The uproar was like hell let loose. You could hear the noise of curses and blows, as the men fought to get to the door, a half mile away. And above it the horrible bellowing and the screaming of that shrill voice.
Long Kirby was the first man out of that murder-hole; and after him the others toppled one by one—men and dogs jostling one another in the violent excitement of their fear. Big Bell, Londesley, Tupper, Hoppin, Teddy Bolstock, white-faced and trembling; and they pulled old Saunderson out by his heels. Then the door was shut with a clang, and the little man and mad dog were left alone.
In the street outside, a wide-eyed crowd had already gathered, attracted by the uproar; while at the door was James Moore, thinking to go in. “Maybe I could give the little man a hand,” he said; but they held him back by force.
Inside was chaos: banging as though on the doors of hell; the bellowing of that great voice; the patter of little feet; the slithering of a body on the floor; and always that shrill, pleading prayer, “Wullie, Wullie, let me come to ye!” and, in a scream, “By God, Kirby, I’ll be dealin’ with ye soon!”
It was Jim Mason who turned to the smith at last and whispered, “Kirby, lad, you’d best get out of here.”
The big man obeyed and ran. The stamp, stamp of his feet on the hard road rang above the turmoil. As the long legs vanished around the corner and the sound of the running steps died away, the listening crowd was seized with panic.
A woman shrieked; a girl fainted; and in two minutes, the street was as empty of people as the plains of Russia in winter: here a white face at a window; there a door half open; and peering around a far corner a frightened boy. Only one man refused to run. Alone, James Moore walked with long strides down the center of the road, slow and calm, Owd Bob trotting at his heels.
◆ ◆ ◆
It was a long half hour before the door of the inn burst open and McAdam came running out, flinging the door behind him.
He rushed into the middle of the road; his sleeves were rolled at the wrist like a surgeon’s; and in his right hand was a black-handled jack-knife.
“Now, by God!” he cried in a terrible voice, “where is he?”
He looked up and down the road, darting his fiery glances everywhere; and his face was whiter than his hair.
Then he turned and hunted madly down the whole length of the main street, nosing like a weasel in every corner, stabbing at the air as he went, and screaming, “By God, Kirby, wait till I get ye!”
CHAPTER 18
How the Killer Was Nearly Caught
NO FURTHER harm came of the incident; but it served as a lesson for the Dalesmen.
Although, in fact, it may have been a coincidence, during the two weeks following Kirby’s deed, there was a quiet period in which no crimes were committed. Then, as though to make up for that, came seven days which are still remembered in the Daleland as the Bloody Week.
On the Sunday, the Squire lost a Cheviot ewe, killed only a hundred yards from the Manor wall. On the Monday, a farm on the Black Water was marked with the red cross. On Tuesday—a black night—Tupper at Swinsthwaite came upon the murderer at his work; he fired into the darkness without striking anything; and the Killer escaped with a scare. On the following night, Viscount Birdsaye lost a shearling ram for which he was said to have paid a great sum of money. Thursday was the one blank night of the week. On Friday, Tupper was again visited and punished heavily, as though in revenge for that shot.
On the Saturday afternoon, a big meeting was held at the Manor to discuss what could be done. The Squire presided over it; many gentlemen and officials of the court of law were present, and every farmer in the countryside.
To start things off, the Special Commissioner read a pointless letter from the Board of Agriculture. After him, Viscount Birdsaye stood up and proposed that instead of the £5 suggested by the Police, a reward should be offered that was more in keeping with the seriousness of the case, and he backed up his proposal with a check for £25. Several others spoke, and, last of all, Parson Leggy got to his feet.
He gave a short history of the crimes; repeated his belief that a sheepdog was the criminal; declared that nothing had happened to change his mind; and ended by offering a solution for them to consider. It was so simple, he said, that they might laugh; but, if their suspicion was correct, it would work to prevent, if not cure, and it would at least give them time to turn around. He paused.
“My suggestion is: That every one of you who owns a sheepdog ties him up at night.”
The farmers were given half an hour to consider the suggestion, and they gathered in small groups to talk it over. Many of them looked at McAdam; but that little man seemed not to notice.
“Well, Mr. Saunderson,” he was saying in a shrill tone of voice, “and will ye tie Shep?”
“What d’you think?” asked Rob, staring at the man at whom the solution was aimed.
“Why, it’s this way, I’m thinking,” the little man answered. “If ye think Shep’s the guilty one, I would, by all manner of means—or shootin’ would be better, maybe. If not, why”—he shrugged his shoulders meaningfully; and having revealed his thoughts and made his point, the little man left the meeting.
James Moore stayed to see the Parson’s suggestion voted down by a large majority, and then he too left the hall. He had predicted the result, and, before the meeting, had warned the Parson how it would be.
“Tie up!” he cried almost indignantly, as Owd Bob came galloping up to his whistle; “I can’t see myself chaining you, owd lad, like any murderer. Why it’s you has kept the Killer off Kenmuir so far, I’ll bet.”
