CHAPTER III.

A FATAL JOURNEY.

IT was a wet, windy day in March. The few people who had ventured out in Summerleigh had taken care to secure hats and wigs by tying handkerchiefs over both, lest they should go sailing down the village street in the mud and pools of water with which the ill-kept roads abounded. The portrait of The Magpie—a gem of art in the eyes of the villagers—swung creakingly in its frame, and the landlord, looking scarcely less uneasy, stood in the porch with his eyes fixed on a distant bend of the road.

"How is she now, Betty?" he said anxiously, as he caught the sound of a heavy footstep behind him.

"Powerful bad, master. Ain't the doctor came?"

"Not yet. I'll have out the gig and go for him myself, if he don't come soon," he added.

"I doubt whether that limb of Satan ever went near him. He knows my missis always had a sharp eye on him and his wicked ways; and if he could—"

"There, go in, Betty, you know nothing about it," said Tyler sharply; and yet, as he spoke, he began to wonder whether he had not better give in to the popular notion, and get rid of Eric before the summer came round again.

A minute or two later Eric peeped round the gateway, and seeing his master said, "Will you want Peggy this morning, sir?"

"Is she fit? This weather has been hard on the poor brutes." And the landlord sighed as he thought of the broken-down condition of his horses.

"Peggy could do it, sir," said Eric; "she picks up quicker than the others do."

"Well, put her in and bring the gig round," said his master; and then he went into the house and called to Betty, took his three-cornered hat from its peg, and his heavy driving coat out of the recess, and when Eric brought round the gig, he stood in the porch, ready equipped for his journey.

"Jump in, lad; I shall take you with me, and we can kill two birds with one stone. We shall soon meet the doctor, and then I can ride back with him while you go on and see Thompson about that harness again, and tell Wilson I shall want the oats a week earlier than I expected. You're sure the doctor said he was coming round by Leaburn?"

"Yes, sir," answered Eric.

His preparations for the journey were soon made, for he had outgrown the few clothes he possessed when his mother died, and an old coat and knee breeches of his master's supplied the place of all other garments, so that he had but to turn up the high collar of the coat, button it a little closer, draw his long grey stocking-like cap a little further over his ears, and he was ready.

Betty came to the door again just as they were starting.

"The pain be awful bad agin," she said, with a keen look at Eric as she spoke.

"I'll have the doctor here soon. We shall him before he turns off to Leaburn;" and as she spoke, Tyler gave the signal to Peggy that she might move on, the chaise lurched a little, as the wheels were dragged out of a rut deeper than usual, and then they went on as fast as the holes and water-filled cart-tracks would permit.

Horse and riders were soon well bespattered with mud and water, for the road after the winter frosts and the present rain were more like a fresh-ploughed field than the king's highway and a main road to London. It was nobody's business in those times to keep the roads in order, and so the gig went floundering through the mud and water for the first mile without anything worse happening than an occasional bump and shake, with a good deal of straining on the part of Peggy, when the gig came to a positive standstill in one of the numerous holes.

[Illustration]

Eric had gone on foot earlier in the morning, picking his way better than Peggy could, and now, seeing how slow their progress was, he proposed that he should get out, make his way to the cross roads, and tell the doctor to come straight on to Summerleigh before he went to Leaburn, while his master went back with Peggy and the gig.

But Tyler looked suspiciously at Eric as he made this proposal. Betty's words were still in his mind, and he was determined to find out whether the boy had been to the doctor, or whether he had shirked the disagreeable journey before. He had no cause to suspect the lad, for he had always done his work faithfully, and the horses fared better under his care than under old Toby's; but he knew that everybody else suspected him of evil practices, and now his own mind was a little affected by it, although the notion of its being witchcraft he could afford to laugh at by this time.

So to the lad's suggestion, he returned rather a surly answer, and they plunged on again through the mire and water, which effectually concealed the larger boulders with which this part of the road was liberally strewn.

"We must be careful here, master," said Eric, when Peggy came to a standstill before some obstacle which was hidden from sight by the sea of mud and water.

"Of course we must," said Tyler impatiently, and he gave Peggy a flick with the whip as he spoke.

The horse started forward, the wheel struck against one of the large stones, and the next minute the chaise was lying on its side, and Eric found himself in the hedge that skirted the roadway. His master lay motionless a few feet from the overturned gig, while Peggy kicked and plunged to be freed from the broken shafts and harness.

