Deep Moat Grange

CHAPTER XXV

A LETTER FROM JOSEPH YARROW, SENIOR,
TO HIS SON JOSEPH YARROW, JUNIOR

Dear Joe—Yours of the 10th received and contents noted. You ask me to tell you in writing what happened when, like a fool, I allowed myself to be caught and imprisoned by the other fools at Deep Moat Grange, at that time the property of the late Mr. H. Stennis.

Nothing can be more generally useless than the practice of going back on old transactions, the gain of which has long gone to your banker, or the loss been written off. But as, on this occasion, you represent to me that a few notanda from me might aid your book to sell, I comply with your desire. Your proposition, kindly but speculative, that I should receive ten per cent. (10%) of the proceeds, is one to which I cannot accede. The venture is your own, and though I reply as a father, I desire to rest absolutely disinterested in the business. I have made my success in life, such as it is, by never touching anything of a doubtful or gambling nature. And I am creditably informed the publication of books of thrilling adventure such as you propose undoubtedly falls under the latter category.

But the facts, nevertheless, are at your service. All that I ask of you is that you should allow them to remain facts. I once lifted a page of your MS., which had been blown from your desk, and I grieve to say that it contained such twaddle about love, together with other intangible and inappreciable articles, that I came very near to discharging you on the spot. But I remembered the solid qualities and aptitudes you had shown (I give you so much credit, but I trust you do not strike me for a rise on the strength of it) on the occasion of my late disappearance.

Well, on Monday, the sixth of December, at 8.59 I received a letter bearing the Edinburgh postmark, stating that a certain Mr. Stephen Cairney, who has owed me over three hundred pounds for a number of years (£329, to be exact) would be selling a large parcel of cattle at Longtown Tryst. The writer of the note was Mr. H. Stennis, of Deep Moat Grange, and he informed me that he had successfully adopted a similar course at Falkirk some years ago. He had been able to give his lawyer due notice, and had "riested" the money in the hands of the auctioneer.

Now there is no reason why Hobby Stennis should go out of his way to put money into my pocket. On the contrary! If it had been the other way about I should have seen him farther first before I meddled. Still, the sum was a considerable one, and Mr. Dealer Stephen Cairney certainly a slippery customer, whom I might never be able to make anything off of again. It was just possible that old Hobby, as spiteful an old ruffian as lived, whether as poor weaver or as Golden Farmer, had his knife into Cairney for some old quarrel which most likely Cairney had himself forgotten.

At any rate, there was nothing against my riding to Longtown to see. Nothing against my trying, at least, to come by my own. Still it was with an angry and unsettled mind, but a firm determination not to be cheated if I could help it, that I rode off to Longtown on Dapple, the good and trusty mare I had bought as a bargain from the heirs and assigns of Mr. Henry Foster, sometime deceased.

My wife was most difficult as to my riding alone, but if a man is to take account of the whim-whams of his women-folk, he will have time for little else. So I gave Joseph and Kingsman sufficient directions and elaborate instructions to pass them over till my return, and so parted.

There is nothing to note on the journey to Longtown. I fell into converse with several farmers and made arrangements with one to take his young pigs at valuation—which I judged a good affair to me, his valuator being largely indebted to me in the line of bone manures and feeding stuffs.

But beyond that nothing, and even that affair was quite in the course of business, though it has not yet matured.

For, perhaps owing to the unsettled state of the country, the pigs have been anxious-minded and run to legs, utterly refusing to put on flesh, which, as I understand it, is the first duty of pig. I came somewhere across a book by Thomas Carlyle in which he stated this somewhat strongly. I was much struck by the strength and precision of the argumentation, and wished that at all times he had thought fit to write with similar clearness. There is no doubt that the man had the ability. I have read worse newspaper articles.

I found my man without great difficulty, and duly "riested" or arrested the moneys due to me, in the hands of Mr. Lightbody the auctioneer, taking the said Mr. Lightbody's cheque on a Thorsby bank—both as more portable, and also to give that sound and well-considered man time to settle with the buyers of the Cairney cattle—lots A, B, and C, on which I had first charge.

Now, I am not a man ever to halt at markets, or to drink in public places—more, that is, than to clinch a bargain, as an honest man ought, neither with stinting nor with offensive liberality. I even made it up with Cairney, though at first, of course, he was neither to hold nor to bind. He threatened to bring me up "before the fifteen" for damage to his credit. But I pointed out that nothing hurts a man's credit so much as the habit of not paying his debts. Whereupon he calmed a little, and said he, "I'll wager that it was old Hobby who put you on to this!" To which, naturally, I made no reply, letting him think just what he would.

At three o'clock I had Dapple saddled. For it being the winter season, I judged that late enough to be travelling over so wild a country. But having done harm to no one, and carrying no sums of money, I saw no reason for fear.

