“Yes, Your Grace, and you may have them. But I do think this is more than a silly girl’s love spat. It has been two hours at least since she was last seen. It was not yet twilight when she stepped out, and it is now full dark. The bog…”
“Quite so, Ahmlad. Well, we shall take Gertrude, the lead hound, and see what she can find.”
Gertrude was a lovely white hound with silky fur, reddish brown ears, and large brown spots on her sides. She was also one of the Duke’s best tracking dogs. Some of the villagers whispered that she might be a fairy hound, with her red ears and her sure way with tracking. But they didn’t whisper it within the Duke’s hearing.
Mr. McOwen, the hound master, was by the low fire in the kennels, stitching the backing on a leather collar. “Your Grace? Ahmlad? Is something amiss?”
“Indeed there is, Murchadh,” Jonathan said. “Ahmlad tells me that Sally Ann, the new scullery maid, is missing.”
“Are we sure she has not gone off with a friend? Rumor has it she has been hanging about with one of the stable lads and with Warner. She seems to have a bit of an eye for the lads.”
“Be as that may, Miss Sedgewick seems to think she might have come to harm. Miss Singer found the girl’s mob cap on the path to the lake. We’ve come down to get Gertrude to see if she can pick up a trail.”
There was the business of getting the dog out of the kennel, and giving her the scent. Then the hound went snuffling and snorting around the back garden. When she reached the lake gate, she apparently picked up a scent, for she began baying, and was off as if shot from a bow.
The three gentlemen hastened after her, juggling lanterns and minding the uneven terrain. The trail seemed to lead straight for the bog. “Fool girl! What was she thinking?” Jonathan said.
Ahmlad clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Hard to say, Your Grace.”
Just then the dog’s baying changed tone, and they heard the faint cries for help. “She’s in the Lolly Mire,” Jonathan said. “Fetch a branch or a fence post.”
Mr. McAhmladhson looked about and saw a pile of pickets where the gardeners had been working on the garden fence. He grabbed up three of them, handing one to Jonathan, and another to Mr. McOwen.
As they approached the quaking edge of the mire they could see a shape splashing about in the clinging mud.
“Don’t flail,” Mr. McAhmladhson called out. “Put your arms out wide and hold still. Flailing about will make you go down faster.”
“Help me! It’s up to my chin.”
“We’ll have you out in a trice. Now hold your arms out, there’s a good girl.”
“Yes, sir.” The girl pushed her arms out wide on the surface of the sludgy mire. Ahmlad carefully stretched out to his full length on the edge of the quaking mud, pushing the picket before him.
“We’ve got your legs,” Jonathan told him, grasping his steward firmly about one calf, above the boot, while Murchadh grasped the other.
Ahmlad stretched as far as he could go, his chest and head reaching out over the surface of the bog in the murky water. “Take hold of the picket, now, girl. That’s the way. Get a good firm grip. Now, can you get your other hand on it. Good, good, that’s the way. Now roll to your side, like you was going to lie down on your bed. Good, lass. That’s perfect.”
Ahmlad used the same strong, gentle voice Jonathan had heard him use with horses, sheep, and once with a hysterical mother. Following the quiet, authoritative directions, the girl was soon lying sideways on top of the bog instead of sinking into it. In a very few minutes they were able to draw her out onto firm ground.
Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, but Ahmlad respectfully touched his sleeve. “Allow me, Your Grace?”
“Of course, Ahmlad.”
In the lantern light, the dripping girl had gone stock still. “Your Grace?” she whispered as if the sound of the address had stolen the timber from her voice.
“It is all right,” Mr. McAhmladhson soothed. “The Duke is a gentleman and hasn’t caned any wayward maids lately.”
“Caned?” the girl looked panicked now.
“He is jesting,” Jonathan said. “In truth, I’ve never caned anyone. It is a punishment usually reserved for naughty schoolboys.”
“Can you tell us what happened?” Murchadh asked.
“I was just standing at the gate looking out over the lake. It was getting dusk dark, and the reflection of the mountains looked real pretty on the lake. I was just getting ready to go back inside when this voice spoke up behind me and said, ‘Go on, jump in. You know you want to. Only bad girls have babies ‘thout a father.’ Then it started growling, like the biggest, meanest dog you ever heard, only there was words in it. Mean stuff, name calling. It got closer and closer, so I opened the gate and started running. I knew I shouldn’t run into the bog, but ever’ time I tried to turn off, the voices got around me an’ sounded like they was gonna eat me. I was that scairt, I couldn’t help it.” She burst into tears. “I shouldn’t a said …shouldn’t a said…now you’ll turn me off.” She cried in great gulping sobs, “Oh, what will become of me!”
“What a coil,” Jonathan said. “I won’t be able to keep her on here. It isn’t done. Is there a safe place for her, Ahmlad?”
“The Gentle Sisters would take her,” Ahmlad said.
