The blacksmith of Voe : a novel
Cushing, Paul, 1854-1919
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NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS Mav, 1892 HARPER’S FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY.- LATEST ISSU CENTS. 720. The Blacksmith of Voe. A Novel. By Paul Cushing 50 719. The Jonah of Lucky Valley and Other Stories. By Howard Seely. Illustrated 50 718. A New Saint’s Tragedy. A Novel. By Thomas A. Pinkerton 50 717. Ruling the Planets. A Novel. By Mina E. Bur- tou 50 710. The Baroness. A Novel. By Frances Mary Peard 50 715. Mrs. Dines’s Jewels. A Mid-Atlantic Romance. By W. Clark Russell. Illustrated 50 714. Cut With His Own Diamond. A Novel. By Paul Cushing 50 713. Mr. East’s Experiences in Mr. Bellamy’s World. By Conrad Wilbrandt. Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford 50 712. Evelyn’s Career. A Novel. By the Author of “My Wife’s Niece,” etc 60 711. Elsa. By E. McQueen Gray 50 710. Dumaresq’s Daughter. By Grant Allen 50 709. Miss Maxwell’s Affections. By Richard Pryce.. 50 708. Judith Trachtenberg. By Karl Emil Franzos. Translated by (Mrs.) L. P. and C. T. Lewis 40 707. 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Harper & Brothers will send, any of the above works by mail, postage prepaid , to any part of the Unitec Canada , or Mexico, on receipt of the price. THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE H IRovel BY • ft. » \JJ "" $h? PAUL CUSHING AUTHOR OF “CUT WITH HIS OWN DIAMOND” ETC. NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1892 / CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Prologue, i I. — A Dark Horse, 13 II. — Below the Belt 21 III. — Invoking Jupiter, 28 IV. — Moth-hunting in Winter .36 V. — Rook’s Nest, .44 VI. — Powers of Darkness, 53 VII. — II Penseroso, 62 VIII. — A Man’s Burden, 68 IX. — At the Hag Stone . . 77 X. — A Bit of Information, 85 XI. — The Great Adventure, 93 XII. — Dem Muthigen Hilft Gott ! 100 XIII. — In a Green Bower, in XIV. — Wen Gott Betrugt, der ist Wohl Betrogen, . . . 120 XV.— A Conspiracy, 127 XVI. — A Naturalist on Spooks, * 136 XVII. — A Candle-end and a Pair of Eyes, . . . . .145 XVIII. — A Bud of Mystery, 151 XIX.— The Bud Opens, 159 XX. — A Witness Tells His Tale 168 XXI. — A Gust of the Soul and 182 XXII. — The Consequences 190 XXIII. — In Front of the Forge, ....... 201 GOKLeNTS> i\f CHAPTER ^Aofe XXIV. — Quetzalcoatl, 207 XXV. — Job Else & Co., . 215 XXVI. — Uncle and Nephew 222 XXVII. — Kneebone on Fighting, 229 XXVIII. — A Piece of Artistry, 23d XXIX. — The Unjust Judge, 245 XXX. — The Plateau Mine, 255 XXXI. — On the Stone Terrace, 264 XXXII. — A Lover and His Lass 271 XXXIII. — In a Trap 275 XXXIV. — Father and Son, 284 . 294 Epilogue, , THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE PROLOGUE It was a hot afternoon in the middle of May. A month ear- lier, ridges of snow were visible under the stone walls of the uplands of Peakshire. It had been a long and bitter winter, and now the spring, in- stead of being the avant-courrier of summer, of melodious voice, and comely aspect of pink and white, was nothing but a lag- gard train-bearer in the ashen retinue of winter. Then, all of a sudden, the mocking traitorous spirit that so wretchedly impersonated the sweet spirit of piping song and shooting bud, and sunshine dashed with shower, was vanquished and driven off in disgrace. Summer came for a few days, not laden with ripening fruits and crowned with shade-giving foli- age, but still charged with the vital heat of life. He came just to let the pale-faced, thin-blooded race of mortals know that he was still alive, and in due time would come and hold his state among them. But they who waited for his coming as watchers watch for the dawn were not at all prepared for this impromptu visit. They received him, not with the self-respecting homage of bared head and bended knee, as becomes the free and loyal subjects of a constitutional monarch, but prostrate, like Orientals. They lay down before him, panting and perspiring, overcome by his brill- iant presence. This state of affairs was illustrated on the afternoon in ques- tion by the attitude of Squire Saxton’s head shepherd. Vigi- lant, skilled, and energetic, busy from morning till night, and anything but idle even when asleep in bed, Abel Boden now lay stretched out on the heather, with the upper part of his body in