Chapter Eighteen.

Chapter Eighteen.Munday’s Ghost.“Shoot the lot, Sir, if I had the chance. I would, O by Jove; that is, if I had dust shot in the gun—a set of rogues, rascals, scamps, tramps, vagabonds, and robbers. Don’t tell me about pheasants and partridges and hares being wild birds—there don’t laugh; of course, I know a hare isn’t a bird—why, they’re nothing of the sort, and if it wasn’t for preserving, there wouldn’t be one left in a few years. Try a little more of that bread sauce. Fine pair of tender young cocks, ain’t they? Well, sir, they cost me seven-and-sixpence a bird at the very least, and I suppose I could buy them at seven-and-sixpence a brace at the outside. Game preserving’s dear work, sir; but there, don’t think I want to spoil your dinner. I aint reckoning up the cost of your mouthfuls, but fighting upon principle. How should you like me to come into your yard, or field, or garden, and shoot or suffocate or wire your turkeys or peafowl?”“But, my dear, sir,” I said, “I don’t keep turkeys or peafowl.”“Or cocks or hens, or pigeons, or ducks,” continued my uncle, not noticing my remark.“But we don’t keep anything of the kind in London, my dear sir; the tiles and leads are the unpreserved grounds of the sparrows.”“Don’t be a fool, Dick,” said my uncle, pettishly. “You know well enough what I mean. And I maintain, sir,” he continued, growing very red-faced and protuberant, as to his eyes, “that every poacher is a down-right robber, and if I were a magistrate I—”“Wouldn’t shoot them; would you, sir?” said Jenny, roguishly.“Hold your tongue, you puss,” said my uncle, shaking his fist playfully at the bright, saucy-eyed maiden; “you’re as bad as Dick.”Oh, how ardently I wished she was in one particular point of view.My uncle continued. “Ever since I’ve been in the place, the scoundrels have gone on thin—thin—thin—till it’s enough to make one give up in despair. But I won’t; hang me if I do! I won’t be beaten by the hypocritical canting dogs. Now, look here; one hound whines out that he did it for hunger, but it won’t do, that’s a tale; while ’fore George, sir, if a man really was driven to that pitch, I’d give him the worth of a dozen of my birds sooner than have them stolen.”Well, really, one could not help condoling with the old gentleman, for he was generous and open-handed to an extent that made me wonder sometimes how my portion would fare, and whether the noble old fellow might not break faith through inability to perform his promises. Ever since he had settled in Hareby, and worked hard to get his estate into condition, the poaching fraternity seemed to have made a dead set at him, leading his two keepers a sad life, for one of them had passed two months in hospital through an encounter; while one fellow, who was always suspected of being at the head of the gang, generally contrived to elude capture, being “as cunning as Lucifer, sir,” as my uncle said.I was down at Hareby to spend Christmas, as had been my custom for years, and on going out the day after my arrival—“You see, sir,” said Browsem, the keeper; “there’s no knowing where to take him. I’ve tried all I knows, and ’pon my sivvy, sir, I don’t know where to hev him. It warn’t him as give me that dressing down, but it were some of his set, for he keeps in the back grun’, and finds the powder and shot, and gets rid o’ the birds. War-hawk to him if I do get hold on him, though—”“But do you watch well?” I said.“Watch, sir? I’ve watched my hyes outer my head a’most, and then he’s dodged me. Hyes aint no good to him. Why, I don’t believe a chap fitted up with telescopes would get round him. The guv’nor swears and goes on at me and Bill, but what’s the good o’ that when you’re arter a fellow as would slip outer his skin, if you hed holt on him? Now, I’ll jest tell you how he served me last week. I gets a simple-looking chap, a stranger to these parts, but a regular deep one, to come over and keep his hye on this here Mr Ruddle. So he hangs about the public, and drinks with first one, and then with another, so that they thinks him a chap outer work, and lars of all he gets friendly with Ruddle, and from one thing to another, gets on talking about fezzans and ’ares.“‘Ah,’ says my chap, ‘there’s some fine spinneys down our way. Go out of a night there, and get a sackful of birds when you likes.’“‘Nothin’ to what there is here,’ says another.“‘Why,’ says my chap, ‘we’ve one chap as is the best hand at a bit o’ night work as ever I did see. You should see him set a sneer or ingle, he’d captivate any mortial thing. Say he wants a few rabbuds, he’d a’most whistle ’em outer their holes. Fezzans ’ll run their heads into his ingles like winkin’. While, as fur ’ares, he never sets wires for them.’“‘Why not,’ says one on ’em.“‘Oh,’ says my chap, ‘he goes and picks ’em up outer the fields, just as he likes.’“‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughs lots on ’em there; all but Ruddle, and he didn’t.“‘What d’yer think o’ that, ole man,’ says one.“‘Nothin’ at all,’ says Ruddle. ‘Do it mysen,’ for you see he was a bit on, and ready to talk, while mostlings he was as close as a hegg.“‘Bet you a gallon on it,’ says my chap.“‘Done,’ says Ruddle, and they settles as my chap and Buddie should have a walk nex’ day, Sunday, and settle it.“Nex’ day then these two goes out together, and just ketching sight on ’em, I knowed something was up, but in course I didn’t know my chap, and my chap didn’t know me, and I sits at home smoking a pipe, for I says to myself, I says: Browsem, I says, there’s suthin’ up, an’ if you can only put salt on that ’ere Ruddle’s tail, you’ll soon clear the village. You see, I on’y wanted to bring one home to him, and that would have done, for he’d on’y got off two or three times before by the skin of his teeth, and while three or four of his tools was kicking their heels in gaol, my gentleman was feathering his nest all right.“So my chap and Ruddle goes along werry sociable, only every now and then my chap ketches him a cocking one of his old gimlet eyes round at him, while he looked as knowing and deep as an old dog-fox. By and by they gets to a field, and old Ruddle tells my chap to stop by the hedge, and he did, while Ruddle goes looking about a bit slowly and quietly, and last of all he mounts up on a gate and stands with his hand over his hyes. Last of all he walks quietly right out into the middle of the pasture and stoops down, picks up a hare, and holds it kicking and struggling by the ears, when he hugs it up on his arm strokin’ on it like you’d see a little girl with a kitten.“My chap feels ready to burst himself with delight to see how old Ruddle had fallen into the trap. First-rate it was, you know—taking a hare in open daylight, and in sight of a witness. So he scuffles up to him, looking as innocent all the time as a babby, and he says to him, he says—“‘My, what a fine un! I never thought as there was another one in England could ha’ done that ’ere. You air a deep ’un,’ he says, trying hard not to grin. ‘But aintcher going to kill it?’“A nasty foxy warming, not he though, for when my chap says, says he, ‘Aintcher going to kill it?’“‘What,’ he says, ‘kill the pooty creetur! Oh, no; poor soft pussy, I wouldn’t hurt it; let it go, poor thing.’“When if he didn’t put it down and let it dart off like a shot, while my chap stood dumbfounded, and staring with his mouth half open, till Ruddle tipped him a wink, and went off and left him. No, sir, there ain’t no taking that chap nohow, and they do say it was his hand that fired the shot as killed Squire Todd’s keeper in Bunkin’s Spinney.”Three nights after Christmas was mild and open, and I was watching a busy little set of fingers prepare the tea, while my uncle was napping in his easy-chair, with a yellow silk handkerchief spread over his face. I had been whispering very earnestly, while all my impressive words had been treated as if airy nothings; and more than once I had been most decidedly snubbed. I was at last sitting with a very lachrymose countenance, looking appealingly at the stern little tyrant, who would keep looking so bewilderingly pretty by trying to frown with a beautiful little white brow that would not wrinkle, when the parlour-maid came up and announced Browsem.