Works of Ellen Wood, page 1113
The N. D. Farm stood about three-quarters of a mile on the other side the church, beyond Mr. Page’s. It had a good house upon it, and consisted of two or three hundred acres of land. But its owner, Mr. Westerbrook, rented a great deal more land that lay contiguous to it, which rendered it altogether one of the most considerable farms round about. Up to fifty years of age, Mr. Westerbrook had not married. Fred, his dead brother’s son, had been adopted by him, and was regarded as his heir. The farm had been owned by the Westerbrooks for untold-of years, and it was not likely a stranger in blood and name would be allowed to inherit it. So Fred had lived there as the son and heir, and been made much of.
But, to the surprise of every one, Mr. Westerbrook took it into his head to marry, although he was fifty years old. It was thought to be a foolish act, and the parish talked freely. She was a widow without children, of a grasping nature, and not at all nice in temper. A high-spirited boy of fourteen, as Fred was, would be hardly likely to get on with her. She interfered with him in the holidays, and thwarted him, and told sneaking tales of him to his uncle. It went on pretty smoothly enough, however, until Fred left school, which he did at eighteen, to take up his abode at home for good and busy himself about the farm. Upon the death of the bailiff some three years later, she sent for one Gisby, from a distance, and got Mr. Westerbrook to instal him in the bailiff’s vacant place. This Gisby was a dark little man of middle age, and was said to be distantly related to her. He proved to be an excellent farmer and manager, and did his duty well; but from the first he and Fred were just at daggers-drawn. Presuming upon his relationship to the mistress, Gisby treated Fred in an off-hand manner, telling him sometimes to do this and not to do the other, as he did the men. Of course, Fred did not stand that, and offered to pitch him into next week unless he kept his place better.
But, as the years went on, the antagonism against Fred penetrated to Mr. Westerbrook. She was always at work with her covert whispers, as was Gisby with his outspoken accusations of him, and with all sorts of tales of his wrong-doing. They had the ear of the master, and Fred could not fight against it. Perhaps he did not try to do so. Whispering, and meanness, and underhand doing of any kind, were foreign to his nature; he was rather too outspoken, and he turned on his enemies freely and gave them plenty of abuse. It was Gisby who first told Mr. Westerbrook of the intimacy, or friendship, or whatever you may please to call it, though I suppose the right word would be love, between Fred and Edna Blake. Edna was one of a large family, and had come, a year or two ago, to live at the Parsonage, being niece to Mrs. Holland, the parson’s wife. Mrs. Holland was generally ill (and frightfully incapable), and Edna had it all on her hands: the housekeeping, and the six unruly children, and the teaching and the mending, and often the cooking. They paid her twenty pounds a-year for it. But she was a charming girl, with one of the sweetest faces ever seen, and the gentlest spirit. Fred Westerbrook had found that out, and the two were deeply in love with one another. Old Mr. Westerbrook went into one of his passions when he heard of it, and swore at Fred. Edna was not his equal, he told him; Fred must look higher: she had no money, and her friends, as was reported, were only tradespeople. Fred retorted that Edna was a mine of wealth and goodness in herself, and he had never troubled himself to ask what her friends might be. However, to make short of the story, matters had grown more unpleasant for Fred day by day, and this appeared to be the end of it, turning him out of house and home. He was just twenty-four now. I don’t wish to imply that Fred was without faults, or that he did nothing to provoke his uncle. He had been wild the last year or two, and tumbled into a few scrapes; but the probability is that he would have kept straight enough under more favourable circumstances. The discomfort at home drove him out, and he got associating with anything but choice company.
Making short work of my playing, I took the key back to Bumford’s, and ran home. Tod was in the dining-room with the mother, and I told them of the meeting with Fred Westerbrook. Mrs. Todhetley seemed to know all about it, and said Fred had been living at the Silver Bear.
“What an awful shame of old Westerbrook!” broke out Tod. “To turn a fellow away from his home!”
“I am afraid there are faults on both sides,” sighed Mrs. Todhetley, in her gentle way. “Fred has not borne a good character of late.”
