Harvest by Mrs. Humphry Ward (most read books in the world of all time txt) 📕

been born. A London factory-girl would have expressed it in the Cockney way: "Blokes are no good--but you must have a bloke!"

The two girls then concluded that Captain Ellesborough had been causing trouble, as all men did, at some point; and being sympathetic little souls, they worked especially hard in the potato-field, and would not allow Rachel to carry the heavier baskets to the "clamp."

Meanwhile Janet had been wrestling with old Halsey, till he had very reluctantly yielded to her persuasion, and returned to work.

"I'm not the man I wor," he confided to Peter Betts, as they were eating their dinner under a hedge in the damp October sunshine. "When I wor a young man, I wouldn't ha' minded them things, not if it was iver so. But now they do give me the shivers in my inside."

"What do?" said Peter Betts, with a mouthful of cold bacon. He was still greatly in the dark as to why Halsey had left work so early in the afternoon the day before, and why he was now in such a gruff and gloomy mood. There was indeed a rumour in the village that old Halsey had seen "summat," but as Halsey had gone to bed immediately after Miss Leighton had had her say with him, and had refused to be "interviewed" even by his wife, there was a good deal of uncertainty even in the mind of his oldest pal, Peter Betts.

"Why--ghostisses!" said Halsey, with a frown, removing his pipe for a moment to give emphasis to the word. "I don't see as a man can be expected to deal with ghostisses. Anythin' else yer like in a small way--mad dogs, or bulls, or snakes, where they keep 'em, which, thank the Lord, they don't in these parts--but not _them_."

"What did yer see?" said Betts, after a few ruminating pulls.

"Well, I saw old Watson, the keeper, as was murdered sixty years since, 'at's what I saw," said Halsey with slow decisiveness.

"An' what might be like?" asked Betts, with equal deliberation. The day was mild and sunny; the half-ploughed field on which they had been working lay alternatively yellow in the stubbles and a rich brown purple in the new turned furrows under the autumn noon. A sense of well-being had been diffused in the two old men by food and rest. Halsey's tongue grew looser.

"Well, I saw a man come creepin' an' crouchin' down yon grass road"--(it was visible from where they sat, as a green streak on the side of the hill)--"same as several people afore me 'as seen 'um--same as they allus say old Watson must ha' come after Dempsey shot 'im. He wor shot in the body. The doctors as come to look at 'im fust foun' that out. An' if ye're shot in the body, I understan', yo naterally double up a bit if yo try to walk. Well--that's jes' how I saw 'im--crouchin' along. Yo remember it wor a dull evenin' yesterday--an' it wor gettin' dark, though it worn't dark. It wor not much after fower, by my old watch--but I couldn't see 'im at all plain. I wor in Top-End field--you know?--as leads up to that road. An' I watched 'im come along making for that outside cart-shed--that 'un that's back to back wi' the shippen, where they foun' Watson lyin'. An' I wor much puzzled by the look on 'im. I didn't think nothink about old Watson, fust of all--I didn't know what to think. I was right under the hedge wi' the horses; 'ee couldna' ha' seen me--an' I watched 'im. He stopped, onst or twice, as though he wor restin' hisself--pullin' 'isself together--and onst I 'eered 'im cough--"

Halsey looked round suddenly on his companion as though daring him to mock.

Betts, however, could not help himself. He gave an interrupting and sceptical chuckle.

"Ghostisses don't cough, as ever I 'eered on."

"And why shouldn't they?" said Halsey testily. "If they can do them other things they'd used to do when livin'--walkin' an' seein' an' such-like--why not coughin'?"

Betts shook his head.

"Never 'eered on it," he said, with conviction.

"Well, anyways I seed him come down to that shed, an' then I lost 'im. But I 'ad the creeps somehow and I called to Jenny to come an' take the 'orses. An' then I went after 'im. But there was all the field an' the lane to cross, and when I come to the shed, there wasn't no one and nothink to be seen--excep'--"

The old man paused, and again looked doubtfully at his companion.

"Well?" said Betts eagerly, his philosophic attitude giving way a little.

"Excep'--a large patch o' blood--_fresh blood_--I touched it--on one of them ole sacks lyin' near the cart," said Halsey slowly. "An' it worn't there in the afternoon, for I moved the sacks mysel'."

Betts whistled softly. Halsey resumed,--

"There was nothin' moved--or taken away--nothin' at all!--only that patch. So then I went all round the farm, and there was nobody. I thought 'ee might ha' turned back by the grass road, p'raps, without my seein' 'im, so I went that way, and there was nothin'--until--a little way up the road--there was blood again"--the old man's voice dropped--"every couple o' yards or so--a drop or two here--an' a drop or two there--just as they tracked old Watson by it, up the hill, and into yon wood--where Dempsey set on him."

The two old men looked at each other. Betts was evidently impressed.

"Are you sure it was blood?"

