A Teacher of Love Page 12

  Because there was nothing else she could do, Tasia dismounted and Peter did the same.

  He looked despairingly at his horse.

  The fourth man deposited Simon in what was left of the mill and came back.

  He then seized Peter by the arm and dragged him roughly inside.

  Tasia followed, aware as she did so that one of the ruffians was now holding the two horses.

  Inside the old mill the windows were smashed and there was a large hole in the ceiling. The floor was filthy and strewn with rubbish and plaster.

  Simon had been sat down on a pile of empty sacks.

  As she reached him, Tasia saw with horror that his ankles were being fastened together by what appeared to be handcuffs.

  Next she felt someone pick her up.

  She gave a scream of horror.

  The man who had lifted her pushed her down roughly on another heap of sacks.

  Before she could fight or even give another scream, he was pulling off her riding boots and, with a speed that must have come from long practice, he fastened her ankles together while another man did the same to Peter.

  Without saying anything more and without giving her time to even plead with them, they walked to the door.

  One of them kicked Jimbo who had followed them into the mill before he slammed the door behind him.

  Then both boys cried out as they heard their horses being ridden away.

  “They have taken my horse! They have stolen my lovely horse,” screamed Simon.

  Peter asked more calmly,

  “Are they highwaymen, Tasia?”

  “They are thieves of the worst description, but now we have to plan how we can escape from here.”

  “I just cannot move,” complained Peter, “and these handcuffs are hurting me.”

  Tasia thought a key could only undo them and the masked man would have taken it with him.

  The handcuffs were tight and rusty and they were hurting her ankles as they were hurting Peter’s.

  Jimbo was whimpering quietly after being kicked so harshly and Tasia comforted him, saying,

  “Poor Jimbo, they are wicked and cruel men to hurt you so.”

  “How will Papa find us here?” Peter was asking.

  Tasia thought it was a good question, as it would never occur to the Earl that they were not in Monks Wood.

  She could only imagine him riding up and down in the wood wondering where they had gone.

  “What can we do? Oh, Tasia, what can we do?” Simon shouted. “They have taken Red Robin away from me!”

  “I am sure your father will get him back. After all, people will think it strange that such disreputable-looking men are riding such magnificent horses.”

  “But they may be far away before our Papa can find them,” commented Peter. “And I don’t expect they will tell him where they have hidden us.”

  “No, I would expect not,” agreed Tasia. “That is why somehow we must escape. Let me take a look at the handcuffs on your feet and see if I can remove them.”

  Peter managed to crawl over to her.

  Tasia looked at his feet just as she had looked at her own and she knew there was very little chance of opening the handcuffs without a key of some sort.

  They had obviously been made for use in a prison or a police station and she imagined the thieves must have stolen them or taken them from someone still behind bars.

  She had read in one of the newspapers that men in prison would do anything for money, because with it they could bribe the warders to give them special privileges.

  Then suddenly Tasia had an idea.

  “Is there any way out of this place? Not for us, but is there a small hole in the wall?”

  “I expect there are heaps of them,” muttered Peter. “But what good will that do us?”

  “I am going to send Jimbo to tell your father where we are!”

  Both the boys stared at her.

  “Send Jimbo!” exclaimed Peter.

  “You know Jimbo understands what I say to him – and I am going to tell him to go home. If he returns home alone, your father will know something is wrong.”

  Peter gave a shout.

  “That’s a brilliant idea, Tasia, but will Jimbo really understand?”

  “First we will have to find a hole for him to wriggle through – ”

  The boys managed to crawl across the floor.

  Finally, not far from the door, behind a large pile of rubbish, they found a hole opening out onto dry land.

  In any other part of the wall Tasia guessed that a hole would be above the river and it would be dangerous, unless absolutely necessary, for Jimbo to have to swim.

  By pulling at the wood, which was rotten, the boys managed to make the hole a little bigger.

  Patting and caressing Jimbo, Tasia was able to push him to the hole and put his head through.

  “Go home, Jimbo, go home! Find Master!”

  She called it out at least half-a-dozen times.

  Reluctantly at last because he really wanted to stay with her, Jimbo moved and Tasia eased him through the hole and lying down she saw that he was safely on land.

  “Go home, Jimbo! Fetch Master. Go fetch Master here to us!”

  The dog stood looking irresolute and then slowly he started to walk away from the mill.

  “Go home, Jimbo. Go home!” shouted Tasia.

  She called out until he was further and further away from her and eventually he was out of sight.

  Then she gave a sigh,

  “I am glad we ate a good breakfast. I have a feeling we will be hungry by luncheon time, boys.”

  “I want my Red Robin,” moaned Simon.

  “I know you do, but you will have to be very brave and believe that your father will bring him back.”

  “Suppose Papa does not find Jimbo,” asked Peter, “and doesn’t understand we are in trouble and need him?”

  Tasia gave a little cry.