“And who could expect him to bear a good one?” fired Tod. “If I were turned out like a dog, should I care what I did? No! Old Westerbrook and that precious wife of his ought to be kicked. As to Gisby, the sneak, hanging would be too good for him.”
“Don’t, Joseph.”
“Don’t!” retorted Tod. “But I do. They deserve all the abuse that can be given them. I can see her game. She wants Westerbrook to leave the property to her: that’s the beginning and the end of it; and to cut off poor Fred with a shilling.”
“Of course we are all sorry for Fred, Joseph,” resumed the mother. “Very sorry. I know I am. But he need not do reckless things, and lose his good name.”
“Bother his good name!” cried Tod. “Look at their interference about Edna Blake. That news came out when we were at home at Midsummer. Edna is as good as they are.”
“It is a hopeless case, I fear, Joseph. Discarded by his uncle, all his prospects are at an end. He has been all on the wrong track lately, and done many a sad thing.”
“I don’t care what he has done. He has been driven to it. And I’ll stand up for him through thick and thin.”
Tod flung out of the room with the last words. It was just like him, putting himself into a way for nothing. It was like somebody else too — his father. I began telling Mrs. Todhetley of the chants and hymns I had thought of, asking her if they would do.
“None could be better, Johnny. And I only wish you might play for us always.”
A fine commotion arose next morning. We were at breakfast, when Thomas came in to say old Jones, the constable, wanted to see the Squire immediately. Old Jones was bade to enter; he appeared all on the shake, and his face as white as a sheet. There had been murder done in the night, he said. Master Fred Westerbrook had shot Gisby: and he had come to get a warrant signed for Fred’s apprehension.
“Goodness bless me!” cried the Squire, dropping his knife and fork, and turning to face old Jones. “How on earth did it happen?”
“Well, your worship, ‘twere a poaching affray,” returned Jones. “Gisby the bailiff have had his suspicions o’ the game, and he went out last night with a man or two, and met the fellows in the open field on this side the copse. There they was, in the bright moonlight, as bold as brass, with a bag o’ game, Master Fred Westerbrook the foremost on ‘em. A fight ensued — Gisby don’t want for pluck, he don’t, though he be undersized, and he attacked ‘em. Master Fred up with his gun and shot him.”
“Is Gisby dead?”
“No, sir; but he’s a-dying.”
“What a fool that Fred Westerbrook must be!” stormed the Squire. “And I declare I liked the young fellow amazingly! It was only last night, Jones, that we were talking of him here, taking his part against his uncle.”
“He haven’t been after much good, Squire, since he went to live at that there Silver Bear. Not but what the inn’s as respectable — —”
“Respectable! — I should like to know where you would find a more respectable inn, or one better conducted?” put in Tod, with scant ceremony. “What do you mean, old Jones? A gentleman can take up his abode at the Silver Bear, and not be ashamed of it.”
“I have nothing to say again’ it, sir; nor against Rimmer neither. It warn’t the inn I was reflecting on, but on Master Fred himself.”
“Anyway, I don’t believe this tale, Jones.”
“Not believe it!” returned Jones, aghast at the bold assertion. “Why, young Mr. Todhetley, the whole parish is a-ringing with it. There’s Gisby a-dying at Shepherd’s — which was the place he were carried to, being the nearest; and Shepherd himself saw young Mr. Fred fire off the gun.”
“What became of the rascally poachers?” asked the Squire. “Who were they?”
“They got clean off, sir, every one on ‘em. And they couldn’t be recognized; they had blackened their faces. Master Fred was the only one who had not disguised hisself, which was just like his boldness. They left the game behind ‘em, your worship: a nice lot o’ pheasants and partridges. Pheasants too, the miscreants! — and October not in.”
There was not much more breakfast for us. Tod rushed off, and I after him. As Jones had said, the whole parish was ringing with the news, and we found people standing about in groups to talk. The particulars appeared to be as old Jones had related. Gisby, taking Shepherd — who was herdsman on the N. D. Farm — with him, and another man named Ford, had gone out to watch for poachers; had met half-a-dozen of them, including Fred Westerbrook, and Fred had shot Gisby.
