Deep Moat Grange

by S. R. Crockett

"Of course, I see now, Joe," he said, "it looked bad. And I don't wonder the mob acted as they did, seeing me leave the barn so hurriedly."

Now, though I did not say so, I thought that pretty good, just about as good as a dozen glass marbles for a halfpenny. "Leave the barn hurriedly!" says he. My respectable Aunt Sally! Why, he simply scooted like the wind! What is it? He "stood not on the order of his going, but—went?" I bet he did! There wasn't anybody in Mr. Mustard's school—no, nor yet in Breckonside, who could have caught the Hayfork Parson but me. He had legs like a whacking pair of compasses, and went along like the wild ass that sniffeth up the wind.

"Yes," he repeated, tying a white handkerchief about the size of a tablecloth round his brow—I kept mum about what had given him the headache; pretended that I had brought out the hook to fish with—"yes, Joe, I did leave the barn in a hurry. But it was for the sake of those poor, foolish women, for whose souls none cares but myself. I know well that in going there at all I am taking my life in my hands. But the eldest, Miss Aphra Orrin, shows a little more stability than the others. And it was borne in upon me as a duty that I should try and make them put away their mad vanities, no better than stocks and stones, by substituting a real worship in a real chapel. I found out by chance that the barn of Deep Moat Grange had been an oratory in the days of the ancient Cistercian Abbey, which had been built on that site about 1460. It was, therefore, in my opinion, duly and properly consecrated. True, I have not obtained the authorization of my bishop, and for that, Joseph, you may blame me."

I told him that it was all right as far as I was concerned. I did not think of doing so. His dread secret, if that were all, was quite safe with me.

"I thank you, Joseph," he said, with the solemn air he always had when engaged in making me a good Churchman. "I admit that the action is, on the face of it, irregular. But then the saving of these poor souls, Joseph! Consider! None to give them a thought but me! And I have already induced them to substitute a crucifix for their foolish gauds, which had only a meaning in their own deranged brains, Joseph. And this very night, after confession such as the poor things could make, I had determined to administer the sacrament of the Holy Communion to them. I was in the act of doing so when the noise outside, and the crowd breaking in the doors, caused me to retire, in the belief that my presence and the act in which I was engaged might be misunderstood by an incensed rabble. You agree that I was right, Joseph? Yes? Then—I own it—I am much relieved in my mind—still more to find that all the elements are safe. It would have been terrible—a disastrous loss—if any part of them had been injured. Even now, Joseph, when I came a little to myself, it seemed to me that when I awoke I found you—you, Joseph, the son of a Churchman, who ought to have known better, in the act——"

"No, Mr. Ablethorpe," said I; "but something was necessary to arouse you, and it seemed to me that nothing else would have the desired effect."

"Quite right, Joseph! You judged well," he said, nodding his head. "And the pursuers? Were you able to turn them off the track? I heard them pursuing."

I reassured him. So far as the pursuers went, he had nothing to fear. Mr. Ablethorpe said that in that case he would go home and place the monstrance—I think he called it, but it doesn't seem the right word, does it?—in a place of safety. But as I had no time to lose, I would not let him go without telling me if he had heard anything of my father at the house of Deep Moat Grange.

"Joseph," he answered solemnly, "it is well enough known to you that all I heard there passed into my knowledge under the sacred seal of the confessional, and that I am debarred from repeating a word, either yea or nay."

"But I want to know about my father!" I cried. "You shall not go without! He may have been murdered! And suspicion points to that house where you were found, in which, according to your telling, you received confessions from those who may have been guilty!"