Deep Moat Grange

by S. R. Crockett

So we crept and crept, foot by foot, looking and testing everything. And it was as well. Because, quite without warning, the thick bushes ceased, and there we were on the edge of a deep trench with very black water at the bottom. The sides were steep and green with grass. But on the other bank all was green and yellow, with spreading lawns and Lent lilies growing, and a woman in a short skirt, coming and going among them, with a gardening spade in her hand.

Somehow I knew at once that that was Daft Jeremy's elder sister, Aphra Orrin, the one who was not so mad as the others, and kept house for Elsie's grandfather.

She came quite near. We could have tossed a dog biscuit to her feet—could, that is—somehow, I didn't want to. It might have startled the poor lady, and besides I hate making oneself conspicuous.

Over the lily patches and the flower beds we got glimpses of a red-tiled house, low and old, all overgrown with ivy about the gables and porches. It had small windows with criss-cross panes, and smoke was coming out of one of the chimneys, though it was yet so early. That I took to be the kitchen of Deep Moat Grange.

The canal seemed to go all the way round, and to join on to the pond which we could see glimmering beyond the house, looking gray through a fringe of willows.

The place was nested in woods and water, like a dabchick's nest, yet for all that comfortable and fair to see with its lawns and greenery set about it. I looked at Elsie to see if she was feared. But not she. Instead, there was a queer, eager look, and her eyes kept glittering, as if you could have struck a match at them. Then all at once it struck me that Elsie was going to be pretty; but I resolved to say nothing about that for the present.

It was thinking about her mother that did it, I expect. And that is a funny thing, too. For I care about my mother, and sometimes look eager, like Elsie; but it is when I tease her to tell me what we are going to have for dinner. Elsie was different. She said "S-h-h-h-!" whenever I moved; and once, when a stick cracked underfoot, turned and gave me a look, which would have speaned a foal.

"You fidgety worm—can't you be quiet," that look said.

We went on watching the house and the woman watering the flower beds. Nance had told us that the old housekeeper always did that herself. No hireling was allowed to put a spade in the soil of the Grange garden. Very soon we had proof that she was quite mad. The Lent lilies grew about in great clumps, flourishing strong and high—a brave show. The gaunt old woman waved the rose of her watering can over each with a kind of ritual, like what I have since seen the priests use in Catholic churches. Then she kneeled down and prayed—yes, prayed to the lilies. Actually I saw her—and so did Elsie.

But that was not all. Out of the house there came a company of three other women, one behind the other. They had their hair down their backs, and long cloaks with gold and silver patches covered them. Each was carrying something narrow and black in her arms. At first they were too far away for us to see clearly, but as they came nearer, I gasped and caught at Elsie's hand. The long black things were little, tiny coffins, neatly modelled, and covered with black cloth all complete with fringe, name-plates, and cords. A little to the side, capering and dancing, flinging his legs high in the air, and blowing a merry marching tune on a soldier's clarionet, pranced Daft Jeremy. Every now and then he would stop blowing to give the brass instrument a shake. Then he would laugh and egg on the women with the coffins to dance also. But they went along quite peaceably, keeping their countenances wonderfully, and making quaint signs with their hands. They marched round and round, the idiot laughing and blowing while the elder woman with the gardening spud went on praying, paying no attention whatever to them, till they came to a rude altar, just two upright posts and a stone laid across them, quite at the end of the garden, opposite to where we were.