the shadow of an ancient yew-tree. He was a man of about thirty years of age, a widower with one child, a lacL named after himself, Abel. He lived with Dame Cowlishaw, the widow of Dick Cowlishaw, the squire’s late wag- i 2 THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE oner, who was killed in the wood while hauling timber, two years earlier. The dame took mightily to little Abel, and thought wonders of him. “If he was my own child, he couldn’t have had better intel- lects. He’s only going of five, an’ he knows the names of the trees, an’ all the flowers in the plot, an’ I’m most inclined to think he can tell which hive a bee comes from,’’ she said with pride to the vicar one day, stroking the curly head of Mas- ter Abel, who was hiding his face in her dress. Half an hour before the shepherd threw himself at full length on the heather, he had met the dame and his lad in search of forget-me-nots, and had carried the child across some fields to show him the young lambs. They came back across the moor, following the half-beaten wagon-track that led from Voe, down in the valley, to Potter’s Carr, away up among the hills. Under the yew-tree that grew on the edge of the long-disused quarry on the moor, Abel sat and played with the boy for some minutes; then the dame trotted off with her charge, and Abel lay down, overcome with the heat. Below him was the quarry— a deep wound half healed. Many a year had gone by since it was worked, as one could see at a glance: the smooth perpendicular rock was no longer of blood- red crimson as it caught the slanting light of the evening sun, but was of a dull brown, overlaid with great splashes of vivid green. Where the rock sloped or had been left rough, there mosses, grasses, flowers, weeds, bushes, trees — innumerable forms of life, wild, sweet, and tenacious — had gathered to- gether, grown, multiplied, and transformed an eyesore into a paradise of untamed beauty. The hillside all about it was thickly wooded, and through the valley at its foot ran one of the maddest streams in all that land of mad streams. Above the quarry the heather-land ran as far as Potter’s Carr to the left, while the sloping land on the right rolled and twisted itself into rich pastures and golden corn-fields, with many and many a laughing dale that not infrequently put on a sudden look of savagery — startling to the stranger, but to the native nothing but a bit of its humor, a touch of pretty make- believe, like a child playing the bear. Voe itself was nestled half in and half out of one such dale. Abel lay on his back watching the almost motionless clouds that lay against the deep blue sky like great snow-mountains. Presently he heard footsteps approaching, and when they drew near, he raised himself on his elbow to see who it was: not twice a day did any one cross that part of the moor. PROLOGUE 3 It was with some surprise that he recognized his brother Luke, who was returning home from Potter’s Carr, with several empty sacks over his shoulder. Luke was his senior by two years, and was the right-hand man of Miller Duckmanton, who worked his own mill at Voe, and was considered by his neigh- bors to be a warm man. For some months now there had existed a coldness between the two brothers, and they had parted several days ago on the edge of a quarrel. The bone of contention was Alice Duck- manton, the miller’s only child, whose nineteenth birthday had occurred on the ist of May. She was a delicate piece of innocent wantonness, who took to coquetry as a duck to water — as pretty as she was piquant and as tantalizing as she was variable. Both the brothers loved her, but with a difference. Abel loved her because he could not help it, the silly fellow — being conquered by her brown eyes, her flashes of saucy humor inter- polated between passages of gentle sympathy and maiden shy- ness. Luke loved her with a touch of animal fierceness, re- membering always that she was the miller’s only child, and, as such, the prospective owner of the mill and a few score acres of some of the best land in the parish. And she, following the bend of pretty, witty deviltry native to her, gave her heart to the fierce man and her open and delusive favor to the mild. Her merry brain had an instinct for com- edy, but was quite incapable of realizing the tragic abyss that fraternal feud and disappointed passion might create. “Holloa, Luke! where