The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-09-03 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

managed to elLit thi fitiCi-tha she aud Barney had
been alone together for some hcurs before he went out,
and that he had remained away nearly all night, in
fact that no one that she could call as a witness had
seen her son from the time of his arrival. After the
first excitement of his appearance he had kept close
indoors with her till he went out at night.
She gathered what the counsel meant to infer, and
defied him.
'There's them behind me that can speak to every
minute of his time, thank God,' she said emphatically,
and those who thought that she had made a muddle
of her evidence looked at one another and wondered
what next.
Colonel Vivian.'
The call re-echoed through the building, and a tall
soldierly man entered the witness-box, and took the
bock in his hand to be sworn. Barney's head went down
on his hands again as he looked at the new witness,
who waited to be questioned with the calm air of a man
who is sure of the position, and the audience waited
with breathless interest to hear what was coming
next. Complete exculpation for the accused man if
the story were true.
He knew the man who had called himself Barney Grubb
very well—he recognised him in the prisoner at the bar;
his real name was Charles Mordaunt, and he had served
in the regiment of which he was colonel for many
years. Mordaunt had been a good soldier, but had
fallen into disgrace and left the regiment degraded
and di3honoured in consequence of a crime, for
which it transpired afterwards he was not wholly to
blame. Questioned as to what the crime was, the
colonel briefly stated that it had nothing to do with
anything that had happened since, but that if it was
necessary for the court to know, it was very near
being manslaughter. The man they knew as Barney
Grubb bad almast killed one of the officers, and it had
appeared at the time an aggravated case. It was a
couple of years after he left the regiment that it all
came out, and the officer in question had made
all the amends that could be made in a full statement
of the facts as they actually were.
It was too late to help the man—he had disappeared,
and was believed to be dead, till some of his former
comrades met him suddenly in the street in Hereford
on the evening set down as that of the murder here
in Hillford. If the murder was committed on the
night of the 29th of August it certainly was nat
Barney Grubb's work, for the man was with him at
nine o'clock. and he could testify to his having been
with some of his former comrades till very late in the
night, for he was passing a house where some of them
were billetted, and spoke to them, giving them a word
of caution about order. Three of his men were with
him waiting to be ex--mined, and also the landlord of
the house where the man had pass-d the night.
There was a stir in the Court now, and it was with
great difficulty that the packed people on the benches
were kept within bounds as the men came one after
the other and gave their testimony; the prisoner was
their comrade, there was no doubt of that, and he had
spent the night in their company. There was no
doubt about dates; they were in Hereford on the
night of the 29th; there were the books and billettir g
papers to show it, and there was the landlord of the
inn where they had been to corroborate their story.
And so it came to an end and Barney was free.
There was no gainsaying the testimony of so many
creditable witnesses. The mystery was a my Etery
still, and the blood of the murdered man would still
cry out for vengeance from that terrible hole in the
pretty wood. There would be another ghost to haunt
Girton's Hole and another failure added to the long
list of police breakdowns. Barney was well nigh
overcome when he went out and found everyone
wanting to shake hands with him and congratulate
him. The most he had hoped for had been to get
sway quietly and hide himself somewhere till he could
think what to do, and behold the fickle people who
had howled at him and threatened to tear him to
pieces were waiting to congratulate him and say kind
things to him, even Phil Donovan, whose evidence
had very nearly got him hanged.
There's witchcraft in it, that gentleman said
lugubriously. I never told a word of a lie.'
I don't believe you did, Phil,' Barney said taking
the hand that Phil held out to him. 'You and I will
find out the truth some time between us.'
'Done,' Donovan said eagerly, we will,' and he
passed away into the crowd as Mr. Jarvis came up
and touched the ferryman on the shoulder.
Miss Ramsay wants to speak to you, Barney, he
said, and Barney followed him to a room that seemed
quite full of people; there was Helen, and Mrs.
Churchill, and his mother, with fine folks all taking
notice of her and petting her, and there was the Colonel
and Mr. Gayford—the last-named gentleman very
white and trembling, but glib with his congratulations
for all that.

Barney's voice was very husky as he thanked Miss
Ramsly for her faith in him, and the others for thoir
help, and he wiped his eyes with his sleeve and burst
into a hoarse laugh when the Colonel shook hands
with him and bade him cheer up, his troubles were
over now.

