Some dashed off for the verger. The bird was wheeling in the golden light over the belfry of the church, the belfry with the new louver-boards. They recognised the bird--it was from John Raikes; and Pim o’ Cuddy was haled from his agonies of repentance. He stood peering up at the pigeon.
“Shoo’s trying to get into th’ owd coit--sitha!--shoo’s flinging hersen ageean th’ boards--th’ other coit, th’ other coit, ye----!”
“Ay--ay--it’s on her leg, look! Oh, coit, ye----!”
A man ran off to the “Gooise” for a gun, and presently returned, ramming home a double charge. They clustered about the buttress of the church, and the man stood back to shoot. The parson’s prayers were interrupted by the bang of a gun, and the heavy charge of lead rattled against the louver-boards of the belfry. A yell of rage went up; the double weight of shot had blown the bird to morsels, and they scrambled among the falling flesh and feathers for the message. The message, too, had disappeared.
“Up to th’ roof, Tommy--see if there’s aught there.” A lad was hoisted up by the spout.
They searched far and wide; they found nothing. A man started off to Horwick at a run, another after him; and the parson, coming out of the church, strove helplessly to quell the rage of cursing. “Had John another o’ yours?” somebody demanded of Pim o’ Cuddy; and the verger, cringing under the parson’s eye, blubbered, “No--Ay, ay--No, no. Oh, go back an’ pray for us all, parson!”
They learned in Horwick within an hour that some fool had blown John Raikes’s pigeon to bits with a gun, and they ground their teeth. To York, it was thirty-eight miles as the pigeon had flown--nearer fifty than forty by the roads; but “Who has th’ best horse?” they cried, and pockets were emptied of silver there and then, and a tall fellow was despatched hell-for-leather. Again the loom-loft where Ellah crouched in the corner was entered, this time by half a dozen Back o’ th’ Mooiners, with Mish Murgatroyd at their head. They found him apparently in physical agony, and were compelled to leave him. They ran to Cope’s house at the top of the croft. His door was barred, but they thrust the pale youth Charley through a window, and he admitted them by the door at the back by the beck. They ransacked the house and found a bundle of letters; they took them into the clogger’s shop. Charley could read, and he read them. They were from Parker of Ford, from somebody in London called Chamberlayne, from somebody else called Captain Ritchie, and from other folk of whom they had never heard. But they were all covering-letters, or letters of general compliment, beginning, “Herewith I send you,” or “The enclosed, with Mr. Parker’s compliments,” or else, “Captain Ritchie presents his compliments to Mr. Cope.” The correspondence was copious, but they were little the wiser for the perusal of it, and they trooped on to John Emmason’s. Emmason’s servant told them the magistrate was not at home.