The Silver Bear stood in the middle of Church Dykely, next door to Perkins the butcher’s. It was kept by Henry Rimmer. We made for it, wondering whether Rimmer could tell us anything. He was in the tap-room, polishing the taps.
“Oh, it’s true enough, young gentlemen!” he said, as we burst in upon him with questions. “And a dreadful thing it is. One can’t help pitying young Mr. Westerbrook.”
“Look here, Rimmer: do you believe he did it?”
“Why, in course he did, Master Johnny. There was no difficulty in knowing him: he was the only one of ’em not disguised. Shepherd says the night was as light as day. Gisby and him and Ford all saw young Mr. Westerbrook, and knew him as soon as the lot came in sight.”
“Was he at home here last evening?” asked Tod.
“He was at home here, sir, till after supper. He had been out in the afternoon, and came in to his tea between five and six. Then he stayed in till supper-time, and went out afterwards.”
“Did he come in later?”
“No, never,” replied Rimmer, lowering his voice, as a man sometimes does when speaking very seriously. “He never came in again.”
“They say Gisby can’t recover. Is that true, or not?”
“It is thought he’ll not live through the day, sir.”
“And where can Westerbrook be hiding himself?”
“He’s safe inside the hut of one or other of the poachers, I should say,” nodded the landlord. “Not that that would be safe for him, or for them, if it could be found out who the villains were. I think I could give a guess at two or three of them.”
“So could I,” said Tod. “Dick Standish was one, I know. And Jelf another. Of course, their haunts will be searched. Don’t you think, Rimmer, Mr. Fred Westerbrook would rather make off, than run the risk of concealing himself in any one of them?”
Rimmer shook his head. “I don’t know about that, sir. He might not be able to make off. It’s thought he was wounded.”
“Wounded!”
“Gisby fired his own gun in the act of falling, and Shepherd thinks the charge hit young Mr. Westerbrook. The poachers were running off then, and Shepherd saw them halt in a kind of heap like, and he is positive that the one on the ground was Mr. Westerbrook. For that reason, sir, I should say the chances are he is somewhere in the neighbourhood.”
Of course it looked like it. Strolling away to pick up anything else that people might be saying, we gave Fred our best wishes for his escape — in spite of the shot — and for effectually dodging old Jones and the rest of the Philistines. Tod made no secret of his sentiments.
“It’s a thing that might have happened to you or to me, you see, Johnny, were we turned out of doors and driven to bay as Fred has been.”
By the afternoon, great staring hand-bills were posted about, written in enormous text-hand, offering a reward of twenty pounds for the apprehension of Frederick Westerbrook. When old Westerbrook was incensed, he went in for the whole thing, and no mistake.
What with the bustle the place was in, and the excitement of the chase — for all the hedges and ditches, the barns and the suspected dwellings were being looked up by old Jones and a zealous crowd, anxious for the reward — it was not until after dinner in the evening that I got away to practice. Going along, I met Duffham, and asked after Gisby.
“I am on my way to Shepherd’s now,” he answered. “I suppose he is still alive, as they have not sent me word to the contrary.”
“Is he sure to die, Mr. Duffham?”
“I fear so, Johnny. I don’t see much chance of saving him.”
“What a dreadful thing for Fred Westerbrook! They may bring it in wilful murder.”
“That they will be sure to do. Good-evening, lad; I have no time to linger with you.”
Bumford was probably looking out for the fugitive (and the reward) on his own score, as he was not to be seen; but I found the key inside the knife-box on the kitchen dresser, his store-place for it, opened the door, and went into the church.
On one side the church-door, as you entered, was an enclosed place underneath the belfry, that did for the vestry and for Clerk Bumford’s den. He kept his store of candles in it, his grave-digging tools (for he was sexton as well as clerk), his Sunday black gown, and other choice articles. On the other side of the door, not enclosed, was the nook that contained the organ. I sat down at once. But I had come too late; for in half-an-hour’s time the notes of the music and the keys were alike dim. Just then Bumford entered.
“Oh, you be here, be you!” said he, treating me, as he did the rest of the world, with slight ceremony. “I thought I heered the organ a-going, so I come on to see.”