I'm a fool,' Barney said huskily. But I don't seem
to have come out of the shock yet, though it's so long
ago; I'm no hand at much talking, and maybe I can't
show my gratitude as I ought to, but I am grateful
for all that, and I mean to show it by finding out the
man that did this thing. I can watch and wait, and
the time will come. God bless you, Miss Ramsay;
and you, sir, and you Colonel. I didn't deserve it from
you.'
I think you did, Mordaunt. I should like to -have
said what I did sooner, but we thought you were
dead; we could not hear of you anywhere.'
meant you to think so, sir; even mother here did
not know where to find me. Come mother I shan't
hide from you any longer now, we'll go home,' and he
took the old lady on his arm, with a look that was
good to see.
Horace Gayford stood close to the door, and spoke
to him as he passed.
I congratulate you heartily, Barney,' he said, hold-
ing out Hs hand, but Barney did not take it.
You would rather have read the Burial Service
when I was hanged, parson,' he said in a low voice,
but audible every word of it to the person to whom it
was addressed. When I have found out who it was
that chose to play my ghost in the wood yonder, and
where the clothes went to that that man had on, thpn
maybe', I'll shake hands with you, but not till then ; I
alw,ys keep my word, and I have sworn to find out
the truth;

•
CHAPTER XXIV.
AFTER THE STORM.
'The darkest day.
Livc till to-morrow will have passed away.—CowPEß,

Tit Bpi,: was a great commotion in Hillford, and a desire
to do something wonderful for the man who had so
nearly been convicted of a cowardly murder. Barney
might have been a hero if he had chosen, and posed
as an injured person till some other cause of excite-
ment and gossip had cropped up; but he would have
none of it.
I'm very thankful to have my innocence proved,
sir,' he said, when the chief magistrate of the town
sent for him and asked him what should be done for
him; and Mr. Jarvis, who was present, told him that
a subscription was being got up for him in Hillford.
I don't know as it would have made much
difference except to my mother, whether I was hanged
or not, but I'm glad and thankful all the same, though
I don's show it as I ought maybe. I don't want any
subac ription, sir. I wasn't without a penny; I only
want to go back to the ferry, anti stay there, unless
some one else has been put in my place.'
No one is there except your substitute, and Hiliford
folks don't much care about him,' the magistrate said
with a smile, for Phil Donovan was erratic to say the
least of it, and people had taken to going round by
the bridge rather than trust themselves to him and
his boat. You are welcome to your old post, Barney,
if that is enough. I should have thought you would
not care for that lonely place after all that has
happened.'
I am not afraid of being murdered, sir, if that's
what you mean,' Barney replied, with a grim smile.
I should like to stay there, because I have to find
out who did that thing, and it is there I shall discover
it.'
You think the man who did it will come back
there?'

'As sure as the sun is shining, sir, he will,' Barney
iid s“lemnly. In that corner of the wood, or near
it, I shall find out some day. I'll watch for him till
my last hour of life but what I'll find him.'
'Better let him be, Barney; it will come to light
some time.'

It shall come to light through me,' Barney said
passionately. Mr. Hatherieigh, bless him, was my
friend, he had always a kind word and smile for me,
and talked to me as if I were a man and not a brute;
I can't bring him back to life, but I can avenge him
maybe. Don't talk of money for me, sir. Give me
back the hut at the ferry, and if my mother will live
there with me, rll lead as decent a life there as I know
hew, and make an honest living for her and myself;
I can watch the while.'
I shouldn't like to be the object of that man's
hatred,' the magistrate said, when Barney had departed
with a promise that he should continue s idniathneothucottnaet
the ferry, and that if the ferry bus
mbaicsksi.ons lrno eltivheintghetroe. do,
'I should
bneotawddoendd_
wonder
ro
itfhehpeeris-
not inserumental in finding out the truth?
' If it is to be found at all, he will,' the lawyer said.
I like his independence—could not something be
done for the old lady with the testimonial, if it comes
to anything?'
lhe very thing I was thinking of ; she seems a
decent sort of old body. I will talk to Colonel Vivian
about them both, he is to dine with me to-day.'
Colonel Vivian had found one or two old acquain-
tances in Hillford, and he had prolonged his stay
,a
day after the trial. He told the story of Barney
leaving his regiment, and solved the riddle that he
had been for so long. A trimmer or better soldier than
he had been never wore spurs his commanding officer
declared; and the migerable affair that led to his
degradation and punishment had been the outcome of
the very qualities that go to make good soldiers.
A series of pi tty annoyances attire hands of an officer
little more than a boy in years, yet invested with the
authority that can do so much in the way of quiet per-
secutirn that cannot be resented, had resulted in an
outburst of temper that nearly cost that officer his
life, and had seat the man hehad worried almost beyond
the verge of human endurance, out of the service in
disgrace.
Only a man with a man's heart and passions can
understand what it is to be pricked with a goad
carried in the hands of a boy, and have no power to
retaliate. Coinnel Vivian. in relating the story in

