But Harry, the mail bags, even the parcels for Bewick, had completely disappeared. Nothing except the empty cart and the broad plane-tree leaves were ever seen again. It seemed so simple a thing to trace—a dead body, accounted no easy thing to make away with even professionally, a dozen bags of letters—many with negotiable values, of which the issuing bank had, luckily, reserved the numbers—tobacco in tins, cigarettes in boxes, sweets, sugar in cones, even a Stilton cheese for the old bachelor, Major Templand (retired), who cried out more about the loss of his Welsh rabbit than all the others put together. Clues—there were balls and wads of clues! Only, none of them led anywhere. Neither did the woods, through which there was no track of anything previous to those made by Mr. Stennis's pony the following day. Nothing either way along the road. No, I could put my hand on nothing and nobody. And I gave it up at last, sure nevertheless that it was somewhere about the house of Deep Moat that the solution must be looked for.
And, indeed, some light, such as it was, came from the last quarter from which it could be expected.
Mr. Ablethorpe arrived one fine summer afternoon at our place in Breckonside. I was playing in the backyard, half a dozen dogs tumbling over me. It had been intended that I should go out that afternoon with a van, but somehow one of the men had got back earlier from his morning round, and had been re-dispatched as more trustworthy. Also idleness in a boy was bad enough, but in a man paid weekly wages—insupportable.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Yarrow," cried the curate in his hearty voice, loud but not a bit preachy—I give him that due—"can I have your Joe an hour or two?"
"Have him and keep him, the lazy whelp," cried my father from the back shop, where he was busy writing up his books in his shirt sleeves. Then, laying down his pen where it would not roll over the page (which always roused him to crisply expressed anger), he came out to meet the young curate from the neighbouring parish of Breckonton. Upper or Over Breckonton was still more dependent on my father than my native Breckonside. There were other ways of getting supplies at Breckonside, at least for a time. But Over Breckonton was wholly dependent on my father's vans, carrier's carts, and general delivery of goods.
They shook hands with some heartiness. For though my father had a standing quarrel with both vicars he was always on the best of terms with the curates.
"What might you want him for, Mr. Ablethorpe?"
"Oh," said Mr. Ablethorpe, "the farmers are busy with their moor hay, you see, and I thought if Joe and I——"
"Say no more," cried my father, "you shall have him. And if he does not work like a good 'un, you tell it to me, that's all! I see now why the farmers of your parish call you the 'Hayfork' Minister!"
"Oh, they call me that, do they?" said the curate, not at all disguising his pleasure in the nickname, "well, I'm no great preacher, you know. So it is as well to make oneself of use some way!"