Part 6

"What man?" cried the Squire.

"Why, the man," said Lena logically. "He asks Hugh to go with him over the sea to see the birds and the red coral."

If any one face ever turned whiter than another, Mrs. Todhetley's did then. Tod looked at her, sternly, ungenerously; and her eyes fell. She laid hold of Lena's hand, saying it was bed-time.

"What man is the child talking about?" the Squire asked her.

"She talks about so many people," rather faintly answered Mrs. Todhetley. "Come, Lena dear; Hannah's waiting for you. Say good-night."

The Squire, quite unsuspicious, thought no more. He got up and walked over to the beds to look at the flowers, holding his long churchwarden pipe in his mouth. Tod put his back against the tree.

"It is getting complicated, Johnny."

"What is?"

"What is! Why, madam's drama. She is afraid of that hinted scheme of her friend's--the carrying-off Master Hugh beyond the seas."

He spoke in satire. "Do you think so?" I returned.

"Upon my honour I do. She must be an idiot! I should like to give her a good fright."

"Tod, I think she is frightened enough without our giving her one."

"I think she is. She must have caught up the idea from overhearing Hannah's gossip with old Thomas. This afternoon Hugh was running through the little gate with me; madam came flying over the lawn and begged me not let him out of my hand, or else to leave him indoors. But for being my father's wife, I should have asked her if her common-sense had gone wool-gathering."

"I suppose it has, Tod. Fancy a kidnapper in these days! The curious thing is, that she should fear anything of the sort."

"If she really does fear it. I tell you, Johnny, the performance is growing complicated; somewhat puzzling. But I'll see it played out if I live."

The week went on to Friday. But the afternoon was over, and evening set in, before the shock fell upon us: _Hugh was missing_.

The Squire had been out in the gig, taking me; and it seems they had supposed at home that Hugh was with us. The particulars of Hugh's disappearance, and what had happened in the day, I will relate further on.

The Squire thought nothing: he said Hugh must have got into Coney's house or some other neighbour's house: and sat down to dinner, wondering why so much to-do was made. Mrs. Todhetley looked scared to death; and Tod tore about as if he were wild. The servants were sent here, the outdoor men there: it was like a second edition of that day in Warwickshire when we lost Lena: like it, only worse, more commotion. Hannah boldly said to her mistress that the strange man must have carried off the boy.

Hour after hour the search continued. With no result. Night came on, with a bright moon to light it up. But it did not light up Hugh.

Mrs. Todhetley, a dark shawl over her head, and I dare say a darker fear upon her heart, went out for the second or third time towards the Ravine. I ran after her. We had nearly reached the stile at the zigzag, when Tod came bounding over it.

"Has not the time for shielding this man gone by, think you?" he asked, placing himself in Mrs. Todhetley's path, and speaking as coolly as he was able for the agitation that shook him. And why Tod, with his known carelessness, should be so moved, I could not fathom.

"Joseph, I do not suppose or think the man knows anything of Hugh; I have my reasons for it," she answered, bearing on for the stile, and leaning over it to look down into the dark Ravine.

"Will you give me permission to inquire that of himself?"

"You will not find the man. He is gone."

"Leave the finding him to me," persisted Tod. "Will you withdraw the embargo you laid upon me?"

"No, no," she whispered, "I cannot do it."

The trees had an uncommonly damp feel in the night-air, and the place altogether looked as weird as could be. I was away then in the underwood; she looked down always into the Ravine and called Hugh's name aloud. Nothing but an echo answered.

"It has appeared to me for several days that you have feared something of this," Tod said, trying to get a full view of her face. "It might have been better for--for all of us--if you had allowed me at first to take the affair in hand."

"Perhaps I ought; perhaps I ought," she said, bursting into tears. "Heaven knows, though, that I acted from a good motive. It was not to screen myself that I've tried to keep the matter secret."

"Oh!" The sarcasm of Tod's short comment was like nothing I ever heard. "To screen me, perhaps?" said he.

"Well, yes--in a measure, Joseph," she patiently answered. "I only wished to spare you vexation. Oh, Joseph! if--if Hugh cannot be found, and--and all has to come out--who he is and what he wants here--remember that I wished nothing but to spare others pain."