art going?” cried Abel, in a friendly tone. “Wum,” answered Luke, surlily. “ I’ll come along with you then. It’s mighty hot o’erhead,” said Abel, getting on to his feet. “ Maybe I’d rather have your absence than your company.” “Well, I’ll be hanged if that isna straight! But you never was strong on manners, Luke,” said Abel, with a laugh. Luke elbowed his brother away from him, saying, with an oath, “ My manners is good enough for the likes of you.” “All right, Luke; but keep yourself to yourself. I can stand your ill looks and words, being as how we’re brothers; but ” “But what, you soft-tongued rogue? Dost think I’ll be balked by you? Let me hear of you speaking to her again, and I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life,” roared Luke. Abel grew red in the face for a few moments; then the blood receded and his countenance blanched as shame at the insult 4 THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE gave place to white-hot anger. The mild man was on his mettle now. “Look here, Luke,” he said, slowly, “this has gone so far it must go farther. I shall see her to-night, and I shall speak to her, you may be sure. If you’re going to do any thrashing, you’d better do it now — if you can." For a while the two men clutched and wrestled like two mad bears — with their eyes. Neither yielded. Then Luke dropped his bags and sprang at his brother. Abel went down plump. Luke had just time to deliver a fine, well-planted kick in the quarter thoughtfully provided by nature for that purpose, be- fore Abel was up and on him. It was not a fair stand-up fight, but a deadly and most irra- tional hug. Now, the hugging power of man is not great un- less he is in a loving mood. Then he has been known to accomplish great things; but in anger he cannot hug as a fighting animal should, his ribs being stronger than his arms. After they had squeezed each other ineffectually for some time, Abel broke loose and cried: “This isna the way to fight. Let’s have it out with our fists like men.” For an answer, Luke flung himself on his brother, and the two went at the bear game again. Presently Abel gasped: “For God’s sake, drop it, Luke! We shall be down the quarry in a minute.” “The sooner the better,” hissed Luke, with a terrible oath. There was murder in his tone, and Abel knew it. It was nothing less now than a fight for life. They were close to the edge of the precipice, fifty feet from the bottom at the least. Abel shuddered, and tried hard to force his brother away; but Luke meant business, and held his ground tenaciously, while his eyes shone bright and fierce as a tiger’s. “Do you mean murder, Luke?” “No, lad. We don’t murder toads or snakes; we kill them,” growled Luke, giving a sudden mighty heft that was intended to do the work. The strain was too much for him; he slipped and fell on one knee, and lost half his hold. Quick as lightning, Abel put forth all his strength and threw his brother from him. Luke turned a complete somersault over the cliff, and went down with a fearful cry. For a little while Abel stood like one in a trance, looking at his finger-nails; then he drew near to the edge and looked down. The steep declivity was studded with young trees and bushes, and their fresh green leaves prevented him from seeing far PROLOGUE 5 down. He listened, but could hear no sound save that of the rushing stream below. “Well, if I hadna done him he would have done me — that’s all there is about it. I reckon I’d better go and give meself up to the police.” So saying, Abel Boden turned away and made toward the village of Voe. After proceeding some distance he stood still. “Nay, I’ll go back. Maybe he’s not dead, and I can help him if he’s badly hurt. May God forgive me the awful deed! ” he said aloud. He turned and ran back as hard as he could. Arrived at the fatal spot, he stood and called several times: “Luke! Luke! where art? Where art, Luke?” There was no answer. A great terror came over Abel, the terror of remorse and despair. “Cast thyself down and die with him,” a voice seemed to say: so clear and distinct was it that Abel involuntarily looked round to see the speaker. There was no one to be seen. Still the voice spoke, and gave the same deadly counsel. Abel trembled. “It’s the Evil One himself. O God, have mercy on me!” he cried, falling back from the edge of the precipice and sink- ing on to his knees. The