As soon as he could scramble out, Eric ran to soothe the frightened horse, thinking his master would set things straight and send him on now for the doctor. But to his dismay, Tyler never moved, never uttered a groan, though it was some minutes before he could make the horse stand still.

As soon as he had managed this, he ran to his master, and raised his head, which he found resting upon a large stone. Blood was flowing from the forehead, and Eric grew more alarmed as he noticed the deathly whiteness of the face.

"Can't you speak, master? Can't you tell me what to do?" he said in an agonised tone; and then he put his hand upon the cold lips.

They were growing stiff, and the boy, recalling his mother's death, felt sure that his kind master had received his death-blow.

He burst into tears, as he thought of the kind words he had so often received. The only really kind words that had been given him by anybody except his mother had come from this man, and now he was dead. Eric seemed to know it beyond a shadow of a doubt before any one else came near to confirm it.

How long he sat with his master's head propped upon his knee, he did not know, but presently a shout to move out of the way made him look up, and he saw the ruddy face of the old doctor, mounted on his horse, but without his gig, only a few feet from him.

"What's the matter here?" he said. "Ain't you the boy from The Magpie?"

"Yes, sir, and this is my master. We were coming to fetch you when the gig tipped over."

"Your master ought to know better than to bring a gig out in such weather," said the doctor in a grumbling tone, as he dismounted and picked his way round to where Tyler was lying.

"This is an awkward place to examine him properly," said he, after feeling the man's pulse; but Eric noticed that the doctor spoke in an altered tone, and he had turned pale while feeling his pulse.

He looked at Eric, and then at the broken chaise.

"How can we get him home quickly?" he said in a puzzled tone.

"Couldn't we carry him if I took this gate down?" said Eric, pointing to one that had been well-nigh torn from its post by the recent gale.

Fortunately a man from the neighbouring farm came in sight the next moment, and Eric shouted to him to come to their assistance.

"Why, it be the landlord of The Magpie, surely," said the man, "and he be dead too. Who did see him die?" he asked suspiciously, looking from Eric to the doctor.

"Come, help us to move him; we may lose the chance of doing anything for him, if he stays here any longer," said the doctor, without replying to the man's question.

And thus commanded, he helped Eric take down the gate, and then, when a bed of their coats had been spread on it, the injured man was carefully lifted up, and the doctor prepared to take his share in carrying him home. But before they had gone many steps, another man appeared, who took the doctor's place, and so he mounted his horse and rode forward to prepare Mrs. Tyler for the return of her husband.

The travellers had not been gone very long as it seemed to Betty before the doctor rode up, and she was beginning to describe her mistress's symptoms, when he said,—

"Yes, yes, the boy told me she was very bad when he came this morning, but she always has a fit of the megrims about this time. Something worse has happened now, I'm afraid. Where is your mistress? She must get up, if she is in bed."

"Oh, doctor, what can you mean? You know how the poor thing suffers." And Betty began to cry; but the rough old doctor went straight upstairs and told Mrs. Tyler that her husband had been thrown from his gig and seriously hurt.

"I suppose it's only the megrims again that ails you," he added.

Whatever it might be, Mrs. Tyler was ready to help when they carried her husband upstairs and laid him on the bed; only the doctor told her he must see to him first, and sent for a neighbour to give him what help he needed. But somehow, before a word had been spoken as to what the doctor feared, the neighbours knew that the landlord of The Magpie would never walk up the village street again, and when at last the announcement was made that he was dead, men and women looked at each other, and with a sagacious nod whispered,—

"I told you so; I knew how it would be when he was so obstinate about keeping that limb of Satan about the stable."

"But the horse threw him out of the gig," said another, "and his head struck one of those great boulders in the road."

"Ah! But that boy was with him, and the horse that he had bewitched did all the mischief," said a friend of old Toby's, who strongly resented Eric's doctoring the horses.

"Well, now, I've just heard he's more of a Methodist than a witch," said another; "for my Jack caught him once kneeling down in the forest saying his prayers, which is just what they Methodys do, I have heard."

"Very likely; but where is the difference, pray, when they are both agin the Church and the parsons? At all events, here's the landlord of The Magpie goes out well and hearty with this lad, and soon afterwards the doctor comes along and finds him stone dead. It'll be a case for the coroner, and twelve of us 'll have to sit on the body. Now what are we going to say about that boy?"

"What will the law allow us to say?" asked the parish clerk, who joined the group at this moment.

"That's the question we've got to consider, Mr. Jackson. Will the widow keep him on here at The Magpie, do you think?" he asked.

"He ought to be took before the justices," said another.

