Wenderholme Part 6

Mr. Ogden sent Jim down to Shayton on horseback, and returned to the moor alone. They met again at the farm at three o'clock in the morning.

Neither of them had any news of the child. Jim had roused the household at Milend, and awakened everybody both at the parsonage and the Doctor's. He had given the alarm, and he had done the same at the scattered cottages and, farm-houses between Twistle Farm and Shayton. If Jacob were seen anywhere, news would be at once sent to his father. Dr.

Bardly was not at home; he had left about noon for Sootythorn on militia business, and expected to go on to Wenderholme with Colonel Stanburne, where he intended to pa.s.s the night.

CHAPTER VII.

ISAAC OGDEN'S PUNISHMENT.

During what remained of the night, it is unnecessary to add that n.o.body at Twistle Farm had rest. The search was continually renewed in various directions, and always with the same negative result. Mr. Ogden began to lose hope, and was more and more confirmed in his supposition that his son must have perished in the bog. Jim returned to Shayton, where he arrived about half-past four in the morning. When the hands a.s.sembled at Ogden's mill, Mr. Jacob told them that the factory would be closed that day, but that he would pay them their full wages; and he should feel grateful to any of the men who would help him in the search for his little nephew, who had unfortunately disappeared from Twistle on the preceding evening, and had not been since heard of. He added, that a reward of a hundred pounds would be given to any one who would bring him news of the child. Soon after daylight, handbills were posted in every street in Shayton offering the same reward. Mr. Jacob returned to Milend from the factory, and prepared to set out for Twistle.

The sun rose in clear frosty air, and the moors were covered with snow.

Large groups began to arrive at the farm about eight o'clock, and at nine the hill was dotted with searchers in every direction. It was suggested to Mr. Ogden by a policeman that if he had any intention of having the pond dragged, it would be well that it should be done at once, as there was already a thin coat of ice upon it, and it would probably freeze during the whole of the day and following night, so that delay would entail great additional labor in the breaking of the ice. An apparatus was sent up from Shayton for this purpose. Mr. Ogden did not superintend this operation, but sat alone in his parlor waiting to hear the result. There was a tap at the door, and the policeman entered.

"We've found nothing in the pond, Mr. Isaac, except--"

"Except what?"

"Only this whip, sir, that must belong to you;" and he produced the whip with the steel hammer. "It may be an important hindication, sir, if it could be ascertained whether your little boy had been playin' with it yesterday evenin'. You don't remember seein' him with it, do you, sir?"

Mr. Ogden groaned, and covered his face with his hands. Then his whole frame shook convulsively. Old Sarah came in.

"I was just askin' Mr. Ogden whether he knew if the little boy had been playin' with this 'ere whip yesterday--we've found it in the pond; and as I was just sayin', it might be a useful hindication."

Old Sarah looked at the whip, which lay wet upon the table. "I seed that whip yistady, but I dunnot think our little lad played wi' it. He didn't use playin' wi' that whip. That there whip belongs to his father, an'

it's him as makes use on it, and non little Jacob."

Mr. Ogden removed his hands from his face, and said, "The whip proves nothing. I threw it into the pond yesterday myself."

The policeman looked much astonished. "It's a fine good whip, sir, to throw away."

"Well, take it, then, if you admire it I'll make ye a present of it."

"I've no use for it, sir."

"Then, I reckon," said old Sarah, "as you 'aven't got a little lad about nine year old; such whips as that is consithered useful for thras.h.i.+n'

little lads about nine year old."

Mr. Ogden could bear this no longer, and said he would go down to the pond. When he had left the room, old Sarah took up the whip and hung it in its old place, over the silver spurs. The policeman lingered. Old Sarah relieved her mind by recounting what had pa.s.sed on the preceding evening. "I am some and glad[9] as you brought him that there whip. Th'

sight of it is like pins and needles in 'is een. You've punished 'im with it far worse than if you'd laid it ovver his shoulthers."

