In spite of Ned's resolutions that he would do nothing to mar the tranquillity of the last few weeks of his being at home, he had difficulty in restraining his temper the following day at tea. Never had he seen his stepfather in so bad a humor. Had he known that things had gone wrong at the mill that day, that the new machine had broken one of its working parts and had brought everything to a standstill till it could be repaired, he would have been able to make allowances for Mr. Mulready's ill humor. Not knowing this he grew pale with the efforts which he made to restrain himself as his stepfather snarled at his wife, snapped at Lucy and Charlie, and grumbled and growled at everything throughout the meal. Everything that was said was wrong, and at last, having silenced his wife and her children, the meal was completed in gloomy silence.
The two boys went into the little room off the hall which they used of an evening to prepare their lessons for next day. Charlie, who came in last, did not abut the door behind him.
“That is a nice man, our stepfather,” Ned said in a cold fury. “His ways get more and more pleasant every day; such an amiable, popular man, so smiling and pleasant!”
“Oh! it's no use saying anything,” Charlie said in an imploring voice, “it only makes things worse.”
“Worse!” Ned exclaimed indignantly; “how could they be worse? Well may they call him Foxey, for foxey he is, a double faced snarling brute.”
As the last word issued from Ned's lips he reeled under a tremendous box on the ear from behind. Mr. Mulready was passing through the hall—for his gig was waiting at the door to take him back to the mill, where some fitters would be at work till late, repairing the damages to the machine—when he had caught Ned's words, which were spoken at the top of his voice.
The smoldering anger of months burst at once into a flame heightened by the ill humor which the day's events had caused, and he burst into the room and almost felled Ned to the ground with his swinging blow. Recovering himself, Ned flew at him, but the boy was no match for the man, and Mr. Mulready's passion was as fierce as his own; seizing his throat with his left hand and forcing him back into a corner of the room, his stepfather struck him again and again with all his force with his right.
Charlie had run at once from the room to fetch his mother, and it was scarcely a minute after the commencement of the outbreak that she rushed into the room, and with a scream threw her arms round her husband.
“The young scoundrel!” Mr. Mulready exclaimed, panting, as he released his hold of Ned; “he has been wanting a lesson for a long time, and I have given him one at last. He called me Foxey, the young villain, and said I was a double faced snarling brute; let him say so again and I will knock his head off.”
But Ned just at present was not in a condition to repeat his words; breathless and half stunned he leaned in the corner, his breath came in gasps, his face was as pale as death, his cheek was cut, there were red marks on the forehead which would speedily become black, and the blood was flowing from a cut on his lip, his eyes had a dazed and half stupid look.
“Oh! William!” Mrs. Mulready said as she looked at her son, “how could you hurt him so!”
“Hurt him, the young reptile!” Mr. Mulready said savagely. “I meant to hurt him. I will hurt him more next time.”
Mrs. Mulready paid no attention to his words, but went up to Ned.
“Ned, my boy,” she said tenderly, “what is it? Don't look like that, Ned; speak to me.”
His mother's voice seemed to rouse Ned into consciousness. He drew a long breath, then slowly passed his hand across his eyes, and lips, and mouth. He looked at his mother and seemed about to speak, but no sound came from his lips. Then his eye fell on his stepfather, who, rather alarmed at the boy's appearance, was standing near the door. The expression of Ned's face changed, his mouth became set and rigid, his eyes dilated, and Mr. Mulready, believing that he was about to spring upon him, drew back hastily half a step and threw up his hands to defend himself. Mrs. Mulready threw herself in Ned's way; the boy made no effort to put her aside, but kept his eyes fixed over her shoulder at his stepfather.
“Take care!” he said hoarsely, “it will be my turn next time, and when it comes I will kill you, you brute.”
“Oh, go away, William!” Mrs. Mulready cried; “oh! do go away, or there will be more mischief. Oh! Ned, do sit down, and don't look so dreadful; he is going now.”
Mr. Mulready turned and went with a laugh which he intended to be scornful, but in which there was a strong tinge of uneasiness. He had always in his heart been afraid of this boy with his wild and reckless temper, and felt that in his present mood Ned was capable of anything. Still as Mr. Mulready took his seat in his gig his predominant feeling was satisfaction.
“I am glad I have given him a lesson,” he muttered to himself, “and have paid him off for months of insolence. He won't try it on again, and as for his threats, pooh! he'll be gone in a few weeks, and there will be an end of it.”
After he had gone Mrs. Mulready tried to soothe Ned, but the boy would not listen to her, and in fact did not seem to hear her.
“Don't you mind, mother,” he said in a strange, quiet voice, “I will pay him off;” and muttering these words over and over again he went out into the hall, took down his cap in a quiet, mechanical sort of way, put it on, opened the door, and went out.
“Oh! Charlie,” Mrs. Mulready said to her second son, who, sobbing bitterly, had thrown himself down in a chair by the table, and was sitting with his head on his hands, “there will be something terrible come of this! Ned's temper is so dreadful, and my husband was wrong, too. He should never have beaten him so, though Ned did say such things to him. What shall I do? these quarrels will be the death of me. I suppose Ned will be wandering about all night again. Do put on your cap, Charlie, and go out and see if you can find him, and persuade him to come home and go to bed; perhaps he will listen to you.”