Tod's eyes were blazing with angry, haughty light. Spare _him_! He thought she was miserably equivocating; he had some such idea as that she sought (in words) to make him a scape-goat for her relative's sins. What he answered I hardly know; except that he civilly dared her to speak.

"Do not spare _me_: I particularly request you will not," he scornfully retorted. "Yourself as much as you will, but not me."

"I have done it for the best," she pleaded. "Joseph, I have done it all for the best."

"Where is this man to be found? I have been looking for him these several hours past, as I should think no man was ever looked for yet."

"I have said that I think he is not to be found. I think he is gone."

"Gone!" shouted Tod. "Gone!"

"I think he must be. I--I saw him just before dinner-time, here at this very stile; I gave him something that I had to give, and I think he left at once, to make the best of his way from the place."

"And Hugh?" asked Tod savagely.

"I did not know then that Hugh was missing. Oh, Joseph, I can't tell what to think. When I said to him one day that he ought not to talk nonsense to the children about corals and animals--in fact, should not speak to them at all--he answered that if I did not get him the money he wanted he'd take the boy off with him. I knew it was a jest; but I could not help thinking of it when the days went on and on, and I had no money to give him."

"_Of course_ he has taken the boy," said Tod, stamping his foot. And the words sent Mrs. Todhetley into a tremor.

"Joseph! Do you think so?"

"Heaven help you, Mrs. Todhetley, for a--a simple woman! We may never see Hugh again."

He caught up the word he had been going to say--fool. Mrs. Todhetley clasped her hands together piteously, and the shawl slipped from her shoulders.

"I think, madam, you must tell what you can," he resumed, scarcely knowing which to bring uppermost, his anxiety for Hugh or his lofty, scornful anger. "_Is_ the man a relative of yours?"

"No, not of mine. Oh, Joseph, please don't be angry with me! Not of mine, but of yours."

"Of mine!" cried proud Tod. "Thank you, Mrs. Todhetley."

"His name is Arne," she whispered.

"What!" shouted Tod.

"Joseph, indeed it is. Alfred Arne."

Had Tod been shot by a cannon-ball, he could hardly have been more completely struck into himself; doubled up, so to say. His mother had been an Arne; and he well remembered to have heard of an ill-doing mauvais sujet of a half-brother of hers, called Alfred, who brought nothing but trouble and disgrace on all connected with him. There ensued a silence, interrupted only by Mrs. Todhetley's tears. Tod was looking white in the moonlight.

"So it seems it _is_ my affair!" he suddenly said; but though he drew up his head, all his fierce spirit seemed to have gone out of him. "You can have no objection to speak fully now."

And Mrs. Todhetley, partly because of her unresisting nature, partly in her fear for Hugh, obeyed him.

"I had seen Mr. Arne once before," she began. "It was the year that I first went home to Dyke Manor. He made his appearance there, not openly, but just as he has made it here now. His object was to get money from the Squire to go abroad with. And at length he did get it. But it put your father very much out; made him ill, in fact; and I believe he took a sort of vow, in his haste and vexation, to give Alfred Arne into custody if he ever came within reach of him again. I think--I fear--he always has something or other hanging over his head worse than debt; and for that reason can never show himself by daylight without danger."

"Go on," said Tod, quite calmly.

"One morning recently I suddenly met him. He stepped right into my path, here at this same spot, as I was about to descend the Ravine, and asked if I knew him again. I was afraid I did. I was afraid he had come on the same errand as before: and oh, Joseph, how thankful I felt that you and your father were away! He told me a long and pitiful tale, and I thought I ought to try and help him to the money he needed. He was impatient for it, and the same evening, supposing no one was at home but myself, he came to the dining-room window, wishing to ask if I had already procured the money. Johnny heard him knock."

"It might have been better that we had been here," repeated Tod. "Better that we should have dealt with him than you."

"Your father was so thankful that you were at school before, Joseph; so thankful! He said he would not have you know anything about Alfred Arne for the world. And so--I tried to keep it this time from both you and him, and, but for this fear about Hugh, I should have done it."

