CHAPTER XI
Great was Lady Eleanor's distress when she heard from the Corporal what had happened. "Ah, if only Colonel Fitzdenys had been here!" she repeated more than once; but she could think of nothing that could be done except to send a letter at once to the colonel to tell him the whole story and to ask him to be present at Kingstoke, which lay close to Fitzdenys, when the prisoner should be brought up next morning. This was the Corporal's suggestion; but Lady Eleanor noticed that he was unusually silent and subdued, and she was rather surprised when he asked leave rather mysteriously to be absent from the house for the rest of the day. But she trusted him so implicitly that she granted his request without hesitation, and the Corporal, having sent off the letter, went out for the evening by himself.
The truth was that he was bitterly hurt and indignant at the hard words that Mrs. Mugford had used towards him, of having betrayed the children to the witch on the moor. The bare idea that he should have been false to his mistress and to the children, whom he worshipped, made him furious; and he went out with the determination of giving Mrs. Mugford a bit of his mind before night, but, like a wise man, not until he had thought the matter well over during a solitary walk. So he made his way through the woods and in due time came to the place where Dick had pointed out to him the ragged man, whom he had found skulking in the fern a short time before. Then it flashed across him suddenly that this man might be the deserter, and he blamed himself for his stupidity in not thinking of it at first. Once again he racked his brains to remember where he had seen the man before, for certainly he had seen him or some one very like him; and with his mind full of Mrs. Mugford he suddenly recalled her son Henry, who had enlisted for a marine, and had once come back on sick-leave. The more he thought of it, the more certain he was that the man whom he had found was Henry Mugford, for though he had not seen him for some years he had never heard that he had been discharged. That would account for Mrs. Mugford's anxiety to keep the Corporal out of the village, and to get the idiot arrested, for it would probably be some days before a serjeant of Marines could arrive from Plymouth, or the idiot himself could be sent there, to decide if he were the deserter Henry Bale or not. And, as to the name, the Corporal knew well enough by experience that men constantly enlisted under assumed names, while Bale was a likely name for this particular man to choose, as it had been Mrs. Mugford's own before she married.
Thus reflecting, the Corporal turned along the path that led through the woods lying above the village, stopped when he saw the roofs of the cottages below him, and went down through the covert towards the hedge that parted the cottage-gardens from it. It was dusk, so that he had little difficulty in remaining unseen, and as he drew nearer to the two cottages where Mrs. Fry and Mrs. Mugford lived, he heard the voices of the pair in violent altercation in the garden below.
"You said so plain as could be that you'd a-share the two guineas with me," Mrs. Fry was saying indignantly. "That's what you said."
"And don't I say that I'll give 'ee five shillings?" retorted Mrs. Mugford, "and that's more than nine out of ten would give. 'Twas I catched mun and not you. If I hadn't stopped mun in the road they'd never have catched mun at all, and 'twas a chance then that he might have killed me, mazed as he is. And you've a-taken pounds and pounds from the gentry for the harm that was done your Tommy, and never given me so much as a penny, though I've a-showed mun many times when you wasn't in house."
"Well," said Mrs. Fry defiantly, "then we'll see what people say when I tells what I've a-seen of a man coming round to your house night-times these weeks and weeks, and you going out to mun with bread and mate. I've a-seen mun, for all that you was so false."
Then they dropped their voices, and Mrs. Mugford appeared to be making new offers. But the Corporal had heard enough. Keeping himself carefully concealed he walked along the hedge until he found a rack over it, which seemed to be well worn, leading down to the cottages below, and by this rack he curled himself up in the bushes, and waited. In a short time the village was dark and silent, for in those days oil-lamps were never seen in a cottage; and the Corporal found waiting rather cold work, but he had bivouacked on colder nights in the wars, and lay patiently in his place. A little after ten the moon rose, but it was full eleven o'clock before the Corporal heard the bushes rustle, and at last made out a man creeping cautiously alongside the hedge. Nearer and nearer he came, straight to the rack in the hedge, where after pausing for a moment to listen, he was beginning to scramble up; when the Corporal suddenly laid hold of his ankles, brought him sprawling down, rolled him into the hedge-trough, and was instantly on top of him, with his knee on his chest and his hand on his throat. The unfortunate creature was too much paralysed by fright to resist; and the Corporal soon dragged his face round into the moonlight and saw that he had caught the man that he wanted.
