the gentlemen go on.
"What is it, Broom?" asked he.
"I'm much afeared, sir, if thing's are not altered, that there'll be murder committed some night," answered Broom, without circumlocution.
"I hope not," replied Lionel. "Are you and the poachers again at issue?"
"It's not about the poachers, hang 'em! It's about Robin Frost, sir. What on earth have come to him I can't conceive. This last few nights he have took to prowling out with a gun. He lays himself down in the copse, or a ditch, or the open field—no matter where—and there he stops, on the watch, with his gun always pointed."
"On the watch for what?" asked Lionel.
"He best knows himself, sir. He's going quite cracked, it's my belief; he have been half-way to it this long while. Sometimes he's trailing through the brushwood on all fours, the gun ever pointed; but mostly he's posted on the watch. He'll get shot for a poacher, or some of the poachers will shoot him, as sure as it's a gun that he carries."
"What can be his motive?" mused Lionel.
"I'm inclined to think, sir, though he is Robin Frost, that he's after the birds," boldly returned Broom.
"Then rely upon it that you think wrong, Broom," rebuked Lionel, "Robin Frost would no more go out poaching, than I should go out thieving."
"I saw him trailing along last night in the moonlight, sir. I saw his old father come up and talk to him, urging him to go home, as it seemed to me. But he couldn't get him; and the old man had to hobble back without Robin. Robin stopped in his cold berth on the ground."
"I did not think old Matthew was capable of going out at night."
"He did last night, sir; that's for certain. It was not far; only down away by the brick-kilns. There's a tale going abroad that Dan Duff was sent into mortal fright by seeing something that he took to be Rachel's ghost; my opinion is, that he must have met old Frost in his white smock-frock, and took him for a ghost. The moon did cast an uncommon white shade last night. Though old Frost wasn't a-nigh the Willow Pool, nor Robin neither, and that's where they say Dan Duff got his fright. Formerly, Robin was always round that pool, but lately he has changed his beat. Anyhow, sir, perhaps you'd be so good as drop a warning to Robin of the risk he runs. He may mind you."
"I will," said Lionel.
The gamekeeper touched his hat, and walked away. Lionel considered that he might as well give Robin the warning then; and he turned towards the village. Before fairly entering it, he had met twenty talkative persons, who gave him twenty different versions of the previous night's doings, touching Dan Duff.
Mrs. Duff was at her door when Lionel went by. She generally was at her door, unless she was serving customers. He stopped to accost her.
"What's the truth of this affair, Mrs. Duff?" asked he. "I have heard many reports of it?"
Mrs. Duff gave as succinct an account as it was in her nature to give. Some would have told it in a third of the time: but Lionel had patience; he was in no particular hurry.
"I have been one of them to laugh at the ghost, sir a-saying that it never was Rachel's, and that it never walked," she added. "But I'll never do so again. Roy, he see it, as well as Dan."
"Oh! he saw it, too, did he," responded Lionel, with a good-natured smile of mockery. "Mrs. Duff, you ought to be too old to believe in ghosts," he more seriously resumed. "I am sure Roy is, whatever he may choose to say."
"If it was no ghost, sir, what could have put our Dan into that awful fright? Mr. Jan doesn't know as he'll overget it at all. He's a-lying without a bit of conscientiousness on my bed, his eyes shut, and his breath a-coming hard."
"Something frightened him, no doubt. The belief in poor Rachel's ghost has been so popular, that every night fright is attributed to that. Who was it went into a fainting fit in the road, fancying Rachel's ghost was walking down upon them; and it proved afterwards to have been only the miller's man with a sack of flour on his back?"
"Oh, that!" slightingly returned Mrs. Duff. "It was that stupid Mother Grind, before they went off with the Mormons. She'd drop at her shadder, sir, she would."
"So would some of the rest of you," said Lionel. "I am sorry to hear that Dan is so ill."
