Johnny Ludlow Fifth Series Part 35

I met him in the plantation, beyond the d.y.k.e. Mrs. Todhetley, awfully distressed, sent me flying away to find the pater; she mistakenly thought he might be at Rimmell's, who lived in a cottage beyond it.

Running home through the trees, I came upon Sanker. He was sitting on his box, crying; great big sobs bursting from him. Of course he could not carry _that_ far. Down I sat by him, and put my hand on his.

"Don't, Sanker! don't, old fellow! Come back and have it cleared up. I dare say they are all wrong together."

His angry mood had changed. Those fierce whirlwinds of pa.s.sion are generally followed by depression. He did not seem to care an atom for his sobs, or for my seeing them.

"It's the cruelest wrong I ever had dealt to me, Johnny. Why should they pitch upon _me_? What have they seen in me that they should set me down as a thief?--and such a thief! Why, the very thought of it, if they send her word, will kill my mother."

"You didn't do it, Sanker. I----"

He got up, and raised his hand solemnly to the blue sky, just as a man might have done.

"I swear I did not. I swear I never laid finger on a thing in your house, or at school, that was not mine. G.o.d hears me say it."

"And now you'll come back with me, Ned. The box will take no harm here till we send for it."

"Go back with you! that I never will. Fare you well, Johnny: I'll wish it to _you_."

"But where are you going?"

"That's my business. Look here; I was more generous than some of you have been. All along, I felt as _sure_ who it was, cribbing those things at school, as though I had seen it done; but I never told. I just whispered to the fellow, when we were parting: 'Don't you go in for the same game next half, or I shall have you dropped upon;' and I don't think he will."

"Who--which was it?" I cried, eagerly.

"No: give him a chance. It was neither you nor me, and that's enough to know."

Hoisting the box up on to the projecting edge of a tree, he got it on his shoulders again. Certain of his innocence then, I was in an agony to get him back.

"It's of no use, Johnny. Good-bye."

"Sanker! Ned! The Squire will be fit to smother us all, when he finds you are off; Mrs. Todhetley is in dreadful grief. Such an unpleasant thing has never before happened with us."

"Good-bye," was all he repeated, marching resolutely off, with the black box held safe by the cord.

Fit to smother us? I thought the pater would have done it, when he came home late in the afternoon; laying the blame of Sanker's going, first on Mrs. Todhetley, then on Tod, then on me.

"What is to be done?" he asked, looking at us all helplessly. "I wouldn't have had it come out for the world. Think of his parents--of his own prospects."

"He never did it, sir," I said, speaking up; "he swore it to me."

The pater gave a sniff. "Swearing does not go for much in such cases, I'm afraid, Johnny."

It was so hopeless, the making them understand Sanker's solemn truth as he did swear it, that I held my tongue. I told Tod; also, what he had said about the fellow he suspected at school; but Tod only curled his lip, and quietly reminded me that I should never be anything but a m.u.f.f.

Three or four days pa.s.sed on. We could not learn where Sanker went to, or what had become of him; nothing about him except the fact that he had left his box at Goody Picker's cottage, asking her to take charge of it until it was sent for. Mrs. Todhetley would not write to Wales, or to the school, for fear of making mischief. I know this: it was altogether a disagreeable remembrance, whichever way we looked at it, but I was the only one who believed in his innocence.

On the Monday another loss occurred; not one of value in itself, but uncommonly significant. Since the explosion, Mrs. Todhetley had moved about the house restlessly, more like a fish out of water than a reasonable woman, following the Squire to his room, and staying there to talk with him, as she never had before. It was always in her head to do something to mend matters; but, what, she could not tell; hence her talkings with the pater. As each day pa.s.sed, bringing no news of Sanker, she grew more anxious and fidgety. While he was in his room on the Monday morning, she came in with her work. It was the unpicking some blue ribbons from a white body of Lena's. There had been a child's party at the Stirlings' (they were always giving them), and Lena had a new frock for it. The dressmaker had put a glistening gla.s.s thing, as big as a pea, in the bows that tied up the sleeves. They looked like diamonds.

The pater made a fuss after we got home, saying it was inconsistent at the best; she was too young for real diamonds, and he would not have her wear mock rubbish. Well, Mrs. Todhetley had the frock in her hand, taking these bows off, when she came to the Squire on the Monday morning, chattering and lamenting. I saw and heard her. On going away she accidentally left one of them on the table. The Squire went about as usual, dodging in and out of the room at intervals like a dog in a fair.

I sat on the low seat, on the other side of the hedge, in the vegetable garden, making a fis.h.i.+ng-line and flinging stones at the magpie whenever he came up to his perch on the old tree's stump. All was still; nothing to be heard but his occasional croak, "Now then, Peter!" Presently I caught a soft low whistle behind me. Looking through the hedge, I saw Roger Monk coming out of the room with stealthy steps, and going off towards his greenhouses. I thought nothing of it; it was his ordinary way of walking; but he must have come up to the room very quietly.

