"Oh, don't ask me, Master Peter," cried she, although she had come for no other purpose than to be cross-questioned. "Oh, pray, don't, for it's more nor I can bear. Dearey me, if I ain't all of a twitter!"

"Nothing the matter with your master," said I, "surely? I saw him out of the window a little while ago on the lawn, talking to one of the under-keepers of the Hall."

"I dare say you did, sir," quoth Mrs. Myrtle, with one of those aggravated shudders which are generally produced by the antic.i.p.ation of senna and salts. "No, master's all well, thank Heaven."

"No bad news from Harley Street?" exclaimed I, laying down my razor in a tremor. "I trust Miss...--I mean that Mr. Marmaduke is as he should be."

"For all that I know to the contrary, he is, sir," returned the housekeeper; "and likewise all _friends_" Mrs. Myrtle laid such an accent upon "friends" that my mind naturally rushed to the opposite.

"You don't mean to say," said I, "that anything has happened to Sir Ma.s.singberd?"

Mrs. Myrtle had no voice to speak, but she nodded a number of times in compensation.

"Is he DEAD?" asked I, very solemnly, for it was terrible to think of sudden death in connection with that abandoned man.

"Wus than dead, sir," returned the housekeeper; "many times wus than dead; Heaven forgive me for saying so. Sir Ma.s.singberd is LOST."

"Lost!" repeated I; "how? where?"

"There is only One knows that, Master Peter; but the Squire is not at the Hall, that's certain; he never returned there last night, after he had gone his rounds in the preserves. He spoke with Bradford and two more of the keepers, and bade them keep a good look-out as usual; but he did not come to the watchers in the Home Plantation. He never got so near the house as that; n.o.body saw him since midnight. Gilmore put out his cigars and spirits as usual for him in his room; but they are untouched. The front-door was not fastened on the inside; Sir Ma.s.singberd never came in."

Here I heard Mr. Long calling upon the stairs in a voice very different from his customary cheerful tones, for Mrs. Myrtle.

"Mercy me, I wonder whether there's anything new!" cried she, rising with great alacrity. "As soon as I knows it, you shall know it, Master Peter;" with which generous promise she hurried from the room.

After this intelligence, shaving became an impossibility, and I hurried down as soon as I could into the breakfast-room. My tutor was standing at the window very thoughtful, and though he greeted me with his usual hilarity, it struck me that it was a little forced.

"Why, you are early this morning, Peter; and how profusely you have ill.u.s.trated yourself with cuts; it is sad to see one so young with such a shaky hand. One would think you were one of the five-bottle-men, like Sir--like Lord Stowell."

He had been about to say "Sir Ma.s.singberd," I knew, and would on ordinary occasions not have hesitated to do so.

"De perditis nil nisi bonum?" quoth I inquiringly.

"Oh, so you have heard of this nine hours' wonder, have you?" returned my tutor. "Because our neighbour has chosen to leave home for a little, on some private business best known to himself, everybody will have it that he is Lost."

"But it does seem very extraordinary too," said I, "does it not? He has never done so before, has he?"

"Not in all the years he has lived in Fairburn," returned my tutor musingly.

"And he made no preparations, I suppose, for departure, did he? Took no clothes with him?"

"Nothing, nothing," interrupted Mr. Long, pacing the room to and fro, with his hand to his forehead. "But he had money, you know; he was eager to get that money yesterday."

"Then he would probably have hired a vehicle," urged I; "Sir Ma.s.singberd is not the man to use his own legs, beyond the limit, that is, of his own lands. You have heard him say that he would never be seen on the road without four horses."

Mr. Long continued his walk without reply, but I thought I perceived that he was not unwilling to have the subject discussed. He seemed to be eager to take as light a view of the matter as possible, although like one who contends against his own more sombre convictions. I, on the contrary, had that leaning towards the gloomy and mysterious not uncommon with young persons, and both imagined the worst, and endeavoured to picture it.

"He went out after the poachers did he not?" said I.

"Yes, as usual," replied my tutor; "he has done it before, scores of times."

"The pitcher goes often to the well, but is broken at last," returned I.

"I should not be surprised if the wretched man has been murdered by some of those against whom he waged such unceasing war."

"Then if so, he must have been shot, Peter," returned the rector hastily: "without firearms, it would have been hard to dispose of the gigantic baronet, armed as he doubtless was with his life-preserver. Now no gun has been heard to go off by any one, although it was thought that Sir Ma.s.singberd expected some raid to be made last night, by the gipsies or others; at all events, he seemed more alert than usual, Oliver tells me."

The gipsies! My heart sank within me, as I thought of Rachel Liversedge consumed with the wrongs of her "little sister;" and of the young man, relative of that unhappy Carew whose life had been sworn away through the Squire's machinations. I had seen nothing of them since my memorable interview, but it was like enough that the tribe were yet in the neighbourhood. True, they had waited so long for vengeance, that it was not probable they should have set about it at this time; but if Sir Ma.s.singberd had really come across them alone, while they were committing a depredation, violence might easily enough have ensued; and if violence, murder. I was very glad that Mrs. Myrtle came in at this juncture with the eggs and b.u.t.tered toast, and concealed my embarra.s.sment.

