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Quicksilver; The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 44. Peter Cribb Sees A Ghost |
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_ CHAPTER FORTY FOUR. PETER CRIBB SEES A GHOST Helen rang the bell one evening and Maria answered the summons. "Papa thinks he would like a little supper, Maria, as we dined early to-day. Bring up a tray. There is a cold chicken, I think!" "Yes, 'm," said Maria, and disappeared, but was back in a few minutes. "If you please, 'm, Mrs Millett says there is no cold chicken, 'm." "Indeed?" said Helen wonderingly. "Very well, then, the cold veal pie." "Yes, 'm." Maria disappeared, and came back again. "Please, 'm, Mrs Millett says there is no veal pie." "Then tell her to make an omelette." "Yes, 'm." Maria left the room and came back. "Please, 'm, Mrs Millett says there's no eggs, and it's too late to get any more." "Ask Mrs Millett to come here," said Helen; and the old lady came up, looking very red. "Why, Millett," said Helen, "this is very strange. I don't like to find fault, but surely there ought to have been a chicken left." "I'm very glad you have found fault, Miss," said Mrs Millett, "for it's given me a chance to speak. Yes; there ought to have been a chicken, and the veal pie too; but I'm very sorry to say, Miss, they're gone." "Gone?" "Yes, Miss. I don't know how to account for it, but the things have begun to go in the most dreadful way. Bread, butter, milk, eggs, meat, everything goes, and we've all been trying to find out how, but it's no good." "This is very strange, Millett. Have you no idea how it is they go?" "No, Miss; but Dan'l fancies it must be that rough boy who led Master Dexter away. He says he's sure he caught sight of him in the dark last night. Somebody must take the things, and he seems to be the most likely, knowing the place as he does." "This must be seen to," said Helen; and she told the doctor. Consequently a watch was kept by the gardener and the groom, but they found nothing, and the contents of the larder continued to disappear. "If it were a man," said the doctor, on being told of what was going on, "I'd set the police to work, but I hate anything of that kind with a boy. Wait a bit, and he will get more impudent from obtaining these things with impunity, and then he will be more easily caught." "And then, papa?" said Helen. "Then, my dear? Do you know that thin Malacca cane in the hall? Yes, you do. Well, my dear, the law says it is an assault to thrash a boy, and that he ought to be left to the law to punish, which means prison and degradation. I'm going to take that cane, my dear, and defy the law." But somehow or another Master Bob Dimsted seemed to be as slippery as an eel. He saw Peter one day and grinned at him from the other side of the river. Two days later he was seen by Dan'l, who shook his fist at him, and Bob said-- "Yah!" "Have you heard from Master Dexter, Miss!" said Mrs Millett one morning. "No, Millett, and I am rather surprised. He promised so faithfully to write." "Ah, yes, Miss," said the old lady; "and he meant it, poor boy, when he promised, but boys are such one's to forget." Helen went into the library where she found the doctor biting the end of his pen, and gazing up into a corner of the room. "I don't seem to be getting on as I could wish, my dear. By the way, we haven't heard from that young dog lately. He promised me faithfully to write regularly." Helen thought of Mrs Millett's words, but said nothing, and at that moment Maria entered with the letters. "From Dexter?" said Helen eagerly. "Humph! No! But from Longspruce! I see: from Mr Mastrum." The doctor read the letter and frowned. Helen read it, and the tears stood in her eyes. "The young scoun--" "Stop, papa!" said Helen earnestly. "Do not condemn him unheard." "Then I shall have to go on without condemning him, for we've seen the last of him, I suppose." "O papa!" "Well, it looks like it, my dear; and I'm afraid I've made a great mistake, but I don't like to own it." "Wait, papa, wait!" said Helen. "What does he say? Been gone a fortnight, and would not write till he had had the country round thoroughly searched. Humph! Afraid he has got to Portsmouth, and gone to sea." Helen sighed. "'Sorry to give so bad an account of him,'" muttered the doctor, reading bits of the letter--"'treated him as his own son--seemed to have an undercurrent of evil in his nature, impossible to eradicate--tried everything, but all in vain--was beginning to despair, but still hopeful that patience might overcome the difficulty--patience combined with affectionate treatment, but it was in vain--after trying to persuade his fellow-pupils one by one, and failing, he threatened them savagely if they dared to betray him, and then he escaped from the grounds, and has not been seen since.'" There was a painful silence in the doctor's library for a few minutes. "'Patience combined