Mr. Ogden gave orders that every one who wanted any thing to eat should be freely supplied in the kitchen. One of old Sarah's great accomplishments was the baking of oat-cake, and as the bread in the house was soon eaten up, old Sarah heated her oven, and baked two or three hundred oat-cakes. When once the mixture is prepared, and the oven heated, a skilful performer bakes these cakes with surprising rapidity, and old Sarah was proud of her skill. If any thing could have relieved her anxiety about little Jacob, it would have been this beloved occupation--but not even the pleasure of seeing the thin fluid mixture spread over the heated sheet of iron, and of tossing the cake dexterously at the proper time, could relieve the good heart of its heavy care. Even the very occupation itself had saddening a.s.sociations, for when old Sarah pursued it, little Jacob had usually been a highly interested spectator, though often very much in the way. She had scolded him many a time for his "plaguiness;" but, alas! what would she have given to be plagued by that small tormentor now!

The fall of snow had been heavy enough to fill up the smaller inequalities of the ground, and the hills had that aspect of exquisite smoothness and purity which would be degraded by any comparison. Under happier circ.u.mstances, the clear atmosphere and brilliant landscape would have been in the highest degree exhilarating; but I suppose n.o.body at Twistle felt that exhilaration now. On the contrary, there seemed to be something chilling and pitiless in that cold splendor and brightness. No one could look on the vast sweep of silent snow without feeling that _somewhere_ under its equal and unrevealing surface lay the body of a beloved child.

The grave-faced seekers ranged the moors all day, after a regular system devised by Mr. Jacob Ogden. The circle of their search became wider and wider, like the circles from a splash in water. In this way, before nightfall, above thirty square miles had been thoroughly explored. At last, after a day that seemed longer than the longest days of summer, the sun went down, and one by one the stars came out. The heavens were full of their glittering when the scattered bands of seekers met together again at the farm.

The fire was still kept alive in little Jacob's room. The little night-gown still hung before it. Old Sarah changed the hot water in the bed-warmer regularly every hour. Alas! alas! was there any need of these comforts now? Do corpses care to have their shrouds warmed, or to have hot-water bottles at their icy feet?

Mr. Ogden, who had controlled himself with wonderful success so long as the sun shone, began to show unequivocal signs of agitation after nightfall. He had headed a party on the moor, and came back with a sinking heart. He had no hope left. The child must certainly have died in the cold. He went into little Jacob's bedroom and walked about alone for a few minutes, pacing from the door to the window, and looking out on the cold white hills, the monotony of which was relieved only by the ma.s.ses of black rock that rose out of them here and there. The fire had burnt very briskly, and it seemed to Mr. Ogden that the little night-gown was rather too near. As he drew back the chair he gazed a minute at the bit of linen; his chest heaved with violent emotion, and then there came a great and terrible agony. He sat down on the low iron bed, his strong frame shook and quivered, and with painful gasps flowed the bitter tears of his vain repentance. He looked at the smooth little pillow, untouched during a whole night, and thought of the dear head that had pressed it, and might never press it more. Where was it resting now? Was the frozen snow on the fair cheek and open brow, or--oh horror, still more horrible!--had he been buried alive in the black and treacherous pit, and were the dear locks defiled with the mud of the bog, and the bright eyes filled with its slimy darkness for ever? Surely he had not descended into _that_ grave; they had done what they could to sound the place, and had found nothing but earth, soft and yielding--no fragment of dress had come up on their boat-hooks. It was more endurable to imagine the child asleep under the snow. When the thaw came they would find him, and bring him to his own chamber, and lay him again on his own bed, at least for one last night, till the coffin came up from Shayton.

How good the child had been! how brutally Ogden felt that he had used him! Little Jacob had been as forgiving as a dog, and as ready to respond to the slightest mark of kindness. He had been the light of the lonely house with his innocent prattle and gayety. Ogden had frightened him into silence lately, and driven him into the kitchen, where he had many a time heard him laughing with old Sarah and Jim, and been unreasonably angry with him for it. Ogden began to see these things in a different light. "I used him so badly," he thought, "that it was only natural he should shun and avoid me." And then he felt and knew how much sweet and pure companions.h.i.+p he had missed. He had not half enjoyed the blessing he had possessed. He ought to have made himself young again for the child's sake. Would it have done him any harm to teach little Jacob cricket, and play at ball with him, or at nine-pins? The boy's life had been terribly lonely, and his father had done nothing to dissipate or mitigate its loneliness. And then there came a bitter sense that he had really loved the child with an immense affection, but that the coldness and roughness and brutality of his outward behavior had hidden this affection from his son. In this, however, Mr. Ogden had not been quite so much to blame as in the agony of his repentance he himself believed.