"No news, sir," said she lugubriously, as she placed the delicacies upon the table. "The last words were, 'Nothing has been heard of him.'" The housekeeper had established a system of communication by help of her kitchen-maid and the stable-lad at the Hall, whereby she received bulletins, every quarter of an hour or so, with respect to Sir Ma.s.singberd's mysterious disappearance.

"Well, no news is good news, you know," responded Mr. Long gaily. "We should always look upon the bright side of things, Mrs. Myrtle."

"Yes, sir; but when a thing ain't got a bright side," remarked the housekeeper, shaking her head. "Why, it's dreadful now he's Lost; and it would be dreadful even if, after all, he was al----"

"Hush, hush, Mrs. Myrtle; you don't know but you may be speaking of a poor soul that is gone to his account. Sir Ma.s.singberd is doubtless a bad man; but let us not call it dreadful if he should be permitted to return among us, and have some time yet, it may be, to repent in."

"Then you think he's dead and gone, do you, sir? Well, that's what I think, and that's what Patty thinks too, and she's a very reasonable girl. 'Them ravens,' says she to me, 'didn't come to that church-tower for nothing;' and though, of course, I told her to hold her tongue, and not talk folly like that, there was a good deal in what she said. Why, we have not had ravens here since Sir Wentworth came to his awful end in London; there was a mystery about that too, wasn't there, sir?

Lawk-a-mercy! Mr. Meredith, you gave me quite a turn."

I had only said "Look there!" and pointed to the window, through which Gilmore and the head-keeper were seen approaching the Rectory, and engaged in close conversation.

"I'll go with Patty, and let them in," quoth Mrs. Myrtle, unconsciously betraying that she was unequal to opening the door alone, in such an emergency. It is probable that, when it was opened, the incomers and she had a great deal to talk about, for they were not ushered into the breakfast-room for many minutes, and after the very moderate meal which sufficed us both upon the occasion had long been finished. The butler and Oliver Bradford were by no means good friends, and it must have been something portentous indeed which brought them to the Rectory together.

It was, in fact, their very rivalry which had produced the double visit. Each conceived himself to be the superior minister of the absent potentate, and called upon, by that position, to act in his master's behalf, and give notice to neighbouring powers, such as the parson, of the event that had paralyzed affairs at the Hall. It seemed only natural (as he himself subsequently expressed it) to Oliver Bradford, who had been servant, man and boy, to the Heath family for nearly sixty years, that he should be the spokesman on an occasion such as this, and sleeking his scanty white hairs over his forehead with the palm of his hand, and pa.s.sing the back of it across his mouth, he commenced as follows:--

"Muster Long, I make bold to come over here, having been upon the property going on for three-score years and ten----"

"As out-door servant," interrupted Mr. Gilmore, severely; "but not as confidential in any way. Mr. Long, this old man here insisted upon accompanying me in the performance of my duty, and I have humoured him."

"You've what?" cried the ancient keeper; "you've humoured _me_, you oily knave, have you? No, no, you never did that to Oliver Bradford. It wasn't worth your while. I come here about my master's business as a matter of right. Are a few years of truckling, and helping the devil's hand, and feathering your own nest pretty comfortably, to be weighed against a lifetime of honest service? Let Mr. Long here decide."

"Look here, men," quoth my tutor, "it is no use quarrelling about precedence. You are both in the same service, and owe the same duty to your master. I know what has happened in a general way, and require no long story from either of you. But you have doubtless each of you some information concerning this matter peculiar to your own positions, and I will ask you to communicate it in time. Twelve hours have not elapsed since your master's disappearance, a very short time surely to set it down so decidedly to some fatal accident."

"He was as regular in his rounds as clockwork," interposed the old keeper, shaking his head; "he would never have left the Home Spinney unvisited last night, if life had been in him."

"And if he had meant to leave Fairburn of his own head," added the butler, "he would have come back for his brandy before he started; for all his hearty look, Sir Ma.s.singberd could not get on long without that; and he would not have taken Gr.i.m.j.a.w out with him neither."

"Oh, the dog was with him, was it?" said my tutor, musing.

"It was not in the house, sir," replied Gilmore, "after Sir Ma.s.singberd had left. I went to make the fire in his sitting-room, and I noticed that the creature was neither on the hearthrug, nor under the sofa, as is usually the case. I don't know when I have known the dog go out with him o' nights before. When I went to open the front door as usual this morning, there was Gr.i.m.j.a.w, nigh frozen to death."

"Your master had made no sort of preparation, so far as you know, for his own departure anywhere?"

"None whatever. I set out his cigars for him, and I noticed that he had only put two in his case, a sure sign that he meant to return soon. He had no greatcoat, although it was bitter cold."

"Was he armed in any way?"

"No, sir; that is to say, he had his life-preserver, of course, but no gun or pistol."

"Had he any sum of money, or valuables of any kind about him, Gilmore?"