General Theophilus Ruff was at home. He had, in fact, never been away. That very morning his lawyer had visited Barnbogle, and had stayed all day in the little brick addition, with two of his clerks within call in the kitchen behind, writing and witnessing deeds. The General [360]sent Cleg into Netherby in the forenoon upon half-a-dozen errands, and in the afternoon he told him that he was free to do what he wished with his time. Whereupon Cleg went and got a pail of whitewash to brighten up the byre and stables of Sandyknowes, a job which he had been promising himself as a treat for a long time.
After the General had dismissed the solicitor and his two clerks to go back to the town of Drumnith, he withdrew into his room and occupied himself with the arrangement and docketing of multitudinous papers. When Cleg came back he made his supper by himself in the brick addition, and was just sitting down with the paper-covered threepenny novel which represented literature to him, when the door opened and the General came in with a roll of papers in his hand. His hair stood nearly straight up, and his eyes were bloodshot and starting from his head. A great change had come over him since the morning.
"Cleg," he said abruptly, "you are going to lose your place."
Cleg stood on his feet respectfully. He was not much astonished. He had been waiting for an announcement like this ever since he found what manner of man his impulsive master was. His first thought was that he would be able largely to increase the flower business.
"Verra weel, sir," said Cleg, glancing straight at the General, who stood commandingly in the doorway, looking, in spite of his disarray, imposing enough in his undress uniform; "verra weel, sir. Ye hae been kind to me."
"Ah," said the General, "I mean that ye are going to lose your master, not that he wishes you to leave your place. I have a long journey to depart upon. I am going upon active service in another world. Three times [361]yestreen I heard the black dog summon me below the window."
"That maun hae been Tam Fraser's collie," said Cleg promptly, "nesty brute that he is. I'll put a chairge o' number five in his tail the next time he comes yowlin' and stravagin' aboot here!"
"No," said the General, without paying much attention, "it was the Death Dog, which only appears when one of my race is about to die. My hours of life are numbered, or at least I believe they are, which is exactly the same thing. You will find that you are not left with the empty hand, Cleg, my man. See that ye use it as wisely as ye have used my money. For I have proved you an honest lad, and that to the hilt—never roguing your master of a pennyworth, high or low, indoor or out, and saving of the Danish butter when you fried the fish."
"Thank ye," said Cleg, "I am no o' high family, ye see. Nae dowgs come aboot when the Kellys dee that I ken o', but if your yin bothers ye I'll shoot him. Gin Rab Wullson the polissman hears tell o' it, he'll be at us to tak' oot a leesence for him."
The General held out his hand.
"Good-bye," he said, "it is likely that I'll be waiting for you on the waterside when you land. I have a tryst to-day with the old Ferryman. The Black Dog has looked my way. I hear the lapping of the water against the boat's sides, and I have coined my gold for drachmas to pay my passage."
"Guidnicht, sir," answered Cleg, briskly; "will ye hae herrin' or bacon to your breakfast the morn's mornin'?"
Cleg was accustomed to the General's megrims, and did not anticipate anything special from this solemn harangue.
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"Nae fears, sir," he said, encouragingly; "you tak' your comfortable sleep; the black collie will never trouble ye. I'll leave the outer door on the jar, an' faith! I'll hae a shot at him if he comes youchin' aboot this hoose."
"Come up, Cleg," said Theophilus Ruff, as he stood by the door, "come up in a quarter of an hour, and I'll take my pipe as usual."
"Aye, General," said Cleg, "I'll be up. Did ye say herrin'?"
The General went out without answering, and Cleg turned unconcernedly to his immediate business of scouring the pans and setting the kitchen to rights. He was naturally neat-handed, and by this time no work, indoors or out, came wrong to him.
He was whistling cheerily and burnishing a tin skillet when a slight noise at the outer door startled him. He dropped the can, and it rolled with a clatter under the dresser.
"That dowg o' Fraser!" he said to himself. "I'll 'Black Dog' him!"
But before he could rise he felt his arms pinioned from behind, and ere he could make any effective resistance he was thrown upon his back on the floor. Cleg struggled gallantly, and it might have proved successfully; but the face which looked hatefully into his took from him in a moment all power of resistance.
It was his father's face, livid with hate and vile determination. Tim Kelly coolly directed Sal Kavannah to sit upon the lad's feet, while he himself trussed up his hands and arms as if he had been a fowl ready for the market. Cleg suffered all this without showing the least concern. He had no hope of pity. But he steeled himself to be silent, and faithful to his benefactor.
His father shut the kitchen door. Then he looked [363]carefully round the brick house, and seemed infinitely relieved to find the door into the house unlocked, as the General had left it when he went out for Cleg to follow.
Presently Tim Kelly came back and kneeled by his son's side.
"Now, young serpent," he said, "the reckoning day has come at long and last 'twixt you and me! You have got to tell me where the old chap keeps his keys, and that mighty sharp—or I will see the colour of your blood, sorrowful son o' mine though you be!"
But Cleg maintained a steady silence. Whereupon his father set his fingers to his throat.
"I know a way to make you speak," he said. "Sal, take him by the feet and throw him over that bed."
Sal Kavannah did as she was bid, and between them they threw Cleg across his own bed with his head hanging down on the other side.