At the half-way little hedge inn, for once in my life I lighted down and called for a bowl of soup, but could only get coffee, and that without milk—which proves the improvidence of these people. For Crewe Moss would easily have pastured a hundred cows, though it would most likely happen that an odd one might get laired in the soft places now and then. But not to have so much as a drop of milk and on Crewe Moss! Lamentable! So I told the people what I thought of them, mounted Dapple, and came my ways.

I had gone, perhaps, three miles, and was skirting the woods adjoining the property of Mr. Stennis, when, as I passed under some high trees a noose dropped about my neck. The mare passed on, and I was left dangling as neatly as if the hangman had done it. Happily for me the cord had descended lower than my neck on one side, and I was caught under the left armpit. But there I swung and turned all the same, shouting manfully for help. I could observe as I wheeled about, for all the world like a scarecrow in a bean field, some one in the act of catching Dapple and tying her to a tree.

Then the man—a long-limbed, ugly-mugged fellow, with corkscrew curls exactly like the old maids when I was young—came back, and, letting me down, wrapped me carefully in a coil of rope till I could move neither hand nor foot. I know him now to be Mad Jeremy, for long chief agent in the doubtful affairs of Mr. Hobby Stennis.

Now I am a fair weight, for my inches, though not to call a heavy man. But this gipsy-looking fellow took me on his back as easily as if I had been a bag of shavings for kindling. If he had taken to honest courses, that same Jeremy Orrin—for so I am informed he is called—I would gladly have given him a thirty-shilling-a-week job in the warehouse. Nothing would have come unhandily to him.

Well, he carried me by various passages, the rough stone and lime of which scratched my face, knees, and knocking elbows, to a commodious rounded chamber. It was floored, walled, and roofed with wood. But I could make out, by sounding, the stone arching, and behind that again the solid earth. It was, as I now know, the cellar or ice house of the monks which they had built for themselves on the verge of the Moat to cool their wine in torrid summers.

Hither the woman, Aphra Orrin, accompanied her brother, my captor. They searched me thoroughly, as though I were a postman with registered letters and other valuables, but, as was my habit, they found upon my person no store of valuables—fairs and trysts being no fit places to make parade of one's gear.

Among some almanacs, jottings of bargains, and other things, these two came on the cheque for three hundred pounds on the bank of Thorsby, at which Mr. Lightbody, the auctioneer, did his business—as they said, for the purpose of giving him a day extra—which, indeed, an honest man might very well do, paying out on many occasions before he had received the price from the buyer.

At the sight of that they were much bewildered, and did not, as I judge, know what to do. Finally, after having taken away the cheque and considered upon it, or perhaps taken the advice of a third person, they brought it back to me, and offered me my life in exchange for my signature upon the back of that piece of paper.

But to this I would not agree. I regarded the position all round, and saw clearly that as soon as I had signed, it would be as good as signing my death warrant. So I judged it best to put them off with half promises, and partial encouragements. As, "that I could not bring myself to rob my family of so great a sum," or "that the bank would expect me to present the cheque in person." Both of which were mere vanities—for, of course, the cheque was made out to me personally and would be paid over my signature, which was as well known to the cashiers of the Thorsby bank as that of the manager himself.

So, being countered in this, the man with the curls was for putting his knife into me instanter, but the tall woman took him apart, and I could hear her pounding the table with her fist, persuading him. With three hundred pounds, so she argued, they could all get out of the country, supposing that Mr. Stennis's money was not available. I was, I learned from her words, their anchor to windward. They had expected I should bring back the money in gold or notes. Therefore, as I had not done so, I should be kept in the ice house and coaxed till I signed the cheque. Then they could close all the doors—no need of stronger measures—and leave me tied on the floor of the ice house. Who, at least for long, would be any the wiser?

I had time for many things, there, in that chilly abode. They chained my ankles to rings let into the wall, the bolts of which appeared through the lining of planks. I was given a mattress to lie upon, and occasionally Mad Jeremy threw me a loaf of bread, as one does to a dog.

Most of all, I was afraid that my faculties should rust, or even that I should go mad, so by steady application I learned the multiplication table up to twenty-four-times, making each as familiar to me as ten times ten. This would prove of great use to me afterwards in my business, and those who do have transactions with me wonder at my quickness while I laugh at their simplicity.

Then I took up one by one all the concerns of every man I knew, and set myself problems as against myself. As thus: Yarrow, of Breckonside, will be coming to me shortly for two hundred loads of fodder for the company's horses. He has the contract down at Clifton—the tramway company—and get the fodder he must. And how shall I mix the stuff so that it will be passed when it comes to be taken off his hands?

