6
Back at Dogkennel Cottages, Dido briskly approached that of Mrs. Lubbage. It was unlit, as before, and the door was locked. When she tried it, the little voice buzzed in her ear:
"Beware! This is a hoodoo lock."
"Oh, be blowed to that," thought Dido impatiently. "If old Sannie and Mrs. Lubbage are hoping to squeeze a thousand quid out o' Lady Tegleaze before they'll produce Tobit's sister, they're liable to be pretty riled with me anyways, sposing I spile their game; busting the old crone's witchlock can't make matters much worse, I reckon."
She found a lump of rock and gave the ramshackle door a vigorous thump; it burst inward.
From up above an alarmed voice cried, "Who's that?"
"Cris? It's me—Dido!"
She walked into the kitchen—which smelt even worse than on her last visit—and looked up. Framed in the black square of the loft opening was a pale, scared face.
"I thought it must be people coming to duck Auntie Daisy," breathed Cris. "She said once that some day they will do. But, Dido, you won't half catch it when she finds you here! And so shall I! Breaking down the door, too—didn't her hoodoo lock work on you?"
"Yes, a bit," said Dido, crossly rubbing her hands. "My fingers tingles as if I'd been pulling stinging nettles. But I don't believe in such stuff! Anyways, come down, Cris; I wants to talk to you."
"Where's Auntie Daisy?"
"Up at Tegleaze Manor."
Encouraged by this, Cris jumped lightly down.
"Why did you let on you was a boy?" Dido snapped out.
"I—I—Auntie Daisy said I must, always. For goodness' sake don't tell her you found out," Cris gasped, looking frightened almost to death.
"That'll be all right—don't you worry. What's your real name, then?"
"It is Cris—Cristin. She said if anyone got to know, she'd put a freezing spell on me, so I was shivering cold to the end of my days. She can too—she did to old Mrs. Ruffle at Open Winkins."
"Rubbidge. Mrs. Ruffle probably had the ague. Now, listen, Cris—I've lots o' things to tell you. But there's no time to lose, so you come along o' me, and I'll explain as we go—agreeable?"
"Go where?"
"I'd as soon not say till we're farther along," Dido said cautiously.
"Supposing Auntie Daisy comes back?"
"I don't reckon she will jist yet."
"I can't go without asking Aswell!"
"Oh, croopus," Dido thought. But she felt some sympathy for Cris—plainly the unusualness and suddenness of her arrival had thrown the girl into such a state of fright and indecision that she was almost paralyzed. She stood trembling, huddling the ragged sheepskin jacket around her thin shoulders, her huge dark eyes fixed hauntedly on Dido.
"All right, go on, ask Aswell then," Dido said patiently. "But I think we'd best get outside, hadn't we? Shouldn't think Aswell'd fancy coming into a murky den like this."
They went out into the little weedy front yard, dark now, and misty; Cris sang or chanted her curious rhyme:
"Dwah, dwah, dwuddy dwuddy dwee—
I can't see you but you can see me—"
Dido perched on the yard wall. Cris stood with her eyes shut and hands stretched out. There was a long pause, of expectation and strain; then Cris gave a short sigh.
"It's all right. Aswell says I ought to go."
"Well, so I should hope!" Dido muttered to herself, but aloud she merely remarked, "Come along, then—can you trot? That's the dandy—" catching hold of Cris's hand. She had stabled Dapple, who had certainly done his part for the day, before coming to find Cris.
The two girls ran along the chalk track at a steady pace, and Dido said,
"Right, listening, are you? Now, Cris, do you know what twins are?"
"Brothers and sisters the same age?" Cris said doubtfully.
"That's it. Now, how'd you feel, Cris, sposing I was to say you had a twin brother nobody'd ever told you about?"
There was a long silence. Then Cris's voice came hesitantly out of the dark.
"Could you say that again?"
Dido said it again.
"Dido?"
"Yes, Cris?"
"Do—do you mean that I really have got a brother?"
"Yes, Cris. His name's Tobit. He's in pokey at the moment, but we'll get him out someways."
"Pokey?"
"Jail. Prison."
"Why?"
"Someone fadged up a tale against him o' summat he hadn't done."
"I've got a brother called Tobit." Cris was trying over the words to see how they sounded. "I have a brother. Do you know—everything seems warm all of a sudden. As if the air was warm and I could swim in it like a fish. I've got a brother," she said again.
"Hey, hold on!" Dido became a bit anxious. "He's jist an ordinary boy—not an angel!" Leastways he's not all that ordinary, she thought; but anyway I reckon Cris would take to him if he had three legs and a sword on his snout.
"Now, there's lots more to tell you, Cris, so pay attention; that ain't all by a long chalk."
"What else?" But Cris sounded vague as if, in spite of Dido's caution, her attention was not fully engaged.