voice, soft and dreamy and melodious, still sounded in his ears, and Abel thought that death itself would be as sweet as the voice that urged it. Would it? Would self-murder sweeten the bitter issue ? “ Cast thyself down and die with him.” Like distant music lulling one to sleep sounded the fatal voice, and every syllable seemed as a strong cord pulling him toward the brink. He threw himself upon the ground, and clutched the heather wildly with both hands, for he had a sensation of being slowly drawn toward destruction. He lay there for some time, thus physically resisting the devil, and clinging to sanity by his finger-nails. When the voice had been silent for many minutes, said Abel: “ I will go and seek him now. God grant he is yet alive! ” He rose up and disappeared in the wood to the right of the quarry. . .. Luke was not dead, nor, for the matter of that, much hurt. Had he been a saint, of course he would have been smashed to death. Had he been an ordinarily good fellow, of fair temper and moderate virtue, there is little doubt that he would have broken a few of his most serviceable bones. Being, however, a fierce, surly, graceless dog, whose freshest virtue was a bit rancid, whose death would have entailed no drain upon the 6 THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE world’s stock of sweet h-umanity, he must needs have guardian imps to bear him up lest he strike his pretty head against a rock. Falling, he fell across the boughs of a young ash-tree; these with swift intelligence lowered their precious charge into the capacious arms of a spreading yew; while these again let him fall, a little unceremoniously, on to the churlish tops of a clump of thorn-bushes. From thence he reached the solid earth with a bump of an inferior kind, and rolling ten or a dozen feet, finally brought up with his body against a huge stone, that had been busy for half a century covering and padding itself with softest moss for the great occasion. Only, his face was in a bunch of nettles and his hands were lovingly clinging to some straggling thorn-brambles. Bram- bles and nettles, mistaking the would-be murderer for a good man in adversity, gave forth freely of their peculiar virtue, and riddled him with a quiverful of dart-like pains. Gathering his scattered wits together, Luke Boden got on to his feet and felt himself all over in a comical fashion. One would have thought he was making sure that he had brought all his members with him on his journey. His hands were bleeding, his face was burning, and his left foot was throbbing with fiery pain. For "his extraordinary deliverance he gave thanks in this wise: raising his eyes and fist apparently to heaven, he ex- claimed, “Damn him! I’ll be even with him yet!” Whether he was thinking of his brother up there on the brow of the cliff, or of the imperfect protection Old Harry had ren- dered him, was not quite clear at the moment. Subsequent events, however, suggest that he was thinking of his brother, and not of his father. Luke Boden was on a shelf of rock, some distance from the bottom, that ran along the face of the slope and was used by venturesome lads as a short cut between the woods on either side of the quarry. He moved cautiously along this path, which was perilously narrow at points, in the direction of the wood on the right: he knew that a little way in the wood was an easy path running from the moor above to the bridle-path in the valley below. The pain in his foot was intense, and he sat down to rest. In a little while he heard his brother calling: “ Luke! where art ? Where art, Luke ? ” He did not answer, looked savage, and swore hard. Pres- ently an idea struck him. “He’ll be coming along here to look for me,” he muttered, standing up and looking about him. PROLOGUE r A little ahead, the path was not more than twenty inches wide; ten or a dozen feet above the path was a flat rock, form- ing a sort of table on which were bushes growing. With consid- erable difficulty, Luke climbed on to this rock and crouched behind the bushes. A tiger in ambush would not have been a deadlier enemy. Peering through the bushes, Luke saw Abel leave the wood and come along the path ; he lost sight of him for a few mo- ments, as the path wound round the rocks. When Abel came into view again he was close at hand. Softly on his hands and knees crawled Luke to the edge of the rock : immediately