I thought all this out, putting myself in the other's place, and no one can imagine—who has not tried it—how excellent a lesson in affairs it proved. After that drill in the old ice house, where at times I was well-nigh frozen, I seemed to see inside every man's skull with whom I was making a bargain. It was not only a great advantage, but in a sort of way it was poetry also. I don't expect Joseph to understand this any more than I understand his maunderings about love and girls. Not but what I am fond of my wife. She brought me a good round sum, as every woman ought, which I have used with care and caused to breed handsomely. But if I were to tell Mary that I loved her, I think she would go at once and order my tombstone. At least, she would call in a doctor!

Still, with all my invention, the time hung heavy. Each day the Orrin woman came bringing Lightbody's cheque, with new arguments why I should sign it. I put her off, though sometimes not without difficulty. I think she must have been partly cracked, in spite of her apparently business-like habits, for it puzzled me how they would have got the money, even over my signature, taking into consideration my sudden disappearance and the to-do there would be about it. But I took care to say nothing about that. Mr. Lightbody's cheque and the hope that they had of my signing it, and so enabling them to get the money, was my best safeguard.

But one day Miss Orrin, apparently after long cogitation, made another proposal. If I would write to my bankers telling them that I had gone abroad on an affair of great moment, and asking them to pay to the bearer a thousand pounds on my behalf, Miss Orrin would pledge her word to leave me with ten days' provisions in the vault, and at the end of that time to send to the authorities a message stating where I was to be found.

This, she said, was their ultimatum. The alternative unexpressed, but evident, was Master Jeremy's knife. However, I did not agree. The business had too speculative an air, and there was a decided lack of guarantee. For there was nothing to prevent those kind friends from cutting my throat after they had pocketed the cash, supposing that my banker was fool enough to pay it without going to the police. I suppose, however, that Jeremy would have stayed here by me, and if the police had been called in, or his sister had not returned, there would have been no more of me.

I told them plainly, and as a business man, that they would only be running their heads into a trap if I wrote any such order, but that the cheque was negotiable anywhere. It could pass through any number of hands even from the Continent. This little bit of information, I believe, preserved my life. For the very next day I caught one of the jackdaws that came to seek shelter about my dungeon, entering through a crack high in the arched roof. I wrote the message—already reproduced—on paper stuffed in a rook's quill which I picked up off the floor, and fastening the long feather to the jackdaw's tail with whitey-brown thread unwound from a button, I let the bird flutter away.

Now I come to a circumstance that I have something of delicacy about. Bairns' plays are not suitable for men of ripe years, you say. I agree, but when sometimes one has children, and especially an only son upon whom the care and guidance of a large business will some day devolve, there are certain kinds of plays that cannot be hastily condemned even by the wisest.

It was the year when the fever, now called typhoid, but then simply the "Fivvor," made ravages in Breckonside. No one knew what brought it, and none knew why it went away. But during its stay, both myself and my son Joseph were attacked by it among the first. My wife, Mrs. Yarrow, had her hands full with the two of us. Neither was very ill, but the time of convalescence was long; and had it been any other doctor than Dr. Hector who attended me, I would have been out a dozen times a day.

But—and I like him for it, for I have the faculty myself—Dr. Hector has a way with him that makes people think twice before disobeying him. Joe was in his room, I in mine, and there was between us a thick partition, such as are to be found in old houses, of double oak, with an air space between.

Now my brain being by nature busy, and to amuse the boy most of all, I concocted a simple code of sound signals which Joe and I called our "Morse." We would often amuse ourselves the day by the length, by rapping our messages the one to the other. It went like this. I made a little tablet for Joe, and kept one by me till we had both learned the inscription by ear, as it were.

It consisted of the alphabet arranged in five lines, and numbered above, and at the side. Then the intersection of the number of knocks, two series with a pause between, beginning with the horizontal top figures gave the letter. It was simplicity itself when once learned.

Joe picked it up quickly, and we rapped out messages to each other as soon as we were awake. For instance, three knocks, then after a pause two more, gave the letter H.

This was the first of our morning's greetings, "Heeps better." Joe did not spell well at that time, but for the correction of his orthography it needed the schoolmaster's cane, and not a newly invented Morse sound code. So I let him spell as he liked. It lightened our days very much. And I will admit, ever after that, Joseph and I understood each other better.

Now it will hardly be believed, but I am willing to let my commercial honour stand for the truth of what I am about to say, which with those who have done business with me will be sufficient. One morning I awoke early, before the slate-blue crack, with a star wandering across it, which was the jackdaw's front door, had changed to the grey of a winter's morning. I lay on my comfortless straw couch, wondering why it was that my prison was not colder. It could not be that it was so far underground as to be warm like the bottom of a mine, by its own distance from the earth's surface. There were the exits and the entrances of the jackdaws to witness against that.

Still, though cold enough at times, the fact remained that the temperature of my prison never descended to the freezing point. Indeed, it had probably been chosen as a winter home by the birds on that account. Once or twice I had seen a flake of snow fluttering down, but these melted before they could be discerned on the oaken floor of the curious circular cellar in which I lay.

