“Ay, sir, killed dead enough. And it’s a providence they caught the murderer. Took him up, sir, just as he was a-goin’ into his mother’s house, as cool as a frosted turnip, sir.”
“Well, Allan, that is satisfactory. And what is his name?”
“Bob Cooper, sir, known all over the—”
“Bob Cooper!” cried Archie aghast. “Why, father, he was in our room in the turret at the time.”
“So he was,” said the Squire. “Taken on suspicion I suppose. But this must be seen to at once. Bad as we know Bob to have been, there is evidence enough that he has reformed of late. At all events, he shall not remain an hour in gaol on such a charge longer than we can help.”
Night came on very soon that evening. The clouds banked up again, the snow began to fall, and the wind moaned round the old house and castle in a way that made one feel cold to the marrow even to listen to.
Morning broke slowly at last, and Archie was early astir. Tell, with the Shetland pony and a huge great hunter, were brought to the door, and shortly after breakfast the party started for B—.
Branson bestrode the big hunter—he took the lead—and after him came the Squire on Tell, and Archie on Scallowa. This daft little horse was in fine form this morning, having been in stall for several days. He kept up well with the hunters, though there were times that both he and his rider were all but buried in the gigantic wreaths that lay across the road. Luckily the wind was not high, else no living thing could long have faced that storm.
The cottage in which widow Cooper had lived ever since the death of her husband was a very primitive and a very poor one. It consisted only of two rooms, what are called in Scotland “a butt and a ben.” Bob had been only a little barefooted boy when his father died, and probably hardly missed him. He had been sent regularly to school before then, but not since, for his mother had been unable to give him further education. All their support was the morsel of garden, a pig or two, and the fowls, coupled with whatever the widow could make by knitting ribbed stockings for the farmer folks around. Bob grew up wild, just as the birds and beasts of the hills and woods do. While, however, he was still a little mite of a chap, the keepers even seldom molested him. It was only natural, they thought, for a boy to act the part of a squirrel or polecat, and to be acquainted with every bird’s nest and rabbit’s burrow within a radius of miles. When he grew a little older and a trifle bigger they began to warn him off, and when one day he was met marching away with a cap full of pheasant’s eggs, he received as severe a drubbing as ever a lad got at the hands of a gamekeeper.
Bob had grown worse instead of better after this. The keepers became his sworn enemies, and there was a spice of danger and adventure in vexing and outwitting them.