Chapter XVIII: Found

Now, when Marmaduke junior, who was named also Peter, to mark the regard which both its parents had for my poor self, became of the ripe age of fourteen weeks or so, and the spring had so far advanced upon the summer as to admit of open-air rejoicings, it was determined that the advent of the heir of Fairburn should be celebrated with all due honour. This would have been done before, for Lady Heath had soon recovered her strength, and the child was reported to be a miracle of health and plumpness, had it not been for the backwardness of the season. The Hall had, of course, made merry upon the matter long ago, and if all the poor in the place had not done so, it was from no want of materials in the way of creature-comfort supplied by the young Squire. But what Marmaduke had waited for was settled fine weather, in order that the Chase might be filled by merrymakers, whose happiness should cleanse it from all memories of woe and wrong. Much of these, it is true, had been effaced already; a portion of the Park had been given up to the villagers for cricket and other sports, a grant common enough now, but one almost unexampled in those days, and the right of way which Sir Massingberd had spent so many hundreds in opposing, had been voluntarily surrendered. Oliver Bradford still retained his office, but being almost bedridden, inspired less terror than of yore among evil-doers; this was not so much to be regretted, however, since there was now little want, and therefore few poachers in Fairburn, while the general popularity of the young Squire lessened even those. I am afraid that if the new owner had heard a gun discharged at night in the Home Spinney itself, it is doubtful whether he would have laid down his book, or hesitated more than usual in his vain attempt to checkmate his wife at chess, in order to listen for the second barrel. The terror of the Lost Baronet had long been fading from his old domain; and upon this occasion, when old and young were all invited to make holiday in those once almost unknown retreats of hare and deer, there was no urchin but was determined--by no means single-handed, however--to explore them thoroughly. The very Wolsey Oak which the ravens had made their quarters was not shunned, but in the great space about it, races were run, and dances danced, and its vast trunk was made the very headquarters of childish merriment. These young folks did not affect the company of their elders, except when the gongs gave signal from the various marquees that there was food afoot, when they flocked to meet their parents at the heaped-up boards with a dutiful celerity. The higher class of tenantry were upon the lawn, and among them mixed with stately condescension a goodly number of the county aristocracy. I remember that some of the latter introduced upon this occasion the new dance called the quadrille, which had just arrived from Paris at that time. It had come over in the bad company of the waltz; but that lively measure was held to be too indecorous to be imported to Fairburn under its new _régime_. Everybody, when out of earshot of the host and hostess, was talking about the change that had taken place in this respect.

"How odd this all seems," quoth Squire Broadacres to his neighbour, Mr. Flinthert, heir of the late lamented admiral. "None of _us_, I suppose, have been at the Hall here for this quarter of a century."

"Ay, that at least," quoth the other. "Of course, it is a great matter to see people in the Heaths' position properly conducted as to morals. But I doubt whether this young fellow may not go astray in another and even a still more dangerous direction. They say his politics are, dear me, shocking."

"Not a bit of it," replied Mr. Broadacres. "It isn't in the Heath blood to be radical. But his wife, she rules the roost, you see--and a devilish pretty woman too; I could find it in my heart to forgive her anything."

"But that fellow, Harvey Gerard, her father--why, he's a downright _sans-culotte_, sir."

"The Gerards are bound to be, my dear sir," returned the jolly squire. "All these things are a question of family; it's nothing but that. I am told there is some French blood in him."

"We want nothing of that sort down in Midshire," responded Mr. Flinthert, shaking his head.

"But we have got it, you see, my friend, and therefore we must make the best of it. It was all very well to ignore Gerard while he was a new-comer at the Dovecot, although, mind you, he was always a gentleman, every inch of him, notwithstanding his queer opinions; but now that he is become so nearly connected with Sir Marmaduke, and living at the Hall half his time, why, the county must make up its mind to receive him."

"I shall let him perceive, however, that it does so--so far at least as I am concerned--upon sufferance, and, as it were--what is the word?--ay, vicariously."

"Very good," observed Mr. Broadacres, dryly. "I am not quite clear as to your meaning; but if you intend to put Harvey Gerard down, I do not think you will meet with any very triumphant success. Why, Sir Massingberd here, who would have grappled with the devil, was tripped up and thrown by this man with the greatest ease."

"Nevertheless, I shall give him the cold shoulder," observed Mr. Flinthert, stiffly; "although I shall studiously avoid being rude."

"Faith, I would recommend your doing that, my friend," laughed the jolly Squire. "If you turned your back upon Harvey Gerard instead of your shoulder, my belief is that he'd kick you."