I was, as I say, pondering over these things, about home, too, and what Joseph would be doing. I almost blush to write, but I began automatically knocking out a sentence in our old "Morse" code which had amused us during the fever year.

"Is any one there?" I spelled the words out.

And I actually sat upright with wonder when I heard come through the thick oak of the partition, first five distinct knocks, then, after a pause, one.

It was the letter E! But, then, only Joe and I knew of it! My heart sank. I thought in swift, lightning flashes. Had my son been captured also? But the person at the other side of the wall went on spelling, one knock, pause, three knocks.

It was the letter L!

And so with the quiet regularity of an expert, the sentence came back to me.

"Elsie here—Who are you?"

I felt much inclined, of course, to ask who Elsie might be, but I made my answer—fearing a trap—by the mere spelling out of my name and address, "Joseph Yarrow, Breckonside."

Then there was tapped out hurried, imperfectly, in a manner denoting undue and even foolish emotion—"Dearest Joe. I thank you for trying to help me. Your Elsie."

There was evidently some mistake. No one had a right to answer me thus—least of all an Elsie—my wife's name being Mary, and she as little likely to address me as "Dearest Joe," as to call me the Grand Mogul! In fact, it was nothing less than a prodigious liberty—whoever Elsie might be.

But a thought flashed across my mind. The young dog! At it already! If I had my hand on his collar, I would teach him to be anybody's "Dearest Joe!" "Dearest Joe" indeed! I would "Dearest Joe" him!

But after all the situation had made me smile, and I knew that there was but one Elsie in Breckonside—Elsie Stennis—and as good a girl as ever stepped! Too good for Joe, if only she had her rights—what with the old rascal's property, not that I minded much about that—and a temper which would make Master Joe toe the line. He had need of that—I never!

Now I do not say that I thought all that then. I desire to be exact in the smallest details. I merely smiled, perhaps a little grimly, and rapped out the correction—"Joseph Yarrow, Senior."

I knew that would surprise her. For I must have had the reputation of being in my grave for many days before the wretched crew at Deep Moat Grange got hold of her.

Then very falteringly was rapped out the further question: "Are you really Joe's father?"

I replied that I had been given to believe so, but that Joe's apparent conduct might well give rise to doubts.

The answer came back at once:

"You don't mean that, Mr. Yarrow!"

Which, I will own, fairly conquered me—almost made me laugh, and though an old man, I felt quite warm about the heart. Now, when I came to think of it, I had always liked to see Elsie Stennis tripping about the village streets. One picture I was foolish enough to remember—a dingy November day after it had been raining, and Elsie going to school to her teaching. She was crossing the little dirty place in front of Ebie McClintock's forge, and she stooped to pick up her skirts, giving them a little shake, and then hopped across with her nose in the air—pert and pretty as a robin redbreast.

No fool like an old fool. I am speaking to you—Mr. Joseph Yarrow, Senior.

CHAPTER XXVI

COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY

After that we had much intercourse. There was, indeed, little else to do, though now I know that the periods when I could get no answer were those in which the three sisters still in hiding were in the habit of visiting Elsie in company generally with Mad Jeremy. Little by little, however, Miss Stennis—well, after being addressed as "Dearest Joe" I suppose I may as well say "Elsie"—told me all about her position—the manner of her capture, and the liberty, comparative though it was, which she enjoyed. I made up my mind at once that if I were to escape at all, it must be through her chamber.

It was about this time that the truth as to the manner in which I was attached to the wall flashed upon me. I could see it all now, and wondered how I had not understood it before. I have already explained that the rings to which my ankles were attached ended in round rods or bolts that passed through the wall. But the bolts turned easily with every movement of my body, instead of being (as one would have expected) firmed into the thickness of the wall. Now it was all clear as an invoice. The bolts passed right through into the chamber occupied by Elsie, and were there attached either to other similar rings or held in place by a crossbar of some sort.

I used the code—my foolish thought for Joe, now so useful—to ask the girl if she could see anything at the place upon which I knocked with my feet. She replied that it was impossible, because in that place there was a deep cupboard of which she had not got the key. Now, I know the locks of cupboard doors. I sell them. And the fact is that most of them are worthless as fastenings, except perhaps a few like the one in Miss Elsie's room, which had been planned by the monks some hundred years ago.

But even so, the lock would almost certainly have had to be renewed—probably quite recently—in view of the use to which the underground passages and cellars were to be put. I therefore "knocked" a message through to Elsie to secrete a stout knife. She had it already. I might have expected as much of her. Then I told her how to slide the blade of the knife with its back downward into the crack of the door. The supple bend of the knife blade, taking the shape of the bolt, would in all probability after a little trial cause it to slide back easily.