"It's like this. As well as Brother Tobit, you've got some grand relations up at Tegleaze Manor. Old Lady Tegleaze is your granny. And there's Cousin Wilfred. They're a-going to be right pleased to see you," she added thoughtfully, "acos now Tobit's been in jug he's lost his right to the luck-piece. At least I spose he has; jail's jail, even if it's on a skrimped-up charge."
"Lady Tegleaze is my grandmother?" Cris murmured dazedly.
"That's right. Mind, don't go running off wi' the notion that life up at Tegleaze Manor is going to be everlasting sherry cobbler and larks on toast—it ain't so. Lady T has gambled away all her dibs on the races. But at least it'll be a whole heap better than life with Mother Lubbage. You won't have to lurk up in the loft and live on spud scrapings. And old Auntie Daisy'll hatta treat you civil from now on."
"Sannie's there," Cris said, half to herself. "I'm scared of Sannie."
Dido frowned. She too had thought about this.
"Well, we just got to find a way to put a damper on that old spider monkey. And, whatever you do, Cris, don't you go eating of those Joobie nuts; you lay off em."
"Will I have to stay up at the Manor always, now?" Cris was sounding more and more doubtful.
"Now, Cris!" Dido began scoldingly. In her heart, though, she was uncertain enough. Would Cris be happier up at the Manor with all those funny old things? But surely it was better than life at Dogkennel Cottages?
There was another pause, then Cris sighed again.
"Aswell says I belong there."
Thanks a million, Aswell, Dido commented inwardly. You're a real pal.
Five minutes' more trotting and they reached the Manor. Dido walked in without knocking. No one was about; she guessed that everybody was still assembled upstairs.
"Come along; this way. Crumpet, Cris, don't gawp so—you'll hatta get used to the place."
She led Cris over the marble paving, up the stairs, and then turned in the direction of Tobit's room. "Here, this won't take but a moment and I reckon it'll help—"
Rummaging in Tobit's untidy apartment she found several of his black velvet suits.
"Put one o' these on, it looks to be just your size. Lawks, gal, you're nought but skin and bone, it surely is time we got you outa that old devil's clutches. Now, where does the boy wash?"
Investigating, Dido found a dressing closet and washstand with pewter basin and ewer. She soaped a cloth and briskly scrubbed the inattentive face of Cris, who had found the picture of the three children and was standing riveted in front of it.
"You said you'd never seen Aswell," said Dido, buttoning cuffs.
"No, but that's how I imagine him."
"It's you. Here, look at yourself—" Dido wheeled her to face the looking glass over the mantel. Cris gazed in astonishment.
"Is that me? I never saw myself before."
"Croopus, Cris, you ain't half got a lot to learn," Dido muttered, hard at work with a molting silver hairbrush. "Right! We're ready, come along."
She led Cris through the maze of passages to Lady Tegleaze's room.
The conclave was still assembled, but now something mysterious was going on. Sannie and Mrs. Lubbage, evidently at the request of Lady Tegleaze, were doing a bit of conjuring. Another pewter washbasin had been filled with what looked like ink. Sannie had lit a lot of incense sticks which, stuck about in egg cups and toilet jars, were filling the room with white choking smoke. Frill, Pelmett, Gusset, the doctor, Cousin Wilfred, and the Colonel were standing in a ring looking nervous and ill at ease; Lady Tegleaze still reclined on her couch; Mrs. Lubbage was gazing into the basin of ink while Sannie chanted foreign words in a shrill unearthly tone.
"Ah, now I begins to see clear," Mrs. Lubbage was saying, as Dido poked her head around the door. "Yes, I can see a face. Yes, it be the face of your granddaughter Cristin, my lady...."
"Where is she?" Lady Tegleaze asked eagerly.
"Wait a minute—wait a minute—the driply mist be a-thickening again. Ah, now 'tis clearing. Cristin be a turble long way from here, my lady—over hill and dale, over bush and briar, over sand and swamp and sea. Far, far away, she be; 'twill cost a power o' money to fetch her home."
"Now, that's a funny thing," Dido said, stepping in briskly and dragging the nervous Cris behind her. "I'd a notion she was no farther away than right here, and it'd cost nothing at all to fetch her!"
Three things then happened simultaneously: Lady Tegleaze shrieked, Colonel FitzPickwick let out a fearful oath, and Mrs. Lubbage, startled almost out of her wits, upset the basin of ink, which poured in a black flood all over the carpet.
"My granddaughter!" Ignoring the fact that her lavender satin was trailing in the ink and that her wig was awry, Lady Tegleaze rose, swept forward, and enveloped Cris in a bony embrace from which the latter, looking somewhat taken aback, freed herself as soon as she could.
"Knavery! Arrant deception! Dear lady, do but think! What possibility can there be that this come-by-chance brat could be your grandchild? It is a piece of bare-faced imposture!" Colonel FitzPickwick had recovered and strode forward, casting looks of rage at Sannie and Mrs. Lubbage.
