Chapter XXII: Where's Jack?

With all diffidence I mention a fact. Whether it had any bearing on a later happening I do not know. Mr. Kennet, as we know, indulged occasionally in strong waters. The result, as a rule, was only an increased surliness of demeanour of which no one took much notice.

On one such occasion, however, shortly after Jim's return, Kennet, trespassing on Mrs. Lee's domain on some message of his master's, got to words with the old lady, and, rankling perhaps under some sharper reproof than usual from above, snarled at her like a toothless old dog:

"Old witch! foisting your ill-gotten brat on us by kidnapping t'other!" At which Mrs. Lee snatched at her broom, and Mr. Kennet beat a retreat more hasty than dignified.

Mr. Eager did his utmost during these last months of the year to prepare the boys for their approaching translation.

"It's my old school, boys. See you do me credit there," he would urge on them. "In the games you'll do all right. Just pick up their ways, and never lose your tempers. You'll find the lessons tough at first, but I shall trust to you to do your best. You'll miss the flats and the sand-hills, of course, but you'll soon find compensations in the playing-fields."

They came to look forward with something like eagerness to the new prospect. It would be a tremendous change in their lives, and the call of the unknown works in the blood of the young like the spring.

But they could only stand a certain amount of book-grinding; and the flats and sand-hills, once the autumn gales were past, were full of enticement, and they ranged them, in the company of Eager and Gracie, with all the relish of approaching separation.

When George Herapath and Ralph Harben came home for the holidays, hare-and-hounds became the order of the day, and many a tough chase they had, and went far afield.

And so it came to pass that one fatal day, Jack, being the hare, led them away through the sedgy lands round Wyn Mere, and played the game so well that he disappeared completely.

The course of events that followed was so similar to those in Jim's case that repetition would be wearisome.

Sir Denzil and Sir George Herapath were equally furious and disturbed, but showed it in different ways. Eager, as before, was sadly upset and strained himself to breaking-point in his efforts to discover the missing one.

Once more the sand-hills were scoured, and this time, since the boy had gone in that direction, the Mere was dragged as far as it was possible to do so, but its vast extent precluded any certainty as to results.

And the days passed, and Jack was gone as completely as if he had been carried up into heaven.

"Well, Mr. Eager, what do you make of it this time!" asked Sir Denzil, one night when Eager called at Carne with the usual report.

"I don't know what to make of it," said Eager dejectedly. "I have thought about it till my head spins."

"Your ideas would interest me."

"When Jim was kidnapped you felt sure that that pointed to him as what you call the 'right one.' Is it possible that has become known to those interested, and this has been done to point you back to Jack?"

"You mean that old witch downstairs. . . . She is capable of anything, of course, and you don't need to look at her twice to see the gipsy blood in her. . . . On the other hand, she may have been cunning enough to anticipate the view you have just expressed. She may have had this boy Jack carried off for the sole purpose of prejudicing the other in our eyes. Do you follow me?"

"You mean as I put it just now--that one would expect them to kidnap our man to leave theirs in possession."

"Go a step farther, Mr. Eager. Suppose they have in some way learned that, in consequence of Jim's carrying-off, I am inclined to think him the rightful heir. They may, as you say, have carried off the other simply to point me away from Jim and so confuse the issue. But it is just possible they are not so simple as all that, and have reasoned thus--'When Jim disappeared Sir Denzil considered that as proof that he was the rightful heir. If we now carry off Jack, that is just what Sir Denzil would expect us to do, and he will probably stick the tighter to Jim in consequence.' If that is their reasoning, then Jack is our man and not Jim. You follow me?"

"It's a terrible tangle," said Eager wearily, with his head in his hands. "It seems to me you can argue any way from anything that happens, and only make matters worse."

"Exactly!" said Sir Denzil, over a pinch of snuff.

"And so we come back to my point. You must treat both exactly alike and leave the issue to Providence."

"It looks like it," said Sir Denzil, and forbore to argue the matter theologically. "If the other comes back we shall have two strings to our bow, which is one too many for practical purposes. If he doesn't, we'll stick to the one we have, right man or wrong, and be hanged to them!"