After a little Elsie succeeded. The bolt, as I expected, was a biased one, not square on the face, and hardly caught into the bolt hole at all. It had come from my own shop, and I knew its capabilities. They make them by the hundred gross, all as like as peas, and just sufficiently strong to keep out the cat. But mostly, if people think a place is locked, it is locked—especially women.

I could hardly wait the reply, after Elsie had been into the deep cupboard. It was all I could hope for. The bolts came through into the cupboard about three feet from the floor, which showed that my chamber was higher than hers; they were caught by iron linch-pins in the same way that an axle of a red farm cart is fastened on to the outside of the hub.

"Could Elsie knock them out, did she think?"

Elsie thought she could, but she would need something heavy—like a bar of iron. She had it—the handle of the broken rake that had been used in the oven furnace. So the first thing after supper and the departure of her visitors, Elsie knocked out the pins. I drew out the bolts on my side, and was free to move about—with, it is true, the rings and bolts jangling about my ankles. Still, in part I was free, and my heart rose within me.

First of all I managed with the cord of my hat to tie up the bolts so that I could move noiselessly about, being careful for the time being not to go far from my couch. For of course it was necessary for me, at the first alarm, to undo the cords and thrust the bolts through the holes, so that no change might be apparent to my jailers. Still, the thing comforted me. For not only was I able to take some exercise, but to attend to the proper ordering of my chamber, which had hitherto been carried out in the most perfunctory manner by Jeremy, and also at very uncertain intervals.

But what chiefly occupied my mind was the thought that, according to Elsie the oven was of easy access from her room, and doubtless would have been visited frequently by whoever had the charge of the baking.

I could therefore, with Elsie's iron bar, if no better turned up, make a good fight for both our liberties. The situation was getting altogether too ridiculous for a man of business habits, shut up within a few miles of his own horses, lorries, his grocery, ironmongery, and other supplying and contracting establishments.

How I was ever to face Bob Kingsman I did not know. I wondered if all this time he were taking his orders from "Dearest Joe." Joe indeed! I lacked confidence in my son as a man of business—as it turned out, without reason. He might even have brought me to the verge of bankruptcy. There were, I was informed, two young ladies from London dwelling in my house, of whom—especially one of them—Elsie reported to me by code a very poor account. They seemed completely to have gotten the mastery over my poor wife, who was, as it appeared, prostrated with grief—a thing I should not have anticipated. On every account it seemed about time that I should come to life again.

The question was merely one of detail. How?

Of course, I did not hide from myself that as the days went by, marked, for me, only by the lighting and darkening of my jackdaw's entrance above, many things would certainly be happening outside. For one thing, I was a prominent ratepayer, and the cleaning and lighting taxes, as well as the school and road rates for the parishes of Breckonside and Over Breckonton, would be coming due. If for nothing else, they would be sure to hunt me up to pay them. For, as I had appealed against them all—on principle—Joe would not be able to settle them without me. He would have done it if he could, having no "fight" in him—that boy taking after his mother—but my lawyer would see him further first, being a minor. I could trust Mr. C. P. Richards—he would not pay a farthing till he had an order under my hand or a proof of my decease. Yes. They would seek for me. No doubt of that.

And Elsie? Of course she was not a ratepayer; but—well, if, as was likely, they had seen her shake out her skirts to trip across a muddy road they would be just as great fools as myself.

And they were greater—every man of them. I know Breckonside.

Well, now, to join on our doings in the cellar (as it were) to those up aloft in the front hall, it was about this time that our meals began to wax irregular. The Breckonside mob, ill led, and incapable of knowing exactly what it wanted, had come and gone, defeated by the cunning of Miss Aphra—very clever woman, Miss Aphra—and the cheerful, innocent brutality of Dr. Hector.

There was still talk about us, no doubt, but desultory—some semblance of action, too. In fine, little real work was being done, when our provisions began to get scarce down below in the old stone storehouses of the monks.

Indeed, so far as I was concerned, I should have starved if Elsie Stennis, who was still occasionally remembered, had not pushed through the bolt holes long strips of the home-made loaves with which Mad Jeremy supplied her. As for water, she had a spoon tied to the end of the iron rod; and I took it as a babe does pap. It was, I am free to say, most kindly done. For at no time had she too much for herself, and though I do not make too much of a thing like that, neither, on the other hand, do I forget it. After a long, sleepless night of thought, I resolved that the very next evening I should borrow the iron rod from Elsie, which had formerly been used as a rake shaft of the bakery furnace.