"Sure. Last night, Hastings said it was sheep-dip! After I tole 'im, when 'ee went to look under the shed, it wor so dark 'ee couldn't see nothin'. Well, 'ee knew better this mornin'. 'Ee fetched me, an' asst me if I'd said anythin' to Miss Janet. And I said, no. So then he tole me I wasn't to say nothin' to the ladies, nor the girls, nor anybody. An' 'ee'd done summat wi' the sack--I dunno what. But 'ee might ha' held 'is tongue last night about sheep-dip! Who's been dippin' sheep about here? 'As Miss Henderson got any ruddle anywhere about the farm? I know she ain't!--an' Muster Hastings knows she ain't."

"Why didn't yer tell Miss Janet?--about the bleedin'?"

"Well, I was a bit skeered. I thought I'd sleep on't, before I got talkin' any more. But on the way 'ome, as I tellt yer, I met Hastings, an' tole '_im_, an' then give 'im notice."

"That wor a bit hasty, worn't it?" said Betts after a moment, in a judicial tone. But he had been clearly much exercised by his companion's account, and his pipe hanging idly from his hands showed that his thoughts were active.

"Well, it might ha' bin," Halsey admitted, "but as I said afore, I'm gettin' an old man, and I don't want no truck wi' things as I don't unnerstan'. It give me the wust night as I've had since I had that bad turn wi' the influenza ten year ago."

"You didn't see his face?"

"No."

"An' 'ee didn't mind you of anybody?"

Halsey hesitated.

"Well, onst I did think I'd seen one o' the same build--soomwhere. But I can't recolleck where."

"As for the blood," said Betts reflectively, "it's as curous as the coughin'. Did you iver hear tell as ghosts could bleed?"

Hastings shook his head. Steeped in meditation, the two men smoked silently for a while. Then Betts said, with the explosiveness of one who catches an idea,--

"Have yer thought o' tellin' John Dempsey?"

"I hain't thought o' tellin' nobody. An' I shouldn't ha' told Miss Leighton what I did tell her, if she 'adn't come naggin' about my givin' notice."

"You might as well tell John Dempsey. Why, it's his business, is old Watson! Haven't yer seen 'im at all?"

Halsey said "No," holding his handsome old head rather high. Had he belonged to a higher station in life, his natural reticence, and a fastidious personal dignity would have carried him far. To a modern statesman they are at least as valuable as brains. In the small world of Ipscombe they only meant that Halsey himself held rather scornfully aloof from the current village gossip, and got mocked at for his pains. The ordinary human instinct revenged itself, however, when he was _tete-a-tete_ with his old chum Peter Betts. Betts divined at any rate from the expression in the old man's eyes that _he_ might talk, and welcome.

So he poured out what he knew about John Dempsey, a Canadian lad working in the Forestry Corps at Ralstone, who turned out to be the grandson of the Dempsey who had always been suspected of the murder of Richard Watson in the year 1859. This young Dempsey, he said, had meant to come to Ipscombe after the war, and put what he knew before the police. But finding himself sent to Ralstone, which was only five miles from Ipscombe, he saw no reason to wait, and he had already given all the information he could to the superintendent of police at Millsborough. His grandfather had signed a written confession before his death, and John Dempsey had handed it over. The old man, it appeared, had "turned pious" during a long illness before his death, and had wished to square matters with his conscience and the Almighty. When his grandson had volunteered for the war, and was about to sail for Europe, old Dempsey had sent for him, had told him the story, and charged him, when he was able, to place his confession in the proper hands. And having done that, he died "very quiet and comfortable"--so John Dempsey reported.

"Which is more than poor Jem Watson did," growled Halsey. He felt neither respect nor sympathy for a man who, having set up a secret, couldn't keep it; and the confession itself, rather than the crime confessed, confirmed the poor opinion he had always held of the elder Dempsey when they were young men in the village together. But he agreed to let Betts bring "young John" to see him. And thereupon they went back to the sowing of one of Miss Henderson's big fields with winter wheat.

When the milking was done, and work was nearly over for the day, a note brought by messenger arrived at the farm for Miss Henderson. It was from Ellesborough--a few scribbled words. "I am prevented from coming this evening. The Chief Forestry Officer of my district has just arrived, and stays the night. I hope to come over to-morrow between six and seven. Shall I find you?"

Rachel scribbled an answer, which a small boy on a bicycle carried off. Then she went slowly back to the sitting-room, so disappointed and unnerved that she was on the brink of tears. Janet who had just come in from milking, was standing by the table, mending a rent in her waterproof. She looked up as Rachel entered, and the needle paused in her hand.

"I say, Rachel!--you do look overdone! You've been going at it too hard."

For all day long Rachel had been lifting, and sorting, and carrying, in the potato-field, finding in the severe physical exertion the only relief from restlessness. She shook her head irritably and came to stand by the wood fire which Janet had just lit, a welcome brightness in the twilight room.

"Suppose you knock up--" began Janet in a tone of remonstrance. Rachel cut her short.

"I want to speak to you--please, Janet."

Janet looked round in astonishment and put down her work. Rachel was standing by the fire, with her hands behind her back,