Crockett Samuel Rutherford
Deep Moat Grange

CHAPTER XV
THE MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES – A GIRL!

Mr. Ablethorpe appeared to have had a much better time of it with Miss Constantia than I had had with her sister – perhaps, because she was younger by some minutes, and was quite conscious of being pretty, so didn't need to be told. Yet, when you come to think of it, I had done a heap more for Harriet Caw, than the Hayfork Minister for her sister. Had I not rushed to defend her from no less a foe than Mad Jeremy? And there were precious few in the two parishes of Breckonside and Breckonton who would have done the like. So she need not have run upstairs when she got home, pushing her step-grandmother aside and saying: "Out of the way, Susan Fergusson!" Neither had she any need to slam the door of her room, for it was her twin sister's as well as hers, at any rate.

And though I did not like Constantia so well to start with, I must say that her conduct was a great contrast to that of her sister Harriet. I could not help remarking it. She came quite peaceably to the door with Mr. Ablethorpe. Then she went back and found his hat for him, which he had forgotten. And she stood smiling and waving adieux under the bunches of purple creepers about the porch – like – well, I declare, like the picture of "Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye!" in the "Keepsake" book.

And then, thinking it over, I took it all back and preferred in my heart the slam of Harriet's door. There was more meaning to it.

But Mr. Ablethorpe did not appear to notice. He thought that he had sown good seed on very promising soil.

"She seemed quite in favour of the Eastward position," he said thoughtfully, "and she understands our argument in favour of the 'Missale Romanum' and with regard to irregularly ordained clergy. The rest may follow in time."

And as for me, I hoped to goodness it would.

After that the Hayfork was very thoughtful all the way to the crossroads, where we separated, he to return to his lodging in Over Breckonton and I to go back to father's. Well, not just directly, of course. I had to look in at Nance Edgar's cottage at the Bridge End. It was my duty. Elsie was there, sitting reading by the window. She had been doing German or something with the schoolmaster's sister, and, for a wonder, was quite pleased to see me. She mostly wasn't, if I interrupted her when she was "studying." "Studying" with Elsie consisted in neither talking yourself, nor letting any other body talk.

The first thing that struck me was how much prettier Elsie was to look at than Harriet Caw, and, of course, than her sister. I told her so, thinking that she would be pleased. But instead, she faced about at once and laid down her book.

"Who is Harriet Caw?" she asked in a kind of icebergy voice, quite differently pitched from her usual.

Then I began, pleased as a kitten with a wool ball, to tell her all about it – how Mr. Ablethorpe had come and asked me off for the day from my father, how we had gone and helped at the haymaking. Then I made out a long yarn about finding the little package of rings which Mr. Ablethorpe had taken so carefully away with him.

"But they were more yours than his!" cried Elsie suddenly; "you should have brought them here to me. Then we would have found out what they were, and if they had anything to do with the – with Harry Foster. We were the first who found out anything, and now you go off with Mr. Ablethorpe – "

"Yes, Elsie," I said, a little taken aback by her tone, "but he seemed to know all about where to look, and he wouldn't tell me anything, though I asked."

"No, of course not," said Elsie sharply; "there will be a reward, you may depend. Then he will get it instead of you!"

I cried out against this, saying that she was not fair to Mr. Ablethorpe. But at the bottom of my heart I was not a bit sorry. The Hayfork Minister had such a curly head, and people made such a fuss about him – especially the women – that I wasn't a bit sorry to find that Elsie was not of their mind.

This gave me some assurance to go on.

"Well, and what did you do after that?" she said. And I was all on fire to tell her about the two granddaughters of Caleb Fergusson, who came all the way from London – how we had tea with them, how Mr. Ablethorpe stayed and talked with the one who thought no end of herself – that is to say, with Constantia, while I was compelled to go and keep the other one, Harriet, from getting into mischief.

At the very first word Elsie sat up straight in her chair. Then, even though I said nothing (it was no use entering into details) about Harriet Caw's taking my arm, Elsie pinched her lips and turned up her nose.

"You would like her awfully!" I said. "She's as nice as can be."

"Oh!" was all that Elsie said, and she reached for the knitting which lay within reach.