Elsie passed it to me through the communicating hole. But there was a hooked handle at the end which prevented it coming all the way till Elsie in her dark cupboard had made a hole sufficiently large to push it through; while I, with Elsie's knife, cut out a piece of the wooden lining of my cell so that it could again be fitted in to avoid suspicion. Then I had a thoroughly strong bar of iron in my possession, with which, considerably elated, I began to make a way through into Elsie's room. But it was slow work. The knife had first to be serrated on the back to form a kind of rough saw. I did this with a sort of projecting tooth or claw of the rake handle, where it had been broken off. And I own that the work was not without a certain charm of its own. In my youth I remember—to my shame—to have carried the life of a certain Count of Monte Cristo—whose name I have not met with elsewhere, but with whom I should much have liked to have had business relations—under my waistcoat to school. He appears to have been, like us, a prisoner. And his account of how he pierced thick walls was not wholly without interest. I wished I had kept the notes I made in my pocket-book reporting his manner of procedure. It was from him, for instance, that I got the idea of the rook's feather, while the jackdaws, chunnering to themselves up above and occasionally descending to peck, did the rest.

Ultimately I was enabled to cut through the wooden lining of my cell, only to find the wall behind of solid masonry, but with the lime hopefully crumbly round the little holes by which the bars passed into Elsie's cupboard.

All this took some time, and I required the help of Miss Stennis at every step. I fear some nights the young lady did not get much sleep, for every particle of debris—stone, lime, sawdust—had to be conveyed through the narrow holes made for the leg bolts, then taken up in the palms of her hands and conveyed to the little trapdoor behind her bed beneath which was the flowing water. It was not much of an operation on my side—rough work, ill done—and had any man in my employ tried to pass off such workmanship on me, I should have showed him round the yard with the point of my boot—ay, and out at the front gate, too!

Still, it was done, which was the main thing. And after I had bethought me to widen the two bolt holes by making them one—all, that is, except the pieces of wood which hid the tunnel on either side—the work went on much faster. You see, I was always in fear of Mad Jeremy or somebody coming to search. But, as a matter of fact, nobody looked near me, and on Elsie's side she was protected by the dark cupboard. Still, it was better to leave nothing to chance, and to treat Mad Jeremy, with his wild eyes and insane freaks, as if he had been the most suspicious of jailers.

But any one who gives the matter a thought will see in what a humiliating position I was placed, utterly forgotten, as it seemed, even by those who had taken possession of my cheque in order to compel me to sign it. Was it possible, I asked myself, that they had found some one to forge my signature, negotiated it at a distance, and fled with the proceeds? Of Mad Jeremy I still had news. For at intervals he supplied Miss Stennis with food, sometimes days old, for it was but seldom that he baked now; and though the weather was milder without, both Elsie's cell and mine became much less comfortable, though not, so far as I could observe, damp.

It was evidently a period of great excitement with the lunatic who had constituted himself our caretaker. Putting my ear to the excavation, I could hear him whistling and singing while he was in the chamber behind the oven talking to Elsie. Once I heard him. playing upon some instrument, which sounded like the bagpipes, but was in reality his precious fiddle. And I will say that I lay and gripped my nails into my hands in impotent anger to think that there was, according to my most accurate measurements, at least a foot of stone and lime, laid with burned shell and sand as only the old monks knew how, all to pick out piecemeal with the point of my weapon before I could be of the slightest use to the young lady in the case of an attack.

Once it was evident that Jeremy had been listening at the door. He opened upon me suddenly and demanded what was that knocking he had heard? I answered that I was trying to attract attention to the fact that I had been several days without either food or water. He looked at me suspiciously, and said—

"It sounded more like somebody beating a tune!"

I turned over immediately, and, with my knuckles as far away as possible from the boards I had been so long patiently sawing out, I tattooed the measure of "The Wind that Shakes the Barley," the identical tune the madman had been playing in Elsie's chamber.

"Oh!" he cried, "can you fiddle?"

"No," said I, "but I have a good ear, and I used to be able to foot it in my day!"

"So," he said, "then you shall have a bite and a sup for that. I had thought you were only an old penny-worth-o'-snuff money-grabber!"

And along with the provisions he fetched in his fiddle, and played me nearly out of my reason, for two mortal hours. Like nothing human it was, and I, all the time with my toes pressed to my ill-fitting sawed panel, fearful, that it would fall outward and reveal the work on which I had been engaged. I declare I would rather have supped with Elsie out of the spoon tied to the oven rake.

CHAPTER XXVII

HARRIET CAW ON CLERICAL CELIBACY

(Narrative continued by Joe Yarrow, Junior)

I have put my father's writing, just as it came from his hand, into this place. It will give a better idea of the uncertain condition of those two, sequestrated underground, than any mere description. I will now go on to tell how things were going at Breckonside.

Our house in the village had a name. It was called "The Mount," but for the most part of people it was "Yarrow's." Just "Yarrow's." The house had, of course, a different entrance from the shop, and the retail shop again was quite distinct from the wholesale business. For most of the small dealers in the villages between Breckonside and Longtown, besides many even toward the bigger towns of East Dene and Thorsby, were dependent on my father for their supplies. You see, he had his finger upon the state of everybody's purse, and could give longer credit, and in a more human way, than the great firms who depended upon their yearly turnover, and must have their money every three months.