Hillford, dec'ared that the matter had had a good
influence in the service; it had been the means of
letting in the light on much injustice, and the young
fellow who had been nearly killed had publicly ac-
knowledged that he had drawn it on himself, and was
ready to tell Charles Mordaunt so if ever he reap-
peared.
Out of evil cometh good,' saith the proverb; and
out of all this evil to Barney Grubb—as the Hillford
people called him still, in spite of the revelation of his
true name—came his reinstating at the ferry, with the
hut made comfortable and habitable, and furnished so
that his mother could live there with him. Besides
this, there came pleasant intercourse with his fellow
men, instead of the shrinking from everybody, that
had been part of his character before; and such a rush
of business to the boats that he was obliged to take
Phil Donovan on as a handy man, and work very hard
then. •

Everybody wanted to go across Hillford Ferry for
the sake of seeing and talking to the hero of the
Girton's Hole romance. The money raised for Barney
had been given to the old lady, and she turned it to
account in making a home for her son. She had no
hesitation in leaving Hereford and coming to Hillford ;
it was something to see everyone so anxious to shake
Barney by the hand, and to hear him absolved from
the dreadful charge of attempted murder that had
hung round his neck like a millstone so long.
Mr. Jarvis came to see her when she was settled,
and the young lady with the sweet sad face that had
been going to be the wife of the poor young gentle-
man who was murdered, and lots of fine people; and
they orJered knitted things of her and baskets of
Barney till there seemed a fortune in prospect, and
she thought herself the luckiest old woman in all the
wide earth.

And so the days wore on, and the leaves fell from
the trees and left the wood bare; and they rustled
about Girton's Hole like a legion of ghosts; and the
wintet nights came on, and everybody concerned in
the mystery of Frank Hatherleigh and his disappear-
ance s emed to have drifted away from Raiford.
Mrs:4'hurchill had taken her daughters and Helen
Ramsay to Biarritz, poor Madge had sunk so alarm-
ingly after the trial that they really feared for her
life; her former illness, combined with the terrible
shock of the news of Prank's murder, had brought her
to the verge of the grave, and a bracing, and at the
same time a southern air was recommended for her.
Helen had her choice of going with them or with her
guardian, who really craved for her bright society;
lon. she could not desert Mrs. Churchill and the girls,
whom she had learned to love as though they were
indeed her mother and sisters.

Mrs. Jarvis and her daughters were at Dieppe. The
good lady would not go further away than that, for
she insisted on her husband's presence with them, and
it was necesoary that Mr. Jarvis should be now and
then in London. So Phyllis and Henrietta aired them-
selves and their little primnesses on the sands of the
old-fashioned watering - place, and found them-
selves years behind the age as represented by
society there, and passed a dreary existence, except
when their father was with them to take them about
and wake them into something like life. Phyllis spent
her days in dreaming, and wondering where Horace
Gayford might be, and building impossible castles in
the air for the habitation of herself and the handsome
young clergyman. The thought of him made her
tremble; she feared him with a vague terror that she
could not account for, and yet she was never happy
unless he was in her thoughts.
There was a strange feeling upon her, poor child,
that she would walk miles to see him; that if he bid
her come to him from the uttermost part of the world
she would have to go; and there were times when
she fancied he was calling her, and struggled with
her wild thoughts with a passionate longing to find
out where he was. _ _ _

He was not in Hillford ; Mr. Jarvis, going thither
to make some arrangements for Mrs Churchill and
his ward, called at his lodgings. He had made up
his mind to talk seriously to him, and without
temper, if possible, though there was something about
him that always made the lawyer feel as if he would
like to thrash him; there had been so many little
things of late to make him feel a contempt for poor
Frank's cousin.

He's gone, sir,' the woman of the house said, when
she answered the door, and she pointed to a bill in
the window announcing that the rooms were tx be
let.
Gone?