"Very likely!" she added as she adjusted the stitches, some of which had slipped off, owing to my having sat down on it when I first came in.

"Yes," I continued, in a kind of quick, fluttering voice – I could hear so much myself – "she comes from London, but she does not put on any airs. And she does not like me at all!"

"Ah," said Elsie, "and pray how did you find that out?"

So I told her all about Harriet running away because I was so stupid, and her meeting with Mad Jeremy. I said as little about my going at him with an open knife as I could. For, after all, that was a foolish thing to do. But I told Elsie about Harriet Caw fainting, and as much as I could remember about Harriet running home and slamming herself in her room.

And all the time the atmosphere in that room was getting more and more chilly, while Elsie herself would have frozen a whole shipful of beef and mutton right through the tropics.

"Well," I said when I had finished my tale, "she may have got a temper, but she is a nice girl and you will like her. We shall go and see her to-morrow – I told her about you, Elsie."

She flashed a look at me – like striking a vesta at night, it was.

"And pray, what did you tell her about me?"

"I told her that you were pretty – so did Mad Jeremy. And I told her, besides, that you would be sure to take to one another. Now, will you go and see her to-morrow?"

Slowly Elsie gathered up all that belonged to her in Nance Edgar's little sitting-room – her books, her work, and a hat that had been thrown carelessly on a chair.

"No," she said, the words clicking against one another like lumps of ice in a tumbler, "no, I will not go and call upon Miss Harriet Caw, from London. But there is nothing to prevent your going, Mr. Joseph Yarrow!"

And she in her turn swept out and slammed the door.

I sat there in Nance Edgar's winking firelight looking at my fingers one by one, and not sure of the count.

If any one will please tell me what a girl will say or do in any given circumstances – well, I'll be obliged to him, that's all. I don't believe any fellow was ever so abused and browbeat in one day by girls before. And all for nothing. That is the funny part of it. For what had I done? Answer me that, if you please. Nothing – just nothing!

CHAPTER XVI
MR. MUSTARD'S FIRST ASSISTANT

Yes, I was surprised. But there were several other and greater surprises waiting me. I got one the very next day.

I met Dan McConchie on his way home from school, at the dinner hour. He was kicking his bag before him in the way that was popular at our school, where all self-respecting boys brought their books in a strap. Girls had green baize bags and always swung them like pendulums as they talked. But boys, if they had to have bags, used them as footballs. This was what Dan was doing now.

He said, "Halloo, Joe Yarrow, your girl's gone and been made a teacher. You had better come back. Old Mustard is as sweet to her as sugar candy. She is teaching the babies in the little classroom – 'A b – ab! B a – baa!'"

He imitated the singsong of the lowest forms.

Now I put no faith in Dan or any other McConchie. But I clumped him hard and sound for presuming to talk about Elsie at all or call her "my girl."

Then I met little Kit Seymour, a girl from the south, who had reddish hair, all crimpy, and spoke soft, soft English as if she were breathing what she said at you. She lisped a little, too, was good-looking (though I did not care for that), and did not tell lies – had not been long enough in Breckonside to learn, I expect.

At any rate she told me in other words what I had just clouted Dan for. Early the morning before, the school had been astonished to find Mr. Mustard giving Elsie a lesson – when they came to spend a half hour in the playground at marbles and steal-the-bonnets. Their wonder grew greater when, as the bell rang, Elsie was found installed in the little schoolroom, which hitherto had been used chiefly for punishments and doing copybook writing. She was given the infant classes, and had been there all day, so I was told, with Mr. Mustard popping in and out giving her instructions, and smiling like a fusty old hawk that has caught a goldfinch which he fears some one will take away from him.

Of course I did not care a button for Mr. Mustard. But he had always been the Enemy of Youth so far as we were concerned. And it gave me a queer feeling, I can tell you, to think of Elsie – my Elsie – teaching alongside that snuffy old badger. He was neither snuffy nor yet very old, but that is the way I felt toward him. Elsie, too – at least she used to. But I could bet it was all the doing of that hook-nosed sister of his – Betty Martin Mustard, we called her, though her name was only Elizabeth, and not Martin at all.

Little Kit Seymour kept on lingering. She was smiling mischievously, too, which she had no business to do. And she wouldn't have done it long if she had been a boy. It got sort of irritating after a while, though I wasn't donkey enough to let her see it. I knew better.