Still, on the whole, I know no man who was more generally respected than my father. He was essentially a business man, but he mixed much kindness therewith. To find him had been my continual desire. Along with Peter Kemp and Davie Elshiner, both apt at the search of the woods, I had explored every ruin within a distance of five miles of Breckonside. We discovered nothing. No second jackdaw, trailing an extra tail feather, came within reach of Peter's gun. Indeed, my father was otherwise employed than in bird catching. Events were hastening fast along in that underground tunnel which had been discovered and utilized by Mad Jeremy Orrin and his master, Hobby Stennis.

About this time Mr. Ablethorpe came pretty often to see us. He liked, I think, to explain his views to Constantia Caw, who languished up at him with eyes each the size of a pigeon's egg. He even fetched Mr. De la Poer to help in the task of proving to the two girls that there was only one apostolic succession, and that they—Mr. Ralph Ablethorpe and Cecil De la Poer—had it.

Mr. De la Poer was a tall, slim, lantern-jawed young man, with a dense mass of straight black hair, which gave him the look of a popular actor of the new Shakespearean Society, university extension sort. But for all that he had strong views, Mr. Cecil De la Poer, in matters connected with his profession. Not an ounce of hypocrisy about him any more than the Hayfork. For instance, he confided to Miss Harriet Caw, who up to that moment had listened to him with considerable sympathy, real or assumed, that he was firmly resolved never to marry.

Whereupon the young woman got up in the most sprightly, stage milkmaidish manner, caught her gown on both sides, swept him the approved courtesy and sang—

"'Nobody axed you, sir,' she said, 'sir,' she said,
'sir,' she said;
'Nobody axed you, sir,' she said."

Then she went to her sister, and pretending to weep, took Constantia by the hand, saying, "Come away, Stancy—it is all over. They won't marry us—they have taken a vow not to!"

"I wish," said Constantia, looking severely at her sister, "that you would not be so ridiculous. I was quite interested in what Mr. Ablethorpe was telling me about—about the council of—council of—whatever—it—was!"

Harriet had got hold of a handkerchief by this time, and was sobbing most desolately into it. She had deftly taken it out of Mr. De la Peer's tail pocket, where a bit of it generally showed.

"He says it is against the true faith," she said, pointing out the culprit, who stood in an entirely correct attitude, though entirely conscious that he was looking a fool. His hair fell about his brow in dense masses, and he looked tragic.

"And I never asked him," continued Harriet; "I would scorn such an action. I dare you to say that I did!"

The unhappy Mr. De la Poer was mute, as indeed he might well be, before such treatment of his person and theories.

"And, O Constantia, it's all because we are two simple little London girls," she said, "that they have been playing with our young affections!"

Harriet heaved a sigh, and then swiftly turned on the culprit.

"And how about Peter's wife's mother, lying sick of a fever?" she cried triumphantly. "I suppose that you don't set up to be any better than him? And if he had a wife's mother, surely he had a wife, too? Come on, Stancy, you see he has not a word to say. I have a mother, too, and if she were here, she would not permit her daughter to be thus insulted. She would have his eyes out with her knitting needles—the crochet ones with the hooks on the top!"

"I shall not do any such thing, Harriet," said her sister calmly. "I think you are very absurd. Please don't mind her, Mr. De la Poer. Sit down, and help Mr. Ablethorpe to explain about the Council of Trent, while Harriet gets Grace Rigley waked up to the idea that she is to bring in tea for four."

But Mr. De la Poer had had enough. He had never been so treated in his life before, and somehow, even Mr. Ablethorpe's exposition of the Council of Trent was not quite the same thing with Mr. De la Poer sitting sulking there with his palms pressed between his knees and his eyes noting the pattern on the carpet.

So the two young men went out, and it was not till he was on his bicycle, and mounting the hill toward Over Breckonton, that Mr. De la Poer began to find excuses for that inexcusable girl. After all, brought up as she had been in a Presbyterian household, without any training, even in the catechism, what could one expect, he thought.

Well, as he entered his lonely lodgings, to find the fire out and the smell of the hastily trimmed paraffin lamp turned low on the table, I suppose he thought that it might have done no harm if, after all, he had waited for tea in the comfortable house at "Yarrow's." And as he was pouring the water into a cup of cocoa—which, when tasted, turned out to be lukewarm and tasting of coal oil—maybe Mr. De la Poer began to think that a bright young person in a house to see to things in general would be a decided acquisition—as a sister.

Since, however, owing to the prejudices of society, it would be difficult to propose this arrangement to Miss Harriet Caw and her parents, Mr. De la Poer finished his butterless bread (he was severe with himself in matters of fasting), and arranged a paper shade cut from a church newspaper, so that it fell at the right angle. He then set himself dolefully enough to compose a Sunday's sermon, which, as may be supposed, did not enliven the scanty company of Over Breckontoners who listened to it on Sunday.