"Imposture?" snapped Lady Tegleaze. "Nonsense! Look at the child's face. Besides—look at the dog."
The dog Lion, who would go to no one but Tobit, was standing on his hind legs, with a paw on each of Cris's shoulders, crying with joy, and licking her face with a large blue tongue. She put her arms around his white furry neck and hugged him back.
"Pity I washed her face," Dido thought regretfully. "It would a been prime to have it come plain when the dog licked it. Never mind, she's in, that's the main thing."
For it was plain that by Lady Tegleaze, by Cousin Wilfred, and by Gusset, Cris had been unhesitatingly accepted. The two witches, biting their lips with chagrin, were quarreling in furious undertones. Frill, Pelmett, and the Colonel, pale and angry, were on the point of quitting the room when Lady Tegleaze said to Cris,
"Now, tell me, what do you want, dear child? What do you need? Food, clothes—er, toys?"
"Nothing, thank you, my lady," Cris said politely, "only—"
"Call me Grandmother!" snapped the old lady. "Only? Well, what?"
"Only to see my brother Tobit."
"Oh, that is quite out of the question. He has done for himself. I've washed my hands of him."
"But, Lady Tegleaze," said Dido, "I'm sure as ninepence he didn't steal those fish. They was palmed off on him. Arter all, who in the name o' thunder would be so totty-headed as to stick a pair o' goldfish in his britches pocket?"
"Whether he stole them or not, it is all one. If he had not disobeyed me and gone to Petworth, he would not have exposed himself to such a risk. I have no more interest in him. If he is sent to Botany Bay it is no concern of mine."
"But, Grandmother—" Cris began.
"No more, miss!"
Botheration, thought Dido. What an old tarmigan. This alters the look o' matters.
She had expected that, in gratitude for the production of Cris, Lady Tegleaze would be prepared to exert herself on Tobit's behalf, but plainly that was not going to happen.
Murmuring, "Well, enjoy yourself, Cris, see you Turpentine Sunday," Dido slipped away, following the Colonel who, without noticing her, had walked rapidly to the back stairs, down them, and out along the path to the tilting-yard.
The pale moon was beginning to struggle out, throwing long spindly shadows on the mist. Dido saw another shadow, with its owner, move out from one of the yew trees.
"Well?" Dido recognized the grating tone of Miles Mystery. "How did it g-go? Will the boy get a stiff sentence? How did the old lady take the n-news?"
"Oh, as expected. But—"
"But what?" Mystery said sharply.
"Our plans are overset. Another grandchild has turned up."
"Devil take it! What are you telling me? How can there be another grandchild?"
"It seems there was a twin sister of Tobit, mislaid or farmed out in infancy. Those two old hags, Sannie and Mrs. Lubbage, have been playing deuce-ace with us—they knew of this other child all along, and planned to demand a handsome sum from Lady Tegleaze as the price for producing her when Tobit was knocked out of the game."
"Wait till I lay my hands on the d-double-dealing old witches! They'll reckon that money hard-earned!"
"But they never got the money!"
"S-so? Why not?"
"That strange child—the one who is lodging at Dog kennel with the navy captain—she suddenly sprang the plot and produced the missing grandchild."
"How in Lucifer's name did she know about it?"
"Lord knows. We shall have to do something about her. She may know too much for comfort."
"Not only her. We shall have to get rid of the other grandchild."
"How?"
"If she was lost once—she m-must be lost again."
Dido's blood ran cold at the calm way in which Miles Mystery uttered these words. Plainly the Colonel also felt a qualm for he said,
"No violence, Tuggles. You know I draw the line at violence. It's too dangerous."
"Oh, call me Tegleaze! It is my name, after all. Hark, what was that?"
Dido held her breath. Had they seen her, crouching by the hedge? But then she saw Mrs. Lubbage and Tante Sannie, still bickering angrily, come down the steps and start to cross the lawn. They had not noticed the two men, and appeared somewhat confused when Colonel FitzPickwick accosted them.
"A f-fine trick you played us, you miserable pair of old scarecrows!" Mr. Mystery exclaimed angrily. "You needn't think I'll stir myself to send you to Tiburon Island now. Pretending to help us with Tobit and the old lady—and all the time you had another grandchild hidden up your sleeves!"
"Is not pretending!" Sannie said fiercely. "Is helping! Number two grandchild—pooh! T'ousand pound in pocket, why not, then get rid, easy as Tobit."
"Only you didn't get the thousand pounds," Mr. Mystery pointed out unkindly. "And I'm not weeping millstones—you deceitful pair of old crows! Well, you can whistle for your great white ship to Tiburon after that—you'll not get it from me, even when I come in to the estate."
"Just you bide a minute, you fine Mr. Mystery!" hissed Sannie, scuttling after him like a scorpion as he turned away. "You cast us off now, you fine fellow, you be sad and sorry, afore long soon, when the ground gape black under you foot, when the water snatch you in she claws, when the luck-piece hang over you head and you can't reach!"
