William Kingston - Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales

“What was he like, Patch?” asked Sir Hugh, in a hoarse voice, which sounded strange to my ears.

“Why, Sir Hugh, he had, I marked, a very white, long face, and he had an odd bend in his back, which made him look somewhat short. He spoke gently, I mind, just like a gentleman, and I made no doubt that he was one,” answered the cobbler.

The blacksmith gave the same account of the stranger. It seemed to agitate our uncle strangely; so it did Cousin Peter. They talked aside for some time.

“Can that wretched man have had anything to do with it?” I heard Sir Hugh say.

“Too probably, indeed, should he really have been in the neighbourhood. I fear so,” remarked Cousin Peter. “At all events, we must endeavour to discover where he has gone. He is capable of any daring deed of wickedness. My only hope is that we are mistaken in supposing that the person seen was he.”

“The description suits him too closely to leave any doubt on my mind.”

I did not hear more, and I had no idea who the person was of whom they were speaking, except that he was the stranger seen in the village; nor could I tell why they should fancy he had had anything to do with the disappearance of little Hugh.

After a further consultation, Cousin Peter and two other gentlemen went to their rooms, and returned booted and spurred, and, putting on their great-coats, accompanied by Sam Barnby, rode off in two parties in different directions. Notwithstanding this, another search, intended to be still more rigid than the first, was instituted, both inside and outside the house. Meantime, Sir Hugh had ordered lights into the library, and spent the night writing letters to magistrates and others, and papers of all sorts for printing, offering rewards for the recovery of the lost child. Lady Worsley was for most of the time in the drawing-room with Julia and several other Indies, who were in vain attempting to comfort her. No one went to bed that night at Foxholme Park. We boys were called in by Sir Hugh, and highly proud at being employed by him in copying notices to be sent out in the morning, offering a reward for the discovery of little Hugh. We were all very sorry for the loss of our small cousin; but we liked the excitement amazingly. For my part, I must own that I could not, however, altogether forget the games Cousin Peter had prepared for us, and the amusement we had anticipated, and regret for the fun and frolic we should miss, mingled somewhat with the sorrow I really felt for the loss of little Hugh, and the trouble which had come on our uncle and aunt and all the family.

Morning came at last, and as the family assembled in the breakfast-room with pale anxious faces, the question again and again was asked if any trace had been found of little Hugh, Cousin Peter and the other gentlemen, and Sam Barnby, came back; but they did not appear to have anything satisfactory to communicate. Poor Cousin Peter, I never saw his face look so long and miserable. I thought the anxiety would kill him. He deemed to feel the event even more than Sir Hugh, who several times murmured, “God’s will be done, whatever has happened to the child.” It must be a great thing to be able to say that under all the trials of life. With daylight the search through the park and grounds was recommenced. I know that I cried outright when I saw men with nets dragging the ponds. I had not realised the possibility that the dear little fellow might actually be dead, as this proceeding suggested. I was very thankful each time that I saw the drags come up empty. As I remarked, the ground had become so hard early in the evening, that no footprints could have been left on it. This circumstance made it impossible to discover the direction little Hugh could have taken, had he gone off by himself, which it was utterly improbable he should have done, or that of anybody else.

Several gentlemen, county magistrates, and lawyers, and constables, came during the day to see Sir Hugh, some to offer him advice and assistance, others to receive his directions. He and Cousin Peter seemed at last to have made up their minds that little Hugh had been carried off by the mysterious individual who had been seen by the blacksmith and cobbler; but how he had contrived to get into the house, no one could tell. The mummers indignantly denied that any stranger could have come in with them, while the servants as positively asserted that no one whom they did not know had entered the house that evening. Another guest had been expected in the afternoon, a Mr Strafford. I had remarked that whenever his name was mentioned, Cousin Julia had looked very interested, and once or twice I saw a blush rising on her cheek. He had been there before, and Sir Hugh spoke highly of him. Julia had met him at a house where she had been staying in the summer. Cousin Peter, on the contrary, looked sad and pained, I fancied, whenever he was spoken of; and putting that and other things together, I had little doubt that Mr Strafford was a suitor for Cousin Julia’s hand. I was, therefore, curious to know what sort of a person Mr Strafford was. Both Sir Hugh and Julia expressed themselves anxious for his arrival, under the belief that he would materially assist in discovering what had become of little Hugh. Why, I could not tell, except that he was a barrister, and that barristers were supposed to be very clever fellows, who can always find out everything. It was late in the afternoon, growing dusk, when a post-chaise drove up to the door, and a slight, active, very intelligent and good-looking young man got out of it. I was in a low window in the ante-room reading, hidden by the back of a large arm-chair. I looked out of the window and saw the new arrival, who the next instant was in the room, when Julia went out to meet him. From the way they greeted each other, I had no longer any doubt of the true state of the case. They of course did not see me, or they might not have been so demonstrative. Mr Strafford listened with knitted brow to the account Julia gave him of little Hugh’s disappearance, or rather I may say of his abduction, for she had no doubt of his having been carried off by the mysterious stranger.

“It is a sad alternative, for the sake of the family; but I see no other course to pursue,” said Mr Strafford. “The unhappy man must be captured at all hazards. If we attempt to make any private compromise, he will escape, and too probably never allow us to hear more of your brother. For his own sake, I do not think that he will have ventured to be guilty of violence.”

“Oh! the disgrace, the disgrace to the family!” dried Julia. “Yet he cannot be so cruel, so ungrateful, so wicked, as to venture to hurt poor dear little Hugh.”

“On that score set your mind at rest,” answered Mr Strafford. “He will try to escape with him, I suspect, to the coast of France, and his plan will be to take him to some distant place where he thinks we shall not discover him. I have no doubt that your father and cousin have already taken measures to stop him. At all events we will see about it at once, as there is no time to lose.” Mr Strafford now went on into the drawing-room, where Sir Hugh and Lady Worsley were waiting to see him. From what I had heard, I now began to suspect who the mysterious stranger was. I hurried off to consult with Jack on the subject. He agreed with me that he must be a cousin of Sir Hugh’s, who, being his nearest kinsman of the male branch of the family, would succeed to the title and estates, should he die without a son. This man, Everard Worsley, was always a wild profligate character, and was at present outlawed, so that he could not venture to show his face openly in England. Of course it would be a great thing for him to get the heir out of the way, as should no other son be born to Sir Hugh, he would probably be able to have the statute of outlawry removed (I think that is the proper term), and come and take possession, and turn Lady Worsley and Cousin Julia out of the house, and send all the old servants about their business, and fill the place with his own abandoned, reprobate companions, and hangers on. This was a possibility, I had heard it whispered, might occur. It was the skeleton in the family cupboard; it was the not improbable event of all others to be dreaded and deplored. I had heard, too, that this disreputable kinsman was nearly related to Cousin Peter, and that Cousin Peter had an unbounded abhorrence for him, that is to say, as much as he could have for any human being. I fancied that Cousin Peter himself was in the line of succession, though I did not know exactly where; but I was very certain that nothing would have caused him more acute sorrow than to see those he loved so well removed to make way for him.