Tod did not answer. He looked at her keenly in the twilight of the summer's night, apparently waiting for more. She continued her explanation; not enlarging upon things, suffering, rather, inferences to be drawn. The following was its substance:--

Alfred Arne asked for fifty pounds. He had returned to England only a few months before, had got into some fresh danger, and had to leave it again, and to hide himself until he did so. The fifty pounds--to get him off, he said, and start him afresh in the colonies--he demanded not as a gift, but a matter of right: the Todhetleys, being his near relatives, must help him. Mrs. Todhetley knew but of one person she could borrow it from privately--Mrs. Coney--and _she_ had gone from home just as she was about to be asked for it. Only this afternoon had Mrs. Todhetley received the money from her and paid it to Alfred Arne.

"I would not have told you this, but for being obliged, Joseph," she pleaded meekly, when the brief explanation was ended. "We can still keep it from your father; better, perhaps, that you should know it than he: you are young and he is not."

"A great deal better," assented Tod. "You have made yourself responsible to Mrs. Coney for the fifty pounds?"

"Don't think of that, Joseph. She is in no hurry for repayment, and will get it from me by degrees. I have a little trifle of my own, you know, that I get half-yearly, and I can economize in my dress. I did so hope to keep it from you as well as from your father."

I wondered if Tod saw all the patient, generous, self-sacrificing spirit. I wondered if he was growing to think that he had been always on the wrong tack in judging harshly of his stepmother. She turned away, thinking perhaps that time was being lost. I said something about Hugh.

"Hugh is all right, Johnny; he'll be found now," Tod answered in a dreamy tone, as he looked after her with a dreamy look. The next moment he strode forward, and was up with Mrs. Todhetley.

"I beg your pardon for the past, mother; I beg it with shame and contrition. Can you forgive me?"

"Oh, pray don't, dear Joseph! I have nothing to forgive," she answered, bursting into fresh tears as she took his offered hand. And that was the first time in all his life that Tod, prejudiced Tod, had allowed himself to call her "mother."

II.

I never saw anything plainer in my life. It was not just opposite to where I stood, but lower down towards the end of the Ravine. Amongst the dark thick underwood of the rising bank it dodged about, just as if some one who was walking carried it in his hand lifted up in front of him. A round white light, exactly as the ghost's light was described to be. One might have fancied it the light of a wax-candle, only that a candle would flicker itself dim and bright by turns in the air, and this was steady and did not.

If a ghost was carrying it, he must have been pacing backwards and forwards; for the light confined itself to the range of a few yards. Beginning at the environs of the black old yew-tree, it would come on amidst the broom and shrubs to the group of alders, and then go back again Timberdale way, sometimes lost to sight for a minute, as if hidden behind a thicker mass of underwood, and then gleaming out afresh further on in its path. Now up, now down; backwards and forwards; here, there, everywhere; it was about as unaccountable a sight as any veritable ghost ever displayed, or I, Johnny Ludlow, had chanced to come upon.

The early part of the night had been bright. It was the same night, spoken of in the last chapter, when Hugh was being searched for. Up to eleven o'clock the moon had shone radiantly. Since then a curious sort of darkness had come creeping along the heavens, and now, close upon twelve, it overshadowed the earth like a pall. A dark, black canopy, which the slight wind, getting up, never stirred, though it sighed and moaned with a weird unpleasant sound down the Ravine. I did not mind the light myself; don't think I should much have minded the ghost: but Luke Mackintosh, standing by me, did. Considering that he was a good five-and-twenty years of age, and had led an out-of-door life, it may sound queer to say it, but he seemed timid as a hare.

"I don't like it, Master Johnny," he whispered, as he grasped the fence with an unsteady hand, and followed the light with his eyes. What with the trees around us, and the pall overhead, it was dark enough, but I could see his face, and knew it had turned white.

"I believe you are afraid, Luke!"

"Well, sir, so might you be if you knowed as much of that there light as I do. It never comes but it bodes trouble."

"Who brings the light?"

"It's more than I can say, sir. They call it here the ghost's light. And folks say, Master Johnny, that when it's seen, there's sure to be some trouble in the air."

"I think we have trouble enough just now without the light, Luke; and our trouble was with us before we saw that."