"Best keep the old beldames in a good humor," Colonel FitzPickwick urged in a low tone.
Mystery jerked his head reluctantly. The two men and the two old women were slowly moving away, their unnaturally long shadows trailing behind them on the mist like black wings.
"Drat!" said Dido. "I wish I could a heard a bit more."
She ran softly across the lawn, but the two couples had separated, and the men were mounting horses in the stable-yard.
Slowly and thoughtfully, Dido made her way home. As she neared Dogkennel Cottages she recalled Mrs. Lubbage's make-believe dragon, and quailed a little at the thought of what might be in store for her tonight. But whatever it is, I'll just throw a rock at it, she decided.
Tonight there was no dragon, nor was Mrs. Lubbage herself to be seen. Suspicious of the silence and darkness, remembering Mrs. Lubbage's broken lock, Dido approached her own cottage and looked for the key under the stone. But the key was not there. A glimmer of candlelight showed in the window and the door was open. Surely it was late for Mr. Firkin still to be sitting with the Captain.
Dido pushed the door back and went in.
Mr. Firkin was not there. Instead, Mrs. Lubbage and Tante Sannie were sitting in silence, one on either side of the Captain's bed. He did not stir as Dido entered; he appeared to be sleeping.
A dreadful apprehension filled her; she darted forward to the bed and leaned over it.
"Cap'n! Cap'n Hughes! Are you all right?"
He neither moved nor stirred. The sharp eyes of Tante Sannie and Mrs. Lubbage moved up and fixed on Dido like pins in a map.
"Cap'n Hughes! Please say summat!" She shook him a little, but he did not answer. He breathed, but only just; his mouth was a little open, his face deadly pale, what could be seen of it under the bandages.
"If you've killed him, you old—" burst out Dido, choking with grief and terror, "if you've hurted him—Oh, what have you done to him? What'll happen to him?"
"Wait and see, Miss Prussy! Wait and see!" Mrs. Lubbage gave Dido a look of malignant satisfaction. "And maybe this'll teach ye a lesson not to be so quick to meddle in other folks' concerns! Come, Sannie; us'll leave, eh, now the fine young lady's come a-home. She can look arter him."
Dido hardly noticed when they left. She was frantically rubbing the Captain's cold hands. She filled a stone bottle with hot ginger ale and put it to his feet; she mixed a mustard plaster and laid it on his stomach; she fetched in a bundle of chicken feathers and set light to them, filling the room with foul-smelling fumes; she tickled his feet and held a warm flatiron to them, and sprinkled snuff under his nose. None of these remedies had the least effect; the Captain continued to lie still as a log, hardly alive, yet not quite dead.
In despair, Dido went and roused Mr. Firkin who came quickly when she had made him understand the gravity of the case. He felt the Captain all over with careful, wise old hands.
"Arr; she've overlooked him, surelye. Deary me, darter, that is misfortunate, just when he was a-coming along so nimbly."
"Is he dying?" asked Dido, gulping.
"Nay, I wouldn't say that, darter, not here-an-nows. But die he may, don't she take the spell off'n him again. He can't eat, see, not while he be thisaway; he be like to starve."
"What'll I do?" Dido muttered, half to herself.
"Ee'll have to eat humble pie, darter; I dunno how ee harmed owd Mis' Lubbage, but ee'll have to undo it, and ask her to take off the overlooking."
"She never would. And I never would," said Dido flatly. "It didn't even advantage her any to hurt the Cap'n; she just did it out o' pure malicefulness. I'll cure him somehow. Or I'll make her take the spell off. Anyways, I don't believe in spells!" She was half crying.
"Well, darter, us'll try this and us'll try that. A drop o' Blue Ruin wi' red pepper in it works wonders for my old ewes, time they suffers from the sheepshrink; I'll see how that gooes down."
It did go down; and the Captain blinked, as if it had given him a lively minute's dream; but it did not rouse him.
"Anyhows, that shows we can feed him," said Dido, recovering, and rather ashamed of her loss of control. "Why, when I was in a swound on board the whaler they fed me for nigh on ten months with whale oil and molasses. I'll get some molasses in Petworth tomorrow."
"Music," muttered Mr. Firkin. "Music be a powerful strong tonic agin sorcery and spells. I dunno why but so 'tis. I'll sing the Cap'n a shanty or two."
"Just afore you gets going," said Dido, visited by a sudden idea, "Mr. Firkin, does you have sich a thing as a corkscrew?"
Mr. Firkin, who had opened his mouth to sing, paused in mid breath.
"A twistycork, darter? Surelye. Look ee in the chest in my tool shed, ee'll find one there." He filled his lungs again.
Dido found the corkscrew, whispered to the Rio-bound Mr. Firkin that she would be back in twenty minutes or so, and set off at a fast run for the Cuckoo Tree.