"That he'd do what?" exclaimed Mr. Barnardistone Flinthert, late high-sheriff and present magistrate and _custos rotulorum_ of Midshire.

"That he'd take advantage of the opportunity, that's all," returned Mr. Broadacres, quietly. "No, no, sir, with a man like Gerard, all good Tories should keep on good terms. One can't hang him, you know, like a radical tailor, and therefore it's quite worth while to make ourselves appear to the best advantage. A stupid slight to a clever man has often done more harm to the cause of good government than a whole regiment of dragoons can remedy."

"Oh curse his cleverness!" responded Mr. Flinthert, savagely. "I'm for no such milk-and-water measures. I think it's the duty of somebody to tell young Marmaduke----"

"Well, say it _yourself_," interrupted Mr. Broadacres.

"It's a positive duty, I say, that somebody should go to the baronet, and tell him frankly that all this leniency to poaching fellows, and liberty to the rabble, cannot but lead to harm. 'You're a young man,' he should be told, 'and don't understand these things; but that is the opinion of the county, and it behoves you to know it.'"

"That would do more harm than good, Mr. Flinthert. You may depend upon it that Marmaduke Heath thinks for himself in these matters, notwithstanding that I dare say Gerard and his pretty daughter have had some influence. The young fellow naturally goes exactly counter to all that his uncle did before him. This holiday-making and mixture of high and low here, are themselves enough to make Sir Massingberd turn in his grave."

"Ay, if he _is_ in his grave," responded Mr. Flinthert, darkly. "But who knows whether he may not turn up some day after all; tell me that."

"I can't tell you that," responded Mr. Broadacres; "but I'll bet you ten guineas to one that he never does."

"Ay, but if he did!" replied the other, gloomily. "If he was to appear this very day, for instance, what a scene it would be--what a revolution for some people!"

"Well, if he did, he'd find the property greatly improved--except that that right of way has been reopened through the Park; all his thieving servants dismissed; all his debts settled; and his mad gipsy wife amply provided for, and well content, I am told, among her vagabond friends."

Conversations somewhat similar to the above were being held all over the lawn, for its denizens were not, like the lower classes, so bent upon mere physical enjoyment as to be dead to the delights of scandal. But when the great bell rang for their afternoon repast, which was to be partaken of in one enormous tent, and at one gigantic table, the upper part of which was reserved for the gentlefolks, such talk was hushed, of course, and congratulations of host and hostess and the infant heir was the only wear for every countenance. Not a word about the uncertainty of Sir Marmaduke's tenure of Fairburn was whispered over the good cheer, or a suggestion hazarded regarding the last proprietor's possible reappearance. Far less, we may be certain, was any hint at such matters let fall when the health of the future Sir Peter--two generations from Somebody, and not to be associated with him upon any account--was proposed by Mr. Broadacres, and drunk with a genuine enthusiasm that brought the tears into his mother's eyes, who with many a fair county dame graced the banquet as spectators. Then Mr. Long rose up and spoke of Marmaduke as one whom he had known and loved from his youth up, and the cheering rose tumultuous (but especially at the tenants' table, because they knew him best), and was heard afar by the peasantry who were dining likewise elsewhere, and who joined in it uproariously, although they had already paid due honours to their lord; so that all the Park was filled with clamour. To both these toasts, Sir Marmaduke, aglow with happiness and excitement, the handsomest man by far in that great company, with a grateful smile upon his student lips, gave eloquent response.

But when Lucy's health was proposed by Mr. Arabel, who dwelt, in homely but fitting terms, upon her total lack of pride, her kindliness to all that needed help, her beauty, which was sunshine to them all, then the young Squire lost his self-command. He rose to speak with evident embarrassment; he saw herself before him, watching him with eyes that had plenty of pride for _him_ in them, and listening for his words as though his tongue dropped jewels; he knew that he could not contradict one word of praise that had been showered upon her, he could not mitigate in modesty a single phrase of her eulogium, because it was all true, and none but he knew how much more she was deserving of. "While he stood there silent for a moment, but radiant with lips just parting for his opening sentence, there was a commotion at the far end of the tent. With that mysterious swiftness wherewith ill news pervades the minds of men, all knew at once some terrible occurrence had taken place. Several of the tenants rose, as if to intercept some person coming up towards the upper table, but others cried, "Go on, it must be told." For an instant, Lucy's glance flashed round to see that her child was safe in its nurse's arms, then made her way swiftly and silently to her husband's side. Before she reached it, before the man who bore the tidings could get nearly so far, the whisper had gone round, "Sir Massingberd is found."