“No, sir,” muttered my uncle; “I’ll put a stop—stop—” the rest was inaudible.“The keeper waits to see you, uncle dear,” whispered his late sister’s child, in her soft kittenish way.“Keeper, sir; yes, sir, I’ll give him—Bless my heart, Jenny,” exclaimed the old gentleman starting up, dragging off his handkerchief and bringing the hair down over his forehead; “bless my heart, Jenny, why I was almost asleep.”“Here’s Browsem, uncle,” I said.“Show him up; show him up,” cried my uncle, who would not have accorded more attention to an ambassador than he did to his keeper—that gentleman being prime minister to his pleasures.Browsem was shown up—a process which did not become the keeper at all, for he came in delicately as to pace, not appearance, and held his red cotton handkerchief in his hand, as if in doubt whether to employ it in dabbing his damp brow, or to spread upon the carpet for fear that his boots might soil the brightness.“Now Browsem,” cried the old gentleman, as the keeper was pulling his forelock to Miss Jenny, thereby making the poor fellow start and stammer. “Now Browsem, whom have you caught?”“Caught, sir? No one, sir, only the cat, sir. Ponto run her down, but she skretched one of his eyes a’most out.”“Cat; what cat?” said my uncle, leaning forward, with a hand upon each arm of the chair.“Why, you see, sir,” said Browsem, confidentially, “there’s a dodge in it;” and then the man turned round and winked at me.“Confound you; go on,” cried my uncle in a most exasperated tone of voice, when Browsem backed against Jenny’s little marqueterie work-table, and, oversetting it, sent bobbins, tapes, reels, wools, silks, and, crochet and tatting apparatus into irremediable chaos.“There, never mind that trash,” shouted the old man; “speak up at once.”“Well, sir,” said Browsem, “they’ve been a-dodgin’ of me.”“Well?” cried my uncle.“Tied a lanthorn to a cat’s neck, and sent her out in the open, to make belief as it were a dog driving the partridges.”“Well?”“And we’ve been a-hunting it for long enew, and Ponto ketched her at last.”“Well?”“And this was only to get us outer the way, for I heard a gun down Bunkin’s Spinney.”“Well?” shouted my uncle.“And I’ve come to know what’s right to be done.”“Done,” roared my uncle; “why run down to the Spinney, or there won’t be a pheasant left. Here, my stick—my pistols—Here, Dick—Confound—Scoundrels. Look sharp.” And then he hobbled out of the room after the keeper, when warm with the excitement of perhaps having a brush with the poachers, I was following, but a voice detained me on the threshold.“Richard,” whispered Jenny; and there was something in the earnest eyes and frightened look that drew me back in an instant. “Richard, you won’t go—those men—danger—Oh! Richard, pray! There, don’t. What would your uncle say?”I didn’t know, neither did I pause to think, for that newly-awakened earnestness whispered such sweet hopes that, darting back, I was for the instant forgetful of all propriety, till some one stood blushing before me, arranging those bright little curls so lately resting upon my arm.“But you won’t go?” pleaded Jenny. “Formysake Richard?”“Di-i-i-i-i-ck,” roared my uncle, and, wresting myself from the silken chains, I darted down into the hall.“Here lay hold of that stick, my lad,” cried my uncle, flourishing a large bludgeon, while Browsem grinning and showing his teeth, was quietly twisting the leathern thong of a short stout staff round his wrist.“All right my darling,” said the old man, turning to the pale-faced Jenny, who had come quietly downstairs to where we stood. “Don’t be alarmed, we shall take care of one another, and march half a dozen poaching—here, come along, or me shall miss the scoundrels.”Browsem led the way at a half-trot, and grasping my arm, the old gentleman followed as fast as his sometimes gouty leg would allow him. We were soon out of the grounds, and, clambering a gate, made our way towards the wood, where the keeper had heard the gun.“Confound them,” growled my uncle, “that’s where that poor fellow was shot ten years ago.”“Bang—bang.”“There they are, sir,” growled the keeper, halting to let us get up alongside; and now I started, for in the dusk behind me, and apparently dodging my heels, was a tall figure.“It’s only Todds, sir,” growled the keeper, and Todds his helper growled in response.“That is right.”“Amost wonder as they came here, sir,” whispered Browsem. “Never knowed ’em do it afore, ’cause they’re feared o’ Munday’s Ghost.”“Munday’s Ghost?” I said.“Yes, sir; pore chap as were shot. They do say as he walks still, but there’s a sight o’ pheasants here.”It was one of those dark heavy nights late in winter, when the last oak-leaves have fallen, and every step you take through the thickly strewn glades rustles loudly. The wind just sighed by us as we pressed on along a path through a plantation, and then once or twice I fancied I heard guns to the right, far off behind the house. But I forgot them the next moment, for my heart beat, and the excitement increased, for just on in front came two loud and distinct reports.“They’re at it,” growled my uncle, forgetting his gout, and loosing my arm. “Now Browsem, you and Todds go round, and we’ll come forward, only mind when I whistle, it’s for help.”The next moment I was going to speak to the keeper, but I started, for he was gone, and on looking behind I found Todds had also vanished, quiet as a snake, for my uncle and I stood alone.“You’ll stick to me, Dick?” whispered the old gentleman.“Conditions,” I said in the same voice.“What? the white feather,” growled the old gentleman.“No, no,” I said, “but if I enlist now on your side, will you join me in a siege afterwards?”“Siege? what the deuce? Why don’t you speak plain, sir?”“Well,” I said, “I mean about—about—a certain young lady at the Priory, you know.”“Confound your thick head, sir. Why, if you had had an ounce of brains, you could have seen what I meant, and—”“Bang, bang!” from the wood.“Forward,” shouted my uncle, and crossing a small open field, we entered the Spinney.Now, if I were to say that I was brave, the assertion would be a fib, for I possess but few of the qualifications for making a good soldier; but all the same, as we pushed our way in that night amongst the thick hazel stubs, I felt a sort of tingly sensation in my arm, which made me grasp my weapon more tightly, and feel as if I wished there was something to hit.“Keep your eyes well open, Dick,” whispered my uncle, “and if you come across a tall thin squinting rascal with his nose on one side, mind, that’s Ruddle’s. Fell him to the ground in an instant, sir. No mercy: capture him as you love me, and if you do take the scoundrel, you shall have another cool thousand down on your wedding morning.”“And if I don’t?” I whispered.“Hold your tongue, you dog, and don’t talk nonsense.”On we went in silence as to our tongues, but with the leaves rustling and sticks cracking as we pushed on. Now I could hear my uncle ejaculating; then he’d stumble and mutter, while once I had to haul him out of a small hole half full of water.“Confound it!” growled the old gentleman; “but I’ll pay some one for all this. Open out a bit to the right, Dick.”I separated from the main body, and on we still pressed, rustling and crackling along, while now and again I could make out the well-defined forms of pheasants roosting amidst the low branches of the trees. All at once I heard my uncle stop short, for about a hundred yards to my right there came again a sharp “bang, bang” of two guns.