At the lodge-gate was McAdam, for once without his companion, playing with the lodge-keeper’s child; for the little man loved all children but his own, and was loved by them. As the Master came near, he looked up.
“Well, Moore,” he called, “and are you goin’ to tie yer dog?”
“I will if you’ll tie yours,” the Master answered grimly.
“Na,” the little man answered, “it’s Wullie that frightens the Killer off the Grange. That’s why I’ve left him there now.”
“It’s the same with me,” the Master said. “He’s not come to Kenmuir yet, and he won’t, so long as the Owd One’s loose, I think.”
“Loose or tied, as far as that goes,” the little man responded, “Kenmuir will escape.” He made the statement firmly, smacking his lips.
The Master frowned.
“Why is that?” he asked.
“Haven’t ye heard what they’re saying?” the little man asked with raised eyebrows.
“Nay; what?”
“Why, that the very reputation of the best sheepdog in the North should keep him off. And I guess they’re right,” and he laughed shrilly as he spoke.
The Master walked on, puzzled.
“Which way are ye goin’ home?” McAdam called after him. “Because,” with a polite smile, “I’ll take t’other.”
“I’m off by the Windy Brae,” the Master answered, striding on. “Squire asked me to leave a note with his shepherd on the other side of the Chair.” So he headed away to the left, making for home by the route along the Silver Mere.
The well-named Windy Brae is a long stretch of almost unbroken moorland; sloping gently down in mile after mile of heather from the Mere Marches at the top to the edge of the shimmering Silver Mere below. In all that waste of moorland, the only break is the quaint-shaped Giant’s Chair, a puzzle for geologists, looking as though it had been plumped down by accident in the heathery wilderness. The ground rises suddenly from the smooth slope of the Brae; up it goes, growing ever steeper, until at last it runs abruptly into a sheer curtain of rock—the Fall—which rises perpendicular some forty feet, on the top of which rests that tiny grassy bowl—not twenty yards across—they call the Scoop.
The Scoop forms the seat of the Chair and rests on its collar of rock, cool and green and unworldly, like wine in a metal cup; the front is the forty-foot Fall; behind, rising sheer again, the
wall of rock which makes the back of the Chair. It is impossible to reach from above; the only way to enter that little hollow is by two narrow sheep-tracks which crawl dangerously up between the sheer wall on the one hand and the sheer Fall on the other, entering it at opposite sides.
It stands out clearly from the gradual slope, that strange rise of ground; yet as the Master and Owd Bob came out onto the Brae it was already invisible in the darkening night.
Through the heather the two walked on at an easy pace, the Master thinking now with a smile of David and Maggie; wondering what McAdam had meant; meditating with a frown on the Killer; puzzling over his identity—for he was half convinced, like David, that Red Wull was innocent; and thanking his stars that so far Kenmuir had escaped, a piece of luck he felt was due entirely to the watchfulness of the Owd One, who, sleeping in the front entryway, slipped out at all hours and went around to every part of the farm, protecting it from danger. And at the thought, he looked down toward the dark head which should be traveling along by his knee; yet he could not see it, so thick was the dark cover of the night.
So he brushed his way along, and the night grew blacker and blacker; until, from the rising of the ground beneath his feet, he knew he was going around the Giant’s Chair.
Now, as he walked quickly along the foot of the rise, there suddenly burst on his ear the patter of many galloping feet. He turned, and at that second, a wave of sheep almost knocked him down. The night was velvet-black, and they ran furiously by, yet he could dimly make out, driving them at their backs, a vague hound-like form.
“The Killer, by thunder!” he exclaimed, and, startled though he was, struck down toward that last pursuing shape, missing and almost falling.
“Bob, lad!” he cried, “follow on!” and he swung around; but in the darkness could not see if the gray dog had obeyed.
The chase swept on into the night, and, far above him on the hillside, he could now hear the rattle of the flying feet. He started fiercely after them, and then, realizing how useless it would be to follow when it was so dark that he could not even see his hand before his face, came to a stop. So he stood without moving, listening and peering into the blackness, hoping the Owd One was on the villain’s heels.
He prayed for the moon; and, as though in answer, the lantern of the night shone out and lit the grim face of the Chair above him. He shot a glance at his feet; and thanked heaven to see that the gray dog was not beside him.
Then he looked up. The flock had broken apart, and the sheep were scattered over the steep hillside, still galloping madly. In the wild flight, one pair of darting figures caught and held his gaze: the foremost dodging, twisting, speeding upward, the one in back hard on the leader’s heels, swift, relentless, never changing. He looked for a third pursuing form; but he could not see it.
“He must have missed him in the dark,” the Master muttered, the sweat standing on his forehead as he strained his eyes upward.
Higher and higher sped those two dark specks, far higher than the scattered remnants of the flock. Up and up, until suddenly the sheer Fall dropped its barrier in the path of the fugitive. Away she ran, moving swiftly and easily along the foot of the rock wall; came to the familiar track leading to the Scoop, and turned up it, bleating pitifully, nearly exhausted, the Killer close behind her now.
