Johnny Ludlow Third Series Part 59

"And how could I tell again him when I was asked not to?" contended Grizzel, the tears dropping on to a tin saucepan she was rubbing out.

"Master Nash was as dear to me as the others were. Could it be me to speak up and say he was not in the coffin, but only old things to make up weight! Could it be me to tell he was alive and hiding up aloft here, and so get him put in prison? No, sir; the good name of the Caromels was much to me, but Master Nash was more."

"Now, come, old woman, where's the use of crying like that? Well, yes; you have been faithful, and it's a great virtue. And--and there's a s.h.i.+lling or two for you."

"Have you been blowing her up?" asked Nash, as the Squire went back to him, and sat down on the other side the wide kitchen hearth, the fire throwing its glow upon the bricks, square and red and s.h.i.+ning, and upon Nash Caromel's wan face, in which it was not very difficult to read death. He had put his out-of-door coat off, a long brown garment, and sat in a grey suit. Tho Squire's belief was that he wouldn't have minded getting into the fire itself; he sat there s.h.i.+vering and shaking, and seeming to have no warmth left in him. The room was well guarded from outer observation. The shutters were up, and there was not a c.h.i.n.k in them.

"I have," said the Squire, in answer. "Told her she did not show much regard for the honour of the family--lending herself to such a deception!"

"Poor old Grizzel!" sighed Nash, with a half-smile. "She has lived upon thorns, fearing I should be discovered. As to the family honour, Todhetley, the less said about that the better."

"How _could_ you do it, Caromel?"

"I don't know," answered Nash, with apathy, bringing his face closer to the blaze. "I let it be done, more than did it. All I did, or could do, was just to lie still in my bed. The fever had left me weaker than a child----"

"Did it really turn to typhus?" interrupted the Squire.

"No, it didn't. They said so to scare people away. I was weaker than a child," continued Nash, "both in mind and body. And when I grew stronger--what was done could not be undone. Not that I seek to defend or excuse myself. Don't think that."

"And, in the name of all that's marvellous, what could have put so monstrous an idea into their heads?" demanded the Squire, getting up to face the kitchen.

"Well, I have always fancied that business at Sandstone Torr did,"

replied Nash, who had no idea of reticence now, but spoke out as freely as you please. "It had come to light, you know, not long before. Stephen Radcliffe had hidden his brother in the old tower, pa.s.sing him off to the world as dead; and so, I suppose, it was thought that I could be hidden and pa.s.sed off as dead."

"But Stephen Radcliffe never got up a mock funeral. His tale was that Frank had died in London. You were bold people. What will Parson Holland say, when he comes to learn that he read the burial-service over a box of rubbish?"

"I don't know," was the helpless reiteration of poor Nash. "The trouble and worry of it altogether, the discomforts of my position, the constant, never-ceasing dread of discovery have--have been to me what you cannot realize. But for going out of the house at night and striding about in the fresh, free air, I should have become mad. It was a _taste_ of freedom. Neither could I always confine myself to the walks in the garden; whether I would nor not, my feet would carry me beyond it and into the shaded copse."

"Frightening people who met you!"

"When I heard footsteps approach I hid myself--though not always quite in time. I was more put out at meeting people than they were at meeting me."

"I wonder your keepers here ever let you get out!" cried the Squire, musingly.

"They tried hard to keep me in: and generally succeeded. It was only by fits and starts I gained my way. They were afraid, you see, that I should carry out my threat of disclosing myself but for being yielded to now and then."

But the Squire did not get over the discovery. He strode about the large kitchen, rubbing his face, giving out sundry Bless my hearts! at intervals. The return to life of Charlotte Tinkle had been marvellous enough, but it was nothing to this.

Meanwhile we were on our road to Duffham's. Leaving Dobbs at his own forge, we rushed on, and found the doctor in his little parlour at supper; pickled eels and bread-and-cheese: the eels in the wide stone jar they were baked in--which was Nomy's way of serving pickled fish.

"Will you sit down and take some?" asked Duffham, pointing to the jar: out of which he took the pieces with a fork as he wanted them.

"I should like to, but there's no time for it," answered Tod, eyeing the jar wistfully.

Pickled eels are a favourite dish in our parts: and you don't often eat anything as good.

"Look here, Duffham," he went on: "we want you to go with us and see--see somebody: and to undertake not to tell tales out of school. The Squire has answered for it that you will not."

"See who?" asked Duffham, going on with his supper.

"A ghost," said Tod, grimly. "A dead man."

"What good can I do _them_?"

"Well, the man has come to life again. Not for long, though, I should say, judging by his looks. You are not to go and tell about it, mind."

"Tell what?"

"That he is alive, instead of being, as is supposed, under a gravestone in yonder churchyard. I am not sure but that you went to his funeral."

Tod's significant tone, half serious, half mocking, attracted Duffham's curiosity more even than the words. But he still went on with his eels.

"Who is it?"

"Nash Caromel. There. Don't fall off in a faint. Caromel has come to life."

Down went Duffham's fork. "Why--what on earth do you mean?"

"It is not a joke," said Tod. "Nash Caromel has been alive all this time, concealed in his house--just as Francis Radcliffe was concealed in the tower. The Squire is with him now--and he is very ill."

Duffham appealed to me. "Is this true, Johnny Ludlow?"

"Yes, sir, it is. We found him out to-night. He looks as if he were dying. Dobbs is sure he is. You never saw anything so like a ghost."

Leaving his eels now, calling out to old Nomy that she might take away the supper, Duffham came off with us at once. Dobbs ran up as we pa.s.sed his forge, and went with us to the turning, talking eagerly.

"If you can cure him, Mr. Duffham, sir, I should take it as a great favour, like, showed to myself," spoke the blacksmith. "I'd not have pounced upon him for all the world, to give him pain, in the state he's in. He looks as if he were dying."

They were in the kitchen still, when Grizzel opened the door to us, the fire bigger and hotter than ever. The first thing Duffham did was to order Caromel to bed, and to have a good fire lighted in his room.

But there was no hope for Nash Caromel. The Squire told us so going home that night. Duffham thought about ten days more would see the end of him.

II.

"And how have things gone during my short absence, Grizzel?" demanded Miss Gwinny Nave, alighting from the tax-cart the following morning, upon her return to Caromel's Farm.

"Oh, pretty well," answered Grizzel, who in her heart detested Miss Gwinny and all the Naves. "The master seems weaker. He have took to his bed, and got a fire in his room."

"When did he do that?"

"He came down last night after you went, Miss Gwinny, and sat over this here kitchen fire for ever so long. Then he went up to bed, and I lighted him a fire and took him up some hot arrowroot with a wine gla.s.s o' brandy in it. s.h.i.+vering with cold, he was."

"And he has not got up this morning?"

"No; and he says he does not mean to get up. 'I've taken to my bed for good, Grizzel,' he says to me this morning when I went in to light the fire again and see what he'd eat for breakfast. And I think he has, Miss Gwinny."

Which information considerably lightened the doubt which was tormenting Miss Nave's mind. She wanted, oh how badly, and _was_ wanted, to remain at the Rill, being sorely needed there; but she had not seen her way clear to do it. If Nash was indeed confined to his bed, she might perhaps venture to leave him for a day or two to Grizzel.

But, please don't think old Grizzel mean for keeping in what had taken place: she was only obeying orders. Duffham and the Squire had laid their heads together and then talked to Caromel; and it was agreed that for the present nothing should be disclosed. They gave their orders to Grizzel, and her master confirmed them.