“Push on, my boy,” whispered the old gentleman, closing up; and then, as fast as we could for the dense undergrowth, we made our way in the direction of the sounds. “They’re out strong, my boy, but we’re four determined men with right on our side, and a prize to win; eh, you dog?”“Oof!” I involuntarily exclaimed, for just then my uncle gave me a poke in the ribs with his stick—very facetiously, no doubt; but it hurt.We were now in the thickest part of the wood; and, after going a little farther, I felt my shoulder clutched, and “Here they come,” was whispered in my ear. “Seize one man, Dick, and hold on to him like a bull-dog.”Just then I could hear in front the sharp crackling and rustling made by bodies being forced through the underwood; and, grasping my staff and pressing eagerly forward, I waited with beating heart for the coming of the enemy.I did not have to wait long, for the next moment I was face to face with Browsem.“Lord, sir! I thought it had been one on ’em,” he exclaimed, and then a whispered consultation having been held, we opened out about twenty yards apart, and went straight away in the direction we supposed the poachers to have taken.On, slowly and painfully, with the twigs flying back and lashing our faces, roots trying to trip us up, and the night growing darker and darker. Right and left I could hear my uncle and Browsem, while right off beyond the old gentleman, Mr Todds, the reticent, was making his way. Every eye was strained and every ear attent to catch the slightest sound; but for quite ten minutes we crept on until right in our rear came the sharp, loud report of a gun; and then, after the interval of a few moments, another louder and apparently nearer.“Back again!” cried my uncle; and then, casting off all caution, we all pushed forward eagerly, closing in as we went, till we were only separated by a few bushes, so that I could hear the hard breathing on either side. Hard work blundering and stumbling along; but the will was good, and at last we all drew up again in a small opening, panting, hot, and regularly breathed.“Hist!” whispered my uncle, and we all listened eagerly; but, with the exception of a wild, strange cry some distance off, all was silent.“What’s that?” I whispered to Browsem.“Only a howl, sir,” he whispered again. “Blessed rum start this, ain’t it?”“Bang, bang!” again a hundred yards off.“Come on!” roared my uncle furiously, “there won’t be a bird left in the place;” and away we dashed again, but only to pull up once more, regularly puzzled.“’Tain’t no good, sir,” whispered Browsem. “We might go on like this all night, and ketch no one.”“Why?” I said, mopping my brow.“That ’ere, sir, as I said was a howl, must ha’ been Munday’s Ghost, and them ’ere shots as we keeps hearing’s the ones as killed the poor fellow, and that’s why the poachers never comes to this bit.”“Browsem,” puffed my uncle.“Yes, sir,” said Browsem.“You’re a fool, Browsem,” puffed my uncle.“Thanky, sir,” said Browsem.“What do you mean by that, sir?” cried my uncle, fiercely.“Nothing, sir,” said the keeper, mildly.“For two pins, sir,” cried my uncle, fiercely, “I’d discharge you, sir. D’yer hear? discharge you, sir, for talking such foolery. Ghosts—posts! pooh! bah! puff! stuff! yah! Forward.”Mr Todds, who was at my elbow, murmured his approval of his superior’s language, but gave a superstitious shiver at the same moment. And then once more we opened out, and tramped through the wood, till regularly beaten out; and, without having heard another shot or seen a single enemy, we reluctantly retraced our steps to the Priory.The next morning, at breakfast, the parlour-maid again announced Browsem—for my uncle abjures men-servants in the house—and the keeper, looking puzzled and long-faced, appeared at the door.“Now, then,” sputtered my uncle, “have you caught them?”“They cleared Sandy Plants last night, sir,” growled the man.“Who? what?” cried my uncle, upsetting his coffee.“Some on ’em—Ruddles’s, I s’pose,” said Browsem. “Don’t b’leeve there’s a tail left out’er scores,” said the man.“There, go down and wait, and I’ll come directly after breakfast.”But to all intents and purposes my uncle had finished his breakfast, for nothing more would he touch, while his face grew purple with rage. Gout—everything—was forgotten for the time; and half an hour after, Browsem was pointing out the signs of the havoc made on the preceding night in the fir-plantation. Here and there lay feathers, spots of blood, gun-wads; and many a trunk was scarred and flayed with shot. In one place, where the trees were largest, the poachers seemed to have been burning sulphur beneath the boughs, while twice over we came upon wounded pheasants, and one dead—hung high up in the stubbly branches, where it had caught.My uncle looked furious, and then turning in the direction of the scene of the last night’s adventures, he strode off, and we followed in silence.On reaching the wood, we very soon found, from the trampled underwood and broken twigs, traces of our chase; but the birds seemed plentiful, and no feathers or blood-stains were to be found.“They didn’t get many here, at all events,” muttered my uncle.Both Browsem and Todds shook their heads at me, and looked ghosts.“Strange thing, though,” muttered my uncle. “What do you think of it, Browsem?”The keeper screwed up his face, and said nothing.“Confound you for a donkey!” ejaculated the irascible old gentleman. “What Tom-fool rubbish you men do believe. Hullo! though, here’s a wad;” and he stooped and picked up a wadding evidently cut out of an old beaver hat. “That don’t look ghostly, at all events; does it, booby?”Browsem only screwed up his phiz a little tighter.“Why, tut, tut, tut! Come here, Dick!” shouted the old gentleman, excitedly. “We’ve been done, my lad; and they’ve cleared out the plantation while we were racing up and down here.”I followed the old gentleman to one of the openings where we had stopped together the night before, when Todds, who was close behind, suddenly gave a grunt, and stooping down, picked up a half-empty horn powder-flask.“That’s Ruddles’s, I’d swear,” growled Browsem.“Of course,” said my uncle. “And now, look here, Dick,” he cried, pointing to the half-burnt gun-wads lying about near a large pollard oak. “There, shin up, and look down inside this tree.”With very little difficulty, I wonderingly climbed up some fifteen feet, by means of the low branches, which came off clayey on my hands, as though some one had mounted by that same means lately, and then I found that I could look down right through the hollow trunk, which was lighted by a hole here and there.“That’ll do; come down,” cried my uncle. “If I’d only thought of it last night, we could have boxed the rascal up—a vagabond! keeping us racing up and down the wood, while he sat snugly in his hole, blazing away directly we were a few yards off.”I was certainly very close to Jenny that afternoon when my uncle, whom we thought to be napping in his study, rushed into the room.“Hurrah, Dick! Tompkins has peached, and they sent fifty pheasants up in Ruddles’s cart this morning; but the old rascal’s locked up, and—hum! That sort of thing looks pretty,” he continued, for we were certainly taken somewhat by surprise. “But, you dog,” he roared, as Jenny darted from the room, “you did not catch the scoundrel.”However, after that morning’s take, even if a hundred pheasants had been sent in the cart, my uncle would have been plastic as clay, while, an hour afterwards, he exclaimed:“Why, Dick, I’d almost forgotten my gout.”

