Part 8

Ballad of Young Benjie.

We--that is, the four members of our Oxford reading party--were bathing in a deep pool in many-terraced Tees, and I was seated on a rock's edge, drying in the September sunshine, and quoting from Clough's 'Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich':

'How to the element offering their bodies, down shooting the fall, They mingled themselves with the flood and the force of imperious water,'

when from the central black cauldron immediately below me appeared the face of Sandie--our best diver--with a most curiously perturbed expression on his countenance. I had been watching a little circlet of foam that eddied round on the outskirts of the current, and seemed to wink at me with a hint of hidden and evasive mystery.

Then it vanished, for Sandie's head had shattered it.

'Hello, Sandie!' I cried to him, 'what's up? It's not cramp, is it?'

He climbed out and up to where I sat on the rock above, and shook the water from his hair.

'Ugh!' he said in disgust. 'I've just been to the bottom, and there I swear I came across a drowned body; I felt a corpse and touched long hair. I believe it was a woman's.' He looked at his hands in disgust, and perceptibly shivered.

'Nonsense!' said I. 'It must have been a drowned cow or sheep, or possibly a pony.'

'Go down and look, or rather feel for yourself,' he retorted.

'How deep down was it?' I inquired.

'Twenty feet, perhaps,' he said, 'for it's a deep pool, and I believe the poor thing's tethered--sunk with a stone tied to her feet.'

'Surely not,' I exclaimed, 'for if it was a case of murder it would be known.'

'Go down and see for yourself,' cried Sandie testily. 'I've had enough of it.' Calling our other two companions I told them of Sandie's discovery, and we came to the conclusion that it was our duty to try to verify or disprove Sandie's assertion.

These two dived, but did not get down far enough in the water; it seemed to me as I watched their attempts that the stream carried them too swiftly forward, so when my turn came I dived in somewhat higher up, and got as far down as I could in my dive, and kept on striking downwards till I calculated I was close to the spot Sandie had indicated. Treading the water I felt about in the amber swirl for Sandie's gruesome find, but the circling eddy swept me onward.

Knowing my breath was all but exhausted I made a final effort, sank a little deeper, striving against the current, and spread my hands abroad. I touched something--surely it was hair! Kicking against the stream I felt again.

Yes, it was hair floating in the current--the hair of a woman. I touched with a shrinking hand a human head, then almost suffocated, I rose to the surface and slowly regained the shore.

'Well?' interrogated Sandie, watching my face closely.

'I believe you're right,' I said faintly, still short of breath. 'Yes, I believe it's some poor woman, for I could just touch the skull, and the hair was long and floating in the current.'

'Good Lord!' exclaimed the two others. 'Can she have got wedged in between two rocks?'

'I think she's been thrown in,' said Sandie gloomily. 'I felt her body swaying to the stream. Some ruffian's knocked her on the head, tied a stone to her feet, and flung her in.'

'No more bathing for me,' I said, shivering. 'We'll just have to dress and go back and report to "the Dean."'

When we had returned to the inn where we were lodging we reported our discovery to our tutor, 'the Dean,' and asked his advice. 'Granted that you have "viewed the corpse," as coroners insist, I suppose you should report it to the Inspector of Police,' said he thoughtfully, 'but perhaps I might find out first from our landlord if there has been any story about of a woman being missed. Possibly a "village tragedy" may come to light. When we've had tea I will have a pipe and a "crack," as they call it here, with our landlord. Perhaps at supper I may have something to report.'

We were well content to leave it in 'the Dean's' hands, for he was most astute in management of men, and loved to fathom a mystery.

At supper, which was an informal meal, whereat we waited on ourselves, he told us that he had found out nothing in course of his 'crack' with the landlord, for the simple reason that he had only been a month in possession, and nothing eventful had occurred in that time.

'I think,' suggested 'the Dean,' 'that you two divers should run down on your bikes to-morrow to the Inspector of Police at Middleton, and tell him privately of your discovery.'

This Sandie and I willingly agreed to, and started off after breakfast down the valley. We found on arrival that the Inspector was away at the county town attending the Assizes, and was not expected back till the end of the week.

We got back just in time to escape a drenching, for a 'thunder plump' broke in the heaven above the moors as we ascended the last rise to the inn, which effectually prevented all thought of further investigation of the Black Lynn pool.