"Johnny," came the Squire's voice by-and-by, and I ran round: he had seen me sitting there.

"Johnny, have you a mind for a walk to----"

He had got thus far when Mrs. Todhetley came in by the inner door, and began looking on the table. Nothing in the world was on it except the inkstand, the _Worcester Herald_, and the papers before the Squire.

"I must have left one of the blue knots here," she said.

"You did; I saw it," said the Squire; and he took up his papers one by one, and shook the newspaper.

Well, the blue shoulder-knot was gone. Just as we had searched for the ring, we searched for that: under the matting, and above the matting, and everywhere; I and those two. A grim look came over the Squire's face.

"The thief is amongst us still. He has taken that glittering paste thing for a diamond. This clears Sanker."

Mrs. Todhetley burst into glad sobs. I had never seen her so excited; you might have thought her an hysterical girl. She would do all sorts of things at once; the least of which was, starting in a post-chaise-and-four for Wales.

"Do nothing," said the Squire, with authority. "I had news of Sanker this morning, and he's back at school. He wrote me a letter."

"Oh, why did you not show it me?" asked Mrs. Todhetley, through her tears.

"Because it's a trifle abusive; actionable, a lawyer might say," he answered, stopping a laugh. "Ah! ha! a big diamond! I'm as glad of this as if anybody had left me a thousand pounds," continued the good old pater. "I've not had that boy out of my head since, night or day. We'll have him back to finish his holidays--eh, Johnny?"

Whether I went along on my head or my tail, doing the Squire's errand, I didn't exactly know. To my mind the thief stood disclosed--Roger Monk.

But I did not much like to betray him to the Squire. As a compromise between duty and disinclination, I told Tod. He went straight off to the Squire, and Roger Monk was ordered to the room.

He did not take the accusation as Sanker took it--noisily. About as cool and hardy as any fellow could be, stood he; white, angry retaliation s.h.i.+ning from his sullen face. And, for once, he looked full at the Squire as he spoke.

"This is the second time I have been accused wrongfully by you or yours, sir. You must prove your words. A bank-note, a ring, a false diamond (taken to be a true one), in a blue ribbon; and I have stolen them.

If you don't either prove your charge to be true, or withdraw the imputation, the law shall make you, Mr. Todhetley. I am down in the world, obliged to take a common situation for a while; but that's no reason why I should be browbeat and put upon."

Somehow, the words, or the manner, told upon the Squire. He was not feeling sure of his grounds. Until then he had never cast a thought of ill on Roger Monk.

"What were you doing here, Monk? What made you come up stealthily, and creep stealthily away again?" demanded Tod, who had a.s.sumed the guilt out and out.

"As to what I was doing here, I came to ask a question about my work,"

coolly returned Monk. "I walked slowly, not stealthily; the day's hot."

"You had better turn out your pockets, Monk," said the Squire.

He did so at once, just as Sanker had done unbidden, biting his lips to get some colour into them. Lots of odds and ends of things were there; string, nails, a tobacco-pipe, halfpence, and such like; but no blue bow. I don't think the Squire knew whether to let him off as innocent, or to give him into custody as guilty. At any rate, he seemed to be in hesitation, when who should appear on the scene but Goody Picker. The turned-out pockets, Monk's aspect, and the few words she caught, told the tale.

"If you please, Squire--if you please, young masters," she began, dropping a curtsy to us in succession; "the mistress told me to come round here. Stepping up this morning about a job o' work I'm doing--for Mrs. Hannah, I heard of the losses that have took place, apperiently thefts. So I up and spoke; and Hannah took me to the mistress; and the mistress, who had got her gownd off a-changing of it, listened to what I had to say, and telled me to come round at once to Mr. Todhetley. (Don't you be frighted, Monk.) Sir, young gentlemen, I think it might have been the magpie."

"Think who might have been the magpie?" asked the Squire, puzzled.

"What stole the things. Sir, that there pie, bought only t'other day from my gran'son by young Mr. Todhetley, was turned out o' my son Peter's home at Alcester for thieving. He took this, and he took that; he have been at it for weeks, ever since they'd had him. They thought it was the servant, and sent her away. (A dirty young drab she was, so 'twere no loss.) Not her, though; it were that beast of a magpie. A whole nest of goods he had got hid away in the brewhouse: but for having a brewing on, he might never ha' been found out. The woman was drawing off her second mash when she see him hop in with a new s.h.i.+rt wristban'

and drop it into the old iron pot."

Tod, who believed the story to be utterly unreasonable--got up, perhaps, by Mother Picker to screen the real thief--resented the imputation on his magpie. The bird came hopping up to us, "Now, then, Peter."