The next day dawned gloomy and lowering. Dido awoke very dejected. Captain Hughes still lay in the same stupor; his condition had not changed despite all Mr. Firkin's songs; and she could not help blaming herself bitterly. Supposing he never recovered? And what other forms might Mrs. Lubbage's ill will take? Suppose the witches made Cris's life miserable at Tegleaze Manor? Suppose they prevented the Dispatch from reaching London?
Trying to shake off these thoughts, she gave Dapple an extra handful of feed.
"Eat up, old mate, us has to go into Petworth and get some spermaceti and treacle."
Just before she left, Gusset arrived with more provisions and a bottle of blackberry wine.
"Old Lady Tegleaze be rare and spry," he told Dido. "Reckon she thinks a granddaughter be a better bargain than a grandson."
"How's Cris settling?"
"A mite peaky and homesick; it do all seem turble big and grand to her, poor young maidy. How be the Cap'n?"
When Dido told Gusset what had happened he shook his head in an anxious and gloomy manner, and promised to send Dr. Subito as soon as possible.
"Though I doubt he'll not be able to do anything, missie; old Mis' Lubbage's spells be desprit powerful when she's roused, 'tis better to keep on the right side of her, or she can do deadly harm. I know, who better." A shadow passed over his aged face.
"I've got to get him away from here," Dido said, biting her lip with anxiety. "You don't think Frill or Pelmett'd help—I could borrow the trap and take him to an inn—he can't be wuss off than he is here."
"Pelmett's gone, missie."
"Gone? When?"
"Said he had an offer of a sitiwation wi' better pay and took his bundle and went off last night."
"Sounds a bit havey-cavey? What about Frill?"
"I doubt he be going to follow. We shan't miss 'em, they warn't much use."
Gusset took his leave, casting a wary eye in the direction of Mrs. Lubbage's house, and promising he would ask about the trap. But, he said, he thought it very unlikely that Lady Tegleaze would be willing to lend it.
Dido left the Captain in the care of Mr. Firkin, who usually spent Saturday cleaning his cottage. Dido promised to do this when she returned, and also to buy him some provisions.
When she reached Petworth, she could not help noticing that it seemed to be in an extreme state of turmoil and uproar. People were rushing hither and thither, up and down the streets, in what seemed a purposeless way, like ants when their nest has been disturbed.
Dido stopped a man and asked him in which street the Magistrates' Court was to be found. He gave her a blank stare and replied,
"What's the use o' that, pray? It's gone. No use locking the stable door arter the horse has skedaddled," and strode away.
When she inquired of another he replied, "They sat early. The Court's closed now."
"Why? They was due to sit at ten; 'tis only quarter to, now."
But the man had not waited; he was roaming up the street, peering into every cranny as if he expected to find an emerald brooch there.
Dido noticed a remarkable number of constables about, too, whose behavior was of the same wandering kind; they stopped, they started, poked with their staffs in flower beds and window boxes, rummaged in the baskets of goods exhibited for sale outside shops.
Out of patience at last, Dido went to the apothecary's, bought a pound of spermaceti and a gallon of treacle, and asked Mr. Pelmett what the mischief was the matter with everybody, and why had the Magistrates' Court sat early?
"Constabulary was needed elsewhere," Mr. Pelmett said curtly. He looked, Dido thought, put out about something; had a face as long as a rolling pin.
"What for?"
"Every man jack of them's out looking for the Tegleaze heirloom."
"W-what?" gasped Dido. "You mean—"
"It's been stolen."
"But I thought the glass case was burglar proof."
"It was cut by a diamond. Expert cracksmen have been at work."
"My stars," muttered Dido. "Here's a fine flummeration. I spose that perishing Mystery decided he better get his paws on it right away, without waiting for any more hocus-pocus over grandchildren. I'd dearly like to know who that Mystery is—a-calling of himself Tegleaze and a-reckoning to polish off heirs right, left, and rat's ramble—it's plain he's close connected with the family someway."
There was no sign, today, of Mystery's puppet theatre; the whole of the fair had been expeditiously tidied away.
Dido could get no information from anybody about what had happened at the Court session, and she did not dare linger in Petworth asking questions for fear the doctor should arrive before she returned. She urged Dapple back at what he considered a most unreasonable speed for an animal with a gallon can of molasses banging about on his withers.
In fact the doctor did not arrive until half past eleven and Dido was becoming wildly impatient before his cob drew up at the gate. Furthermore, he seemed very reluctant either to come in or, when he did enter, and saw the Captain's condition, to advise anything at all helpful.
In answer to all Dido's questions as to whether the patient needed new medicines, or new treatment, or new diet, he merely reiterated,
"Tranquillamente—lusingando—amabile—poco a poco! Only the utmost care will save him."
"But can't you advise anything, Doc?"
"Non troppo—I think not," replied the doctor, casting a hunted glance in the direction of Mrs. Lubbage's quarters.