"He'll have to tell all he knows to the coroner."

"He's told Bill Newman and the doctor all he knows," put in another speaker; but it was evidently a gratification to all of them when the parish constable arrived and took Eric under his charge.

This was done at the doctor's suggestion, and was not unkindly meant on his part, for he had heard enough from one and the other to make him decide that the only safe place for the lad at this time was the constable's cottage. He could be kept there in safety until the inquest was over, but here in the village, when a little more ale had been consumed, some of the more brutal and reckless of the mob would probably try the experiment of ducking him in the overfull horsepond, thus adding murder to the present accident.

Poor Eric was full of trouble at the untimely death of his only friend, but there was no time for him to indulge his grief. As soon as his master had been carried home, he went back to fetch the horse and broken gig, and the latter was not an easy task, and took him some time to accomplish.

He had just got within sight of The Magpie, wearily plunging through mud and water, dragging the wrecked chaise behind him, when the constable laid his hand upon his shoulder.

"You must come with me, my lad," said the man.

The boy started and turned pale, and visions of men hung in chains for murder rose before him. "What have I done?" he gasped.

"That's just what we mean to find out," said a man who stood near.

"You go quietly home with the constable, my boy," said the doctor, who came out of The Magpie parlour on purpose to say a word to Eric.

The widow was in hysterics now she had been told the news about her husband, and really needed the doctor's care; but he was concerned for the poor boy who had happened to be the dead man's companion on that unfortunate journey, for he knew the popular opinion concerning him.

"Why should I have to go with the constable when I am wanted at the stable? Who will see to Peggy while I am away?" asked the lad.

"Never mind Peggy; she will be taken care of, never fear," said the doctor.

"Somebody ought to give her a warm mash at once," said Eric, looking tenderly at his four-footed friend, who stood shivering in the bitter wind, but did not know whether she ought to seek the shelter of the stable, if Eric did not take her there.

This same bleak wind made the constable impatient.

"You'll have to come, you know," he said rather roughly; "for Mrs. Tyler won't have you again, and has told me to arrest you as a beggar if you do not go quietly."

So poor Eric, feeling sadly depressed and apprehensive of what might happen next, went home with the constable, who took pity on him, and gave him an old suit of clothes to wear while his own were drying, and for lodging let him have a loft over his own kitchen, which was warm and dry, if not very cheerful.

Of course there was a good deal of excited talk over Tyler's accident, and but for the doctor's care, Eric might have found himself much worse off than in the constable's loft, for all the old tales talked of during his mother's lifetime were revived now, and Summerleigh was ready to believe that the landlord of The Magpie had died from magical arts, though the verdict of the coroner's jury upon the doctor's testimony could only make it accidental death, and there was no longer any excuse for keeping Eric out of the way.

He of course had to appear before the coroner's court to be questioned and cross-questioned as to what had happened during that morning when his master met with his death, though he had told the story to one and another half a dozen times over at least.

Mrs. Tyler took care to see him before he went into the room, to let him know that he need expect no help from her. "I have got another stable boy—a respectable lad, whose mother was an honest woman and not a witch," she added.

So Eric knew that when this ordeal was over, he would be a homeless waif for whom no man cared in all the wide world. That he would be free however, to go where he pleased he had no doubt or until, when the little crowd was moving away, he was again laid hold of by the constable.

"The justices have ordered it this time," he said, in answer to the boy's appealing look.

"But what have I done?" asked Eric.

The man scratched his head. "You have no employment, no means of living, and so in the eyes of the law you are a beggar and vagabond; some say you are a poacher too, and that looks very black against you," said the man, trying to speak severely.

"Poaching?" repeated Eric. "What need had I to do that? My master always took care that I had enough to eat, and I was too fond of watching the gambols of the creatures to want to kill them."

"Well, you can tell the justices that, and anything else you can think of; but I've got my orders, and I must do my duty."

Not to the friendly constable's loft was he taken this time, but to the gaol at the next town; for a beggar was accounted no better than a thief in those days, and so with pickpockets and highwaymen, he was forced to associate during the next few weeks.

That the lad should sometimes lose heart and think that God had forgotten him was not wonderful, for here in the gaol, he was forced to hear that holy name taken in vain every hour of the day; so that to think that his mother could be right when she said God cared for every soul He had created, seemed hard of belief just now.

His habit of quiet thought and silent musing saved him a great deal now, for he was soon declared to be a poor milksop by those who sought his company at first, and he was left to himself, while the older thieves instructed the younger ones how to carry on fresh robberies when they were released.