The Ravine lay beneath us, stretching out on either hand, weird, lonesome, dreary, the bottom hidden in gloom. The towering banks, whether we looked down the one we leaned over, or to the other opposite, presented nothing to the eye but darkness: we knew the masses of trees, bushes, underwood were there, but could not see them: and the spot favoured by the restless light was too wild and steep to be safe for the foot of man. Of course it was a curious speculation what it could be.

"Did you ever see the light before, Mackintosh?"

"Yes," he answered, "half-a-dozen times. Do you mind, Master Johnny, my getting that there bad cut in the leg with my reaping-hook awhile agone? Seven weeks I lay in Worcester Infirmary: they carried me there on a mattress shoved down in the cart."

"I remember hearing of it. We were at Dyke Manor."

Before Luke went on, he turned his face to me and dropped his voice to a deeper whisper.

"Master Ludlow, as true as us two be a-standing here, I saw the ghost's light the very night afore I got the hurt. I was working for Mr. Coney then, it was before I came into the Squire's service. Young Master Tom, he came out of the kitchen with a letter when we was at our seven-o'clock supper, and said I were to cut off to Timberdale with it and to look sharp, or the letter-box 'ud be shut. So I had to do it, sir, and I came through this here Ravine, a-whistling and a-holding my head down, though I'd rather ha' went ten mile round. When I got out of it on t'other side, on top of the zigzag, I chanced to look back over the stile, and there I see the light. It were opposite then, on _this_ side, sir, and moving about in the same see-saw way it be now, for I stood and watched it."

"I wonder you plucked up the courage to stand and watch it, Luke?"

"I were took aback, sir, all in a maze like: and then I started off full pelt, as quick as my heels 'ud carry me. That was the very blessed night afore I got the hurt. When the doctors was a-talking round me at the infirmary, and I think they was arguing whether or not my leg must come off, I telled 'em that I was afeared it wouldn't much matter neither way, for I'd seen the ghost's light the past night and knowed my fate. One of them, a young man he was, burst out laughing above my face as I lay, and t'other next him, a grave gentleman with white hair, turned round and hushed at him. Master Ludlow, it's all gospel true."

"But you got well, Luke."

"But I didn't think to," argued Luke. "And I see the light."

As he turned his face again, the old church clock at Timberdale struck twelve. It seemed to come booming over the Ravine with quite a warning sound, and Luke gave himself a shake. As for me, I could only wish one thing--that Hugh was found.

Tod came up the zigzag path, a lantern in his hand; I whistled to let him know I was near. He had been to look in the unused little shed-place nearly at the other end of the Ravine; not for Hugh, but for the man, Alfred Arne. Tod came up to us, and his face, as the lantern flashed upon it, was whiter and graver than that of Luke Mackintosh.

"Did you see that, sir?" asked Luke.

"See what?" cried Tod, turning sharply. He thought it might be some trace of Hugh.

"That there ghost light, sir. It's showing itself to-night."

Angry, perplexed, nearly out of his mind with remorse and fear, Tod gave Luke a word of a sort, ordering him to be silent for an idiot, and put the lantern down. He then saw the moving light, and let his eyes rest on it in momentary curiosity.

"It's the ghost light, sir," repeated Luke, for the man seemed as if he and all other interests were lost in that.

"The deuce take the ghost's light, and you with it," said Tod passionately. "Is this a time to be staring at ghosts' lights? Get you into Timberdale, Mackintosh, and see whether the police have news of the child."

"Sir, I'd not go through the Ravine to-night," was Luke's answer. "No, not though I knowed I was to be killed at to-morrow's dawn for disobeying the order."

"Man, what are you afraid of?"

"Of that," said Luke, nodding at the light. "But I don't like the Ravine in the night at no time."

"Why, that's nothing but a will-o'-the-wisp," returned Tod, condescending to reason with him.

Luke shook his head. There was the light; and neither his faith in it nor his fear could be shaken. Tod had his arms on the fence now, and was staring at the light as fixedly as Luke had done.

"Johnny."

"What?"

"That light is carried by some one. It's being lifted about."

"How could any one carry it _there_?" I returned. "He'd pitch head over heels down the Ravine. No fellow could get to the place, Tod, let alone keep his footing. It's where the bushes are thickest."