His self-accusation, like all sincere and genuine self-accusation, had a touch of exaggeration in it. The wrong that he had done was attributable quite as much to the temper of the place he lived in as to any peculiar evil in himself as an individual man. He had spoiled his temper by drinking, but every male in Shayton did the same; he had been externally hard and unsympathetic, but the inhabitants of Shayton carried to an excess the English contempt for the betrayal of the softer emotions. In all that Ogden had done, in the whole tenor of his life and conversation, he had merely obeyed the great human instinct of conformity. Had he lived anywhere else--had he even lived at Sootythorn--he would have been a different man. Such as he was, he was the product of the soil, like the hard pears and sour apples that grew in the dismal garden at Milend.

He had been sitting more than an hour on the bed, when he heard a knock at the door. It was old Sarah, who announced the arrival of Mr. Prigley and Mrs. Ogden. Mr. Prigley had been to fetch her from the place where she was visiting, and endeavored to offer such comfort to her during the journey as his heart and profession suggested. As on their arrival at Milend there had been no news of a favorable or even hopeful kind, Mrs.

Ogden was anxious to proceed to Twistle immediately, and Mr. Prigley had kindly accompanied her.

The reader may have inferred from previous pages of this history, that although Mr. Prigley may have been a blameless and earnest divine, he was not exactly the man best fitted to influence such a nature as that of Isaac Ogden. He had little understanding either of its weakness or its strength--of its weakness before certain forms of temptation, or its strength in acknowledging unwelcome and terrible facts. After Mrs. Ogden had simply said, "Well, Isaac, there's no news of him yet," the clergyman tried to put a cheerful light on the subject by expressing the hope that the boy was safe in some farm-house. Mr. Ogden answered that every farm-house within several miles had been called at, and that Twistle Farm was the last of the farms on the moor side. It was most unlikely, in his opinion, that the child could have resisted the cold so long, especially as he had no provisions of any kind, and was not even sufficiently clothed to go out; and as he had certainly not called at any house within seven or eight miles of Twistle, Mr. Ogden could only conclude that he must have perished on the moor, and that the thick fall of snow was all that had prevented the discovery of his body.

Mrs. Ogden sat down and began to cry very bitterly. The sorrow of a person like Mrs. Ogden is at the same time quite frank in its expression, and perfectly monotonous. Her regrets expressed themselves adequately in three words, and the repet.i.tion of them made her litany of grief--"Poor little lad!" and then a great burst of weeping, and then "Poor little lad!" again, perpetually.

The clergyman attempted to "improve" the occasion in the professional sense. "The Lord hath given," he said, "and the Lord hath taken away;"

then he paused, and added, "blessed be the name of the Lord." But this brought no solace to Ogden's mind. "It was not the Lord that took the lad away," he answered; "it was his father that drove him away."

The great agony came over him again, and he flung himself on his breast upon the sofa and buried his face in the cus.h.i.+ons. Then his mother rose and came slowly to his side, and knelt down by him. Precious maternal feelings, that had been, as it were, forgotten in her heart for more than twenty years, like jewels that are worn no more, shone forth once more from her swimming eyes. "Isaac, lad," she said, with a voice that sounded in his ears like a far-off recollection of childhood,--"Isaac, lad, it were none o' thee as did it,--it were drink. Thou wouldn't have hurt a hair of his head." And she kissed him.

It was a weary night at Twistle. n.o.body had any hope left, but they felt bound to continue the search, and relays of men came up from Shayton for the purpose. They were divided into little parties of six or eight, and Mr. Jacob directed their movements. Each group returned to the house after exploring the ground allotted to it, and Mr. Ogden feverishly awaited its arrival. The ever-recurring answer, the sad shake of the head, the disappointed looks, sank into the heart of the bereaved father. About two in the morning he got a little sleep, and awoke in half an hour somewhat stronger and calmer.