below him was the narrow shelf of rock which Abel had to cross. Luke lay on his chest and peered over. He drew back, and lifting a large, heavy stone, held it in both hands over the rock for a moment or two, and then he let it fall. It was beautifully timed. Abel Coden went down with a groan, rolling over and over like a ball, till his poor battered body lay motionless at the foot of the quarry. With marvellous celerity, considering his condition, did Luke make his way down to his murdered brother. He picked him up on to his back as he would a sack of flour, and carried him out of the quarry and along the bridle-path; leaving this, he crossed the rushing stream by some stepping-stones, and ascended the wooded slope on the other side. Panting and sweating, he came to an old lead mine, where was a shaft full of water, rudely boarded over and partly covered with stones. A few minutes of hard work and Abel Boden’s tomb was ready for him : the body fell with a thud, and the water splashed up. A drop of it lighted on Luke’s parted lips. Replacing the boards and the stones, Luke retraced his steps, recrossed the path along the face of the quarry, and, limping and sore bruised, came at last to the mill at Yoe. He entered the bigold kitchen, sat down in the miller’s arm- chair that stood in the chimney corner, and fell into a deep swoon. When he revived, he found himself lying on his own bed — he lodged with the miller— and the doctor bending over him. Now, Luke was mortally afraid of doctors, and, when well, contemptuous of their craft. So now he sprang up in bed, crying: “Am I a-dying, doctor? Am I a-dying? ” The doctor laughed lightly, and gently pushing him back on to his pillow, said: “Oh, no, not yet awhile. You are shaken up a bit, and bruised here and there, and you have got a nasty foot, badly sprained ; had to cut away your boot to get it off. 8 THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE But you are a long way from being a dead man, or even a badly hurt man. Did you fall ? ” “Yes; down the moor quarry. ” “ Indeed ! how did that happen ? ” “He pushed me over; wanted to kill me, I reckon." At this, medicus pricked his ears. “You were drunk, I suppose?” “Not exactly: drink isna in my line.” “We’ve had a deal of rain lately; I suppose the land slipped and let you down ? ” “ Maybe it did; I reckon I can get up and ride over to Squire Saxton’s, can’t I ? ” “ To-morrow perhaps, but not to-day. What do you want with the squire ? ” “ Why, I want a warrant out for his arrest, to be sure. A fellow doesn’t try to murder me for nothing, not if I know it!” “ Well, well, well ; and it is really true, then ? Who was it ? ” “I’d rather not say just yet. I want the squire,” answered Luke, doggedly. “Very well; I will ride over and see him,” said the doctor; and in a few minutes Luke heard the ring of his horse’s hoofs on the cobble-paved yard below. It was late in the evening when the squire arrived in his dog- cart, accompanied by a member of the county constabulary who lived in the next village. “Why, Luke, my good fellow, what is this I hear? At- tempted murder! Are you badly hurt?” said the squire, stand- ing beside the bed. He was a young man, much about the same age as Luke, with nothing in his build or bearing of the fine old squire — of fiction. Had he been a trifle smarter dressed, he would have passed for a weigher of sugars or a measurer of calicoes. Yet for two hundred years his forbears had been the squires of Voe, and had driven a roan mare, by which tenure they held their wide estate. His voice would have been sympathetic but for a slight stammer, which rendered it useless as a vehicle of senti- ment. “Yes, sir, I’m badly shook up; it’s a wonder as how I wasn’t killed, sir. It’s all Abel’s doing, sir! ” “Oh, come now! I cannot think that. Why, your brother Abel is one of the kindest and gentlest of men, as a good shep- herd should be.” “ Maybe he is, sir, with lambs and babies and such-like things. But he tried to kill me, and I want to have him arrested,” said Luke, with a touch of fierceness in his tone. PROLOGUE 9 “ I’m very sorry to hear it, Luke. It’s a serious thing, you know, to arrest a man on a charge like that. He is your brother, you know. Wasn’t it an accident?” inquired the squire, who had a great liking for his head shepherd. As a lad, Abel had won his admiration by his strange skill in landing