Tod caught up the lantern. As its light flashed on his face, I could see it working with new eagerness. He was taking up the notion that Hugh might have fallen on that very spot, and that some one was waving a light to attract attention. As to ghosts, Tod would have met an army of them without the smallest fear.

He went back down the Ravine, and we heard him go crashing through the underwood. Luke never spoke a word. Suddenly, long before Tod could get to it, the light disappeared. We waited and watched, but it did not come again.

"It have been like that always, Master Johnny," whispered Luke, taking his arms off the fence. "Folks may look as long as they will at that there light; but as soon as they go off, a-trying to get to see what it is, it takes itself away. It will be seen no more to-night, sir."

He turned off across the meadow for the high-road, to go and do Tod's bidding at Timberdale, walking at a sharp pace. Any amount of exertion would have been welcome to Mackintosh, as an alternative to passing through the Ravine.

It may be remembered that for some days we had been vaguely uneasy about Hugh, and the uneasiness had penetrated to Mrs. Todhetley. Tod had made private mockery of it to me, thinking she must be three parts a fool to entertain any such fear. "I should like to give madam a fright," he said to me one day--meaning that he would like to hide little Hugh for a time. But I never supposed he would really do it. And it was only to-night--hours and hours after Hugh disappeared, that Tod avowed to me the part he had taken in the loss. To make it clear to the reader, we must go back to the morning of this same day--Friday.

After breakfast I was shut up with my books, paying no attention to anything that might be going on, inside the house or out of it. Old Frost gave us a woeful lot to do in the holidays. The voices of the children, playing at the swing, came wafting in through the open window; but they died away to quietness as the morning went on. About twelve o'clock Mrs. Todhetley looked in.

"Are the children here, Johnny?"

She saw they were not, and went away without waiting for an answer. Lena ran up the passage, and I heard her say papa had taken Hugh out in the pony-gig. The interruption served as an excuse for putting up the books for the day, and I went out.

Of all young ragamuffins, the worst came running after me as I went through the fold-yard gate. Master Hugh! Whether he had been in the green pond again or over the house-roof, he was in a wonderful state; his blue eyes not to be seen for mud, his straw-hat bent, his brown holland blouse all tatters and slime, and the pretty fair curls that Hannah was proud of and wasted her time over, a regular mass of tangle.

"Take me with you, Johnny!"

"I should think I would, like that! What have you been doing with yourself?"

"Playing with the puppy. We fell down in the mud amongst the ducks. Joe says I am to stop in the barn and hide myself. I am afraid to go indoors."

"You'll catch it, and no mistake. Come, be off back again."

But he'd not go back, and kept running by my side under the high hedge. When we came to the gate at the end of the field, I stood and ordered him to go. He began to cry a little.

"Now, Hugh, you know you cannot go with me in that plight. Walk yourself straight off to Hannah and get her to change the things before your mamma sees you. There; you may have the biscuit: I don't much care for it."

It was a big captain's biscuit that I had caught up in going through the dining-room. He took that readily enough, the young cormorant, but he wouldn't stir any the more for it: and I might have had the small object with me till now, but for the appearance of the Squire's gig in the lane. The moment Hugh caught sight of his papa, he turned tail and scampered away like a young wild animal. Remembering Mrs. Todhetley's foolish fear, I mounted the gate and watched him turn safely in at the other.

"What are you looking at, Johnny?" asked the Squire, as he drove leisurely up.

"At Hugh, sir. I've sent him indoors."

"I'm going over to Massock's, Johnny, about the bricks for that cottage. You can get up, if you like to come with me."

I got into the gig at once, and we drove to South Crabb, to Massock's place. He was not to be seen; his people thought he had gone out for the day. Upon that, the Squire went on to see old Cartwright, and they made us stop there and put up the pony. When we reached home it was past dinner-time. Mrs. Todhetley came running out.

"Couldn't get here before: the Cartwrights kept us," called out the Squire. "We are going to catch it, Johnny," he whispered to me, with a laugh: "we've let the dinner spoil."

But it was not the dinner. "Where's Hugh?" asked Mrs. Todhetley.

"I've not seen Hugh," said the Squire, flinging the reins to Luke Mackintosh, who had come up. Luke did all kinds of odd jobs about the place, and sometimes helped the groom.