"Don't you reckon it'd be a good thing to shift him from here?"
"Largamente—yes; yes I do think so." Dr. Subito made this answer in an undertone, finger on lips, and the moment after, took his leave, going off so fast that he forgot to pocket the five-shilling fee Dido had laid ready for him on the table. Oh well, he had hardly earned it, she decided.
It wanted but twenty minutes to noon by the Captain's chronometer. Dido flew to Mr. Firkin's cottage, swept, mopped, and set all to rights; laid out his groceries on the dresser where he could feel them over; and then, telling him she would be back as soon as possible, ran off in the direction of the Cuckoo Tree. No time to take a roundabout way; she hoped that she was not observed.
Behind the little tree, stretching away around the far side of the Down, was a thickish yew wood; as Dido approached the Cuckoo Tree from one side, a figure slipped quietly through the wood on the other, and they met by the Cuckoo Tree trunk, from which Dido's corkscrew still protruded.
"Well, love; what be the trouble?" said Yan Wineberry.
"Old Ma Lubbage has overlooked my Cap'n," Dido gulped out. "He's struck speechless; so there ain't much sense in your coming to see him tonight. And I dunno what to do about him."
"Humph," said Yan. "Things is tolerable troublesome all round then, for I found out that the magistrates had a private session this morning and sentenced that young Tobit to ten years' transportation. Which is as much as to say a lifer."
"But that's wicked!" Dido was horrified. "How could they—with no one there to speak up for him?"
"Well, they did." Yan was somber. "But," he added more cheerfully, "that's no skin off'n our nosen, for we're a-going to break into Petworth Jail 'sevening, for to fetch out Pip, my number five, who got hisself buckled up by mistake, and we'll fetch out young Mas'r Tobit at the same time."
"Oh, Yan, that's prime!" Dido hugged him. "Can I come too? So Tobit knows it's friends?"
"But what about your Cap'n?"
"Yan, is there any lodgings in Petworth where I could get him fixed up? I jist can't abear leaving him alongside that old fiend any longer."
"Well, reckon Uncle Jarge might have him," Yan said, scratching his head. "That is, if he's not a Scotchman; Uncle Jarge can't abide them."
"No, he ain't a Scotchman; he told me he comes from Pennygaff in Wales, and got a boy there called Owen. Is that your uncle Jarge as owns The Fighting Cocks pub?"
"That's right, lovie. My aunt Sary, she'm a wonderful comfortable woman; I dessay she'd take tolerable good care of the Cap'n if he be that sick; she'm a famous nurse."
"How could we get him there?"
Yan seemed to have unlimited relatives.
"My cousin 'Tholomew, over to Benges, guess he'd lend his haycart. Put the Cap'n on a bit of hay, he won't feel the jounces so bad."
Dido could hardly speak, the idea of getting the Captain away from Dogkennel Cottages was such a relief. She picked a sprig of yew and carefully stripped off all the tiny dark-green leaves. When she had her voice under control she said,
"What time should I have the Cap ready to shift? When are you breaking into the—"
"Hush! Who's that?"
They had been speaking very softly, but now he dropped his voice to a breath and laid a finger on her lips. Above them a voice began to sing:
"Dwah, dwah, dwuddy, dwuddy, dwee
I can't see you but you can see me—"
"Cris!" exclaimed Dido. "What in the Blue Blazes are you doing up there?"
A silence followed, then a timid voice said,
"Well, o' course it's me, gal! But why the plague are you here, 'stead of up at the Manor, eating your dinner with a silver spoon? I call that downright ungrateful!"
There was another long pause, then Cris slid down the trunk. Her face was pale, and there were traces of tears on it; she had the old sheepskin jacket huddled over her velvets.
"Aswell won't come to me at the Manor," she said miserably.
"Oh, botheration," Dido muttered.
"Who be this, then?" Yan asked in an undertone. He had been even more startled than Dido by Cris's sudden appearance.
"Tobit's twin sister," Dido explained in the same tone. "Old Ma Lubbage had her hidden away all these years in her attic, ready for a bit o' blackmailing tick-tacks when Tobit got put away."
"Have you been up yonder tree afore, ducky?" Yan asked Cris.
"Many times. More than I can count," she told him.
"Then that explains a power o' puzzlement. Some o' my Wineberry Men would have it that there was a liddle Pharisee lived up the tree," said Yan, grinning.
"But, listen, Cris," said Dido, who was anxious to get back to the Captain. "You can't run off from Tegleaze Manor, you gotta give it a fair trial. Why, gal, you're in clover there, in the lap of thingummy—all found, four square meals a day—"
"Oh, crumpet it—"
"It would be different if my brother was there."
"Well, we're a-going to rescue him from quod this very arternoon. Though what us'll do with him then—"
"Are you?" Cris's face lit up. "I'll come too!"
Disconcerted, Dido and Yan stared at one another.
At this moment another voice broke in.