I just said that I hoped she, Elsie, would like school-teaching, and that my father had always said that was what she should go in for. But Kit went on swinging her green baize bag, like I've seen them do the incense pot in Mr. Ablethorpe's church up at Breckonton. Father would have skinned me alive if he knew I had gone there. He was a Churchman, was father, but death on incense pots, confessions, and all apostolic thingummies, such as Mr. Ablethorpe was just nuts on. He had even stopped going to church at home because our old vicar had said that the Anglican Church was a church catholic. I bet he didn't mean any harm. He was a first-rate old fellow. But my father waited behind and told him out loud that the Church of England is a Protestant church, and "whoever says it isn't is a liar!"

That caused a coolness, of course. Yet I believe they both meant the same thing. For our vicar wasn't one of Mr. Ablethorpe's sort, but just wanted to let people alone, and was content if people left him alone. But all things about churches made our Breckonside folk easily mad – being, as I said before, actually on the border-line, or at least very near to it.

Little Kit Seymour, with her lisp and soft south country English, was a smart girl. I knew very well she was seeing how I would take the news about Elsie. However, she did not get much change out of me.

"You aren't coming back to school again?" she said next, looking at the toe of her boot.

"Oh, I don't know that," I told her; "old Mustard is well up in mathematics and mensuration – "

"What's mensuration?" She said "menthuration," and curiously enough it sounded rather nice. But if a boy had done it everybody would have laughed. Some things are all in favour of girls – others again not. Girls can't go into the army or the navy. Most boys can't, either. But they think they can for a year or two, and that does just as well. They can talk big about it till the fit goes off.

Well, I got rid of Kit Seymour. She went on to school, and as she parted from me she said: "Well, I thuppose we shall be theeing you down there by and by!"

She meant at the school – because Elsie was there. But I had something else in my mind. I was keen to find out whether Elsie had gone there because of our quarrel about Harriet Caw. The fault, of course, in any other girl, would have been Elsie's. For she would not listen to any justification – not even to the truth. But I never blamed Elsie. I only thought she had been led into it by old Betty Martin – Mr. Mustard's sister – who is so ugly that it gives you a gumboil only to look at her.

Now the school of Breckonside – Mr. Mustard's, that is – lies right up against the woods on a sloping piece of land, from which the grass has long been worn off by generations of children playing. There is another little yard with some grass at the back. That is where the girls play, and across it with its gable to the big schoolhouse is the little class-room where Elsie was teaching.

It was right bang in the woods. So I knew very well I could lie hidden along the branch of a tree and look in at the window.

Mean, you say! Not a scrap. Elsie and I had always been such friends, like brother and sister, that surely I had a right to look after her a bit. Of course, if she had known she would have let out at me – scolded I mean. But all the same she would have found it quite natural.

So I went and got hold of a ripping good place in a kind of sunk fence. Here I found, not a beech, but the trunk of an old willow that had bent itself down into the dry ditch as if feeling for the water. It was just the shape, too, and when I lay down on my face it fitted me better than my bed. There was even a rising bit at the bank for me to hook my feet round. You never saw anything so well arranged. The hazel bushes hid me from above, too, and unless you fairly stepped on me there was nothing to be seen. I had only to put aside some leafy shoots to rake the whole three windows of the little infant school.

Mean? I tell you not a bit. Why, I was really the only protector Elsie had got, and though she was mad with me just at that moment, it made no difference. Besides I had got an idea – I did not get them often, and so hung on the tighter to those I did find. And this one had really been forced upon me. It was that somehow Elsie was the key to all the mysteries, and that through her would come the solution of everything we had been trying to find out. Also – though this I would not for the life of me have mentioned to Elsie herself – that some peril hung imminent over her, and of this I should soon have proof if I wanted any.

Now it is curious how different both things and people look when you are watching them – as it were unbeknown. It is something like looking through between your legs at a landscape. You see the colours brighter, naturally, and as for the people – none of them do anything unless as if with some horrid secret purpose. When Mr. Mustard wiped his brow with a spotted handkerchief, or knocked a fly off the end of his nose, I was lost in wonderment what he meant by it. When he called Elsie to come down for her own private lessons in the big school-house, I watched carefully to see that he had not a weapon concealed under his rusty coat tails. I suppose policemen and detectives get used to this sort of thing, but certainly I never did.

