master’s bounty to me, sir, is keeping us in comfort, but I often ask Robin what he’ll do when I am gone. It gives me many an hour’s care, sir. Robin, he don’t earn the half of a living now.”
“Be easy, Matthew,” was Lionel’s answer. “I am not sure the annuity, or part of it, will not be continued to Robin. My uncle left it in my charge to do as I should see fit. I have never mentioned it, even to you: and I think it might be as well for you not to speak of it to Robin. It is to be hoped that he will get steady and hard-working again: were he to hear that there was a chance of his being kept without work, he might never become so.”
“The Lord bless my old master!” aspirated Matthew, lifting his hands. “The Lord bless you, sir! There’s not many gentlemen would do for us what him and you have.”
Lionel bent his head forward, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Matthew, what is this that I hear, about Robin’s going about the grounds at night with a loaded gun?”
Matthew flung up his hands. Not with the reverence of the past minute, but with a gesture of despair. “Heaven knows what he does it for, sir! I’d keep him in: but it’s beyond me.”
“I know you would. You went yourself to him last night, Broom tells me.”
Matthew’s eyes fell. He hesitated much in his answer. “I—yes, sir,—I—I couldn’t get him home. It’s a pity.”
“You got as far as the brick-kilns, I hear. I was surprised. I don’t think you should be out at night, Matthew.”
“No, sir, I am not a-going again.”
The words this time were spoken readily enough. But, from some cause or other, the old man was evidently embarrassed. His eyes were not lifted, and his clear face had gone red. Lionel searched his imagination for a reason, and could only connect it with his son.
“Matthew,” said he, “I am about to ask you a painful question. I hope you will answer it. Is Robin perfectly sane?”
“Ay, sir, as sane as I am. Unsettled he is, ever dwelling on poor Rachel, ever thinking of revenge: but his senses be as much his as they ever were. I wish his mind could be set at rest.”
“At rest in what way?”
“As to who it was that did the harm to Rachel. He has had it in his head for a long while, sir, that it was Mr. John Massingbird: but he can’t be certain, and it’s the uncertainty that keeps his mind on the worrit.”
“Do you know where he picked up the notion that it was Mr. John Massingbird?” inquired Lionel, remembering the conversation on the same point that Robin had once held with him, on that very garden bench, in face of which he and Matthew were now sitting.
Old Matthew shook his head. “I never could learn, sir. Robin’s a dutiful son to me, but he’d never tell me that. I know that Mr. John Massingbird has been like a pill in his throat this many a day. Oftentimes have I felt thankful that he was dead, or Robin would surely have gone out to where he was, and murdered him. Murder wouldn’t mend the ill, sir—as I have told him many a time.”
“Indeed it would not,” replied Lionel. “The very fact of Mr. John Massingbird’s being dead, should have the effect of setting Robin’s mind at rest—if it was to him that his suspicions were directed. For my part, I think Robin is wrong in suspecting him.”
“I think so too, sir. I don’t know how it is, but I can’t bring my mind to suspect him more than anybody else. I have thought over things in this light, and I have thought ’em over in that light; and I’d rather incline to believe that she got acquainted with some stranger, poor dear! than that it was anybody known to us. Robin is in doubt: he has had some cause given him to suspect Mr. John Massingbird, but he is not sure, and it’s that doubt, I say, that worrits him.”
“At any rate, doubt or no doubt, there is no cause for him to go about at night with a gun. What does he do it for?”
“I have asked him, sir, and he does not answer. He seems to me to be on the watch.”
“On the watch for what?” rejoined Lionel.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said old Matthew. “If you’d say a word to him, sir, it might stop it. He got a foolish notion into his mind that poor Rachel’s spirit might come again, and he’d used to be about the pond pretty near every moonlight night. That fancy passed off, and he has gone to his bed at night as the rest of us have, up to the last week or so, when he has taken to go out again, and to carry a gun.”
“It was a foolish notion,” remarked Lionel. “The dead do not come again, Matthew.”
Matthew made no reply. Lionel rose.
“I must try and come across Robin. I wish you would tell him to come up to me, Matthew.”
“Sir, if you desire that he shall wait upon you at Verner’s Pride, he will be sure to do so,” said the old man, leaning on his stick as he stood. “He’d not go the length of disobeying an order of yours. I’ll tell him.”
It happened that Lionel did “come across” Robin Frost. Not to any effect, however, for he could not get to speak to him. Lionel was striking across some fields towards Deerham Court, when he came in view of Roy and Robin Frost leaning over a gate, their heads together in close confab. It looked very much as though they were talking secrets. They looked up and saw him; but when he reached the place, both were gone. Roy was in sight, but the other had entirely disappeared. Lionel lifted his voice.
“Roy, I want you.”
Roy could not feign deafness, though there was every appearance that he would like to do it. He turned and approached, putting his hand to his hat in a half surly manner.
“Where’s Robin Frost?”
“Robin Frost, sir? He was here a minute or two agone. I met him accidental, and I stopped him to ask what he was about, that he hadn’t been at work this three days. He went on his way then, down the gap. Did you want him, sir?”
Lionel Verner’s perceptive faculties were tolerably developed. That Roy was endeavouring to