Chapter I

We have a saying in England, "It never rains but it pours," as applied, not to the rain, but to the occurrences of daily life. Dyke Manor was generally quiet enough, but on Thursday evening--the Thursday already told of--we were destined to have visitors. First of all, arrived Mr. Jacobson, our neighbour at Elm Farm, with his nephew, young Harry Dene; he had his gig put up, meaning to make an evening of it. It turned out to be a night, or nearly so, as you will soon find. Close upon that, Charles Stirling of the Court (my place) came in; and Mrs. Todhetley went to the kitchen to say that we should require supper. The stirring events of the week had brought them over--namely, the encounter on our land between the poachers and the keepers, and the flight of the valuable yard dog, Don, a Newfoundland.

That afternoon, Thursday, we had heard, as may be remembered, that Don was at Evesham, under the keeping of Mr. Dick Standish; and I had been told by Katrine Barbary that Mr. Reste had suddenly and unexpectedly disappeared from Caramel Cottage. Old Jacobson predicted that Dick Standish would come to be hanged; Charles Stirling said he ought to be transported.

"Of course you will prosecute him, Squire?" said Charles Stirling.

"Of course I shall," replied the Squire, warmly. "The police have him already safe enough if they've done their duty, and I shall be over at Evesham in the morning."

After a jolly supper they got to their pipes, and the time went by on wings. At least, that's what the master of Elm Farm said when the clocks struck eleven, and he asked leave to order his gig.

It was brought round by Giles, the groom; and we were all assembled in the hall to speed the departure, when old Jones, the constable, burst in upon us at the full speed of his gouty legs, his face in a white heat.

Private information had reached Jones half an hour ago that the poachers intended to be out again that night, but he could not learn in which direction.

Then commotion arose. The Squire and his friend Jacobson were like two demented wild Indians, uncertain what was best to be done to entrap the villains. The gig was ordered away again.

Some time passed in discussion. In these moments of excitement one cannot always bring one's keenest wits to the fore. Charles Stirling offered to go out and reconnoitre; we, you may be quite sure, were eager to second him. I went with Charles Stirling one way; Tod and Harry Dene went another--leaving the Squire and Mr. Jacobson at the gate, listening for shots, and conferring in whispers with old Jones.

How long we marched about under the bright moonlight, keeping under the shade of the trees and hedges, I cannot tell you; but when we all four met at Dyke Neck, which lay between the Manor and the Court, we had seen nothing. Mr. Stirling went straight home then, but we continued our ramblings. A schoolboy's ardour is not quickly damped.

Beating about fresh ground together for a little while, we then separated. I went across towards the village: the other two elsewhere. It was one of the loveliest of nights, the full moon bright as day, the air warm and soft. But I neither saw nor heard signs of any poachers, and I began to suspect that somebody had played a trick on the old constable.

I turned short back at the thought, and made, as the Americans say, tracks for home. My nearest way was through the dense grove of trees at the back of Caramel Farm, and I took it, though it was not the liveliest way by any means.

But no sooner was I beyond the grove than sounds struck on my ear in the stillness of the night. They seemed to come from the direction of Caramel Cottage. Darting under the side hedge, and then across the side lane, and so under the hedge again that bound the cottage, I stole on the grass as softly as a mouse. Poachers could not be at work there; but an idea flashed across me that somebody had got into Mr. Barbary's well-stocked garden, and was robbing it.

Peering through the hedge, I saw Barbary himself. He was coming out of the brewhouse, dragging behind him, with two cords, a huge sack of some kind, well-filled and heavy. Opposite the open door, on the furnace, shone a lighted horn lantern. Mr. Barbary pushed-to the door behind him, thereby shutting out the light, dragged his burden over the yard to the garden, and let it fall into what looked like--a freshly dug grave.

Astonishment kept me intensely still. What did it all mean? Hardly daring to breathe, I stole in at the gate and under the shade of the hedge. Whatever it might contain, that sacking lay perfectly quiet, and Mr. Barbary began to shovel in the spadefuls of earth upon it, as one does upon a coffin.

This was nothing for me to interfere with, and I went away silently. It looked like a mystery, and a dark one; any way it was being done in secret in the witching hours of the night. What the time might be I knew not, the Squire having ordered our watches taken off before starting: perhaps one, or two, or three o'clock.

Tod and Harry Dene reached the gate of Dyke Manor just as I did; and we were greeted, all three, with a storm of reproaches by the Squire and Mr. Jacobson. What did we mean by it?--scampering off like that for hours?--for _hours_!--Three times had the gig been brought out and put up again! Harry was bundled headforemost into the gig, and Mr. Jacobson drove off.

And it turned out that my suspicion touching old Jones was right. Some young men had played the trick upon him. I need not have mentioned it at all, but for seeing what I did see in Barbary's garden.