Then I had always thought that we all started for school together. We seemed to. But Mr. Mustard's scholars certainly didn't – and I suppose schools all over the world are the same. Nobody came alone. If they started from home by themselves, they yelled and signalled till they were joined by somebody else. Only a few groups arrived by the road, generally hand-in-hand if they were girls, and the boys with their arms about each other's waists. Most, however, ducked through hedges, clambered over stone dykes, crossed ditches by planks, and so finally got to school over broken-down pieces of wire fencing, or by edging themselves between the gate post and the wall. I remember now that I had generally done the same thing myself. But I never knew it till that day I lay on the old willow, watching Mr. Mustard's school gathering for morning lessons.

Seen from a distance Mr. Mustard was a youngish-looking man, getting bald, however, except about his ears. He wore a perfect delta of wrinkles at the corner of each eye. He was teaching Elsie about half an hour, and during this time, his sister looked in twice from the master's cottage, just to see how things were going. I lay still and waited. From the big school-house there came the sound of a hymn sung all together, with Elsie leading. I could distinguish her voice quite well. And then Mr. Mustard said a prayer. It was always the same prayer, and had been written by some bishop or other for the purpose. Then Elsie came out followed by all the infant class, most of them clinging to her skirts, the rest straggling behind, and pausing to pick up stray toddlers of three or four who had fallen on their faces. In Breckonside they send babies like that to school to be out of the way.

At first I did not get much out of my cramped position on the willow trunk. True, Elsie did turn and look twice toward the tall black paling of my father's storehouse yard. But even that I could not be too sure of, for the next moment Elsie had opened the door of the little class-room and passed within with all her tribe scuffling after her.

Then I could hear her begin with another hymn, very simple. Then she set the elder to learn the mysteries of "two and two make four," while she combined a little drill with the teaching of the alphabet to the most youthful of her flock behind a green rep curtain. After that came the turn of the slates, and at the first rasp Elsie, long unaccustomed to that music at close range, put her fingers to her ears. But when she had set the children to their task of drawing lopsided squares, drunken triangles, and wobbly circles, she left the infant class to drone on in the heat of the morning. She arranged the windows, pulling them down to their utmost limit, and springing up on the sill she cleverly tacked bits of white netting over the open spaces. Elsie knew that there is nothing so demoralizing to the average infant class as a visiting wasp of active habits.

The drone of the infant department was behind her. I could see a soft perspiration bedewing the tender skins. Hair clung moist and clammy about bent necks. One or two slumbered openly, their brows on their slates, only to awake when Mr. Mustard came smiling in, satisfied with everything, and particularly commending the wasp protectors. Strange that in twenty years he had never thought of such a thing! He would get his sister to make some immediately.

No need of that! Elsie could tear the required size from her roll in a moment. Would he have them now? No, he would wait till the interval, and then she and Mr. Mustard would put them up together. There was no use troubling Elizabeth. She had her own domestic duties to attend to. Of course, she, that is Elsie, would partake with them of their simple and frugal midday meal? It would be more convenient for all parties – better than going all the way back to the cottage at the Bridge End. Besides, Miss Edgar would doubtless be absent, and no dinner would be ready. Yes (concluded Mr. Mustard), on all accounts it would be much preferable to dine together. He had talked it over with his sister the night before.

I could see her hesitate. But the arrangement was really so much more convenient – indeed obvious, that Elsie, after provising that she would have to arrange terms with Miss Elizabeth, ended by accepting.

I began to hate Mr. Mustard.

What could he be after? It could not be love – fancy that red-nosed, blear-eyed, baldish old badger with the twitchy eyebrows in love! I laughed on my branch. But whatever it was his sister was in it. Yes, Betty Martin was a confederate – yet her brother's marriage would (conceiving for a moment such a thing to be possible) put her out of a place.

It was altogether beyond me. Only as I say, I did not love Mr. Mustard any the better for all this, and if I could have pinked him cheerfully with my catapult, without the risk of hitting Elsie, he would have got something particularly stinging for himself.