trout and grayling with home-made rod and tackle, and his curious knowledge of birds and every kind of wood-lore. “No, it was no accident; it was meant for downright murder. Some rough words passed atwixt us, then he fell on me and pushed me o’er the top of the moor quarry. He said he’d fin- ish me,” growled Luke. “Well, I am sure Abel is sorry enough now for what he did.” “I reckon he is,” quoth Luke, grimly. “Then you will overlook it this time, won’t you?” Luke was silent. “ If I bring him to you, and he says he is sorry, you will, eh ? ” “ He won’t come. He knows he meant murder.” “Won’t he, though! It is getting late, but I will drive up to Dame Cowlishaw’s and bring him back with me. This quar- relling between brothers will never do,” said the squire, as he turned and left the room. He did not see the odd smile that crossed Luke’s face as he passed through the doorway. Squire Saxton, despite his commonplace exterior and im- pedimented speech, was a man who did much to justify his order in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Everybody admitted he was a just man; and a considerable minority — every man of them a tenant of his — were bold enough to advance the proposition that he was also a generous man. The influence of the Hall was felt in every cottage within a radius of miles, and everywhere it was recognized as an agent of good-will, brotherly kindness, and the essential refinement of courteous manners and gentle speech. Squire Saxton was not one of the modern breed who care not a brass farthing whether their people be courteous or boorish, clean or dirty, ignorant or instructed, so long as they drop courtesy and pull forelock to themselves and vote straight at election times. But then he was suckled and nurtured in the old traditions of squiralty. So now, characteristically and naturally, he busied himself with trying to heal the angry breach between the shepherd and the miller. In the course of an hour the squire returned without Abel. His face wore an anxious look. “ I told you he wouldn’t come, sir,” said Luke. “ I am sorry to say he has not come home. I don’t under- IO THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE stand it; I think he must be attending to the sheep/’ answered the squire, unwilling to believe that Abel had fled the country. “Nay, sir, he’s none tending sheep. I want to have him taken up, sir.” “ Perhaps it will be the best way of getting him back again, if he is foolish enough to have gone away. Let me have your story in full.” Thereupon Luke furnished an account of what had happened. It was colored, not over-brilliantly, but artistically. It might have been a picture of the first Abel, done by Cain the Crafty, son of Adam, after a certain encounter in the fields. It put Abel in an ugly light, and troubled the squire greatly. If Abel was really guilty, it was better for him to get away out of the country, thought the squire; he gave him his best wishes in the endeavor, and if he had known his whereabouts he would have sent him his purse as a token. All this was in his capac- ity of squire. As a justice of the peace, it was his duty to up- hold the law and punish offenders; and he did bis official duty. Luke’s statement was reduced to writing and read to him; the oath was administered, and then the squire made out a war- rant for Abel’s arrest. It was close on midnight when the squire left the mill. Next morning, peaceful wood-embowered Voe was awake early and terribly excited. Had it been the other way about, and Luke had tried to do the killing, not a dozen people in the place would have been surprised. But that the mild, gentle- natured, humor-loving Abel Boden should have tried to slay his brother, and have fled' to avoid arrest, was something to fetch folk out of their beds at daybreak, and make them swarm heads like “flies in vintage-time.” The witcraft of Voe would not have been more exercised had a volcano opened on the top of the Shimmering cliff behind the mill. Popular sympathy was with Abel, and certain of the Voese went so far as to throw doubt upon Luke’s statement. The doubters were mostly young men of not more than fifty-five years to sixty, who knew no better. But the Witan of three- score years and ten and upward shook their sagacious nod- dles; quoted the squire, the doctor, and the policeman; in- quired triumphantly if the warrant was not out; and