“Shoot the lot, Sir, if I had the chance. I would, O by Jove; that is, if I had dust shot in the gun—a set of rogues, rascals, scamps, tramps, vagabonds, and robbers. Don’t tell me about pheasants and partridges and hares being wild birds—there don’t laugh; of course, I know a hare isn’t a bird—why, they’re nothing of the sort, and if it wasn’t for preserving, there wouldn’t be one left in a few years. Try a little more of that bread sauce. Fine pair of tender young cocks, ain’t they? Well, sir, they cost me seven-and-sixpence a bird at the very least, and I suppose I could buy them at seven-and-sixpence a brace at the outside. Game preserving’s dear work, sir; but there, don’t think I want to spoil your dinner. I aint reckoning up the cost of your mouthfuls, but fighting upon principle. How should you like me to come into your yard, or field, or garden, and shoot or suffocate or wire your turkeys or peafowl?”

“But, my dear, sir,” I said, “I don’t keep turkeys or peafowl.”

“Or cocks or hens, or pigeons, or ducks,” continued my uncle, not noticing my remark.

“But we don’t keep anything of the kind in London, my dear sir; the tiles and leads are the unpreserved grounds of the sparrows.”

“Don’t be a fool, Dick,” said my uncle, pettishly. “You know well enough what I mean. And I maintain, sir,” he continued, growing very red-faced and protuberant, as to his eyes, “that every poacher is a down-right robber, and if I were a magistrate I—”

“Wouldn’t shoot them; would you, sir?” said Jenny, roguishly.

“Hold your tongue, you puss,” said my uncle, shaking his fist playfully at the bright, saucy-eyed maiden; “you’re as bad as Dick.”

Oh, how ardently I wished she was in one particular point of view.

My uncle continued. “Ever since I’ve been in the place, the scoundrels have gone on thin—thin—thin—till it’s enough to make one give up in despair. But I won’t; hang me if I do! I won’t be beaten by the hypocritical canting dogs. Now, look here; one hound whines out that he did it for hunger, but it won’t do, that’s a tale; while ’fore George, sir, if a man really was driven to that pitch, I’d give him the worth of a dozen of my birds sooner than have them stolen.”

Well, really, one could not help condoling with the old gentleman, for he was generous and open-handed to an extent that made me wonder sometimes how my portion would fare, and whether the noble old fellow might not break faith through inability to perform his promises. Ever since he had settled in Hareby, and worked hard to get his estate into condition, the poaching fraternity seemed to have made a dead set at him, leading his two keepers a sad life, for one of them had passed two months in hospital through an encounter; while one fellow, who was always suspected of being at the head of the gang, generally contrived to elude capture, being “as cunning as Lucifer, sir,” as my uncle said.

I was down at Hareby to spend Christmas, as had been my custom for years, and on going out the day after my arrival—

“You see, sir,” said Browsem, the keeper; “there’s no knowing where to take him. I’ve tried all I knows, and ’pon my sivvy, sir, I don’t know where to hev him. It warn’t him as give me that dressing down, but it were some of his set, for he keeps in the back grun’, and finds the powder and shot, and gets rid o’ the birds. War-hawk to him if I do get hold on him, though—”

“But do you watch well?” I said.

“Watch, sir? I’ve watched my hyes outer my head a’most, and then he’s dodged me. Hyes aint no good to him. Why, I don’t believe a chap fitted up with telescopes would get round him. The guv’nor swears and goes on at me and Bill, but what’s the good o’ that when you’re arter a fellow as would slip outer his skin, if you hed holt on him? Now, I’ll jest tell you how he served me last week. I gets a simple-looking chap, a stranger to these parts, but a regular deep one, to come over and keep his hye on this here Mr Ruddle. So he hangs about the public, and drinks with first one, and then with another, so that they thinks him a chap outer work, and lars of all he gets friendly with Ruddle, and from one thing to another, gets on talking about fezzans and ’ares.

“‘Ah,’ says my chap, ‘there’s some fine spinneys down our way. Go out of a night there, and get a sackful of birds when you likes.’

“‘Nothin’ to what there is here,’ says another.

“‘Why,’ says my chap, ‘we’ve one chap as is the best hand at a bit o’ night work as ever I did see. You should see him set a sneer or ingle, he’d captivate any mortial thing. Say he wants a few rabbuds, he’d a’most whistle ’em outer their holes. Fezzans ’ll run their heads into his ingles like winkin’. While, as fur ’ares, he never sets wires for them.’

“‘Why not,’ says one on ’em.

“‘Oh,’ says my chap, ‘he goes and picks ’em up outer the fields, just as he likes.’

“‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughs lots on ’em there; all but Ruddle, and he didn’t.

“‘What d’yer think o’ that, ole man,’ says one.

“‘Nothin’ at all,’ says Ruddle. ‘Do it mysen,’ for you see he was a bit on, and ready to talk, while mostlings he was as close as a hegg.

“‘Bet you a gallon on it,’ says my chap.

“‘Done,’ says Ruddle, and they settles as my chap and Buddie should have a walk nex’ day, Sunday, and settle it.

“Nex’ day then these two goes out together, and just ketching sight on ’em, I knowed something was up, but in course I didn’t know my chap, and my chap didn’t know me, and I sits at home smoking a pipe, for I says to myself, I says: Browsem, I says, there’s suthin’ up, an’ if you can only put salt on that ’ere Ruddle’s tail, you’ll soon clear the village. You see, I on’y wanted to bring one home to him, and that would have done, for he’d on’y got off two or three times before by the skin of his teeth, and while three or four of his tools was kicking their heels in gaol, my gentleman was feathering his nest all right.

