by Andre Norton
She must have made some sound without realizing it, for his head turned quickly and then he strode toward her.
“What's to do—?” he began.
Nan scraped the hood of her cloak back from her head, so it no longer shadowed her face. On impulse she put her mittened hand up to her mouth, hoping he would understand her warning. He must have, for he glanced over his shoulder at once and then beckoned her forward into the room he had just quitted.
There was a fire on the hearth, and she reached out her hands to it. Now that she was here some of her courage seeped away; she felt shy. How could she tell this man what she feared her father planned?
“Miss Mallory.” He spoke her name very quietly. “Why have you come here?”
Yes, he must think it very strange. She must tell him at once, or she would not be able to tell him at all. “My father—he has offered money, a great deal of money, for the name of the one who started the fire.”
Ira Fitton nodded, but his face was so grim-set she nearly turned and ran from the room. With a last surge of mingled fear and courage, she gabbled out the rest:
“A boy—Tim Dykes—he came to my father. He says that he saw Chris, your son, in the bushes watching the fire. My father has sent for the others—Sir William Lighten and Mr. Morris. Tim is to tell his story to them. But—” She could not go on, for the rest was a guess, not the truth. How could she tell this stern-looking man that she believed her father would get Tim to lie? Her snow-dampened mittens fell to the floor, and she twisted her cold fingers together tightly.
“Tim Dykes,” the innekeeper repeated. “You are sure it was Tim Dykes and not Sampson?”
“Tim!” she repeated vehemently.
Now he was frowning but, Nan thought, not at her, but rather at some thought of his own. Then he looked at her again as if he was really seeing her.
“Miss Mallory, you have done a thing for which we shall be very grateful. Forewarned is forearmed. But by coming here—”
“It's all right,” she said hurriedly. “I can go back. I don't think anyone will see me. And I must go alone, you see. Because—”
Again he seemed to understand without her having to put it into words. But he shook his head. “I will go with you to the end of the woods.” He stooped and picked up her mittens, giving them back to her.
Though Nan longed to refuse, she guessed that he would not listen to any of her excuses. It seemed to her that she did not breathe freely again until she was safely indoors at the Manor, her damp cloak hidden in the depths of the wardrobe in her own chamber, with the boots pushed under it, and slippers on her cold feet. The snow was falling much faster now, drifting across the garden, already filling in, Nan hoped, her tracks there.
Chris had been seated for a longer time than he could reckon, his books before him, the task Mr. Preston had set him only half begun. He chewed the end of his quill pen and stared out the window where the snow was like a curtain. No one had been near him for what seemed a very long time. He had tried to act as always, though he was sure that rumor had made it plain there was some strain of feeling between his father and himself.
But his thoughts turned mostly to Sampson Dykes. Where had he been last night? He still could not accept the idea that Sam had set the fire. The Dykeses had had it very hard since the Squire turned them out. With Andrew gone, sent off in chains by the Squire, Sam had been left the eldest. Chris knew that Sam hated the Squire, but surely he had sense enough not to get himself into trouble and make things even worse for his mother.
If it were Tim Dykes now—Chris spat a small piece of feather from between his teeth. Tim was as unlike Sam as day from night. He thought Andrew a hero and had talked big about making the Squire pay. Chris squirmed uneasily. That had all been big talk—surely it had!
“Chris—”
The boy started. He had been so deep in thought he had never heard the opening door. “Sir?” He scrambled to his feet to face his father.
“What lies between you and Tim Dykes?”
It was almost as if he had been reading Chris's mind. The boy was so astounded that he spoke the truth without trying to shade it in the favor of the Dykeses.
“Nothing—much. He talks big because he hates the Squire—on account of Andrew. Sam says he always trailed after Andrew. I think, well, I think he takes it unkindly that Sam and I are friends.”
Ira Fitton sat down on the edge of the table. “Unkindly enough that he would want to get you into trouble?”