with affectionate treatment,'" read the doctor again. "Helen, I believe that man has beaten and ill-used poor Dexter till he could bear it no longer, and has run away." "I'm sure of it, papa," cried Helen excitedly. "Do you think he will come back!" "I don't know," said the doctor. "Yes, I do. No; he would be afraid. I'd give something to know how to go to work to find him." "If you please, sir, may I come in?" said a pleasant soft voice. "Yes, yes, Millett, of course. What is it?" "Dan'l has been to say, sir, that he caught sight of that boy, Bob Dimsted, crawling in the garden last night when it was dark, and chased him, but the boy climbed one of the trained pear-trees, got on the wall, and escaped." "Confound the young rascal!" cried the doctor. "And I'm sorry to say, sir, that two blankets have been stolen off Master Dexter's bed." There was a week of watching, but Bob Dimsted was not caught, and the doctor sternly said that he would not place the matter in the hands of the police. But all the same the little pilferings went on, and Mrs Millett came one morning, with tears in her eyes, to say that she couldn't bear it any longer, for only last night a whole quartern loaf had been taken through the larder bars, and, with it, one of the large white jars of black-currant jam. Mrs Millett was consoled with the promise that the culprit should soon be caught, and two nights later Peter came in to announce to the doctor that he had been so near catching Bob Dimsted that he had touched him as he chased him down the garden, and that he would have caught him, only that, without a moment's hesitation, the boy had jumped into the river and swum across, and so escaped to the other side. "Next time I mean to have him," said Peter confidently, and this he repeated to Mrs Millett and Maria, being rewarded with a basin of the tea which had just come down from the drawing-room. It was just two days later that, as Helen sat with her work under the old oak-tree in the garden--an old evergreen oak which gave a pleasant shade--she became aware of a faint rustling sound. She looked up, but could see nothing, though directly after there was a peculiar noise in the tree, which resembled the chopping of wood. Still she could see nothing, and she had just resumed her work, thinking the while that Dexter would some day write, and that her father's correspondence with the Reverend Septimus Mastrum had not been very satisfactory, when there was a slight scratching sound. She turned quickly and saw that a ragged-looking squirrel had run down the grey trunk of the tree, while, as soon as it saw her, it bounded off, and to her surprise passed through the gateway leading into the yard where the old stable stood. Helen Grayson hardly knew why she did so, but she rose and followed the squirrel, to find that she was not alone, for Peter the groom was in the yard going on tiptoe toward the open door of the old range of buildings. He touched his cap on seeing her. "Squir'l, Miss," he said. "Just run in here." "I saw it just now," said Helen. "Don't kill the poor thing." "Oh no, Miss; I won't kill it," said Peter, as Helen went back into the garden. "But I mean to catch it if I can." Peter went into the dark old building and looked round, but there was no sign of the squirrel. Still a little animal like that would be sure to go upwards, so Peter climbed the half-rotten ladder, and stood in the long dark range of lofts, peering among the rafters and ties in search of the bushy-tailed little creature. He walked to the end in one direction, then in the other, till he was stopped by an old boarded partition, in which there was a door which had been nailed up; but he remembered that this had a flight of steps, or rather a broad-stepped old wood ladder, on the other side, leading to a narrower loft right in the gable. "Wonder where it can be got," said Peter to himself; and then he turned round, ran along the loft, dropped down through the trap-door, and nearly slipped and fell, so hurried was his flight. Half-across the yard he came upon Dan'l wheeling a barrow full of mould for potting. "Hallo! what's the matter?" Peter gasped and panted, but said nothing. "Haven't seen a ghost, have you?" said Dan'l. "Ye-es. No," panted Peter. "Why, you white-faced, cowardly noodle!" cried Dan'l. "What d'yer mean?" "I--I. Come out of here into the garden," whispered Peter. Dan'l was going down the garden to the potting-shed, so he made no objection, and, arrived there, Peter, with solemn emphasis, told how he had gone in search of the squirrel, and that there was something up in the loft. "Yes," said old Dan'l contemptuously--"rats." "Yes; I know that," said Peter excitedly; and his eyes looked wild and dilated; "but there's something else." Dan'l put down the barrow, and sat upon the soft mould as he gave his rough stubbly chin a rub. "Lookye here, Peter," he said; "did yer ever hear tell about ghosts being in old