CHAPTER VI
THICKER THAN WATER
Now I do not deny that I was frightened out of my life by the suddenappearing of the Golden Farmer. But it was different with Elsie.Perhaps it ran in the blood. For, though most people in Breckonsidewere feared of my father and his long arm, I am not--no, nor ever couldbe. And so, in that moment of panic, it was given to Elsie to be ableto speak serenely to her grandfather.
Yet I could see that the little man was all in a fume of anger, andkept it badly down, too.
"What are the two of you doing here?" he cried, dancing about andshaking his stick at us. "Where do you belong, and what ill purposefetched ye to Deep Moat Grange?"
"One question at a time," said Elsie, standing quietly before him, withone thumb tucked in a leather strap about her waist. "'Who are we?'say you. I will tell you, grandfather----"
"Grandfather----!"
You should have seen the little wizened man jump at the word.
"Grandfather!" he repeated in a kind of skirl, or scream, as of abagpipe. "Ye are no blood kin of mine---!"
"Am I no?" said Elsie. "I am Bell Stennis's daughter, and a daughter,too, of one Ensign Stennis, a British officer----"
"A devil--a black devil," cried the wizened little man, shaking hisstick, as it were, at the four winds of heaven; "bride-bed orbairn-cot, shroud or bier, I have no word to say to any connected withBell Stennis or the man that she counted her husband----!"
"Except to give her a decent burial, as ye did," said Elsie. "I haveseen her name on the stone in Breckonside churchyard, and the space foryour own beneath----!"
"Any one with eyes might have seen as much. But surely I am notexpected to own you for a granddaughter just because ye have lookedover the cemetery wall!"
"Neither have you a right to be angry because Joe Yarrow and I lookacross the ditch at the flower beds of Deep Moat Grange----"
There appeared to be some hidden sting in this saying of Elsie's. Fora moment the old man looked perfectly murderous. But he quicklyrecovered himself.
"Faith," he cried, "but it would have been telling your mother, ifindeed she be my daughter Bell--if she had had the gift o' the gab likeyou! But that's no proof. I have ever been a silent man myself!"
"Maybe you had need, grandfather!" cried Elsie merrily, as if it wereall a joke, even when I knew that our lives hung, of a certainty, inthe balance between his goodwill and his anger at our intrusion.Certainly, however, Elsie had a curious power over the old man, andinstead of getting angry, he actually laughed, a queer, cracklinglaugh, caught perhaps from living so long among mad folk. I have hearddoctors out of lunatic asylums laugh like that. There is nothing socatching as crack-brainedness. A lot of people have it atBreckonside--maybe because the East Dene Asylum is so near. Perhapsnot.
"I see," said old Mr. Stennis, "that you have upon your body day-linenof my weaving. That is a waste. I only weave now to amuse myself, andsometimes for the great of the land--because no one can weave likeHobby Stennis. Therefore the webs I have sent that old wretch Mrs.Comline in the town of Dumfries, and now yearly to Nance at thebridge-end, ought to have been put carefully away, and not cut up tomake fal-lals for a daft hempie of your age! Nance ought to knowbetter. She is old enough and ugly enough for that!"
"Then if I am your daughter's daughter, as I see you admit," saidElsie, taking his words as an admission, "let us go across and view thebonnie flowers over yonder, the bedded tulips, the Lent lilies, and allthe flowers of the spring."
Then, for the first time the old man had a look of fear, almost ofrevolt.
"Lassie," he cried, "ye have no knowledge of what you ask. Bide whereyou are, and go your way backward from this side of the moat."
He bent toward us as if whispering, though he had no need, all beingclear behind and around us for a long way on every side.
"There are folk that are not canny on yon side of the moat!" he said,with the same curious shrinking look over his shoulder. "I can hardlymanage them myself!"
"Nonsense," said Elsie, "take us across, and be done with it. Is itnot your own land, your own flowers, and I your nearest of kin?"
"Aye," said the old man, shaking his head, "it will be true enough. Yemind me of Bell's mother--my wife that was. God rest her soul--and hertongue! Ye are never a Stennis. And High Heaven pity the man that isgoing to run away with you, as I did with your grandam!"
Elsie indicated me with her thumb.
"Joe is," she said coolly.
The Golden Farmer turned and looked me over from head to foot, and Iown that with the thought of all we had seen and all that we might yetsee, I shook like a leaf. I never had Elsie's assurance, or, moreproperly, cheek, but followed obediently, and I must own that generallyit came out all right when I did as Elsie told me.
"Then I pity him," quoth her grandfather, grimly; "but since you will,follow me."
And he led the way, first to the tree where he had tethered his beast,and afterwards to the narrow wooden bridge, like a drawbridge inchivalry books, which spans the oily black water of the moat.
I came behind with Elsie. All the time I kept putting my hand on herarm to stop her. For I believed that we should never, never cross thatbridge again. If Elsie had no fear of her grandfather, I had! Andbesides, there was Jeremy Orrin with his big knife. Such at least wasthe idea that kept recurring to my disturbed brain. I could see himswimming the moat with it yet, wild to get at us. There were also themad sisters, and all the linked terrors of Deep Moat Grange.
But not the least bit of notice did Elsie take. She shook my hand offher arm, and told me that if I was afraid I could go back to the schoolgreen and play marbles with the little boys.
So of course I said no more, but came meekly behind Elsie, and shefollowed her grandfather. He was leading his horse, that lifted itsfeet gingerly at the crossing of the wooden bridge, not liking thenoise, as horses are wont to do on gangways of ships and when they leadthem into trucks at railway stations.
In another minute Elsie and I stood within the Moat. And turninground, what was my horror to see the bridge rising slowly into the airbehind me, and in a little house at the side, bent double over a wheel,I caught sight of the "mounster," Jeremy Orrin, with a grin on his faceand all his dark ringlets shaking and dancing.
As we went past he set his head out and called these words after us:
"Rats in a trap!" he cried, "rats in a trap!"
And I can tell you that I for one felt just as he said.
But Elsie followed her grandfather step for step and took no notice.You would have thought she was the crowned queen of the place.