"Mr. Jan's in a fine way over him, sir. Mrs. Bascroft gave him just a taste of weak brandy and water, and Mr. Jan, when he come to know it, said we might just as well have give him pison; and he'd not answer for his life or his reason. A pretty thing it'll be for Deerham, if there's more lives to be put in danger, now the ghost have took to walk again! Mr. Bourne called in just now, sir, to learn the rights of it. He went up and see Dan; but nothing could he make of him. Would you be pleased to go up and take a look at him, sir?"
Lionel declined, and wished Mrs. Duff good-day.
He could do the boy no good, and had no especial wish to look at him, although he had been promoted to the notoriety of seeing a ghost. A few steps farther he encountered Jan.
"What is it that's the matter with the boy?" asked Lionel.
"He had a good fright; there's no doubt about that," replied Jan. "Saw a white cow on its hind legs, it's my belief. That wouldn't have been much. The boy would have been all right by now, but the women drenched him with brandy, and made him stupidly drunk. He'll be better this evening. I can't stop, Lionel; I am run off my legs to-day."
The commotion in the village increased as the evening approached. Jan knew that young Dan would be well—save for any little remembrance of the fright which might remain—when the fumes of the brandy had gone off; But he wisely kept his own counsel, and let the public think he was in danger. Otherwise, a second instalment of the brandy might have been administered behind Jan's back. To have a boy dying of fright from seeing a ghost was a treat in the marvellous line, which Deerham had never yet enjoyed. There had been no agitation like unto it, since the day of poor Rachel Frost.
Brave spirits, some of them! They volunteered to go out and meet the apparition. As twilight approached you could not have got into Mrs. Duff's shop, for there was the chief gathering. Arguments were being used to prove that, according to all logic, if a ghost appeared one night, it was safe to appear a second.
"Who'll speak up to go and watch for it?" asked Mrs. Duff. "I can't. I can't leave Dan. Sally Green's a-sitting up by him now; for Mr. Jan says if he's left again, he shall hold me responsible. It don't stand to reason as I can leave Sally Green in charge of the shop, though I can leave her a bit with Dan. Not but what I'd go alone to the pond, and stop there; I haven't got no fear."
It singularly happened that those who were kept at home by domestic or other duties, had no fear; they, to hear them talk, would rather have enjoyed an encounter solus with the ghost, than not. Those who could plead no home engagement professed themselves willing to undertake the expedition in company; but freely avowed they would not go alone for the world.
"Come! who'll volunteer?" asked Mrs. Duff. "It 'ud be a great satisfaction to see the form it appears in, and have that set at rest. Dan, he'll never be able to tell, by the looks of him now."
"I'll go for one," said bold Mrs. Bascroft. "And them as joins me shall each have a good stiff tumbler of some'at hot afore starting, to prime 'em again' the cold."
Whether it was the brave example set, or whether it was the promise accompanying it, certain it was, that there was no lack of volunteers now. A good round dozen started, filling up the Plough and Harrow bar, as Mrs. Bascroft dealt out her treat with no niggard hand.
"What's a-doing now?" asked Bascroft, a stupid-looking man with red hair combed straight down his forehead, and coloured shirt-sleeves, surveying the inroad on his premises with surprise.
"Never you mind," sharply reproved his better half. "These ladies is my visitors, and if I choose to stand treat round, what's that to you? You takes your share o' liquor, Bascroft."
Bascroft was not held in very great estimation by the ladies generally, and they turned their backs upon him.
"We are a-going out to see the ghost, if you must know, Bascroft," said Susan Peckaby, who made one of the volunteers.
Bascroft stared. "What a set of idiots you must be!" grunted he. "Mr. Jan says as Dan Duff see nothing but a white cow; he telled me so hisself. Be you a-thinking to meet that there other white animal on your road, Mrs. Peckaby?"
"Perhaps I am," tartly returned Mrs. Peckaby.
"One 'ud think so. You can't want to go out to meet ghostesses; you be a-going out to your saints at New Jerusalem. I'd whack that there donkey for being so slow, when he did come, if I was you."
