"What do you mean?" he cried hoarsely.
"Mean?" she said with a shrill, triumphant laugh. "I mean this - on the night of the thirty-first of October, when the Silent People are abroad, he heard Duke Aubrey's summons, and followed it across the hills."
"Woman whatwhat speak or" and the veins in Master Nathaniel's temples were swelling, and a fire seemed to have been lighted in his brain.
Her laughter redoubled. "You'll never see your son again!" she jeered. "Young Ranulph Chanticleer has gone to the land whence none returns."
Not for a moment did he doubt the truth of her words. Before his inward eye there flashed the picture he had seen in the pattern on the ceiling, just before losing consciousness - Ranulph weeping among the fields of gillyflowers.
A horror of impotent tenderness swept over him. While, with the surface of his mind, he supposed that this was IT springing out at him at last. And parallel with the agony, and in no way mitigating it, was a sense of relief - the relaxing of tension, when one can say, "Well, it has come at last."
He turned a dull eye on the widow, and said, a little thickly, "The land from which no one returns but I can go there, too."
"Follow him across the hills?" she cried scornfully. "No; you are not made of that sort of stuff."
He beckoned to Peter Pease, and they went out together to the front of the house. The cocks were crowing, and there was a feeling of dawn in the air.
"I want my horse," he said dully. "And can you find Miss Hazel for me?"
But as he spoke she joined them - pale and wild-eyed.
"From my room I heard you coming out," she said. "Is it - is it over?"
Master Nathaniel nodded. And then, in a quiet voice emptied of all emotion, he told her what he had just learned from the widow. She went still paler than before, and her eyes filled with tears.
Then, turning to Peter Pease, he said, "You will immediately get out a warrant for the apprehension of Endymion Leer and sent it into Lud to the new Mayor, Master Polydore Vigil. And you, Miss Hazel, you'd better leave this place at once - you will have to be plaintiff in the trial. Go to your aunt, Mistress Ivy Peppercorn, who keeps the village shop at Mothgreen. And remember, you must say nothing whatever about the part I've played in this business - that is essential. I am not popular at present in Lud. And, now, would you kindly order my horse saddled and brought round."
There was something so colourless, so dead, in his voice, that both Hazel and the smith stood, for a few seconds, in awed and sympathetic silence, and then Hazel went off slowly to order his horse.
"You you didn't mean what you said to the widow, sir, about about going yonder?" asked Peter Pease in an awed voice.
Suddenly the fire was rekindled in Master Nathaniel's eyes, and he cried fiercely, "Aye, yonder, and beyond yonder, if need be till I find my son."
It did not take long for his horse to be saddled and led to the door.
"Good-bye, my child," he said to Hazel, taking her hand, and then he added, with a smile, "You dragged me back last night from the Milky Way and now I am going by the earthly one."
She and Peter stood watching him, riding along the valley towards the Debatable Hills, till he and his horse were just a speck in the distance.
"Well, well," said Peter Pease, "I warrant it'll be the first time in the history of Dorimare that a man has loved his son well enough to follow him yonder."
Chapter XXV
The Law Crouches and Springs
Literally, Master Polydore Vigil received the severest shock of his life, when a few days after the events recorded in the last chapter there reached him the warrant against Endymion Leer, duly signed and sealed by the law-man of the district of Swan-on-the-Dapple.
Dame Marigold had been right in saying that her brother was now completely under the dominion of the doctor. Master Polydore was a weak, idle man, who, nevertheless, dearly loved the insignia of authority. Hence, his present position was for him an ideal one - he had all the glory due to the first citizen, who has, moreover, effected a coup d'etat, and none of the real responsibility that such a situation entails.
And now, this terrible document had arrived - it was
like an attempt to cut off his right hand. His first instinct on receiving it was to rush off and take counsel with Endymion Leer himself - surely the omniscient resourceful doctor would be able to reduce to wind and thistledown even a thing as solid as a warrant. But respect for the Law, and the belief that though everything else may turn out vanity and delusion, the Law has the terrifying solidity of Reality itself, were deep-rooted in Master Polydore. If there was a warrant out against Endymion Leer - well, then, he must bend his neck to the yoke like any other citizen and stand his trial.
Again he read through the warrant, in the hopes that on a second it would lose its reality - prove to be a forgery, or a hoax. Alas! Its genuineness was but too unmistakable - the Law had spoken.
Master Polydore let his hands fall to his sides in an attitude of limp dismay; then he sighed heavily; then he rose slowly to his feet - there was nothing for it but to summon Mumchance, and let the warrant instantly be put into effect. As it was possible, nay, almost certain, that the Doctor would be able to clear himself triumphantly in Court, the quicker the business was put through, the sooner Master Polydore would recover his right hand.
When Mumchance arrived, Master Polydore said, in a voice as casual as he could make it, "Oh! yes, Mumchance, yes I asked you to come, because," and he gave a little laugh, "a warrant has actually arrived - of course, there must be some gross misunderstanding behind it, and there will be no difficulty in getting it cleared up in Court - but, as a matter of fact, a warrant has arrived from the law-man of Swan-on-the-Dapple, against well, against none other than Dr. Endymion Leer!" and again he laughed.
"Yes, your Worship," said Mumchance; and, not only did his face express no surprise, but into the bargain it looked distinctly grim.
"Absurd, isn't it?" said Master Polydore, "and most inconvenient."
Mumchance cleared his throat: "A murderer's a murderer, your Worship," he said. "Me and my wife, we were spending last evening at Mothgreen - my wife's cousin keeps the tavern there, and he was celebrating his silver wedding -if your Worship will excuse me mentioning such things - and among the friends he'd asked in was the plaintiff and her aunt and, well there be some things that be just too big for any defendant to dodge. But I'll say no more, your Worship."
"I should hope not, Mumchance; you have already strangely forgotten yourself," and Master Polydore glared fiercely at the unrepentant Mumchance. All the same, he could not help feeling a little disquieted by the attitude adopted by that worthy.
Two hours later after a busy morning devoted to professional visits - and, perhaps, some unprofessional one too - Endymion Leer sat down to his midday dinner. There was not a happier man in Lud than he - he was the most influential man in the town, deep in the counsels of the magistrates; and as for the dreaded Chanticleers - well, he had successively robbed them of their sting. Life being one and indivisible, when one has a sense that it is good its humblest manifestations are transfigured, and that morning the Doctor would have found a meal of baked haws sweet to his palate - how much more so the succulent meal that was actually awaiting him. But it was not fated that Endymion Leer should eat that dinner. There came a loud double knock at the door, and then the voice of Captain Mumchance, demanding instantly to be shown in to the Doctor. It was in vain that the housekeeper protested, saying that the Doctor had given strict orders that he was never to be disturbed at his meals, for the Captain roughly brushed her aside with an aphorism worthy of that eminent jurist, the late Master Josiah Chanticleer. "The Law, my good lady, is no respector of a gentleman's stomach, so I'll trouble you to stand out of the way," and he stumped resolutely into the parlour.