"Don't ye be thinking," said his father, bending over him, "that because I had the ill luck to be father to the likes o' you, that will do ye any good."
Cleg still held his peace, biting speech down with a proud, masterful heart. He was resolved that, even if he killed him, his father should not draw a single word out of him.
At that moment a loud clang sounded through the archway which led into the dark house of Barnbogle. Cleg's eyes went in spite of him towards the door. He knew that in a moment more the General would appear in the doorway; and he feared that his father would kill him with the revolver which, when on business errands, he always carried attached to his waist by a leather strap.
Cleg started up as far as he could for his bonds and his father's fierce clutch upon his throat.
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"General," he cried, "run back to the strong-room—back as fast as you can to the strong-room!"
Then Cleg heard with gratitude the sound of retreating footsteps outside in the passage.
Timothy Kelly rose from his knees with an oath. He felt that he had been tricked. His revolver was in his hand, and he pointed it at his son's forehead. His fore-finger hooked itself on the trigger. Cleg Kelly instinctively shut his eyes not to see the flash. But Sal Kavannah jerked up her companion's arm.
"You waste time, man," she said; "through the door after the old fellow!"
Tim Kelly lifted the slant-headed bar of iron which he had brought with him to be inserted, if need were, under the sashes of the windows; and as he ran out of the kitchen he struck his son heavily over the head with this, leaving him lying in his blood upon the bed.
Through the long, vaulted passages the villain ran, with his accomplice in crime close upon his heels. The door which divided the little brick building from the main house of Barnbogle closed after them. Something like a tall, flitting white-robed figure seemed to keep a little way before them. They followed till it vanished through the open door of the strong-room. In a moment both Tim Kelly and Sal Kavannah darted in after it, and immediately, with a clang which resounded through the whole house, the door closed upon pursuers and pursued. Then, through the silence which ensued, piercing even the thick walls of the old mansion, ringing all over the country-side, came three loud screams of heart-sickening terror. And after that for a space again there fell silence upon the strange house of Barnbogle, with its mad master and its devilish visitants like wild, predatory beasts of the night. But Cleg Kelly heard nothing; for the blow from [365]his father's arm had left him, as it proved, wounded and nigh unto death.
Vara we left panting along the road upon her quest of mercy, listening fearfully for the feet of the pursuer. She dared not leave Gavin behind her, but toiled under his load all the way—now stumbling in the darkness and now falling headlong. The lad cried bitterly, but Vara persevered, for she had the vision of Cleg before her, helpless in the hands of the cruel enemies who were also hers.
When she came to the main door of the house of Barnbogle she found it barred and locked, while the gloomy front loomed above with the windows like still blacker gashes on its front. However, she remembered Cleg's description, and, taking Gavin by the hand, she ran as swiftly as she could through the dense coppice round to the little brick addition.
She had just reached the closed door when the three shrieks of terrible distress pealed out upon the night silences.
But Vara nerved herself, and, lifting the latch, pushed the kitchen door open. There across the bed, within three feet of her, lay Cleg, bound, bleeding, and insensible. Vara set down Gavin, sprang towards Cleg, and took him up in her arms. Hastily she unloosed him from his bonds, and dashed water upon his face. But his head fell heavily and loosely forward, and it was with a terrible sinking of the heart that the thought flashed upon her that her friend was already dead. The house continued to resound with cries of fear, demoniac laughter, screams of ultimate agony. At any moment the fiends who made them might burst upon her. Yet she could not leave Cleg to the mercy of the merciless.
With eager hands she tore the sheet from the bed, [366]and, wrapping him in it, she lifted him in her arms and staggered into the night. Gavin came after her, speechless with fear, clutching tightly the skirts of her dress.
So, fainting and staggering, Vara bore Cleg across the marsh and up to the little house of Sandyknowes. She was just able to put Cleg Kelly into the arms of Mirren Douglas and sink fainting on the floor.
When she came to herself Tam Fraser and the doctor from Netherby were bending over her.
"What was the maitter—wha hurt the laddie?" asked Tam Fraser.
"The House! The terrible House!" was all that Vara could say.
Cleg Kelly was not dead. The doctor reported him to be suffering from a severe concussion of the brain, which might probably prevent a return to consciousness for some days.
A band of men hastily equipped themselves and set out for the house of Barnbogle. They stole up to the door of the kitchen. It stood open, as Vara had left it. The light streamed out upon the green foliage and the trampled grass. But inside there was only silence, and all around a wild scene of confusion. The skillet which Cleg had been burnishing lay upon the hearthstone. There was blood upon the stones of the floor where he had been thrown down, and again on the bed from which Vara had lifted him. But about all the house there was only silence.
The blacksmith of the nearest village brought a forehammer, and with great difficulty he and his apprentice broke a way into the house itself through one of the barred upper windows. But the whole mansion within was entirely in order. The iron fronts of the safes in the hall had not been tampered with. The red iron door of the [367]strong-room in the rock underground was close and firm—far beyond the art of Netherby smiths to burst open.
It was considered, therefore, that the General must be from home, on one of his ever-recurring journeys, and that his servant Cleg had been attacked by the ruffians who had run off at the sound of the alarm raised by Vara.
Yet it was thought somewhat strange that, as the men came back through the empty house, they should find an iron crowbar, stained with blood, lying at the top of the steps which led to the strong-room.