“He’ll strike her down in the Scoop!” cried the Master hoarsely, following with fascinated eyes. “Owd Un! Owd Un! Wherever have you got to?” he called in agony; but no Owd One answered.
As they reached the summit, just as he had predicted, the two black dots became one; and down they rolled together into the hollow of the Scoop, out of the Master’s sight. At the same instant the moon, as though unwilling to watch the last act of the bloody play, veiled her face.
It was his chance. “Now!”—and up the hillside he sped like a young man, preparing for the struggle. The slope grew steep and steeper; but on and on he went in the darkness, gasping painfully, yet running still, until the face of the Fall blocked his way too.
There he paused a moment, and whistled a low call. If he could send the old dog up the one path to the Scoop, while he took the other, the murderer’s road to safety would be blocked.
He waited, expectant; but no cold muzzle was shoved into his hand. Again he whistled. A pebble from above dropped almost on him, as if the criminal up there had moved to the brink of the Fall to listen; and he did not dare to continue.
He waited till all was still again, then crept, cat-like, along the foot of the rock, and came, at last, to the track up which the Killer and the victim had fled a while before. Up that rough path he crawled on hands and knees. The sweat rolled off his face; one elbow brushed the rock again and again; one hand plunged now and then into that bare emptiness on the other side.
He prayed that the moon might reappear soon; that his feet might be saved from falling, where one slip might well mean death, certain destruction of any chance of success. He cursed his luck that the Owd One had somehow missed him in the dark; for now he must trust to chance, his own great strength, and his good oaken stick. And as he climbed, he formed his plan: to rush in on the Killer as he still gorged, and wrestle with him. If in the darkness he missed—and in that small hollow the possibility was not likely—the murderer might still, in the panic of the moment, forget the one path to safety and leap over the Fall to his death.
At last he reached the summit and pause to take a breath. The black emptiness before him was the Scoop, and in the center of it—no more than ten yards away—must be lying the Killer and the killed.
He crouched against the wet rock face and listened. In that dark silence, suspended between heaven and earth, he seemed a million miles away from any living soul.
No sound, and yet the murderer must be there. Yes, there was the clatter of a dislodged stone; and again, the tread of cautious feet.
The Killer was moving; alarmed; was off.
Quick!
He rose to his full height; gathered himself, and leapt.
Something knocked against him as he sprang; something wrestled madly with him; something tore itself away from beneath him; and in a moment he heard the thud of a body striking the ground far below, and the sliding and pattering of some creature speeding furiously down the hillside and away.
“Who the blazes?” he roared.
“What the devil?” screamed a little voice.
The moon shone out.
“Moore!”
“McAdam!”
And there they were, still struggling over the body of a dead sheep.
In a second they had separated and rushed to the edge of the Fall. In the quiet, they could still hear the scrambling hurry of the villain far below them. Nothing was to be seen, however, but a crowd of startled sheep on the hillside, silent witnesses of the murderer’s escape.
The two men turned and looked at each other; the one grim, the other mocking: both rumpled and tousled and suspicious.
“Well?”
“Well?”
A pause and careful examination.
“There’s blood on your coat.”
“And on yours.”
Together they walked back into the little moonlit hollow. There lay the murdered sheep in a pool of blood. It was easy to see where the marks on their coats came from. McAdam touched the victim’s head with his foot. The movement revealed its throat. With a shudder he replaced it where it had been.
The two men stood back and gazed at each other.
“What are you doing here?”
“After the Killer. And you?”
“After the Killer?”
“How did you come?”
“Up this path,” pointing to the one behind him. “And you?”
“Up this one.”
Silence; then again:
“I’d have had him but for yo’.”
“I did have him, but ye tore me off.”
A pause again.
“Where’s yer gray dog?” This time the challenge was unmi
stakable.
“I sent him after the Killer. Where’s your Red Wull?”
“At home, as I told ye before.”
“You mean you left him there?”
McAdam’s fingers twitched.
“He’s where I left him.”
James Moore shrugged his shoulders. And the other began:
“When did yer dog leave ye?”
“When the Killer came past.”
“Ye mean ye missed him then?”
“I say what I mean.”
“Ye say he went after the Killer. Now the Killer was here,” pointing to the dead sheep. “Was your dog here, too?”
“If he had been, he’d be here still.”
“Unless he went over the Fall!”
“That was the Killer, you fool.”
“Or your dog.”
“There was only one beneath me. I felt him.”
“Just so,” said McAdam, and laughed. The other man frowned.
“And that was a big one,” he said slowly. The little man stopped his cackling.
“There you lie,” he said, smoothly. “He was small.”
They looked each other full in the eyes.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” said the Master.
“It’s a matter of fact,” said the other.
The two stared at each other, silent and grim, each trying to read the other’s soul; then they turned again to the edge of the Fall. Down below them, plain to see, was the mark and the line in the gravel showing the Killer’s line of retreat. They looked at each other again, and then each departed the way he had come, to give his version of the story.
Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle Page 14