Chris stared blankly at his father. “Why?”
“It has been reported to me, on very good authority, that Tim was up to the Manor and said that he saw you in the bushes watching the fire. We can perhaps believe that by the time he tells his story again something more will be added to it—enough to set you on the spot with a torch in your hand!”
“But I didn't—” Chris began and then gulped. He knew only too well what his father said was true, and now he was suddenly more afraid than he had ever been in his life.
“This snow is both for and against us"—Ira Fitton had crossed to the small-paned window—"I do not think either Sir William Lighten or Mr. Morris will stir abroad in the storm. But neither will Hawkins be able to get out of London. I greatly doubt we shall see any coaches for a day—maybe more.”
“What—what do we do?” Chris asked in a small voice.
“We wait. There is nothing else to be done at present—except that our Jack is listening—carefully—to the village talk. He's my man more than just the groom when it comes to using his ears.”
Chris laid down his tooth-mangled quill. Waiting was going to be very hard.
And it was. It was three days before a thin sun melted the road enough to let the coaches through. And for most of the minutes of those three days Chris waited tensely for Squire Mallory to put him under arrest. His father said very little, but twice Jack came stamping in and was closeted in his father's private room. What they talked about Chris did not know, but he felt there was nothing good or surely his father would tell him.
On the fourth day the London coach came squelching over the snow, and Chris made himself useful as ever, running errands, carrying the “house glass” of brandy to each of the four passengers who wanted only the warmth of the common room. That is, three of them did, but the fourth hailed his father and was borne off to the small parlor.
The coach had fresh teams and was off again, three passengers reluctantly taking seats, before Lucy the maid came to Chris with his father's order to join him.
He found the stranger sitting in his father's armchair, his booted feet stretched out to the fire. He was a burly man, lacking Ira Fitton's inches, but very wide of shoulder and thick through the chest. With his capped overcoat hung over the bench by the fire, he showed a blue coat with a yellow waistcoat, both of which looked pale against the ruddy color of his face where the jowls had a pricking of sandy beard.
“So this is the desperate character.” He greeted Chris with a voice which echoed around the walls. Then he grinned and winked. Chris did not know just how to take him, though the man's heavy face held an expression of keen interest.
“Now, lad, I want the truth. No holding back, mind you. It's the truth I've got to have to work from. Why were you in the woods that night?”
Chris hesitated. That this was the runner Hawkins, he was now sure. But to tell the whole truth was going to bring Sampson into it—And let Squire Mallory get the hint of Sam's poaching and—
“When Henry Hawkins gives his word"—the man hitched forward a trifle in his chair—"then he means it, lad. Do you have knowledge of who set that fire and think to cover for him?”
“No.” Chris was satisfied that he could answer that with the truth.
“Then if you know of some other wrong-doing as has not been spoken of, I shall shut my ears to that part of it—seeing as how I come on one case alone and that as a favor to the Sergeant Major here. Now I ask you again, What was you a-doing in the woods that night?”
/> “I went to meet someone—” Chris began carefully.
“That someone being another lad as has good reason to hate the Squire.”
Chris stared.
“Jack has kept his ears open.” His father spoke for the first time. “You went there to meet Sampson Dykes. But he did not come?”
Chris shook his head. “I heard the shouting, and I went to see what was happening—I was in the bushes by the hedge in the long field.”
“And you did see someone else?”
Reluctantly Chris told his story: Sampson had not come; Sampson would not have fired the hayrick—that, he repeated over and over. Then he spoke of the voice from the shadow he could not identify.
“Now this Tim as says he saw you, he has something against you?”
“Well—” Once more Chris repeated what he had said to his father concerning Tim.
“And what sort of a lad might he be?”
This time Chris was firm in his head shake. “I—I don't know. He was so mad over what happened to Andrew, his brother Andrew. He and Sam were never ones to see things the same way. Sam, he wanted to get a job, be able to help his mother and the two little ones; he said talking about getting back at the Squire wouldn't do any good.”