meekly suggested that well-behaved boys did not offer opinions to their seniors before they were asked, nor talk of what they knew nothing about. The day passed and the night fell, but nothing was heard of Abel Boden. On the morrow it was bravely announced by Dame Rumor that three constables, two of the squire’s game- PROLOGUE II keepers, and a detachment of villagers were to search the quarry and the surrounding woods. The news travelled in that semi-miraculous manner peculiai to out-of-the-way places, with a nimbleness almost uncanny. People seemed to spring out of the earth, and come forth from the dark places among the rocks, and swarm around the mill to witness the departure of the band of searchers. Such a crowd had not been seen in Voe for many a day. The searchers, some twenty in number, were standing near the kitchen door; the crowd held the yard, the steps, the gates, and half a dozen wagons and carts; inside, the squire was having a talk with Luke, when a man left the crowd of on-look- ers, and pushing past the group of searchers, entered the kitchen and asked to see the squire. He was a tall, muscular man, of about sixty, with iron-gray hair, and dressed in dark purple corduroy. Everybody knew Nathan Wass, the broom- maker, who lived all alone in a dark, weird-looking little cot- tage, built of tufa-stone, on the edge of the wood under the moor. In a few minutes it was known that he was closeted with the squire, and the excitement grew intense; for Nathan Wass was a quiet, unobtrusive man, reserved as an oyster, who never meddled with business not his own. At the same time he had the reputation of enjoying something of the luck of the famous Jack Horner; and into what pie he put his thumb, from the same he was pretty certain to extract the plum. It was char- acteristic of Nathan Wass that, if he appeared at all, he always appeared at the right time, and either said or did something that every one would but no one could. The crowd waited, wondering what nail Nathan was hitting on the head. By and by he came out, and moved away with the band of searchers, headed for some distance by the squire himself. The crowd hung back, not daring to follow. Then everybody learned in no time that Nathan Wass had been a witness of the encounter between the two brothers; he had seen Luke slip and Abel throw him over the brink. Then Nathan had turned and fled the scene in horror. The crowd murmured, not at Abel, but at Nathan. Why should he forge a prison bolt against Abel the Gentle? Why did not he hold his peace, if that was all he could say? He and Abel had been very friendly together, would take long jaunts in company, and play draughts during the long winter evenings. Confound it! it was not like Nathan Wass to go and do a shabby thing like that. The searchers were not successful, and no trace of Abel 12 THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE could be found. In the course of a week, information was sent to every police station in Great Britain, and the ports were closely watched; several men were arrested, only to be dis- charged on examination. One man was remarkably like Abel; but he was not Abel, only Harry. Weeks, months, years went by without yielding any word, or sign, or token of the missing man. The dead cannot remember, and the living are often as the dead. Abel Boden was forgotten of the living. CHAPTER I A DARK HORSE “ Gentlemen, it is time to begin business. Gentlemen, I solicit your attention, and would ask for silence.” Rat, tat, tat went the auctioneer’s hammer on the back of the stout arm-chair upon which he was standing. The hum of voices ceased, and the auctioneer continued: “I am here to-day, gentlemen, to sell a very valuable piece of property. It will be sold in one lot.” Murmurs from different parts of the room. “Such are my instructions, gentlemen. The land must go with the house and the shop. There is no reserve price. It will become the property of the highest bidder. The house and smithy alone are worth four hundred pounds of any man’s money.” Ironical laughter from the crowd. “Gentlemen laugh! I don’t wonder. I meant five hundred pounds, not four.” Louder ironical laughter. “Oh, I dare say you think, gentlemen, that two hundred would have been nearer the mark ? ” “Hear! hear!” in a chorus. “Yes, to be sure; exactly so. But I’m not so green, gentle- men, as I evidently look. My