Deep Moat Grange

by S. R. Crockett

He passed me, running—a tall, gliding shadow, with something familiar in the back of it. I did not see him clearly, for he was all crouched up because of the low branches of the evergreens and the leather case he carried under his arm. He was breathing heavily. So was I, but I would have died before I would have let myself make so much noise about it.

He looked about him for the stile. Evidently he knew the way well enough. I thought I recognized, as he bent, momentarily lower, the oily glitter of black ringlets which distinguished Mad Jeremy. But though I knew there would be a tussle, I determined that I would not let him off. Besides, we were pretty near old Ball's at any rate, and I meant to call for help like a steam whistle—that is, if it should prove to be Mad Jeremy, or even Mr. Stennis.

Whoever he might be, not finding the stile, he began to climb the high dyke mighty actively—nearly six foot, I should say, was the height of that march-dyke—and he had just his leg over when I hooked my steel into his collar and pulled him back. He fell unhandily, several of the stones following him, and the leather portfolio going all abroad. He came down on his face with a whop like a bag of wet salt.

As I turned the fellow over, I was full as I could hold of everything stuck-up—as arrogant as a jack sparrow after his first fight. He had hurt his head rather, hitting it hard as he fell. The dawn had come up clear by that time. I tell you I gasped. I give you a hundred guesses to tell me whose face it was I saw.

It was that of Mr. Ablethorpe, the Hayfork Parson.

*****

Well, I know now how it feels when the world comes suddenly to an end; when all that you had counted upon turns out just nothing; when what you believed true, and would have staked your life upon, is proven all in a minute the falsest of lies.

It was enough to drive any one mad. And indeed I think I could have stuck the steel hook into Mr. Ralph Ablethorpe, as he lay there in his High Church parson's coat with the tails nearly to his feet, his stiff white collar and the big gold cross—real for true gold—swinging as low as his hair watch chain. Yes, I would—but for one thing. The Hayfork Minister lay with his mouth open, his temples bleeding a little where he had hit a piece of stone, and he looked dead—painfully dead. If he had looked a bit alive, I wouldn't have minded sticking the hook into him. Just think of all that chase, and his pretending to hunt the murderers of poor Harry, and sending me up that drain pipe—and all in the interests, as was now proven, of the murderers themselves. It was enough to make a Quaker kick his mother.

There was also, though I had not noticed it at first, one thing more. The portfolio that I had supposed to contain my father's stolen papers and the proofs of the crime—well, there it lay, with the lock broken, and ready for me to find all about the foul treachery of the Hayfork Minister.

I was sure I should trap him now. I tell you I was so mad that I began to think of his being hung. And how glad I would be to see the black flag go up over the jail at Longtown. I meant to go there to see and cry "Hooray!"—I was so mad at his taking us all in. But, at any rate, I had a right to look, if only to search for my father's papers. It was I who had caught him, as it were, in the act.