“And you believed him?”
Chris nodded vigorously.
“And what does Squire Mallory have against you?” Hawkins swung into another track.
“He doesn't like us here at the inn.” Chris thought his father must certainly have told Hawkins that already. “And a little while ago Miss Nan—she heard I had a fox cub for a pet. She came riding down to see it. The Squire, he caught me talking to her ‘bout it. He was fired up—swung his whip and tried to lay it across me. But I got out of his reach too quick.”
Hawkins raised a finger and scratched the stubble on his jaw. “Sounds like a man with a strong temper, this Mallory.”
“He's not even gentry,” Chris burst out. “Just some cit who made a purseful and bought out Lady Mary when the old Squire took and died and left her with nothing. He wants to lord it over all of us.”
“There are that kind,” Hawkins remarked. “And powerful enemies they can make themselves, too, lad. Well, we'll see what we can discover as will stop his mouth when it comes to calling the law over you.”
What Hawkins proceeded to do, Chris was not sure. He seemed to do nothing but sit in the taproom, listening to any who found their way up from the village for a pint. Being shut in by the snow had made men restless, and now that they could get around, they came into the inn for a bit of company.
But in midafternoon, there was a stir in the courtyard and a thundering knock at the door. Chris was taking a tray of newly washed tankards to the taproom when the door itself was flung open and Squire Mallory strode in, several men at his back, among them Nevison and his two sons.
The Squire pointed with his whip at Chris. “There's the rogue, right to hand. Lay him by the heels, now!”
Chris retreated until his back was against the wood of the hall paneling. But Dolph Nevison and Hal came at him, and before he could defend himself, they had caught his arms. The tray with the tankards crashed to the floor.
What followed was like the wildest of his nightmares. For the sound of the falling tankards brought out his father, and behind him Hawkins and the rest of those in the taproom. The Squire had a pistol, and he shouted that no one was going to rescue this rogue, that if any moved they could be lawfully taken as accomplices.
“Now that"—Hawkins did not raise his voice unduly, but the very force of it overrode the Squire's—"ain't exactly legal, sir. You ain't taking one as was caught in the act, you might say. So where is the warrant whereby you've entered this house?”
“Warrant!” Squire Mallory looked as if he would try either his pistol or his whip on the other. “We've had testimony sworn as to the nature of this gallows-meat and what he did.”
From under his arm Hawkins produced a short baton, which glinted in the light from the open door behind. There was a gilt crown on the tip, and this he pushed toward the Squire for the latter's better seeing.
“I am the King's Man, out of Bow Street, called here to clear up this same case.”
“Then why isn't this rogue under irons?”
“ ‘Cause it ain't been established yet as how he's guilty, sir. Now was you to give me your evidence as you say you have—”
Mallory nodded to the door, and Nevison reached behind him dragging into the light the cowering Tim.
“An eyewitness,” Mallory said. “Which is as good as any warrant.”
“Well enough, sir, but let us all just have it out together—and not in this hall, if you please.”
There was something about Hawkins that carried authority, sweeping even the unwilling Squire behind him on into the taproom. They had already lashed Chris's wrists together behind his back, and now the older of the Nevisons took him roughly by the shoulder and shoved him along.
If the Squire had thought to command the action within, he was mistaken, for Hawkins took control as if this sort of proceeding were common and he had done so many times before.
Chris was pushed down on a bench, the younger Nevison on guard, while the Squire took up position with his back to the fireplace, his eyes ever on the move between Ira Fitton and the Bow Street runner, as if he classed them both as his enemies in some duel now to begin. But Hawkins turned to Tim Dykes and in his rumble of a voice began slowly to ask questions as if it did not matter too much. Tim's name, his age, did he have a brother, and finally one which sent Tim silent. What was he doing abroad in the woods that night?
