Lud-in-the-Mist

Well, about a week before my father died I heard him talking to her in a voice I’d never known him to use to her before. He said he’d warned her twice already that year, and that this was the last time. Up to that time he’d held his head high, he said, because his hands were clean and all his doings straight and fair, and now he warned her for the last time that unless this business was put a stop to once and for all, he’d have Pugwalker tarred and feathered, and make the neighbourhood too hot for him to stay in it. And, I remember, I heard him hawking and spitting, as if he’d rid himself of something foul. And he said that the Gibbertys had always been respected, and that the farm, ever since they had owned it, had helped to make the people of Dorimare straight-limbed and clean-blooded, for it had sent fresh meat and milk to market, and good grain to the miller, and sweet grapes to the vintner, and that he would rather sell the farm than that poison and filth should be sent out of his granary, to turn honest lads into idiots gibbering at the moon. And then she started coaxing him, but she spoke too low for me to catch the words. But she must have been making him some promise, for he said gruffly, ‘Well, see that it’s done, then, for I’m a man of my word.’

“And in not much more than a week after that he was dead⁠—poor father. And I count it a miracle that I ever grew up and am sitting here now telling you all this. And a still greater one that little Robin grew up to be a man, for he inherited the farm. But it was her own little girl that died, and Robin grew up and married, and though he died in his prime it was through a quinsy in his throat, and he always got on with our stepmother, and wouldn’t hear a word against her. And she has brought up his little girl, for her mother died when she was born. But I’ve never seen the lass, for there was never any love lost between me and my stepmother, and I never went back to the old house after I married.”

She paused, and in her eyes was that wistful, tranced look that always comes when one has been gazing at things that happened to one long ago.

“I see, I see,” said Master Nathaniel meditatively. “And Pugwalker? Did you ever see him again till you recognized him in the streets of Lud the other day?”

She shook her head. “No, he disappeared, as I told you, just before the trial. Though I don’t doubt that she knew his whereabouts and heard from him⁠—met him even; for she was always going out by herself after nightfall. Well, well, I’ve told you everything I know⁠—though perhaps I’d have better held my tongue, for little good comes of digging up the past.”

Master Nathaniel said nothing; he was evidently pondering her story.

“Well,” he said finally, “everything you have told me has been very interesting⁠—very interesting indeed. But whether it will lead to anything definite is another matter. All the evidence is purely circumstantial. However, I’m very grateful to you for having spoken to me as freely as you’ve done. And if I find out anything further I’ll let you know. I shall be leaving Lud shortly, but I shall keep in touch with you. And, under the circumstances, perhaps it would be prudent to agree on some word or token by which you would recognize a messenger as really coming from me, for the fellow you knew as Pugwalker has not grown less cunning with advancing years⁠—he’s full of guile, and let him once get wind of what we’re after, he’d be up to all sorts of tricks to make our plans miscarry. What shall the token be?”

Then his eyes began to twinkle: “I’ve got it!” he cried. “Just to give you a little lesson in swearing, which you say you dislike so much, we’ll make it a good round oath. You’ll know a messenger comes from me if he greets you with the words, By the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West!”

And he rubbed his hands in delight, and shouted with laughter. Master Nathaniel was a born tease.

“For shame, you saucy fellow!” dimpled Mistress Ivy. “You’re as bad as my poor Peppercorn. He used always.⁠ ⁠…”

But even Master Nathaniel had had his fill of reminiscences. So he cut her short with a hearty goodbye, and renewed thanks for all she had told him.

But he turned back from the door to hold up his finger and say with mock solemnity, “Remember, it’s to be By the Sun, Moon and Stars and the Golden Apples of the West!”

XIX

The Berries of Merciful Death

Late into that night Master Nathaniel paced the floor of his pipe-room, trying to pierce through the intervening medium of the dry words of the Law and the vivider though less reliable one of Mistress Ivy’s memory, and reach that old rustic tragedy, as it had been before the vultures of Time had left nothing of it but dry bones.

He felt convinced that Mistress Ivy’s reconstruction was correct⁠—as far as it went. The farmer had been poisoned, though not by osiers. But by what? And what had been the part played by Pugwalker, alias Endymion Leer? It was, of course, gratifying to his vanity that his instinctive identification of the two had been correct. But how tantalizing it would be if this dead man’s tale was to remain but a vague whisper, too low to be heard by the ear of the Law!

On his table was the slipper that Master Ambrose had facetiously suggested might be of use to him. He picked it up, and stared at it absently. Ambrose had said the sight of