“So my chap and Ruddle goes along werry sociable, only every now and then my chap ketches him a cocking one of his old gimlet eyes round at him, while he looked as knowing and deep as an old dog-fox. By and by they gets to a field, and old Ruddle tells my chap to stop by the hedge, and he did, while Ruddle goes looking about a bit slowly and quietly, and last of all he mounts up on a gate and stands with his hand over his hyes. Last of all he walks quietly right out into the middle of the pasture and stoops down, picks up a hare, and holds it kicking and struggling by the ears, when he hugs it up on his arm strokin’ on it like you’d see a little girl with a kitten.

“My chap feels ready to burst himself with delight to see how old Ruddle had fallen into the trap. First-rate it was, you know—taking a hare in open daylight, and in sight of a witness. So he scuffles up to him, looking as innocent all the time as a babby, and he says to him, he says—

“‘My, what a fine un! I never thought as there was another one in England could ha’ done that ’ere. You air a deep ’un,’ he says, trying hard not to grin. ‘But aintcher going to kill it?’

“A nasty foxy warming, not he though, for when my chap says, says he, ‘Aintcher going to kill it?’

“‘What,’ he says, ‘kill the pooty creetur! Oh, no; poor soft pussy, I wouldn’t hurt it; let it go, poor thing.’

“When if he didn’t put it down and let it dart off like a shot, while my chap stood dumbfounded, and staring with his mouth half open, till Ruddle tipped him a wink, and went off and left him. No, sir, there ain’t no taking that chap nohow, and they do say it was his hand that fired the shot as killed Squire Todd’s keeper in Bunkin’s Spinney.”

Three nights after Christmas was mild and open, and I was watching a busy little set of fingers prepare the tea, while my uncle was napping in his easy-chair, with a yellow silk handkerchief spread over his face. I had been whispering very earnestly, while all my impressive words had been treated as if airy nothings; and more than once I had been most decidedly snubbed. I was at last sitting with a very lachrymose countenance, looking appealingly at the stern little tyrant, who would keep looking so bewilderingly pretty by trying to frown with a beautiful little white brow that would not wrinkle, when the parlour-maid came up and announced Browsem.

“No, sir,” muttered my uncle; “I’ll put a stop—stop—” the rest was inaudible.

“The keeper waits to see you, uncle dear,” whispered his late sister’s child, in her soft kittenish way.

“Keeper, sir; yes, sir, I’ll give him—Bless my heart, Jenny,” exclaimed the old gentleman starting up, dragging off his handkerchief and bringing the hair down over his forehead; “bless my heart, Jenny, why I was almost asleep.”

“Here’s Browsem, uncle,” I said.

“Show him up; show him up,” cried my uncle, who would not have accorded more attention to an ambassador than he did to his keeper—that gentleman being prime minister to his pleasures.

Browsem was shown up—a process which did not become the keeper at all, for he came in delicately as to pace, not appearance, and held his red cotton handkerchief in his hand, as if in doubt whether to employ it in dabbing his damp brow, or to spread upon the carpet for fear that his boots might soil the brightness.

“Now Browsem,” cried the old gentleman, as the keeper was pulling his forelock to Miss Jenny, thereby making the poor fellow start and stammer. “Now Browsem, whom have you caught?”

“Caught, sir? No one, sir, only the cat, sir. Ponto run her down, but she skretched one of his eyes a’most out.”

“Cat; what cat?” said my uncle, leaning forward, with a hand upon each arm of the chair.

“Why, you see, sir,” said Browsem, confidentially, “there’s a dodge in it;” and then the man turned round and winked at me.

“Confound you; go on,” cried my uncle in a most exasperated tone of voice, when Browsem backed against Jenny’s little marqueterie work-table, and, oversetting it, sent bobbins, tapes, reels, wools, silks, and, crochet and tatting apparatus into irremediable chaos.

“There, never mind that trash,” shouted the old man; “speak up at once.”

“Well, sir,” said Browsem, “they’ve been a-dodgin’ of me.”

“Well?” cried my uncle.

“Tied a lanthorn to a cat’s neck, and sent her out in the open, to make belief as it were a dog driving the partridges.”

“Well?”

“And we’ve been a-hunting it for long enew, and Ponto ketched her at last.”

“Well?”

“And this was only to get us outer the way, for I heard a gun down Bunkin’s Spinney.”

“Well?” shouted my uncle.

“And I’ve come to know what’s right to be done.”

“Done,” roared my uncle; “why run down to the Spinney, or there won’t be a pheasant left. Here, my stick—my pistols—Here, Dick—Confound—Scoundrels. Look sharp.” And then he hobbled out of the room after the keeper, when warm with the excitement of perhaps having a brush with the poachers, I was following, but a voice detained me on the threshold.

“Richard,” whispered Jenny; and there was something in the earnest eyes and frightened look that drew me back in an instant. “Richard, you won’t go—those men—danger—Oh! Richard, pray! There, don’t. What would your uncle say?”

I didn’t know, neither did I pause to think, for that newly-awakened earnestness whispered such sweet hopes that, darting back, I was for the instant forgetful of all propriety, till some one stood blushing before me, arranging those bright little curls so lately resting upon my arm.

“But you won’t go?” pleaded Jenny. “Formysake Richard?”

“Di-i-i-i-i-ck,” roared my uncle, and, wresting myself from the silken chains, I darted down into the hall.

“Here lay hold of that stick, my lad,” cried my uncle, flourishing a large bludgeon, while Browsem grinning and showing his teeth, was quietly twisting the leathern thong of a short stout staff round his wrist.

“All right my darling,” said the old man, turning to the pale-faced Jenny, who had come quietly downstairs to where we stood. “Don’t be alarmed, we shall take care of one another, and march half a dozen poaching—here, come along, or me shall miss the scoundrels.”

Browsem led the way at a half-trot, and grasping my arm, the old gentleman followed as fast as his sometimes gouty leg would allow him. We were soon out of the grounds, and, clambering a gate, made our way towards the wood, where the keeper had heard the gun.

“Confound them,” growled my uncle, “that’s where that poor fellow was shot ten years ago.”

“Bang—bang.”

“There they are, sir,” growled the keeper, halting to let us get up alongside; and now I started, for in the dusk behind me, and apparently dodging my heels, was a tall figure.

“It’s only Todds, sir,” growled the keeper, and Todds his helper growled in response.

“That is right.”

“Amost wonder as they came here, sir,” whispered Browsem. “Never knowed ’em do it afore, ’cause they’re feared o’ Munday’s Ghost.”

“Munday’s Ghost?” I said.

“Yes, sir; pore chap as were shot. They do say as he walks still, but there’s a sight o’ pheasants here.”

It was one of those dark heavy nights late in winter, when the last oak-leaves have fallen, and every step you take through the thickly strewn glades rustles loudly. The wind just sighed by us as we pressed on along a path through a plantation, and then once or twice I fancied I heard guns to the right, far off behind the house. But I forgot them the next moment, for my heart beat, and the excitement increased, for just on in front came two loud and distinct reports.