It is unnecessary to pursue the detail of these sufferings. The days pa.s.sed, but brought no news. Dr. Bardly came back from Wenderholme, and seemed less affected than would have been expected by those who knew his love and friends.h.i.+p for little Jacob. He paid, however, especial attention to Mr. Isaac, whom he invited to stay with him for a few weeks, and who bore his sorrow with a manly fort.i.tude. The Doctor drank his habitual tumbler of brandy-and-water every evening before going to bed, and the first evening, by way of hospitality, had offered the same refreshment to his guest. Mr. Ogden declined simply, and the offer was not renewed. For the first week he smoked a great deal, and drank large quant.i.ties of soda-water, but did not touch any intoxicating liquor. He persevered in this abstinence, and declared his firm resolve to continue it as a visible sign of his repentance, and of his respect to the memory of his boy. He was very gentle and pleasant, and talked freely with the Doctor about ordinary subjects; but, for a man whose vigor and energy had manifested themselves in some abruptness and rudeness in the common intercourse of life, this new gentleness was a marked sign of sadness.

When the Doctor's servant, Martha, came in unexpectedly and found Mr.

Ogden alone, she often observed that he had shed tears; but he seemed cheerful when spoken to, and his grief was quiet and undemonstrative.

The search for the child was still actively pursued, and his mysterious disappearance became a subject of absorbing interest in the neighborhood. The local newspapers were full of it, and there appeared a very terrible article in the 'Sootythorn Gazette' on Mr. Ogden's cruelty to his child. The writer was an inhabitant of Shayton, who had had the misfortune to have Mr. Jacob Ogden for his creditor, and had been pursued with great rigor by that gentleman. He got the necessary data from the policeman who had brought the whip back from the pond, and wrote such a description of it as made the flesh of the Sootythorn people creep upon their bones, and their cheeks redden with indignation.

The Doctor happened to be out of the house when this newspaper arrived, and Mr. Isaac opened it and read the article. The facts stated in it were true and undeniable, and the victim quailed under his punishment.

If he had ventured into Sootythorn, he would have been mobbed and pelted, or perhaps lynched. He was scarcely safe even in Shayton; and when he walked from the Doctor's to Milend, the factory operatives asked him where his whip was, and the children pretended to be frightened, and ran out of his way. A still worse punishment was the singular gravity of the faces that he met--a gravity that did not mean sympathy but censure.

The 'Sootythorn Gazette' demanded that he should be punished--that an example should be made of him, and so on. The writer had his wish, without the intervention of the law.

After a few weeks the mystery was decided to be insoluble, and dismissed from the columns of the newspapers. Even the ingenious professional detectives admitted that they were at fault, and could hold out no hopes of a discovery. Mr. Ogden had with difficulty been induced to remain at the Doctor's during the prosecution of these inquiries; but Dr. Bardly had represented to him that he ought to have a fixed address in case news should arrive, and that he need not be wholly inactive, but might ride considerable distances in various directions, which indeed he did, but without result.

Mrs. Ogden remained at Milend, but whether from the strength of her nature, or some degree of insensibility, she did not appear to suffer greatly from her bereavement, and pursued her usual household avocations with her accustomed regularity. Mr. Jacob went to his factory, and was absorbed in the details of business. No one put on mourning, for the child was still considered as possibly alive, and perhaps his relations shrank from so decided an avowal of their abandonment of hope. The one exception to this rule was old Sarah at Twistle, who clad herself in a decent black dress that she had by her. "If t' little un's deead," she said, "it's n.o.bbut reight to put mysel' i' black for him; and if he isn't I'm so sore in my heart ovver him 'at I'm fit to wear nought else."

CHAPTER VIII.

FROM SOOTYTHORN TO WENDERHOLME.

The next scene of our story is in the Thorn Hotel at the prosperous manufacturing town of Sootythorn, a place superior to Shayton in size and civilization and selected by the authorities as the headquarters Of Colonel Stanburne's regiment of militia.

Dr. Bardly arrived at the Thorn the morning after Isaac Ogden's relapse, having driven all the way from Shayton, through scenery which would have been comparable to any thing in England, if the valleys had not been spoiled by cotton-mills, rows of ugly cottages, and dismal-looking coal-pits.

"Colonel Stanburne's expecting you, Doctor," said Mr. Garley, the landlord of the Thorn: "he's in the front sitting-room."

The Colonel was sitting by himself, with the 'Times' and a little black pipe.