"So you've come here again, Henry Bale," said the Corporal; "I told you that it would be the worse for you, if you did."
"My name's Mugford," gasped the man, now struggling a little.
"And when did you get your discharge?" asked the Corporal; "and why are you hanging about the woods instead of living with your mother like an honest man? But when you're back at Plymouth they'll know you as Henry Bale fast enough, I'll warrant."
The man trembled, and begged abjectly for mercy; but the Corporal only pulled out a knife, without relaxing his hold on his throat, turned him over on his face, and cut his waistband. "Now," he said, "the best thing that you can do is to surrender and come quietly along with me. Give me your hands." And pulling a piece of twine from his pocket he tied the man's thumbs together behind his back. Then raising him to his feet he shoved him over the rack in the hedge, and led him past Mrs. Mugford's windows, where a rushlight was burning, into the road and so to the stables at Bracefort. There he locked his prisoner into a separate loose-box with a barred window, having first tied his wrists before him, instead of his thumbs behind him; and then he sought out pen and paper and wrote; a letter to Colonel Fitzdenys, which, though it was not very long, took him much time to write, and ran as follows:—
"Honoured Col.—these are to inform you that I have the deserter Henry Bale saf under lock and kay which is all at present from your honour's most ob't humble serv't.—J. BRIMACOTT."
He put the letter into his pocket, and drawing a mattress before the door of the loose-box, went fast asleep on it till dawn, when he called a sleepy stable-boy from the rooms above and bade him ride over with the letter to Fitzdenys Court.
By eight o'clock Colonel Fitzdenys arrived at a gallop from Fitzdenys Court. Having seen and questioned the Corporal's prisoner, who made a full confession, he left a message that he would return as soon as possible, and that he would want to see Mrs. Fry and Tommy; after which he rode back again, as fast as he had come, to Kingstoke. There his business was soon finished, for when the idiot was brought up before him (which he had already arranged to be done) he was able to discharge him directly, since he himself had ascertained that the true deserter had been captured. But none the less he gave the serjeant a guinea to console him for his disappointment in having caught the wrong man.
Then he went to speak to the idiot's mother and to tell her how sorry he was for the mistake that had been made; for the two had been locked up all night in Kingstoke. She did not receive him kindly, however, for all that she said was: "It's very well to be sorry now, and I don't say, sir, that it's no fault of yours, but they've agone nigh to kill my boy with their doings;" and indeed the idiot was so weak and white that he could hardly stand. Still more distressed was she when Colonel Fitzdenys told her that she could not go yet, but that she must first visit Bracefort Hall. She tried hard to obtain his leave to go to her own place at once, but he insisted, though with all possible kindness, that she must come with him to the Hall, and that then she should be free to go where she would. So very reluctantly she got into a market-cart with her son, who sat like a lifeless thing beside her, and was driven off, while Colonel Fitzdenys cantered on before them.
When the market-cart reached the door of the Hall, Lady Eleanor was there waiting to welcome her and to thank her for all that she had done for her own children; but the woman only said coldly that she was very welcome, and seemed to have no thought but for her idiot son, who remained sunk in the same abject condition. They brought him wine, which revived him enough to set him crying a little, but he would take no notice of anything. For a moment the woman softened, when Dick and Elsie came in and thanked her prettily for the kindness that she had shown to them, and she tried to rouse her son to take notice of them. But he only went on crying; and she was evidently much distressed.
Then the Corporal came to say that Mrs. Fry was come and had brought Tommy with her; on which Colonel Fitzdenys told the woman outright that she had been accused of bewitching the boy and depriving him of his speech. The woman's hard manner at once returned, and she laughed loud and scornfully.