“They’re at it,” growled my uncle, forgetting his gout, and loosing my arm. “Now Browsem, you and Todds go round, and we’ll come forward, only mind when I whistle, it’s for help.”

The next moment I was going to speak to the keeper, but I started, for he was gone, and on looking behind I found Todds had also vanished, quiet as a snake, for my uncle and I stood alone.

“You’ll stick to me, Dick?” whispered the old gentleman.

“Conditions,” I said in the same voice.

“What? the white feather,” growled the old gentleman.

“No, no,” I said, “but if I enlist now on your side, will you join me in a siege afterwards?”

“Siege? what the deuce? Why don’t you speak plain, sir?”

“Well,” I said, “I mean about—about—a certain young lady at the Priory, you know.”

“Confound your thick head, sir. Why, if you had had an ounce of brains, you could have seen what I meant, and—”

“Bang, bang!” from the wood.

“Forward,” shouted my uncle, and crossing a small open field, we entered the Spinney.

Now, if I were to say that I was brave, the assertion would be a fib, for I possess but few of the qualifications for making a good soldier; but all the same, as we pushed our way in that night amongst the thick hazel stubs, I felt a sort of tingly sensation in my arm, which made me grasp my weapon more tightly, and feel as if I wished there was something to hit.

“Keep your eyes well open, Dick,” whispered my uncle, “and if you come across a tall thin squinting rascal with his nose on one side, mind, that’s Ruddle’s. Fell him to the ground in an instant, sir. No mercy: capture him as you love me, and if you do take the scoundrel, you shall have another cool thousand down on your wedding morning.”

“And if I don’t?” I whispered.

“Hold your tongue, you dog, and don’t talk nonsense.”

On we went in silence as to our tongues, but with the leaves rustling and sticks cracking as we pushed on. Now I could hear my uncle ejaculating; then he’d stumble and mutter, while once I had to haul him out of a small hole half full of water.

“Confound it!” growled the old gentleman; “but I’ll pay some one for all this. Open out a bit to the right, Dick.”

I separated from the main body, and on we still pressed, rustling and crackling along, while now and again I could make out the well-defined forms of pheasants roosting amidst the low branches of the trees. All at once I heard my uncle stop short, for about a hundred yards to my right there came again a sharp “bang, bang” of two guns.

“Push on, my boy,” whispered the old gentleman, closing up; and then, as fast as we could for the dense undergrowth, we made our way in the direction of the sounds. “They’re out strong, my boy, but we’re four determined men with right on our side, and a prize to win; eh, you dog?”

“Oof!” I involuntarily exclaimed, for just then my uncle gave me a poke in the ribs with his stick—very facetiously, no doubt; but it hurt.

We were now in the thickest part of the wood; and, after going a little farther, I felt my shoulder clutched, and “Here they come,” was whispered in my ear. “Seize one man, Dick, and hold on to him like a bull-dog.”

Just then I could hear in front the sharp crackling and rustling made by bodies being forced through the underwood; and, grasping my staff and pressing eagerly forward, I waited with beating heart for the coming of the enemy.

I did not have to wait long, for the next moment I was face to face with Browsem.

“Lord, sir! I thought it had been one on ’em,” he exclaimed, and then a whispered consultation having been held, we opened out about twenty yards apart, and went straight away in the direction we supposed the poachers to have taken.

On, slowly and painfully, with the twigs flying back and lashing our faces, roots trying to trip us up, and the night growing darker and darker. Right and left I could hear my uncle and Browsem, while right off beyond the old gentleman, Mr Todds, the reticent, was making his way. Every eye was strained and every ear attent to catch the slightest sound; but for quite ten minutes we crept on until right in our rear came the sharp, loud report of a gun; and then, after the interval of a few moments, another louder and apparently nearer.

“Back again!” cried my uncle; and then, casting off all caution, we all pushed forward eagerly, closing in as we went, till we were only separated by a few bushes, so that I could hear the hard breathing on either side. Hard work blundering and stumbling along; but the will was good, and at last we all drew up again in a small opening, panting, hot, and regularly breathed.

“Hist!” whispered my uncle, and we all listened eagerly; but, with the exception of a wild, strange cry some distance off, all was silent.

“What’s that?” I whispered to Browsem.

“Only a howl, sir,” he whispered again. “Blessed rum start this, ain’t it?”

“Bang, bang!” again a hundred yards off.

“Come on!” roared my uncle furiously, “there won’t be a bird left in the place;” and away we dashed again, but only to pull up once more, regularly puzzled.

“’Tain’t no good, sir,” whispered Browsem. “We might go on like this all night, and ketch no one.”

“Why?” I said, mopping my brow.

“That ’ere, sir, as I said was a howl, must ha’ been Munday’s Ghost, and them ’ere shots as we keeps hearing’s the ones as killed the poor fellow, and that’s why the poachers never comes to this bit.”

“Browsem,” puffed my uncle.

“Yes, sir,” said Browsem.

“You’re a fool, Browsem,” puffed my uncle.

“Thanky, sir,” said Browsem.

“What do you mean by that, sir?” cried my uncle, fiercely.

“Nothing, sir,” said the keeper, mildly.

“For two pins, sir,” cried my uncle, fiercely, “I’d discharge you, sir. D’yer hear? discharge you, sir, for talking such foolery. Ghosts—posts! pooh! bah! puff! stuff! yah! Forward.”

Mr Todds, who was at my elbow, murmured his approval of his superior’s language, but gave a superstitious shiver at the same moment. And then once more we opened out, and tramped through the wood, till regularly beaten out; and, without having heard another shot or seen a single enemy, we reluctantly retraced our steps to the Priory.

The next morning, at breakfast, the parlour-maid again announced Browsem—for my uncle abjures men-servants in the house—and the keeper, looking puzzled and long-faced, appeared at the door.

“Now, then,” sputtered my uncle, “have you caught them?”

“They cleared Sandy Plants last night, sir,” growled the man.

“Who? what?” cried my uncle, upsetting his coffee.

“Some on ’em—Ruddles’s, I s’pose,” said Browsem. “Don’t b’leeve there’s a tail left out’er scores,” said the man.

“There, go down and wait, and I’ll come directly after breakfast.”

But to all intents and purposes my uncle had finished his breakfast, for nothing more would he touch, while his face grew purple with rage. Gout—everything—was forgotten for the time; and half an hour after, Browsem was pointing out the signs of the havoc made on the preceding night in the fir-plantation. Here and there lay feathers, spots of blood, gun-wads; and many a trunk was scarred and flayed with shot. In one place, where the trees were largest, the poachers seemed to have been burning sulphur beneath the boughs, while twice over we came upon wounded pheasants, and one dead—hung high up in the stubbly branches, where it had caught.

My uncle looked furious, and then turning in the direction of the scene of the last night’s adventures, he strode off, and we followed in silence.