“You were not indoors, Bumford, when I called for the key.”
“I were only in the field at the back, a-getting up some dandelion roots,” returned old Bumford, in his usual resentful tone. “There ain’t no obligation in me to be shut in at home everlasting.”
“Who said there was?”
“Ain’t it a’most too dark for you?”
“Yes, I shall have to borrow one of your candles.”
Bumford grunted at this. The candles were not strictly his; they were paid for by the parish; but he set great store by them, and would have denied me one if he could. Not seeing his way clear to doing this, he turned away, muttering to himself. I took my fingers off the keys — for I had been playing while I talked to him — and followed. Bumford went out of the church, shutting the door with a bang, and I proceeded to search for the candlestick.
That was soon found: it always stood on the shelf; but it had no candle in it, and I opened the candle-box to take one out. All the light that came in was from the open slits in the belfry above. The next thing was to find the matches.
Groping about quietly with my hands on the shelf, for fear of knocking down some article or another, and wondering where on earth the match-box had gone to, I was interrupted by a groan. A dismal groan, coming from the middle of the church.
It nearly made me start out of my skin. My shirt-sleeves went damp. Down with us, the ghosts of the buried dead are popularly supposed to haunt the churches at night.
“It must have been the pulpit creaking,” said I, gravely to myself. “Oh, here’s the match — —”
An awful groan! Another! Three groans altogether! I stood as still as death; calling up the recollection that God was with me inside the church as well as out of it. Frightened I was, and it is of no use to deny it.
“I wonder what the devil is to be the ending of this!”
The unorthodox words burst upon my ears, bringing a reassurance, for dead people don’t talk, let alone their natural objection (as one must suppose) to mention the arch-enemy. The tones were free and distinct; and — I knew them for Fred Westerbrook’s.
“Fred, is that you?” I asked in a half-whisper, as I went forward.
No sound; no answer.
“Fred! it’s only I.”
Not a word or a breath. I struck a match, and lighted a candle.
“You need not be afraid, Fred. Come along. I’ll do anything I can for you. Don’t you know me? — Johnny Ludlow.”
“For the love of Heaven, put that light out, Johnny!” he said, feeling it perhaps useless to hold out, or else deciding to trust me, as he came down the aisle in a stooping position, so that the pews might screen him from the windows. And I put it out.
“I thought you had gone out of the church with old Bumford,” said he. “I heard you both come away from the organ, and then the door was slammed, leaving the church to silence.”
“I was searching after the candle and matches. When did you come here, Fred? How did you get in?”
“I got in last night. Is there much of a row, Johnny?”
“Pretty well. How came you to do it?”
“To do what?”
“Shoot Gisby.”
“It was not I that shot him.”
“Not you!”
“Certainly not.”
“But — people are saying it was you. You were with the poachers.”
“I was with the poachers; and one of them, like the confounded idiot that he was, pointed his gun and fired it. I recognized the cry for Gisby’s, and knew that the charge must have struck him. I never had a gun in my hand at all, Johnny.”
Well, I felt thankful for that. We sat down on the bench, and Fred told his tale.
After supper the previous night, he strolled out and met some fellow he knew, who lived two or three miles away. (A black sheep in public estimation, like himself.) It was a beautiful night. Fred chose to see him home, and stayed there, drinking a glass or two, till he knew not what hour. Coming back across the fields, he fell in with the poachers. Instead of denouncing them, he told them half in joke, half in earnest, that he might be joining their band himself before the winter was over. Close upon that, they fell in with the watchers, Gisby and the rest. Fred knew he was recognized, for Gisby called out his name; and that, Fred did not like: it made things look black against him. Gisby attacked them; a scuffle ensued, and one of the poachers used his gun. Then the poachers turned to run, Fred with them; a shot was fired after them and hit one of their body — but not Fred, as Rimmer had supposed. The man tripped as the shot struck him, and caused Fred to trip and fall; but both were up, and off, the next moment. Where the rest escaped to, Fred did not know; chance led him past the church: on the spur of the moment he entered it for refuge, and had been there ever since.