After a short pause Tim answered, “I heard all the ado and came runnin'—”
“Now, let's think on that.” Hawkins caught him up. “As I have seen it, and I did me a bit of looking around earlier today, this here"—he dipped the end of his baton in the nearest tankard of ale and drew a square to one side—"is the farm where the burning was. And here"—he drew another line—"is the lane what comes up from the village. Do I have it right?”
A chorus of those leaning forward to see the better assured him he did.
“Then here's the place where at young Chris was.” He made a spot with a big ale drop. “Now you tell me where you were!” He swung suddenly on Tim.
Tim stared down at the table and then looked for a second at Hawkins before dropping his eyes. “I was comin’ up from the village like everyone else,” he said shrilly.
“But that you couldn't have been. Not if you saw Chris. There is a stand of orchard right here.” Once more Hawkins printed a series of dots. “And you couldn't have seen him—not at night. Now could you, lad? Unless you was some-where's else than that lane—and maybe with someone else—”
“No! I ain't—I weren't—I never was—” Tim looked from one face to another. “All right. Maybe I weren't in the lane, but I saw Chris! Want me to swear it certain, do you, that I do?”
“I'm not denying you might have seen Chris. And he ain't denied to me where he was. Also he heard you—You called his name out, didn't you?”
Tim looked hunted, seemed to shrink smaller. Hawkins leaned farther across the table and pointed his baton at him. “You ain't no match for Harry Hawkins, boy. I've tumbled men as would make you screech your lungs out just to look on. You was there; you called out Chris's name. But there was someone else—now wasn't there? Someone as your calling out that there way hid, getting Chris's attention so that other could creep away all quiet like. There—was—someone—else!” Hawkins said those last four words solemnly, like someone pronouncing sentence.
“I ain't—I ain't going to say—” Tim put up a last defense.
But Hawkins was shaking his head back and forth slowly. “You'll say, lad. You're going to tell me who it was who crept away while you kept Chris Fitton's attention. Now was it your brother?”
“Sam"—Tim half spat the name. “He ain't got the stomach for anything. He's as soft as rabbit fur, he is.”
�
��And who might be hard where Sam is so soft? Might it be Jem Catsby now?”
Tim looked as if Hawkins had struck him across the face. “I ain't said it—I never did!” he half screamed.
“You just did, lad.” Hawkins straightened up. “You just did, even if you didn't use the words yourself. You've been mighty close with Jem lately; there's plenty who marked that. And Jem, he takes off innocentlike, for London, he says. Then two nights later, there's a fire. Now who can suspect Jem, who has been hiding out nice and snug, with you to fetch and carry and play lookout for him? Then you come to lie away young Chris's life, and get you and Jem free—”
Tim's thin shoulders shook. “He told me—he said as how it would work fine. We'd get back at the Squire, and no one would know never—”
“There's always them as thinks they can outwit the law,” Hawkins said. “ ‘Course they don't in the end. Well, sir"—he spoke now to the Squire—"you has your man, this Catsby. Though where he may be now, since he probably took to his heels before the storm, is another matter.”
“You're Fitton's friend—” the Squire began. Hal Nevison reached down and sawed through the cords binding Chris. Hal's father looked at Ira Fitton. “Ira, I listened to—”
The innkeeper shook his head. “I know what moved you, Henry. Don't let it trouble you. It's all right now the truth is known. And it is known.” He stared straight at the Squire.
Mallory's thin mouth worked as if he were cursing silently. Then he flung out of the room, the Nevisons following.
Hawkins looked at Tim. “It seems that they forgot you, lad. Now before they remember too much and maybe come a-looking to make it hot for you, best get the law on your side. You tell me all you know about this Catsby, and we'll see if we can't forget that you had too big a part in his Devil's work.”
Chris leaned back against the wall; he felt weak and tired and so thankful that he could not find the words he knew he owed Hawkins and his father. He only knew that he was free of a burden he had been carrying.