  “I have just thought of something else. When I was talking to your father last night after you had gone to bed, he was telling me about India and how interested he was in the way India was defending itself against the Russians.”

  The boys were hardly listening because they were thinking about their horses.

  Tasia went on quickly,

  “He was telling me about some of the Indian religions and way of life.”

  “I don’t see how that helps us now,” groaned Peter.

  “But it will if you do what I say – ”

  “How can it possibly get Red Robin back?”

  “Your father was telling me that he was particularly interested in the way some of the Indians, especially those in the North, could communicate with each other through the power of thought.”

  She paused before explaining further,

  “You know how he is making it possible for us to talk to India through the submarine cable. Well, the Indians do it without cables and without instruments of any sort.”

  “How?” the boys chorused.

  “They can tell each other exactly what is happening around them just by thought over any distance.”

  She was trying to make her explanation simple.

  “I don’t understand,” Simon muttered miserably.

  “What we are going to do is to send our thoughts to your father and will him to come and find us here. We will have to make it particularly strong and put all our thoughts and feelings into it, almost as if we were pulling him with our arms towards us. Do you understand now?”

  “I think I do, Tasia” said Peter, “but it seems rather strange to me.”

  “It seemed strange to your father that the Indians could do this. He told me about one of his bearers, who had said he must leave because his mother was dying. As they were in an uninhabited part of the country and no one had communicated with them for several days, your father enquired how he could possibly know that his mother was indeed dying.”

  “What did the man say?”

  “He insisted that
it was true and finally your father let him go.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “When he returned a month later, he reported that his mother had actually died. He had buried her and then returned to work for your father.”

  “You say he knew it was going to happen,” Peter asked, “because he was thinking about it?”

  “His mother was throwing out her thoughts as you now have to throw out yours. We will close our eyes. It is the same as praying, only think of your father and no one else.

  “Call out to him, ‘come to us, come to us, come to us,’ in your mind or you can repeat it aloud.”

  Simon put his fingers together as he did when he was saying his prayers.

  “Come to us, Papa, come to us and save us.”

  Tasia concentrated with all her might, calling the Earl silently and thinking of him as she did so.

  She could almost see his handsome face and as she was calling to him with such intensity, she felt something almost like a thrill course through her.

  ‘He must hear me, he must,’ she prayed.

  She opened her eyes briefly and saw that Peter and Simon were doing as she had told them.

  She felt it would be impossible for the Earl not to hear them.

  ‘Come to us, come to us,’ she called out again and again deep in her heart.

  At the same time she felt as if she could see him and almost despite herself felt he was listening to their cry.

  ‘It must work, it must!’ she told herself.

  Yet if it did not, what would happen to them?

  That question was so frightening that she called to him again – envisaging the Earl’s handsome face in front of her and begging him desperately with every nerve in her body to hear their cry for help.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Lord Lieutenant spent ages asking the Earl which committees he would like to serve on and what he would do to promote the well being of the County.

  It was with difficulty that the Earl finally coaxed him as far as the front door.

  He was still talking on as they reached his waiting carriage drawn by two horses.

  Only as he walked towards it did he say,

  “Oh, by the way, Linsdale, I hear you have bought the magnificent horses I have always admired that used to belong to Henlow?”

  “Yes, they are now all here and we are riding them with delight.”

  “Well, be careful,” the Lord Lieutenant cautioned, “because there are horse thieves in the County. General Rochford had one of his best horses stolen the other night.”

  For a moment the Earl was silent and then he said,

  “I will certainly strengthen my guard on the stables. There have already been some quite unnecessary reports of my recent purchase in the newspapers.”

  “Just be prepared,” warned the Lord Lieutenant as he stepped into his carriage.

  He drove off and the Earl turned at once to his own stallion that was waiting for him held by a groom.

  It was, he thought, one of the finest in Sir Stephen’s collection and yet he had to admit they were all so good it was difficult to choose between them.

  He set off quickly concerned that Tasia and the boys, waiting for him in the wood, might think he had forgotten all about them.

  ‘Elderly gentlemen talk too much,’ he told himself as he rode at a gallop over the fields beyond the paddock.

  He was moving at great speed when he saw a dog approaching.

  For a moment he did not recognise it – he thought that perhaps it was one of his keepers’ dogs and yet it was unusual for it to be running through the fields alone.

  As he drew nearer he realised, to his astonishment, that it was Jimbo.

  He pulled in his horse and called out,

  “Jimbo! Jimbo! Where are you going?”

  The dog hesitated.

  As he did so, the Earl had a feeling that something strange had happened and that Tasia and his sons were in danger.

  He could not explain it even to himself.

  Yet he was sure of it.

  The fact that Jimbo was alone and returning to the house confirmed his conviction that something was wrong.

  As Jimbo recognised the Earl, he stood still looking up at him, then jumped up as if he wanted to be patted.

