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"I tell ya the deer went that way" Johnny Hebb insisted. Ebenezer Gall, the head gamekeeper at Rosing's Park, and his superior, shook his head. "You go that way if you want, Johnny, but I follow the dogs and until you get a nose as sharp as theirs, you'd do best to follow 'em, too." The pack was circling around a thicket, sniffing, barking, and whining, but surprisingly reluctant to plunge in after whatever it was that they thought more important than a wounded stag.
'Damme, Eb. You may be my boss, n' all, but my eyes are as good as any dog's nose and I saw that deer shoot off in th'other direction… downhill into the trees 'cross the way."
'You gonna start cussin' at me, Johnny, ah'm gonna have to report you to Rector Collins. He'll probably set you down and force you to listen to one or two of his sermons on the sin of cussin'."
Jonny groaned. "Th' Fires of Hell itself would be an easier burden, Eb. Last Sabbath he went on for two hours and I ain't got no idea what he was spoutin' cept he was listin' all the sins and how he was against 'em more than any other mortal that ever lived!"
'Well, to avoid that punishment for a loose tongue, Johnny lad, I guess you better get in there and find whatever it is the dogs are upset about!" The younger man groaned again and made a great show of pulling away branches and opening a way into a small space under an inner ring of trees.
Ebenezer grinned at the youth's distress. He also had seen the stag stagger off across the field, but the first thing any apprentice of his had to learn was to trust his hounds. If they said there was something in the thicket more important than a wounded deer, then a gamekeeper had to find out what it was they thought so important. He liked the young fellow a lot. As soon as he laid eyes on him as a sixteen year old applicant for the open position of assistant gamekeeper he thought: 'this one could learn the job and perhaps replace him when the time came for old Ebenezer Gall to sit in front of the fire, smoke his pipe, enjoy the grandchildren his daughter, Jewel would no doubt soon be giving him, and dream about bygone days.'
Also, Ebenezer noticed how Jewel's eyes lit up when she saw the youth standing there. At fourteen she was already on the look-out for a fellow to stake a claim on. They had gotten friendlier in the two years since then. More's the pity Rebecca, his wife, fell to the plague when Jewel was six. Now that she was sixteen, he could use a mother's advice on what was proper for a girl… no… young woman… of her age. Maybe it was time to be thinking about a future that had Jewel and Johnny together. She had a good job at the manor as a serving girl in the scullery and would surely be learning how to hold her that sharp tongue of hers around a woman like the Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
A moment later, Ebenezer heard a loud cry and shook his head. 'If that young fool went and let some critter take a bite of him… guess I better get in there and give him a hand, after all'.
He started to enter the path his assistant had cleared, but the next moment Johnny was in front of him blocking his way. "No, Eb," the young man cried with a sound of despair in his voice. "You can't go in there." He threw his arms around the older but much bigger man. Ebenezer shook off his arms, and thrust him aside. "You think in my lifetime I haven't already seen whatever it is spooked you, you young fool," he muttered. But the youth grabbed at his clothing and tried to pull him back. He almost succeeded but the head gamekeeper entered far enough to glimpse what had shaken his young assistant. A slender white arm was lying on the ground, all but covered by branches torn from the encircling trees. But Ebenezer didn't need to see any more than the exposed hand and the bracelet circling the thin wrist. He had bought that bracelet for Jewel on her sixteenth birthday. His cry of anguish was much louder than Jonny's had been.
He flung himself to the ground and started tearing away the concealing branches. He hardly noticed that Johnny had joined him and was replacing the cast aside branches to keep the father from exposing the nakedness of his daughter's body. Finally, through his anguish and tears, he realized what his young assistant was doing, and why. He stopped ripping away the branches. He could see now the vacant staring eyes that told him his daughter's soul had fled the empty flesh on the ground before him. Johnny's hand on his shoulder was gentler now. "Come away, Eb," he said, softly. "Let me find some cloth to cover her before we take her home."
The older man shook his head. "You go, lad. Find a blanket, a litter, and some of the gardeners' helpers to help carry her home. I'll stay here and keep her safe from the foxes and such." He shook his head. "Safe!" he repeated, choking on the word. He found himself looking everywhere except at his daughter's body. His eyes strayed to the trees whose branches had been ripped down to cover the innocent victim. His hunter's eyes calculated without thinking how tall a man would have to be to reach the highest branches that were pulled down. 'Higher because they're leafier up there. Taller than me, lass, for sure,' he murmured to his daughter's body. 'And strong, too, for some of those branches are thick ones.'
He eyed several points where stubs left on the tree. "Mm' he muttered. 'Not just strong, but he carried a sword. Those highest branches were sliced off.' He became aware of some the sound of voices and the movement of men, approaching.
A few minutes more and Johnny led in several young men, and another one as old as Ebenezer. They pushed their way through the bushes and trees to stand in front of the gamekeeper. Two carried a large plank and Jonny's arms were clutched around a large woven blanket Ebenezer recognized as from the youth's own cot. The men were avoiding Ebenezer's eyes while mumbling commiserations.
The older man was the estate's carpenter; most of the youths were his apprentices. The two older men stood together and the carpenter, Richard Broadhouse, put a hand on his old friend's shoulder. 'I have some fresh cut pine planks without knot holes. Was going to make a fine cabinet with them, but they have a better purpose now, Eb," he said, and his voice quavered. He had been at Jewel[U1]'s Christening and had made the coffin that buried her mother and his friend's wife.
Ebenezer shook his head, wordlessly. Finally, he grasped his friend's hand and just held it for a few moments. "Not supposed to be like this, Richard," he mumbled, and his voice cracked with emotion. The young men pretended not to see or hear them shuffling their feet and looking into the tree tops. Finally, the carpenter ordered them, gruffly. "Clear a path out'a 'ere." And they moved quickly, relieved to be doing anything that took them away from the tragedy on the ground.
Johnny approached the young woman's body, walking backwards, the blanket spread above his head behind him. When his feet reached the branches on the ground, he flung the blanket away from him. Then he turned, spread the blanket out, and carefully started pulling the branches out from under it. When the last branch was cleared away, he tucked the blanket under and around the dead girl. None of the men caught even a glimpse of her naked body.
The other youths now moved forward with the plank and, carefully lifted the enshrouded corpse and edged the plank under her. When they were finished, they lifted it with equal care and walked the path they had cleared through the thicket. It was a slow and stately procession that finally brought Jewel home to her father's cottage and laid the plank with its covered passenger on the floor. They stood awkwardly for a few moments until the carpenter waved them outside. They fled, grateful for their release.
"I got a case full of candles at the carpentry shop for late night work," Richard told his friend. "I'll bring them over and we can light them for the vigil." Ebenezer merely nodded. All his thoughts were now focused on finding a man with a sword and no heart. He thought of the Lady de Bourgh's nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam. Perhaps he could tell him if there were any renegade soldiers in the brigade capable of such a bestial act. The carpenter was leaving. "I'll stop by at the parsonage and inform Parson Collins there's to be a funeral," he said, softly, as he left.