After he was gone, Mr. Ablethorpe came round to the office to see me. Our office was at the right of the shop, as it were, connecting the wholesale and the retail departments, having a window looking into each. My father was great on keeping his whole establishment under his own eye.

Now, I had charge of the shop books during the temporary absence of Mr. Brown, who did not, indeed, concern himself much with anything so petty as the retail department. But I felt very grand indeed. You see, I had never given up hope of seeing my father walk in with his sharp, decided tread, and ask to see the ledger. Then he would find everything posted, and that would be my triumph.

"I have come to see you, Joseph," said Mr. Ablethorpe; "I have something to say to you which I have been pondering over for a long time."

I began to wonder if he had changed his mind about marrying, and was actually going to ask me for Constantia's hand. This made me feel more "Head of the House" than ever.

But it was something quite different, and Mr. Ablethorpe brought me down to earth again with a whop, as if I had fallen from the store rafters.

"I have been able to arrange about the three poor creatures, Honorine, Camilla, and Sidonia Orrin. They will be in safety with the Good Sisters of the Weak-minded at Thorsby. There is, therefore, no longer any object in withholding from you my confidence. I am morally certain that carrier Harry Foster has been foully murdered, and his body concealed. Further, my dear, dear boy, I fear that I cannot now give you much hope of a different fate for your father——"

"There I differ from you," said I stoutly.

"I am glad to hear it," he said quietly; "but I should like to know the reason of your confidence."

"Because of the message; because my father is so strong and brave; and because—because I am certain he is not dead! And then Elsie!"

He lifted his hand as if to pray me not to go into that question. At this I fired up.

"I have heard many things," he began; "a man in my position does!"

"Never anything against Elsie!" I was heated, and shouted.

"Certainly not! Though of another communion she has always——"

"Well, then, say no more"—I stamped my foot—"she has suffered the same fate as my father. That accursed house has something to do with it. As yet I do not know what. But something! She has not gone away from Breckonside without letting her friends know. I will not listen to that from you or any other man, Mr. Ablethorpe!"

"You will not have to listen to it," said he gently, clapping me meanwhile on the far shoulder. "You are a good fellow, Joe, and I am proud to count myself among your friends. You have a sort of sneaking liking for the Old Hayfork, haven't you, Joe?"

That was the way he spoke. A fellow one couldn't be waxy with long. I told him Yes. And I think he knew how much I liked him by what it cost me to get it out.

"Yes, Joe, we do very well," he went on, "and I dare say you have not forgotten the time I sent you up the drain pipe, and the little rings you found?"

The matter had never wholly slipped my memory, though, of course, the losing of my father and Elsie one after the other—mystery piled on mystery, as it were—had made me think less often about it.

I told him so.

"Well," said he, "I know more about it now, though—as you say—not yet all. It is necessary to wait a little before I have all the strings in my hands. This, however, I will tell you. The little rings you found were those of the mail bags which were stolen out of Harry Foster's cart! They had been half fused in a furnace and afterwards hidden in the place where you found them."

"But—but——" I faltered. "Do you think that—that Harry Foster was there too—up there where I went—in the tunnel which led from the Backwater?"

He shook his head.

"No," he said, "the rings had passed through some sort of a furnace. So almost certainly would poor Harry."

He paused for a moment, but I knew full well what he was thinking—it was about my father.

"But why not hand the whole over to the police, if you know all that about the people at Deep Moat Grange?"

He laid his hand on mine and patted it.

"I learned long ago not to confound the innocent with the guilty," he said. "Besides, it is only now that even I begin to see little more clearly. And the police did little enough when they were here. I suppose you would have me deliver the rings to old Codling, and see him crawl up the tunnel as you did?"

I saw that it was no use to contradict Mr. Ablethorpe for the present. He had still the detective fever upon him, and his manoeuvring had been for the purpose of getting the poor "naturals" out of harm's way, when he should be ready to denounce the guilty.

"By the way," he said, "do you know that for the moment I am at a standstill? Old Hobby Stennis has gone off on one of his journeys. And till he comes back I can do nothing. Your friend of the snaky curls is in sole possession of the Grange. Miss Orrin has disappeared. It must be a sweet spot! Hello, what's that?"

And through the window of the retail shop, now bright with the extra lighting of Saturday night, we saw Mad Jeremy. He was bending over several melodeons which Tom Hunt, our first shopman, had handed down to him, picking up one with a knowing air, trying the keys and stops, his ringlets falling about his ears, a cunning smile on his lips, and his little, quick, suspicious eyes darting this way and that to see whether or not he was observed.

At last his choice fell on a most gorgeous instrument, one that had just come in. He asked the price, chaffed a a while for the form, and then, drawing out a fat, well-filled pocket-book, slapped down in payment a Clydesdale bank-note for a hundred pounds!