Yes.'
Entirely?'
Well, I'm not sure about that,' she replied, heal. ,
tatingly. I should hardly think he'll leave Hillford
altogether; but he is gone for a good long time—
somewhere abroad. He has left most of his things
here—l am to take care of them; but he said I had
better let the rooms; perhaps the gentleman that came
to do the duty would take them, but he wouldn't have
them: he could not afford such luxurieq, he said, and
he's gone over the way there. He won't be comfort-
able I am sure ;there isn't a decent thing in the house
for use.'
And what part of the Continent is he gone to?' the
lawyer asked. I should very much like to know.
Did he leave you any address?'
Oh. yes, sir; here it is.'
She went into the parlour and brought out a card.
Mr. Gayford had evidently not gone abroad with any
sinister intentions of meeting Phyllis; there TX ight be
nothing in it, after all, but a silly girl's flighty fancy.
Be had taken Norway and Sweden for his holiday
ground, and both parties of excursionists would be
free from him. There was a relief in the knowledge.
He could hardly have told why he dreaded the
presence of the fascinating clergyman amongst any of
his charges, but he did.
The mysteiy and the sorrow had brought about
more intimacy between Helen Ramsay and Mrs.
Jarvis. The lawyer's wife could not very well know
of her husband's ward being in such trouble and not
at least call upon her, and she had paid a duty visit
to Ftrn Bank, accompanied by her daughters, and
mutual visiting was to be the result when the several
narties returned from abroad. Mrs. Churchill and
Mrs. Jarvia thought pretty well of each other, though
the lawyer's wife inwardly hoped that her girls might
not be contaminated by such eeceedingly worldly
young ladies as the Misses Churchill ; and the
mother of Norah and Madge pitied Phyllis and hsr
sister, and trusted that a ;little intercourse with her
girls and Helen would brighten them up.
That youngest girl will go into a consumption if
they don't take care,' Mrs. Jarvis remarked to her
husband, after her visit to Hillford. 'What is the
matter with her?'
I don't know; she has been delicate lately; no
replied. She is in a nervous, weak state, poor child
'Nervous! I should think she was. I should have !
thought that the murder business was an old enough
story now for people to talk about it without a fuss.
But she went as pale as if she would faint when it
was mentioned. What has she to do with it?'
'My do: r, what a question. Nothing, of course.
The whole thing has been so shocking to them, and
Madge was ill before. I hope Biarritz will set her up.'
It was a long time about it. Madge drooped even
under the influences of the fresh breezes of the Bay of
Ba3cay ; and Mrs. Churchill wrote to say that if Mr.
Jarvis did not disapprove they would stay there
through the winter. If he wished his ward to come
home they would return. The latter was supplemented
by one from Helen, saying how much she liked the
place, and begging to be allowed to stay with Mrs.
Churchill and the girls. I feel so safe here,' she said.
I suppose things have made me nervous. I never
knew I had any nerves till all this trouble came; and
I think I would rather be away from England, where
poor Frank had planned all sorts of things, and had
made quite a programme for Christmas. Of course,
if you wish it, I will come to you. But it seems to do
Madge good to have me near her; and, indeed, we
fear greatly for her life just now. If the winter
should bring any mischief, in the shape of colds or
coughs, I don't think she will rally.
Safe,' Mr. Jarvis said to himself, when he had
read the letter. Safe from what, I wonder. Poor
child, I suppose her nerves are, as she says, shattered.
I suppose she must stay where she is. We shall
have but a dull time of it at Christmas. The poor
lad that is gone meant to do so much. What a gap
his death has made in our lives.'
lie wrote back to Helen, bidding her follow her own
inclinations, and hoping that another year would
bring them all renewed spirits and health, and telling
her that everything was peaceful and quiet at Raiford.
I think the very aspect of the place saddened me,'
he said. 'I suppose I wa3 out of sorts, but it seemed
heartless in everybody to be going on as usual, and
our sorrow still so green. I went to the Ferry, and
saw Barney Grubb. I cannot call him by his right
name yet; and I don't suppose lie will ever be known
by it generally. He will always be Barney Grubb to
the Hillford folks. He and his mother seemed to have
ssttled down comfortably enough in that little shanty
of a place: and it looks all the more picturesque and
comfortable for having a woman's hand about it.
Barney sent his best respects and duty to you and the
other ladies, and says he has every hope of penetrating
the mystery of our poor boy's death. He does not
know how, but he firmly believes it will be given to
him to discover the truth ; and I earnestly hope it
may. He was very curious to know if I had any
knowledge of Mr. Gayford's whereabouts. When I
told him he was in Norway, to the best of my belief,
he stroked his face with that queer action of his, and
put on such a queer look as well, that I asked him
what he was thinking about. "It's a tangled web as
I have got to undo, sir," he said; "but it shan't beat
ale. If the parson's in Norway, then I've seen his
ghost, that's all." I couldn't get him to tell me any-
thing more, He seemed in a curious frame of mind,
and was evidently fearful I at his mother should hear
what he was talking about. The old lady is very well
contented, but won't hear any story that borders on
the supernatural, and they are rife just now, as you
may fancy. I don't know what made me talk to Barney
so much about things. He is so earnest that he almost
makes me believe that he will discover something.
And I told him about poor Frank's ring, and the jest-
ing promise he made to bring it back to me from the
next worle, if need be. " It's another clue, sir," he
said. "Tell me what it was like, please—everything
that you can think of about it."
'I described the ring as fully as I could, and Barney
made notes of what I said. His mind is so full of this
mysterious affair that he is full of belief in his own
power to discover what has baffled every one else.
Lawyer though I am, I can't help feeling that Barney's
wit will do us better service than the detectives'
skill. He has a wrong to avenge, and a firm deter-
mation to help him on. His last words to me were:
You'll see that ring again, sir, and so shall I,"
(To 5s continued,