buildings?" "Yes," said Peter, with an involuntary shiver, and a glance across the wall at a corroded weathercock on the top of the ancient place. "Well, my lad, ghosts never comes out in the day-time: only o' nights; and do you know what they are?" Peter shook his head. "Well, then, my lad, I'll tell you. I've sin several in my time. Them as you hears and don't see's rats; and them as you sees and don't hear's howls. What d'yer think o' that?" "It wasn't a rat, nor it wasn't a howl, as I see," said Peter solemnly; "but something gashly horrid, as looked down at me from up in the rafters of that there dark place, and it made me feel that bad that I didn't seem to have no legs to stand on." "Tchah!" cried the gardener. "What yer talking about?" "Anything the matter?" said the doctor, who had come up unheard over the velvety lawn. "Hush!" whispered Peter imploringly. "Shan't hush. Sarves you right," growled Dan'l. "Here's Peter, sir, just seen a ghost." "Ah! has he?" said the doctor. "Where did you see it, Peter?" "I didn't say it were a ghost, sir, I only said as I see something horrid up at end of the old loft when I went up there just now after a squir'l." "Squirrel!" said the doctor angrily. "What are you talking about, man? Squirrels live in trees, not in old lofts. You mean a rat." "I know a squir'l when I see one, sir," said Peter; "and I see one go 'crost the yard and into that old stable." "Nonsense!" said the doctor. "Did you find it, Peter!" said Helen from under the tree. "Find what?" said the doctor. "A squirrel that ran from here across the yard." Peter looked from one to the other triumphantly, as he said-- "No, Miss, I didn't." "Humph!" grunted the doctor. "Then there was a squirrel!" "Yes, sir." "And you saw something strange!" "Yes, sir, something awful gashly, in the dark end, sir." "Bah!" cried the doctor. "There, go and get your stable lanthorn and we'll see. Helen, my dear, we've got a ghost in the old stable loft: like to come and see it!" "Very much, papa," said Helen, smiling in a way that put Peter on his mettle, for the moment before he had been ready to beg off. He went pretty quickly to get his stable lanthorn, and came back with it alight, and looking very pale and sickly, while he bore a stout broomstick in the other hand. "For shame, man! Put away that absurd thing," said the doctor, as he led the way through the gate in the wall, followed by Helen, Peter and Dan'l coming behind. "Go first with the lanthorn," said the doctor to the old gardener, but Peter was stirred to action now. "Mayn't I go first, sir!" he said. "Oh yes, if you have enough courage," said the doctor; and Peter, looking very white, led the way to the foot of the ladder, went up, and the others followed him to the loft, and stood together on the old worm-eaten boards. The lanthorn cast a yellow glow through its horn sides, and this, mingling with the faint pencils of daylight which came between the tiles, gave a very peculiar look to the place, festooned as the blackened beams were with cobwebs, which formed loops and pockets here and there. "There's an old door at the extreme end there, or ought to be," said the doctor. "Go and open it." Peter went on in advance. "Mind the holes, my dear," said the doctor. "What's that?" A curious rustling noise was heard, and, active as a young man, Dan'l ran back to the top of the ladder and descended quickly. "Well 'tain't me as is skeart now," said Peter triumphantly. Just then there was a sharp clap from somewhere in front, as if a small trap-door had been suddenly closed, and Dan'l's voice came up through the boards. "Look out!" he shouted, and his voice sounded distant. "There's some one up in the far loft there. He tried to get down into one of the hay-racks, but I frightened him back." "Stop there!" said the doctor. "We'll soon see who it is. Go on, Peter, and open that door. That young larder thief for a guinea, my dear," he continued to Helen, as Peter went on in advance. "Door's nailed up, sir," said the latter worthy, as he reached the old door, and held the lanthorn up and down. "How came it nailed up?" said the doctor, as he examined the place. "It has no business to be. Go and get an iron chisel or a crowbar. Are you there, Daniel?" "Yes, sir," came from below. "I'm on the look-out. It's that there young poacher chap, Bob Dimsted." Peter set the lanthorn on the floor and hurried off, leaving the little party watching and listening till he returned, but not a sound broke the silence, and there was nothing to see but the old worm-eaten wood and blackened tiles. "I've brought both, sir," said Peter breathlessly, and all eagerness now, for he was ashamed of his fright. "Wrench it open, then," said the doctor; and after a few sharp cracks the rotten old door gave way, and swung upon its rusty hinges, when a strange sight met the eyes of those who pressed forward into the further loft. _ |
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