Charlie was absent an hour, and returned saying that he could not find his brother.
“Perhaps he's gone up to Varley as he did last time,” Mrs. Mulready said. “I am sure I hope he has, else he will be wandering about all night, and he had such a strange lock in his face that there's no saying where he might go to, or what he might do.”
Charlie was almost heartbroken, and sat up till long past his usual time, waiting for his brother's return. At last his eyes would no longer keep open, and he stumbled upstairs to bed, where he fell asleep almost as his head touched the pillow, in spite of his resolution to be awake until Ned returned.
Downstairs Mrs. Mulready kept watch. She did not expect Ned to return, but she was listening for the wheels of her husband's gig. It was uncertain at what time he would return; for when he rose from the tea table she had asked him what time he expected to be back, and he had replied that he could not say; he should stop until the repairs were finished, and she was to go to bed and not bother.
So at eleven o'clock she went upstairs, for once before when he had been out late and she had sat up he had been much annoyed; but after she got in bed she lay for hours listening for the sound of the wheels. At last she fell asleep and dreamed that Ned and her husband were standing at the end of a precipice grappling fiercely together in a life and death struggle. She was awaked at last by a knocking at the door; she glanced at her watch, which hung above her head; it was but half past six.
“What is it, Mary?”
“Please, mum, there's a constable below, and he wants to speak to you immediate.”
Mrs. Mulready sprang from the bed and began to dress herself hurriedly. All sorts of mischief that might have come to Ned passed rapidly through her mind; her husband had not returned, but no doubt he had stopped at the mill all night watching the men at work. His absence scarcely occasioned her a moment's thought. In a very few minutes she was downstairs in the kitchen, where the constable was standing waiting for her. She knew him by sight, for Marsden possessed but four constables, and they were all well known characters.
“What is it?” she asked; “has anything happened to my son?”
“No, mum,” the constable said in a tone of surprise, “I didn't know as he wasn't in bed and asleep, but I have some bad news for you, mum; it's a bad job altogether.”
“What is it?” she asked again; “is it my husband?”
“Well, mum, I am sorry to say as it be. A chap came in early this morning and told me as summat had happened, so I goes out, and half a mile from the town I finds it just as he says.”
“But what is it?” Mrs. Mulready gasped.
“Well, mum, I am sorry to have to tell you, but there was the gig all smashed to atoms, and there was the little black mare lying all in a heap with her neck broke, and there was—” and he stopped.
“My husband!” Mrs. Mulready gasped.
“Yes, marm, I be main sorry to say it were. There, yards in front of them, were Mr. Mulready just stiff and cold. He'd been flung right out over the hoss' head. I expect he had fallen on his head and must have been killed roight out; and the worst of it be, marm, as it warn't an accident, for there, tight across the road, about eighteen inches above the ground, was a rope stretched tight atween a gate on either side. It was plain enough to see what had happened. The mare had come tearing along as usual at twelve mile an hour in the dark, and she had caught the rope, and in course there had been a regular smash.”
The pretty color had all gone from Mrs. Mulready's face as he began his story, but a ghastly pallor spread over her face, and a look of deadly horror came into her eyes as he continued.
“Oh, Ned, Ned,” she wailed, “how could you!” and then she fell senseless to the ground.
The constable raised her and placed her in a chair.
“Are you sure the master's dead?” the servant asked, wiping her eyes.
“Sure enough,” the constable said. “I have sent the doctor off already, but it's no good, he's been dead hours and hours. But,” he continued, his professional instincts coming to the surface, “what did she mean by saying, 'Oh, Ned, how could you!' She asked me, too, first about him; ain't he at home?”
“No, he ain't,” the servant said, “and ain't been at home all night; there were a row between him and maister last even; they had a fight. Maister Charlie he ran into the parlor as I was a clearing away the' tea things, hallowing out as maister was a-killing Ned. Missis she ran in and I heard a scream, then maister he drove off, and a minute or two later Maister Ned he went out, and he ain't come back again. When I went in with the candles I could see missis had been a crying. That's all I know about it.”
“And enough too,” the constable said grimly. “This here be a pretty business. Well, you had best get your missis round and see about getting the place ready for the corpse. They have gone up with a stretcher to bring him back. They will be here afore long. I must go to Justice Thompson's and tell him all about it. This be a pretty kittle of fish, surely. I be main sorry, but I have got my duty to do.”
An hour later Williams the constable with a companion started out in search of Ned Sankey, having a warrant in his pocket for his arrest on the charge of willful murder.
The excitement in Marsden when it became known that Mr. Mulready had been killed was intense, and it was immensely heightened when it was rumored that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of his stepson on the charge of murder. Quite a little crowd hung all day round the house with closed blinds, within which their so lately active and bustling townsman was lying.
All sorts of conjectures were rife, and there were many who said that they had all along expected harm would come of the marriage which had followed so soon after the death of Captain Sankey. The majority were loud in expression of their sympathy with the dead mill owner, recalling ............