Hastening away from Bascroft and his aggravating tongue, the expedition, having drained their tumblers, filed out. Down by the pound—relieved now of its caged inmate—went they, on towards the Willow Pond. The tumblers had made them brave. The night was light, as the preceding one had been; the ground looked white, as if with frost, and the air was cold. The pond in view, they halted, and took a furtive glance, beginning to feel somewhat chill. So far as these half glances allowed them to judge, there appeared to be nothing near to it, nothing upon its brink.
"It's of no good marching right up to it," said Mrs. Jones, the baker's wife. "The ghost mightn't come at all, if it saw all us there. Let's get inside the trees."
Mrs. Jones meant inside the grove of trees. The proposition was most acceptable, and they took up their position, the pond in view, peeping out, and conversing in a whisper. By and by they heard the church clock strike eight.
"I wish it'ud make haste," exclaimed Susan Peckaby, with some impatience. "I don't never like to be away from home long together, for fear of that there blessed white animal arriving."
"He'd wait, wouldn't he?" sarcastically rejoined Polly Dawson. "He'd—"
A prolonged hush—sh—sh! from the rest restored silence. Something was rustling the trees at a distance. They huddled closer together, and caught hold one of another.
Nothing appeared. The alarm went off. And they waited, without result, until the clock struck nine. The artificial strength within them had cooled by that time, their ardour had cooled, and they were feeling chill and tired. Susan Peckaby was upon thorns, she said, and urged their departure.
"You can go if you like," was the answer. "Nobody wants to keep you."
Susan Peckaby measured the distance between the pond and the way she had to go, and came to the determination to risk it.
"I'll make a rush for it, I think," said she. "I sha'n't see nothing. For all I know, that quadruple may be right afore our door now. If he—"
Susan Peckaby stopped, her voice subsiding into a shriek. She, and those with her, became simultaneously aware that some white figure was bearing down upon them. The shrieks grew awful.
It proved to be Roy in his white fustian jacket. Roy had never had the privilege of hearing a dozen women shriek in concert before; at least, like this. His loud derisive laugh was excessively aggravating. What with that, what with the fright his appearance had really put them in, they all tore off, leaving some hard words for him; and never stopped to take breath until they burst into the shop of Mrs. Duff.
It was rather an ignominious way of returning, and Mrs. Duff did not spare her comments. If she had went out to meet the ghost, sh'd ha' stopped till the ghost came, she would! Mrs. Jones rejoined that them watched-for ghosts, as she had heered, never did come—which she had said so afore she went out!
Master Dan, considerably recovered, was downstairs then. Rather pale and shaky, and accommodated with a chair and pillow, in front of the kitchen fire. The expedition pressed into the kitchen, and five hundred questions were lavished upon the boy.
"What was it dressed in, Dan? Did you get a good sight of her face, Dan? Did it look just as Rachel used to look? Speak up, Dan."
"It warn't Rachel at all," replied Dan.
This unexpected assertion brought a pause of discomfiture. "He's head ain't right yet," observed Mrs. Duff apologetically; "and that's why I've not asked him nothing."
"Yes, it is right, mother," said Dan. "I never see Rachel last night. I never said as I did."
Another pause—spent in contemplating Dan. "I knowed a case like this, once afore," observed old Miss Till, who carried round the milk to Deerham. "A boy got a fright, and they couldn't bring him to at all. Epsum salts did it at last. Three pints of 'em they give, I think it was, and that brought his mind round."
"It's a good remedy," acquiesced Mrs. Jones. "There's nothing like plenty of Epsum salts for boys. I'd try 'em on him, Mother Duff."
"Dan, dear," said Susan Peckaby insinuatingly—for she had come in along with the rest, ignoring for the moment what might be waiting at her door—"was it in the pound as you saw Rachel's ghost?"
"'Twarn't Rachel's ghost as I did see," persisted Dan.
"Tell us who it was, then?" asked she, humouring him.
The boy answered. But he answered below his breath; as if he scarcely dared to speak the name aloud. His mother partially caught it.
"Whose?" she exclaimed, in a sharp voice, her tone changing. And Dan spoke a little louder.
"It was Mr. Frederick Massingbird's!"