"Well!" it said gloatingly. "So I found ye out at last, did I? This is where ee went skrimshanking off to outa my loft, was it? The old Cuckoo Tree, eh?"
Mrs. Lubbage stood before them, arms akimbo, her face red with hurry and triumph.
Cris turned white as her ruffles, Dido drew a sharp breath.
"Make a slap-up liddle nestie for to play hide-and-seek in, did it? Well, I'll soon tell Amos Frill abouten it, time he'll bring his scoring axe and chop it down!"
"No!" cried Cris, and laid her hand protectively on the trunk.
"Ah! But I say yes, my young madam. And ee'd best come back to Tegleaze with me now; Sannie an' me'll put ee to bed with a shovel, I can tell ee!"
"Hold your tongue, you sidy old witch, or by the pize I'll give ee summat that'll misagree with ee," interrupted Yan angrily. "Let's have none o' that moonshine about cutting down the Cuckoo Tree. You know well, if ye was to lay a finger on it, there'd be no roof over your head by nightfall."
Mrs. Lubbage seemed to swell like a slug with rage; she darted an evil look at Yan.
"Moonshine is it, Yan Gusset? I know a thing or two about moonshine too! If ee have the roof off my head, I'll give ee neighbor's fare."
"There's nought ye could do wuss than ye done already," Yan said bitterly. "You poisoned my mum, putting nightshade in her morgan-tea, I know full well."
"Prove it! Ye can't!" Mrs. Lubbage grinned spitefully.
"I can too." The smile vanished from her face. "I've a witness. That wouldn't bring my mum back, though. But you'd best mind your ways, you old canker-moll. Go back to your crony. Tell her the Tegleaze luck-piece is stole, you can mumble your jaws over that together."
Mrs. Lubbage's jaw did indeed drop at this piece of news. Without another word she turned and waddled away as fast as she could over the steep hillside.
"That'll give 'em summat to worrit about," Yan said with satisfaction.
"Who stole it, Yan, d'you reckon?" Dido asked.
"Ah, that's a black mystery, that is."
"I'll lay it was old Mystery. Croopus, time's a-wasting—I must get back to the poor old Cap. Cris, are you going to come along o' me, then?"
Cris nodded; she was still pale and speechless from the scene with Mrs. Lubbage.
"I'll send my cousin 'Tholomew round with the haycart, come cock-shut time then," Yan said with his friendly nod, and slipped away into the yew wood.
Dido and Cris returned to Dogkennel Cottages—not without some terror on the part of Cris in case they should meet Mrs. Lubbage. But Mrs. Lubbage was nowhere to be seen—doubtless she had hurried off to take counsel with Tante Sannie.
"I hope she'll stay away till we've gone," said Cris trembling.
Dido considered her thoughtfully. "What are we a-going to do with Cris," she wondered. "If she won't go back to the Manor, and wants to be with Tobit—and if we rescue Tobit—he'll have to stay hid somewhere till we can find a witness as'll say his arrest was a put-up job—where can we stow the pair of 'em? Oh well—no sense getting into a sussel about it yet."
She fed the unconscious Captain some treacle and spermaceti, gave herself and Cris something more substantial, and then packed up their things in readiness for departure. What food remained she took around to Mr. Firkin and told him they were leaving.
"Nay, that be ernful news, darter," he said sadly. "Mind, I ain't saying you're wrong—I dessay the Cap'n'll do better if he bain't anigh that old grummut—but ee've been brightsome company and I'll grieve to part from ee."
Dido grieved too. She had grown fond of the kind old man.
"Spose old Mother Lubbage gets swarly with you when we've flitted?"
"She 'ont harm me, darter; I ain't afeered of her, see?"
Just the same Dido felt a pang when, after Cousin 'Tholomew had turned up with his wagon and they had loaded the Captain and their boxes on to the layers of hay inside, they drove off leaving Mr. Firkin with Toby beside him, standing at his cottage door, listening, listening, and waving as long as he could hear the sound of the wheels. He looked so old and so frail to be left there alone.
"You oughta have him to live up at the Manor, Cris," she said, swallowing, "when we've got Tobit out of jug and—and things is all settled."
Cris looked as if she thought it unlikely that such a time would ever come.
Cousin 'Tholomew was a red-faced, silent, curly-headed giant who drove them to Petworth at a slow walk, with Dapple harnessed alongside his own cart horse, and refused to accept any payment.
"Nay, 'tweren't no manner o' trouble. I had to come anyhows, to get a new Canterbury hoe," he said gruffly, and made his escape as soon as he had left them at the inn.
Uncle Jarge and his boy Ted received them kindly at The Fighting Cocks, and Captain Hughes was carried upstairs to a little white-walled room at the very top of the house, "where," said Miss Sarah Gusset, "he won't be disturbed by the street noises or the cockfighting."