On reaching the wood, we very soon found, from the trampled underwood and broken twigs, traces of our chase; but the birds seemed plentiful, and no feathers or blood-stains were to be found.

“They didn’t get many here, at all events,” muttered my uncle.

Both Browsem and Todds shook their heads at me, and looked ghosts.

“Strange thing, though,” muttered my uncle. “What do you think of it, Browsem?”

The keeper screwed up his face, and said nothing.

“Confound you for a donkey!” ejaculated the irascible old gentleman. “What Tom-fool rubbish you men do believe. Hullo! though, here’s a wad;” and he stooped and picked up a wadding evidently cut out of an old beaver hat. “That don’t look ghostly, at all events; does it, booby?”

Browsem only screwed up his phiz a little tighter.

“Why, tut, tut, tut! Come here, Dick!” shouted the old gentleman, excitedly. “We’ve been done, my lad; and they’ve cleared out the plantation while we were racing up and down here.”

I followed the old gentleman to one of the openings where we had stopped together the night before, when Todds, who was close behind, suddenly gave a grunt, and stooping down, picked up a half-empty horn powder-flask.

“That’s Ruddles’s, I’d swear,” growled Browsem.

“Of course,” said my uncle. “And now, look here, Dick,” he cried, pointing to the half-burnt gun-wads lying about near a large pollard oak. “There, shin up, and look down inside this tree.”

With very little difficulty, I wonderingly climbed up some fifteen feet, by means of the low branches, which came off clayey on my hands, as though some one had mounted by that same means lately, and then I found that I could look down right through the hollow trunk, which was lighted by a hole here and there.

“That’ll do; come down,” cried my uncle. “If I’d only thought of it last night, we could have boxed the rascal up—a vagabond! keeping us racing up and down the wood, while he sat snugly in his hole, blazing away directly we were a few yards off.”

I was certainly very close to Jenny that afternoon when my uncle, whom we thought to be napping in his study, rushed into the room.

“Hurrah, Dick! Tompkins has peached, and they sent fifty pheasants up in Ruddles’s cart this morning; but the old rascal’s locked up, and—hum! That sort of thing looks pretty,” he continued, for we were certainly taken somewhat by surprise. “But, you dog,” he roared, as Jenny darted from the room, “you did not catch the scoundrel.”

However, after that morning’s take, even if a hundred pheasants had been sent in the cart, my uncle would have been plastic as clay, while, an hour afterwards, he exclaimed:

“Why, Dick, I’d almost forgotten my gout.”

Chapter Nineteen.The Spirits of the Bells.Heart-sore and spirit-weary,Life blank, and future dreary,Mournfully I gazed upon my fire’s golden glow,Pondering on idle errors,Writhing under conscience terrors,Gloomily I murmured, with my spirits faint and low.I had drained the golden measure,Sipped the sweets of so-called pleasure,Seeing in the future but a time for newer joy;Now I found their luscious cloying,Ev’ry hope and peace destroying,Golden visions, brightest fancies - bitter, base alloy.Riches, comfort spoke then vainly,To a brain thus tinged insanely,Wildly throbbing, aching, teeming,Fancy-filled with hideous dreaming,Speaking of an aimless life, a life without a goal:While as if to chide my murmur,Came a voice which cried, “Be firmer,Would’st be like the beasts that perish? Think thou of thy soul.”Starting from my chair and trembling,Vainly to my heart dissembling,’Twas an idle fancy that had seemed to strike my ear;Still the words came stealing round me,Horror in its chains had bound me;Dripping from my aching brow, were beads of deepest fear.Hurrying to my moonlit casement,Throwing up the sash,Highest roof to lowest basementSeemed to brightly flash,Glitt’ring white, with Winter’s dressing;While each crystal was caressingPurest rays that glanced around it from the moon’s pale light.Nature slept in sweetest beauty,Gleaming stars spoke hope and duty:Calmer grew my aching brow, beneath the heavenly sight.Christmas-Eve! the Christian’s morrowSoon would dawn on joy and sorrow,Spreading cheer and holy pleasure brightly through the land;Whilst I, lonely, stricken-hearted,Under bitter mem’ries smarted,Standing like an outcast, or as one the world had banned.Sadly to my chair returning,By my fire still brightly burning,Battling with the purer rays that through the window gleamed;Like two spirits floating o’er me,Vividly rays played before me,Each to wrap me in its light that on my forehead streamed.The glowing fire with warm embracingTold of earthly, sinful racing:Warmth and pleasure in its looks, but in its touch sharp pain;While the moonbeams, paler, purer,Spoke of pleasures, sweeter, surer,Oft rejected by Earth’s sons for joys that bear a stain.Suddenly with dread I shivered,As the air around me quivered,Laden with the burden of a mighty spirit-tone,Rolling through the midnight stilly,Borne upon the night-wind chilly,Rushing through my chamber, where I sat in dread alone.“Soul!” it cried, in power pealing,“Soul!” the cry was through me stealing,Vibrating through each fibre with a wonder-breeding might.“Soul!” the voice was deeply roaring;“Soul!” rang back from roof and flooring,Booming thro’ the silence of the piercing winter night.Now came crashing, wildly dashing,Waves of sound in power splashing,Ringing, swinging, tearing, scaring,Shrieking out in words unsparing,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Roaring through my chamber portal,Borne thro’ window, borne thro’ ceilingEver to my sense revealing,Still the bells these words were pealing,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Till my room seemed filled with bells that rang the self-same strain;While, above the brazen roaring,Mightily the first tone pouring,Boomed out “Soul!” in mighty pow’r, and linked in with the chain.Then an unseen presence o’er meLeant, and from my chamber tore me:Out upon the night-wind I was swept among the sounds,Whirling on amid the pealing,Warning to the city dealingOf the coming morrow, in reverberating rounds.Still they cried, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Shrieking all around me as I floated with the wind,Ever borne away and crying,Every bell-tone swiftly flyingO’er the silent city, to its slumber now consigned.Hurried round each airy tower,Writhing with the unseen powerVainly, for a spirit-chain each struggling limb would bind;Doomed to hear those words repelling,Ever on my senses knelling,Still - a booming hurricane - we wrestled with the wind.Sweeping o’er the sluggish river,Where dark piles the waves dissever,’Neath the bridges, by the shipping,Sluice-gates, with the waters dripping,By the rustling, moaning rushes,Where the tribute-water gushes;Forced to gaze on ghastly faces,Where the dread one left his traces,Faces of the suicide, the murdered floated on,Whose blue, leaden lips, unclosing,Shrieked out words, my brain that froze in,Crying I had stayed my help in hours long passed and gone.“Hopeless, hopeless!” ever crying,“Hopeless we are round you dying,Asking vainly for the aid withheld in selfish grasp;Hopeless, from the crime that’s breeding,Ever to new horrors leading,Horrors, growing, flow’ring, seeding,Soon to spread a poison round more deadly than the asp.”Still an unseen presence bound me;Still the bells were shrieking round me,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Rising, falling, ever calling,Thought and mem’ry, soul appalling,Borne away and louder crying,In the distance softly dying;Here in gentle murmurs sighing,Then again far higher flying,Swiftly o’er the houses hieing;While around these fear-begettersBound me in their brazen fetters.On I sped with brain on fire,’Mid the bell-tones, higher, higher,List’ning to their words upbraiding,Each with dread my soul new lading.Now away, the mighty chorusSwept around a church before us,In whose yard were paupers lying.From their graves I heard them crying,Joining in the words upbraiding,Loudly piercing, softly fading:“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Cease your murmurs, cease your sorrow,From our fate a lesson borrow:Never heeded, lost to pity,Dying round you through the city.Leave us to our peaceful sleeping,Freed from hunger, care, and weeping.”O’er and o’er the hillocks grassy,Now away o’er buildings massy:Ever cries, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Thro’ the wards where pain was shrieking,Where disease was vengeance wreaking,Still the sounds were hurrying, crying,As in emulation trying;Many a fev’rish slumber breaking;O’er the lips that knew no slaking.All were crying, help imploring;While the bells from roof to flooring,Still, as from the first beginning,Still the self-same burden dinning,Spite of all my writhing, tearing,Onward still my spirit bearingFar away in booming sallies,Rushing thro’ the crowded alleys,Where grim Want his wings was quiv’ringO’er the pinched forms, half clad, shiv’ring;Where disease and death were hov’ring;Where deep sorrow earth was cov’ring.Away, again, where life was failing;Away, again, by orphans wailing;Thro’ the prison bars now darting,Where the fettered wretch lay smarting,Wakened from his sleep, and starting,He too shrieked in bitter partingCurses on my aid withholden,In the glorious hours golden,Wasted, thrown away in madness—Hours that might deep sorrow, sadness.Misery, have chased from numbers,—Chased the want the earth that cumbers.Away, away, and faster speeding,Away, the tones seemed round me pleadingLessons to my madness reading,From the scenes I’d lived unheeding.Still the unseen fetters bound me;Still the burden floated round me:“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”But the words came softer, lower,Calmer still, and sweeter, slower,Till they murmured off in silence on the wintry air;Save returning, booming, rolling,Came that one vast warning, tolling“Soul!” as when at first it called me, sitting in my chair.Now again from earth rebounding,Quick and fast, the bells were sounding,And I sprang from out my seat, with wild and startled look.’Twas the blest Redeemer’s morning!—Sunshine brightly Earth adorning,—And the Christmas jocund peal my brightened casement shook.Hope has risen clearer, purer,O’er my life-course firmer, surer,Since that eve, when gloomily I pondered on my life;When I heard, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Booming on my aching brain, with murmurs thickly rife.