How Katrine Barbary passed that night you have seen: for, like many another story-teller, I have had to carry you back a few hours. Shivering and shaking, now hot, now cold, she lay, striving to reason with herself that _it could not be_; that so dreadful a thing was not possible; that she was the most wicked girl on earth for imagining it: and she strove in vain. All the events of the past day or two kept crowding into her mind one upon another in flaring colours, like the figures in some hideous phantasmagoria. The unexpected arrival of the bank-notes for Mr. Reste; her father's covetous look at them and his dreadful joke; their going out together that night poaching; their quarrelling together the next morning; their worse quarrelling at night, and their dashing out to the yard (as if in passion) one after the other. And, so far as Katrine could trace it, that was the very last seen or heard of Edgar Reste. The next morning he was gone; gone in a mysterious manner, leaving all his possessions behind him. Her father was reticent over it; would not explain. Then came the little episode of the locked-up brewhouse, which had never been locked before in Joan's memory. Mr. Barbary refused to unlock it, said he had put some wine there; told Joan she must do without the jack. What had really been hidden in that brewhouse? Katrine felt faint at the thought. _Not wine._ And the terrible farce of packing Mr. Reste's effects and addressing them to Euston Square Station, London! Would they lie there for ever--unclaimed? Alas, alas! The proofs were only too palpable. Edgar Reste had been put out of the world for ever. She had been the shivering witness to his secret burial.

* * * * *

"What's the matter, Katrine? Are you ill?"

The inquiry was made by Mr. Barbary next day at breakfast. Sick unto death she looked. The very bright night had given place to a showery morning, and the rain pattered against the window-panes.

"I have a headache," answered Katrine, faintly.

"Better send Joan to the Manor to say you cannot attend to-day."

"Oh, I would rather go; I must go," she said hastily. For this good girl had been schooling herself as well as she knew how; making up her mind to persevere in fulfilling the daily duties of her life in the best way she should be able; lest, if she fell short abruptly, suspicion might turn towards her father. She had wildly prayed Heaven to grant her strength and help to bear up on her course. Not from her must come the pointing finger of discovery. It is true that he--Edgar--was her first and dearest love; she should never love another as she had loved him; but she was her father's child, and held him sacred.

"Why must you go?" demanded Mr. Barbary, as, having finished a plate of broiled mushrooms, he began upon a couple of eggs with an appetite that the night's work did not seem to have spoiled.

"The air--the walk--may do me good."

"Well, you know best, child. I suppose Todhetley be off to Evesham after that dog of theirs," Mr. Barbary went on to remark. "Master Dick Standish must be a bold sinner to steal the dog one day and parade the open streets with it the next! If---- What is it now, Joan?"

For old Joan had come in with a face of surprise. "Sir," she cried, "has Tom Noah been at work here this morning?"

"Not that I know of," replied Mr. Barbary. Tom Noah, an industrious young fellow, son to Noah, the gardener, was occasionally employed by Mr. Barbary to clean up the yard and clear the garden of its superfluous rubbish.

"Our back'us has been scrubbed out this morning, sir," went on Joan, still in astonishment. "And it didn't want it. Who in the world can have come in and gone and done it?"

"Nonsense," said Mr. Barbary.

"But it has, master; scrubbed clean; the flags are all wet still. And the rain-water barrel's a'most empty, nearly every drop of water drawn out of it! I'd not say but the yard has had a bit of a scrubbing, too, near the garden, as well as the back'us."

"Nonsense!" repeated Mr. Barbary, his light tone becoming irritable. "You see it has been raining! the rain has drifted into the brewhouse, that's all; I left the door open last night. There! go back to your work."

Joan was a simple-natured woman, but she was neither silly nor blind, and she knew that what she said was true. Rapidly turning the matter over in her mind, she came to the conclusion that Tom Noah had been in "unbeknown to the master," and so left the subject.

"I suppose I may take out the spare jack now, sir?" she waited to say.

"Take out anything you like," replied Mr. Barbary.

Afraid of her tell-tale face, Katrine had moved to the window, apparently to look at the weather. Too well she knew who had scrubbed out the place, and why.

The rain had ceased when she set off on her short walk--for it was not much more than a stone's throw to the Manor; the sun was struggling from behind the clouds, blue sky could be seen. Alone with herself and the open country, Katrine gave vent to her pent-up spirit, which she had not dared to do indoors; sighs of anguish and of pain escaped her; she wondered whether it would be wrong if she prayed to die. But some one was advancing to meet her, and she composed her countenance.

It was Ben Gibbon. For the past week or so, since Katrine had been enlightened as to her father's poaching propensities, she had somehow feared this man. He was son to the late James Gibbon, the former gamekeeper at Chavasse Grange, and brother to the present keeper, Richard. Of course one might expect that Mr. Benjamin would protect game and gamekeepers; instead of which, he was known to do a little safe poaching on his own account, and to be an idle fellow altogether. Katrine did not like his intimacy with her father, and she could not forget that he had passed part of that fatal evening with him and Edgar Reste.

"Showery weather to-day, miss," was Ben Gibbon's salutation.

"Yes, it is," answered Katrine, with intense civility--for how could she tell what the man might know?

"I suppose I shall find Mr. Barbary at home?"

"Oh, yes," faintly spoke she, and passed on her way.