Seth Rimmer, and young Seth, who had only lately returned home after an unusually long absence, were tireless in their search for the missing boy in their own neighbourhood, in or about the Mere.

After a day's hard work dragging the great hooks to and fro across the bottom of the Mere, old Seth would shake his head gravely as he looked back over the silent black water.

"Naught less than draining it dry will ever tell us all it holds," he would say. "From the look of it there's a moight of wickedness hid down there."

Katie too was indefatigable, and she and Jim and George Herapath and Harben hunted high and low round the Mere, but found no smallest trace of Jack.

They had all been planning an unusually festive Christmas, but it passed in anxiety and gloom, and the time came round for Jim to go away to school. But going along with Jack was one thing, and going all alone a very different thing indeed, and he jibbed at it strongly.

Sir Denzil, however, having made up his mind, was not the man to stand any nonsense. He prevailed on Eager, as being more conversant with such matters, to see to the boy's outfit, and finally to take him up to Harrow himself.

And so, in due course, Jim, still very downcast at his parting with Gracie and Mrs. Lee and Carne and the flats and sand-hills, found himself sitting with wide, startled eyes and firmly shut mouth, opposite Mr. Eager, in one of the new railway carriages, whirling across incredible ranges of country at a Providence-tempting speed which seemed to him like to end in catastrophe at any moment.

They went from Liverpool to Birmingham, both of which towns paralysed the little ranger of flats and sand-hills; from Birmingham to London, the enormity of which crushed him completely: spent two days showing him the greater sights, which his overburdened brain could in no wise appreciate; and finally landed him, fairly stodged with wonders, in his master's house at Harrow, which seemed to him, after his recent experiences, a haven of peace and restfulness.

Eager was an old school and college chum of the housemaster, and spent a day of reminiscent enjoyment with him. He imparted to his friend enough of the boy's curious history to secure his lasting interest in him, and next day said good-bye to Jim and carried the memory of his melancholy dazed black eyes all the way back to Wyvveloe with him.

And Gracie's first words as she rushed at him and flung her arms round his neck were, "Jack's back!" And the Rev. Charles sat down with a gasp.

"Really and truly, Gracie?"

"Really and truly! Yesterday--all rags and bruises and as dirty as a pig."

"And wherever has he been all this time?"

"Dear knows! He doesn't, except that it was with some men--gipsies--who carried him away and beat him most of the time. He's all black and blue, except his face, and that was dirty brown, and one of his eyes was blackened; one of the men nearly knocked it out."

"Well, well, well! It's an uncommonly strange world, child!

"Yes. How's old Jim?"

"He was all right when I left him, but anything may happen to those boys, apparently, without the slightest warning. Now, if you'll give me something to eat I'll go along and hear what Jack has got to say for himself."

Jack, however, had very little information to give that could be turned to any account. It was at the far side of the Mere that he had come upon a couple of men crouching under a sand-hill, as though they were on the look out for somebody. They had collared him, tied a stick in his mouth, and carried him away--where, he had no idea--a very long way, till they came up with a party on the road. There he was placed in one of the travelling caravans, fed from time to time, and not allowed out for many days. He had tried to escape more than once and been soundly thrashed for it. His back--well, there it was, and it made Eager almost ill to think of what those terrible weals must have meant to the boy. Then, after a long lime, another chance came, when all the men were lying drunk one night and some of the women too. He had crept out, and ran and ran straight on till his legs wouldn't carry him another step. A farmer's wife had taken pity on him at sight of his back and helped him on his road. And through her, others. He knew where he wanted to get to, and so, bit by bit, mostly on his own feet, but with an occasional lift in a friendly cart, he had reached home.

"And what do you say to all that, Mr. Eager?" asked Sir Denzil.

"I say, first, that I am most devoutly thankful that he has come back to us. What may be behind it all is altogether beyond me. If he is their boy would they treat him so cruelly?"

"To gain their ends they would stick at nothing. I see no daylight in the matter."

"You had no chance of seeing how the old woman received him, I suppose, sir?"

"All we know is that when Kennet went downstairs he found the boy sitting in the kitchen, eating as though he had not seen food for a week. Not a word beyond that and what he tells us. The problem is precisely where it was when those damned women came in that first morning each with a child on her arm."