“I didn’t know they’d lost him.”
“Ah, of course not....”
And though the parson whispered no more than a word or two, the finish of Eastwood Ellah had best be related here. They say that doctors have a name for that disease of the mind of his, that shunning of light and air and space and creeping into holes. Narrower than the niche in the kitchen of the “Cross Pipes,” or than the chimney of the “Fullers’ Arms,” was the space in which, the day before, at eight in the evening, they had found him. He had not left Sally Northrop’s inn. An old well, covered with loose boards, lay in one corner of the cellar in which the ale-casks were kept; maybe Ellah had seen this well in times past; at what hour of the day or night he had sought it none knew. It had occurred to somebody to search there, and, lowering a lantern by a string, they had seen his feet.
Monjoy sighed, and then roused himself a little.
“Now one word,” he said. “I may have compromised you to-night. It’s up-kedge-and-cut now, for they’re wanting three or four of us; so if you wish to be rid of me, I’ll thank you for what you’ve done and take my chance.”
“God knows I do, and I don’t!” the parson groaned. “Hush!... I’ll leave you now; I need rest. I’ll lock you in—I’ll lock £200 in—that’s your figure on a handbill I’ve seen——”
He passed heavily out. The sentry was nodding again in the chair.
That morning Cope was taken to his own house at the top of the croft in Horwick.
The captain, Captain Ritchie, was in sole command now. Certain scrupulous limitations inherent in the man, of which his acceptance of the parson’s word had been one, made him a less useful instrument than the late Jeremy Cope had been; but these apart, he did his work thoroughly. The district was immense, but as far as possible he encircled it. The Edge into Lancashire, ten miles away, was a sentry-beat, sentry meeting sentry every furlong. The Causeway was picketed three men to the mile, passing and returning; guards were changed four times a day; and on every Shelf and Scout and Ridge throughout Back o’ th’ Mooin men were posted as if for war. It took two days to enclose the country for beating; and the midday of the second day was the time appointed for the funeral of Sally Northrop, which was to take place in Wadsworth.
Only a dozen folk saw Sally laid to rest; among them were Cicely and Dooina Benn. All the morning the bell tolled in the squat belfry that had baffled Pim o’ Cuddy’s pigeon, and at midday the parson came out of his house. All was over in an hour. There was no “arvill,” or funeral drinking; and those who had followed the bier set on back immediately for Horwick. Cicely and Dooina, both in their blacks, carried little Jimmy between them, and at a turn at the foot of the street, where for a moment the rest could not see them, Dooina kissed Cicely quickly and wiped her eyes.