Now, the road ’twixt Ferrybridge and Darrington is a lonely one, and never over-pleasant to ride along at any time of night. There were no carriages or coaches going along on this night, and we met nothing but a post-chaise going north. The snow increased at every step, and the beasts beneath us groaned with their efforts to keep their footing and persevere on their homeward way.
“ ’Tis a wild night, Will,” said my father, who rode on my right hand; “and thy mother will be anxious for us. We shall be home in half an hour an we keep at it. Shake Dumpling up, lad; she is half afraid of the snow, and will—”
I never knew what more my father would have said. As he spoke, a figure seemed to rise up out of the storm right in our path. I heard a sharp report of firearms and saw the flash. My father fell from his horse without even a groan.
VIII
Of the Sorrow That Came After
I was too much horrified by the sudden attack upon my father to cry out or even to move. I sat for what seemed an age without even drawing my breath. Dumpling quivered beneath me; I heard the mare shaking at her side. It seemed to me like some awful dream, from which I should presently awake to find myself in my little sleeping-chamber at Dale’s Field. And then I suddenly realized the horror that had come to overwhelm me and mine, and my heart seemed to burst into one terrible cry.
“Father, oh, father!”
Alas! there was no response. Trembling with fear I got down from Dumpling’s back and felt my way through the darkness to the mare’s bridle. She was shivering and quaking all over, and pushed her nose against my arm as if to ask protection. I fastened her by the bridle to Dumpling and bade them stand still. Poor brutes! what with the storm and the sudden attack they were thoroughly cowed and affrighted, and they huddled together and held their heads to the ground, as beasts only will when they are completely yielded up to fear. And then I began to search about in the snow, and presently stumbled over my father’s body.
He was dead—I knew that as soon as I touched him. I knew it by the awful stillness that lay over him, by the perfectly rigid manner in which his tall form was extended on the snow. I laid my hands on him, on his face, breast, arms, and suddenly felt them bathed in something that ran fast and warm from his heart. And the touch of his blood overwhelmed me, and thinking of my mother waiting for us at home, and of Lucy and myself without a father, I broke down and threw my arms about him, and sobbed like any girl, while the poor beasts at my side sniffed at me and seemed to sorrow with my sorrow.
And then all of a sudden I sprang to my feet with a mad fierce thought newborn in my heart. My father had been murdered! This was no ordinary highway affair, no stoppage of unoffending travellers by highwayman or footpad. The man who had come upon us out of the darkness had discharged his deadly weapon and fled away as swiftly as he came. He had not waited to rob and plunder, as he might well have done for aught that I, a lad, could have done to prevent him. It was no murder for the sake of spoil, but committed out of hatred and envy. And in all the world my father had but one enemy, and that was Rupert Watson. It must have been his hand that had shot my father down; it could be none but his. And with this conviction strong in mind I knelt down in the snow and laid my hand on my dead father’s breast again, and swore solemnly never to rest until I had brought his murderer to a fitting end.
When I looked up again, perplexed as to what I must do next, I saw a light drawing near along the road from Ferrybridge. From the way in which it danced up and down in the darkness I took it to be carried by a horseman. I raised my voice and shouted loudly through the storm, and presently two men, cloaked to the chin, came cautiously up and turned the light upon me as I stood in the way, with the still figure behind me and the horses smelling at it in fear and wonder.
“God’s mercy!” said one, “what is this? Here seems foul work.”
They were looking past me at the group behind.
“Sir,” I cried, “my father is dead—murdered! We were coming home from York-a man rode up to us here—he fired—my father fell—he is dead, dead!”
Before I had finished they were off their horses, and one was kneeling in the snow at my father’s side. The other turned the lantern’s light upon his dead face. I turned away; it was more than I could bear, to see that.
“He is dead,” said the first. “He has been shot through the heart. A foul business. Somehow, methinks I know him.”
“It is William Dale.” I said. “William Dale of Dale’s Field.”
“And thou art my little friend Will,” said he, rising from his knees. “I thought I knew thee, poor Will. What, dost not remember me?”
Then I looked at him and saw that it was Philip Lisle. He laid his hand on my head, and patted it affectionately.
“Poor lad, poor lad!” said he. “I would we could have had a merrier meeting. This man, Will, where went he after he had fired upon thy father?”
“I cannot say,” I answered. “He seemed to ride upon us all in a moment, and I saw his pistol flash, and by the light of it he was a tall man on a great horse, but he was gone