instructions are to sell, not to give away. John Marsden is an auctioneer, not a relieving officer. But the matter is in your own hands, gentlemen; the place isn’t worth a farthing more than you will give for it. But this I will say: gentlemen, for a widower, or a bachelor, or a man with economical ideas regarding the size of his fam- ily, there isn’t a prettier, snugger, neater cottage within a dozen miles of Voe. And then the business that goes with it! Didn’t our poor dead friend, known to most of us here from our cradle up as honest Jack Wragg, drive as fine a smithy as you’ll find in Peakshire? He made money enough at it. And, gentlemen, remember that honest Jack Wragg left behind him a poor, sorrowing widow, with no child to work for her and comfort her in her old age. All her fortune is in this small 14 THE BLACKSMITH OF VOE estate; and with the image of poor Jack Wragg’s sorrowing widow before your eyes, who will be stony-hearted enough to say that the place is not dirt cheap at five hundred pounds?” A dead silence followed this appeal, and the auctioneer smjled a benediction on the group of upturned faces. “Gentlemen, I knew it would be so,” he said solemnly. He paused a moment or two, then he continued in secular style: “In addition to house, smithy, and the adjoining garden, there are two acres one rood and seventeen poles of land. It consists of two small meadows beside the river Scarthin, and separates the squire’s land from Miller Boden’s, who, I am glad to see, is present. Gentlemen, you know the land as well as I do: better grass-land is not to be found in the whole val- ley of the Scarthin; it is worth a hundred pounds an acre. Gentlemen, what offer do you make for the house, smithy, gar- den, and meadow-land? Any offer, gentlemen! Start it at anything you please.” “ Fifty pounds,” sang out a gentleman in a smock-frock, who was well known to everybody, and was not worth fifty shillings in the world. Loud guffaws greeted this outburst of spirit. “ Fifty pounds; thank you, sir. Fifty pounds only is offered for — sixty, eighty, a hundred, a hundred and — fifty; thank you, Mr. Boden. Is there any advance on a hundred and — sixty, seventy, eighty, two hundred; thank you, Mr. Sims. If the squire gets it for the money, he — two hundred and ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty — fifty. Two hundred and fifty pounds only is offered for the — sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety; thank you, Mr. Sims. Two hun — three hundred it is, and thank you, Mr. Boden. Going for three hundred pounds; is there any advance on three hundred pounds? Gentlemen, I must tell you a story — a true story,” said the auctioneer, thrusting his hands in his trousers pockets, and putting on the well-known comical ex- pression that always heralded one of his famous stock of true stories. The common room at the Nag’s Head Inn, where the sale was taking place, was crowded with dwellers in and about Voe. The event had been looked forward to with unusual interest for some weeks, during which time it had formed the staple of con- versation in the village, and had been discussed from every point of view accessible to local knowledge. Indeed, the discussion had generated no little heat, and had led to the making of a good number of small bets. The small- ness of the bets, moreover, in no way diminished the interest in the result. The area of speculation was very limited, the only A DARK HORSE *5 question being whether Squire Saxton or Miller Boden would be the purchaser. It was conceded on all hands that the con- test would lie between these two; the very idea of any foreign competition was excluded. That there should be a sale at all was a matter to be re- gretted; for the Wraggs had been the smiths of Voe time out of mind. Honest Jack liked a glass of beer as well as any man in the dale, and now and then, at long intervals, would get a little market pert. At such times Jack Wragg grew mighty proud of his forbears, and cracked of his ancestry as bravely as a lord. “ My fathers have stood on this hearthstone for over three hundred years. Squire Saxton is a gentleman and I bain’t; but I’m better than a hundred years older than he is,” he had been known to say, more than once, in his lively moments. But the line had at last run out, and the smith of Voe would no longer bear the almost official and historic name of Wragg. 