  “Where is your Mistress, Jimbo?”

  Then remembering how Tasia had given Jimbo his orders he called,

  “Seek Tasia, seek her!”

  He emphasised the order, watching the dog as he did so, and for a moment Jimbo was not certain what to do.

  He looked towards the house then back to where he had come from.

  “Find Tasia! Find Peter and Simon!”

  As if he understood just what the Earl was saying, he turned round.

  He started off, running as quickly as he had come.

  The Earl followed him closely and when he reached Monks Wood, he reined in his mount.

  He thought Tasia and the boys must be in the wood as they had said they would be.

  But Jimbo had passed the entrance to the wood and was running swiftly across the field beyond.

  It took only a moment for the Earl to make up his mind to follow Jimbo and he set off just behind him.

  They passed a copse of thick bushes before turning towards the river and the Earl began to worry that perhaps the dog was leading him in the wrong direction.

  Yet he was still conscious of that strange feeling that something was wrong.

  It was dangerous and it was connected with his sons and Tasia.

  On and on Jimbo ran.

  Then as he approached the dilapidated old mill, he suddenly disappeared.

  For a second the Earl thought he had dived into the river.

  Then, as he pulled up his horse. he realised that the dog had gone into the mill itself through one of the holes in the wall.

  But that seemed improbable.

  “Jimbo,” he called out loudly.

  And just to satisfy himself he shouted,

  “Is anyone there?”

  It was then he heard a cacophony of voices calling to him and he realised he had found them.

  He dismounted and tied his horse to a post, thinking how odd it was that he should be led by a dog that did not even belong to him.

  And at the same time to be so aware that something was desperately wrong.

  *

  Later that day they were all sitting in the drawing room and Simon asked for the hundredth time,

  “Do you think that they will catch those men? Do you think I will ever see Red Robin again?”

  “I am sure you will,” Tasia comforted him.

  “I have informed the police,” said the Earl, “and also the local barracks. I have asked the Colonel if his men would be kind enough to assist us in catching these thieves who, the police tell me, have already stolen two other horses besides the General’s.”

  “How could we have guessed,” asked Peter, “that it was dangerous for us to ride out on our own land unless we were carrying pistols?”

  “I will certainly carry one in the future, and I have already told the Head Groom that everyone in the stables is to be armed when they are on duty.”

  It had been impossible since they had come back to the house to talk of anything but what had happened.

  It was a long walk back to the house, although the Earl had put Tasia on his stallion and she had insisted on sharing it with Simon.

  It made them slower, but she thought they were all too excited to worry if their legs ached before they reached the house.

  Fortunately the Earl had managed to prise off their handcuffs, but their ankles were still very sore.

  On their return the Earl had sent servants running in every direction to notify the authorities about the theft.

  They had sat down for a particularly late luncheon and the Earl spent what was left of the afternoon seeing that the horses in the stables were safely locked in.

  And in trying to cheer up Simon by telling him he could
have another horse if Red Robin was lost forever.

  He tried to seem grateful, but he cried when he was alone with Tasia and she held him close in her arms trying to comfort him.

  There was still no news of the horses by the time they had changed and come down for dinner.

  It was the quietest and saddest meal Tasia had eaten since she had arrived at Linsdale Court.

  The boys were tired and miserable that the horses had not yet been recovered and the Earl, like them, found it difficult to think of anything else.

  It was Peter, who eventually made the conversation more interesting by piping up,

  “We were all willing you to find out exactly what had happened to us, Papa, as Tasia told us the Indians do.”

  The Earl looked at Tasia in surprise.

  “Do you know about thought transference?”

  “Yes, of course,” replied Tasia. “I have read about it and have often longed to practise it. We all tried to tell you we were in danger and needed you.”

  “I heard you loud and clear,” murmured the Earl.

  “You heard us? But it was Jimbo who brought you to us.”

  “Before I saw Jimbo, even when I was mounted to join you in the wood, I was already aware that something strange was happening. It was a feeling I have never felt before, except when once or twice my own life has been in danger.”

  “You really and truly knew we were willing you to come to us?” asked Peter.

  “I knew something drastic had happened to you and that there was danger. I could not understand the feeling, but it was definitely there. When I saw Jimbo, I knew that I was not mistaken.”

  Peter clapped his hands.

  “Now we know that Tasia was right. She said that you would hear us and I wanted to believe her, but thought inside me it was impossible.”

  “It was very possible, but it was an experiment I hope never to have to take part in again.”

  “I hope not either,” Tasia joined in quietly.

  The boys went up to bed early.

  When they were undressed, Tasia went in to tuck them up in bed and kiss them goodnight.

  She sat down on Simon’s bed first and he asked,

  “Do you think that Red Robin is thinking of me?”

  “I am sure he wishes he was in his cosy stable and you were talking to him as you did yesterday evening.”

  “I will try to send my thoughts to him like we sent them to Papa!”