Deep Moat Grange

by S. R. Crockett

"After that, there was no letting that spot out of our sight till I had got the lawyer work finished—I mean that of the vendor's representatives of Deep Moat Grange. I was my own lawyer and factor, that is, so far as the district was concerned. I had a kinsman in Edinburgh who went over all the agreements and so on, for me, just to see that everything was in order.

"All the time I was away Jeremy watched, resolved that if any one manifested overmuch interest in the scratched soil at the bottom of the lawn where the rhododendrons begin, he or she should find a quiet resting-place beside them. But, barring one slight accident, into the details of which I deem it useless to enter (being but a poor man and not worth in the gross three solvent halfpence) no one looked near the lawn or the old orchard.

"At last Deep Moat Grange was mine. Deep Moat Grange was paid for in untraceable money—I had examined every note. Jeremy and I moved in, and having heard all that he had to say about his sister Aphra, I sent a hundred pounds to her—and our address. Jeremy said that would bring her. We felt—or at least I, who knew the ways and thoughts, the chatterings and clatterings of Breckonside, felt that there was need for a good, careful, managing woman there. From what Jeremy told me, I was certain that Euphrasia Orrin was that woman.

"She was. I could not have chosen better. Yet, for all that, the madman had deceived me in the way that all such have, with a cunning far above that of sane and grave persons, such as myself.

"Euphrasia or Aphra Orrin (as she was called) arrived in a few days. But she brought with her three hare-brained sisters, concerning whom, if their brother had breathed so much as one word, neither Aphra nor any of them should ever have set foot within my door. I should have claimed my granddaughter, at that time cared for by a decent working woman named Edgar—and for whose upkeep I subscribed according to my means. I should have taken her, I say, and trained her up to fulfil my needs. Between us, Jeremy and I could have done it.*

* "I say nothing of the return and death of my daughter Bell. Save that she left the parish and returned burdened with a brat, her coming had no interest for me, though the neighbours made a foolish work about it, going so far as to give me an ill name on account of my treatment of her!"

"But Aphra was a clever woman, and as soon as I saw her, and as soon as she had spoken with Jeremy, I knew for certain that there would be no turning her out. She meant to stay at Deep Moat Grange, and stay she would and did, she and her yelping litter of she-whelps. Of her I only asked one thing, that she should confine their vagaries to the space contained between the pond and the moat. The house had now been put into some repair, the drawbridge restored, and we were safe within our own guards and barriers. As for the country clatter, we took no heed to that. Besides, whenever there was a fair or promising market, it was agreed that (for my character's sake) I should be found with my lawyer in Edinburgh, or in the company of some other decent, producible people.

"The advantages of the Grange for our business are manifold. Firstly, should this fall into the hands of a successor actuated by a like hatred of humanity and lack of moral prejudice, and supposing him to be served by the same able though irresponsible tools which I have used, I would point out that from either road, that to Bewick to the right or that through the woods to Longwood on the left, there is direct water carriage to the secluded lawn beneath Deep Moat Grange. In case of necessity, supposing that the 'accident' has befallen on the Bewick road, you can load your boat by the bridge near to the darkest part of the wood behind the Bailiff's houses, and then, sculling lightly, you are carried all the way by the current of the Backwater without leaving a trace. If the game has been played on the highway to the right, then there is equally good going across the pond. It is recommended that the boat, being probably heavily burdened, should return by the north side, where I have planted certain rows of weeping willows, which not only afford a grateful shade, but are seemly in the circumstances.

"It was, however, Miss Orrin (a clever woman in her way) who had the best idea as to the final disposition of the frail but compromising relicts of mortality, thus appropriately transported under my weeping willows to their final resting beds. She made perennial flower pots of them, and nowhere could be seen such display of varied beauty as she obtained from cold, useless clay!

"Personally, I have always been opposed to the general uselessness of graveyards and cemeteries. Nothing is better suited to enrich the soil than the material which Jeremy supplied. It is far before phosphates, about which there has been so much talk these last years. So I was greatly content when Miss Orrin—to whom of necessity I had to confide the secret of Jeremy's unfortunate tendencies, in order that she might use her influence to direct it for our mutual advantage—discovered a means at once of security and of utility by planting masses of lilies in heart-shaped plots all about, wherever Jeremy had found it necessary to disturb the soil. I believe that Miss Orrin attached some subtle meaning to the lilies. Indeed had I not prevented her, she would even have made the plots of the shape and size of coffins—which certainly shows a trace of the family failing.