"That's only their lies," she said. "How should I take away a boy's speech? they'm all agin me and my boy; that's all it is."
"Well, they say that he can't speak," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "You shall tell him to speak yourself, and then we shall be able to judge."
So Mrs. Fry was called in and told to hold her tongue, and Tommy, who had hidden himself in her skirts, was brought forward. The woman no sooner saw him than her eyes gleamed, and she said: "That's the one who throwed stones at my boy and called mun thafe. He not spake? He can spake well enough if he has a mind, I'll warrant mun."
"But his mother says that he cannot," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "See for yourself," and he led the trembling boy forward. "Tell him to speak to you."
"Spake, boy," said the woman not very amiably. "You can spake well enough, can't 'ee?"
"Yas," said Tommy nervously, to his mother's intense surprise.
"There! what did I tell 'ee?" said the woman contemptuously. "'Twas only their lies. He can spake so well as you and I."
Mrs. Fry, much taken aback, seized hold of the boy in amazement; but he begged so hard to be let go as to leave no doubt that his speech was restored; and Lady Eleanor lost no time in sending him off with his mother.
Then Lady Eleanor again thanked the idiot's mother for all that she had done for her own children, and asked what she could do for her; but the woman would accept no money nor reward, nothing but a few cakes which the children brought to her to take home for her son. Lady Eleanor offered her everything that she could think of, even to a remote cottage in the woods where she would certainly live undisturbed; but the woman only begged that she might not be asked to say where she lived nor to give any account of herself. She was quite alone with her son, she said, and lived an honest harmless life. As to Tommy Fry, she could not understand how any words of hers could have taken his speech from him; it was nonsense, and the women were fools. Finally, she said that if Lady Eleanor really wished to be kind she would let them go and not try to find them again; but she faithfully promised that if anything went wrong, she would come to her first for help.
So Lady Eleanor seeing that she was in earnest promised to do as she had said; and the woman thanked her with real gratitude. Then Dick and Elsie came in again to say good-bye, and the woman, taking her son by the arm, led him away. He moved so feebly that Lady Eleanor offered her a pony for him to ride, but his mother refused, though with many thanks; so the two passed away slowly across the park, and disappeared.
"Well, there is Tommy Fry cured at any rate," said Colonel Fitzdenys. "And I believe that the woman spoke the truth, when she said that she did not know what she had done to him. And now I must see to this man who is locked up in the stable."
But even while he spoke the Corporal came to say that Mrs. Mugford was come, and begged to be allowed to see her Ladyship. So in the poor thing came, crying her eyes out, to confess that her son in the stable was the true deserter, and to beg her Ladyship to have mercy and not to yield him up, giving such an account of the punishment that awaited him as nearly turned Lady Eleanor sick; for those were rough days in the army.
Colonel George meanwhile stood by without uttering a word; and when Mrs. Mugford had crawled from the room, utterly broken down, and Lady Eleanor turned to him with tears in her eyes, too much moved to speak, he only shook his head.
"The fellow must be given up and sent back to his corps," he said. "He has already got an innocent man into trouble, and even if he had not I am bound in duty to send him back."
"Could you not do something to intercede for him and save him from this horrible punishment?" asked Lady Eleanor. "I should be so thankful if you would."
Colonel George hesitated. "I have no wish to harm the poor wretch," he said, "but there are other men in the same case, very likely less guilty, who have no one to intercede for them. It is a question of discipline."
"Oh, don't be so hard," pleaded Lady Eleanor, "you who are always so gentle. You, who have done so much for me, grant me this one little thing more."
Colonel George looked at the beautiful face before him, and Lady Eleanor knew that she had gained her point. "Well, well," he said at last; "I will write on his behalf, and better still I will get my father to write also, which will have more effect. But it is all wrong," he added; "it is not discipline."
"I am quite sure that it will be all right," said Lady Eleanor with great decision.
Colonel George shook his head smiling; but he and old Lord Fitzdenys wrote, as he had promised; and it may as well be said that they obtained pardon for Henry Mugford the deserter.