I shall never forget Marmaduke's face when he heard those words: his colour fled, his eyes wandered timidly hither and thither, his lips moved, but no sound came from them. At the touch of his wife's hand upon his arm, however, a new life seemed to be instilled into him, and as a village boy came forward bearing a rusty something in his hand, he stretched his hand out for it, murmuring, "What is this? Why do you bring this to me?" The boy was bashful, and gave no answer; but Farmer Arabel stepped forward very gravely, and spoke as follows:--

"Why, Mr. Marmaduke, you see," he said, unconsciously reserving the title for the man he had in his mind, "that is the life-preserver Sir Massingberd always went about with in his woods at night; I know it by the iron ring by which a leathern strap fastened it round his wrist. Where did you find it, eh, boy?"

"Well, sir, we was a-playing at Hide--me and Bill Jervis, and Harry Jones, and a lot of us--and the Wolsey Oak was Home. So while it was the other side's turn to hide, and we was waiting for them to cry "Whoop," we began to knife the tree a bit, to pass the time; and digging away at the bottom of the trunk, we made a hole, and presently came upon the head of this thing here, and dragged it out. Then we made a bigger hole, and please, sir, there was great big bones, and we couldn't pull them through. Then we was frightened, and called to Jem Meyrick, the keeper, as was in the booth close by; and he climbed up to the fork of the tree, and cried out that the Wolsey Oak was hollow, and there was a skeleton in it, standing up; and they do say as it's Sir Massingberd."

While the boy was yet speaking, a knot of men came slowly up from the direction of the Oak, bearing something among them, and followed at a little distance by a vast crowd, all keeping an awful silence. When they got near the opening of the tent, they set their ghastly burden down upon the lawn; and we all went forth to look at it, including Marmaduke himself, with a face as pale as ashes, and clutching Lucy by the hand, as though he feared some power was about to tear her from him. I heard her whisper to him, "This may not be Lost Sir Massingberd after all."

Dr. Sitwell heard her also, and at once officiously replied: "Oh, but it is, my lady; there has no man died in Fairburn for these thirty years, except the late baronet, who could have owned those bones. I will pledge my professional reputation that yonder man, when clothed in flesh and blood, was six feet four. What a large skull, and what gigantic thigh-bones!"

"Ay," quoth Mr. Remnant, the general dealer, who was kneeling down beside the skeleton and examining it with minuteness, as though it had been offered to him for sale, "here is something hard and dry, with iron nails upon it, which was once a shooting-shoe, one of a pair, or I am much mistaken, which I sold to Sir Massingberd myself."

"And, here," quoth Jem Meyrick, stepping forward, "is summat as I think must have been the Squire's great gold chain, which I found at the bottom of the trunk. The Wolsey Oak is quite hollow, Sir Marmaduke, although none of us knew it. It is my belief that Sir Massingberd must have climbed up into the fork to look about him, for he seemed to be expecting poachers on that night, and that the rotten wood gave way beneath him, and let him down feet foremost into the trunk."

Without doubt, this was the true explanation of the matter. The skeleton was found with the arms above the head, a position which had precluded self-extrication, although it was evident that the wretched man had made great efforts to escape from his living tomb, since what remained of the shoe of the right foot was much turned up, and retained deep marks of the pressure of the buckle. As I looked at these relics of humanity, the gipsy's curse recurred to my mind with dreadful distinctness: "_May he perish, inch by inch, within reach of the aid that shall never come, ere the God of the poor take him into his hand_."

It was a singular feature in the case, and one which was of course made to point its moral among the villagers, that had Sir Massingberd not closed the Park, and refused the right of way, he could scarcely have thus miserably perished, since the footpath, as I have said, absolutely skirted the tree in question; and people would have passed close by it at all hours. It reminded me of the evil fate of James I. of Scotland, who might have escaped his murderers in the Blackfriar's Abbey at Perth, but for the simple fact that he had caused the mouth of a certain vault to be bricked up, because his tennis-balls were wont to roll through it. How long the wretched Squire had suffered before Death released him from his fangs, it was impossible to guess, or whether that terrible cry heard by Dick Westlock that same night, and by myself next morning, was indeed from the throat of Sir Massingberd in his agony.

We were the two persons who had been nearest to the Wolsey Oak between the period of his entombment and the search instituted throughout the Chase. He must have been dead before _that_, for the seekers passed close beside the tree without the least suspicion of the ghastly Thing it held; unless, indeed, he had heard our voices, but, choked by that time: by the falling dry-rot, was unable to reply. No wonder the ravens had sought the Wolsey Oaky and croaked forth Doom therefrom so long!