Dido only wished he would be disturbed; he lay so pale and silent. But plump, smiling Miss Sarah seemed a kind and resourceful nurse; she had a bed so stuffed with hot bricks that it was like a Roman bathhouse, a whole tub full of aromatic vinegar, and a great quantity of hickory pepper, to make him sneeze. So he lay warm and sneezing, and at least by this they knew he was still alive.
"Now," said Miss Sarah, when the Captain was settled, "I had a message for you from that scamp, my nevvy Yan. I'd best not miscall him, though, had I? George gets all his corkscrews and Blue Ruin and Dutch Stingo and Calais Cordial from Yan—mum's the word! He surely is a member, that lad! Anyway, you're to meet him under the arch at six sharp, so you'd best have a bit of supper first, by the kitchen fire."
Miss Gusset's kitchen fire blazed in a huge open hearth by which hung hams and dried fish and bunches of herbs. Dido and Cris sat on stools in the hearth itself and were given earthenware pipkins of the best soup they had ever tasted and bread fresh out of the big oven, while Miss Sarah bustled about getting supper for the customers, and Uncle Jarge looked after the bar, occasionally putting his head through a little hatch to tell them the latest gossip.
"Harwood's pig be loose again! Foxhounds to meet here, Saturday's a fortnight. That Mr. Mystery, as he calls hisself, is still in the town, lodging with Hoadleys at the Angel; going to give another show. Asked could he lodge here and give his show in our yard, but I said we were full up."
Croopus, Dido thought, that was a near squeak!
"We'd best get you out o' them velvets, Cris, they're too noticeable. I've a notion old Mystery means no good by you; anyways you're too like Tobit by half; anyone might pounce on you thinking you was him. You'd best wear my spare midshipman's rig."
The midshipman's gear included a canvas smock, like enough to a shepherd's smock so that Cris would pass unnoticed in the street; and besides this, Miss Sarah rummaged out a sheepskin cap from a collection of odds and ends left behind by visitors to the inn. This covered up her dark hair.
At a minute before six they slipped out the back door and found Yan already waiting under the arch, with a couple of other men, muffled up like carters in sacking. They carried long brushes, a ladder, and bags of soot.
"Naught better than to look like a chimbley-sweep when you're fixing to break into a jail," whispered Yan cheerfully. "It's a good reason for having the ladder with you, likewise for blacking your face; and if things comes to a roughhouse, a handful o' soot's wonderful boffling does it hit the other chap in the face."
He nodded approval of the girls' dark-blue rig, gave Dido a large sheet of very sticky paper to carry, and led off up the alley in the direction of the jail.
When they were halfway along, a man slipped silently past them, going in the opposite direction. It was too dark to see his face, but Dido gave two or three sharp sniffs after he had passed by.
"What's amiss, my duck?" whispered Yan, who was amazingly quick to notice anything that happened near him.
"The smell o' that chap's tobacco," Dido whispered back. "I knowed someone afore who smoked that kind—Vosper's Nautical Cut." She stopped to unstick the paper which had caught against itself—it was spread with treacle, Yan explained. He remarked that with a sniffer like hers, Dido was wasted outside the scent trade, and then they had arrived at the jail, a small brick building that stood beside a windmill on the outskirts of the town. It did not appear as if the jail were put to very frequent use; grass grew over the doorstep. There were bars on the ground-floor windows, but not on the upper ones. A watchman was seated on the mounting block outside the jail, drinking something from a leather bottle. Yan stole up behind him and gave him a brisk, deft thump with a sock full of soot; he toppled silently off the block and the contents of his bottle spilled on to the grass.
"Organ-grinder's oil," said Yan, sniffing; "wonder where he got it? Why, 'tis Sam Pelmett, I thought he was in service up to Tegleaze."
"He left there this morning," Dido said.
"We'd best put his head in a bag and tie him up middling tight."
This done, Yan took the treacled paper from Dido, ran up the ladder as nimbly as if chimney-sweeping were really his profession, smoothed the paper against a windowpane, and then tapped it with his soot-filled sock. The pane broke, but stuck to the paper, which he passed down to his mates. He then put an arm through the window, found the catch, opened it, and disappeared inside.
Five minutes of somewhat uneasy silence went by. At last one figure, two figures, suddenly and softly appeared around the corner of the building.
"It's us!" whispered Yan. "Came out the back door—dang me, it wasn't even locked."
"But where's Tobit?" Dido asked anxiously, for Yan's companion was a grown man.
"That be the mischief of it, ducky—he ain't there."
"Are you sure?" Dido made a movement toward the jail, but Yan grabbed her arm.
"Sure as Sunday—we went over the whole place, there's not another soul inside. But Pip here, who was in the next cell, says that not half an hour agone he heard some chaps come along, mouching and mumchance, have a word wi' the watchman, open up the boy's cell, and take him off wi' them. What d'you make o' that?"
"Oh my stars!" said Dido. "I reckon that there Mystery's gone and kidnapped him!"