Heart-sore and spirit-weary,Life blank, and future dreary,Mournfully I gazed upon my fire’s golden glow,Pondering on idle errors,Writhing under conscience terrors,Gloomily I murmured, with my spirits faint and low.I had drained the golden measure,Sipped the sweets of so-called pleasure,Seeing in the future but a time for newer joy;Now I found their luscious cloying,Ev’ry hope and peace destroying,Golden visions, brightest fancies - bitter, base alloy.Riches, comfort spoke then vainly,To a brain thus tinged insanely,Wildly throbbing, aching, teeming,Fancy-filled with hideous dreaming,Speaking of an aimless life, a life without a goal:While as if to chide my murmur,Came a voice which cried, “Be firmer,Would’st be like the beasts that perish? Think thou of thy soul.”Starting from my chair and trembling,Vainly to my heart dissembling,’Twas an idle fancy that had seemed to strike my ear;Still the words came stealing round me,Horror in its chains had bound me;Dripping from my aching brow, were beads of deepest fear.Hurrying to my moonlit casement,Throwing up the sash,Highest roof to lowest basementSeemed to brightly flash,Glitt’ring white, with Winter’s dressing;While each crystal was caressingPurest rays that glanced around it from the moon’s pale light.Nature slept in sweetest beauty,Gleaming stars spoke hope and duty:Calmer grew my aching brow, beneath the heavenly sight.Christmas-Eve! the Christian’s morrowSoon would dawn on joy and sorrow,Spreading cheer and holy pleasure brightly through the land;Whilst I, lonely, stricken-hearted,Under bitter mem’ries smarted,Standing like an outcast, or as one the world had banned.Sadly to my chair returning,By my fire still brightly burning,Battling with the purer rays that through the window gleamed;Like two spirits floating o’er me,Vividly rays played before me,Each to wrap me in its light that on my forehead streamed.The glowing fire with warm embracingTold of earthly, sinful racing:Warmth and pleasure in its looks, but in its touch sharp pain;While the moonbeams, paler, purer,Spoke of pleasures, sweeter, surer,Oft rejected by Earth’s sons for joys that bear a stain.Suddenly with dread I shivered,As the air around me quivered,Laden with the burden of a mighty spirit-tone,Rolling through the midnight stilly,Borne upon the night-wind chilly,Rushing through my chamber, where I sat in dread alone.“Soul!” it cried, in power pealing,“Soul!” the cry was through me stealing,Vibrating through each fibre with a wonder-breeding might.“Soul!” the voice was deeply roaring;“Soul!” rang back from roof and flooring,Booming thro’ the silence of the piercing winter night.Now came crashing, wildly dashing,Waves of sound in power splashing,Ringing, swinging, tearing, scaring,Shrieking out in words unsparing,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Roaring through my chamber portal,Borne thro’ window, borne thro’ ceilingEver to my sense revealing,Still the bells these words were pealing,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Till my room seemed filled with bells that rang the self-same strain;While, above the brazen roaring,Mightily the first tone pouring,Boomed out “Soul!” in mighty pow’r, and linked in with the chain.Then an unseen presence o’er meLeant, and from my chamber tore me:Out upon the night-wind I was swept among the sounds,Whirling on amid the pealing,Warning to the city dealingOf the coming morrow, in reverberating rounds.Still they cried, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Shrieking all around me as I floated with the wind,Ever borne away and crying,Every bell-tone swiftly flyingO’er the silent city, to its slumber now consigned.Hurried round each airy tower,Writhing with the unseen powerVainly, for a spirit-chain each struggling limb would bind;Doomed to hear those words repelling,Ever on my senses knelling,Still - a booming hurricane - we wrestled with the wind.Sweeping o’er the sluggish river,Where dark piles the waves dissever,’Neath the bridges, by the shipping,Sluice-gates, with the waters dripping,By the rustling, moaning rushes,Where the tribute-water gushes;Forced to gaze on ghastly faces,Where the dread one left his traces,Faces of the suicide, the murdered floated on,Whose blue, leaden lips, unclosing,Shrieked out words, my brain that froze in,Crying I had stayed my help in hours long passed and gone.“Hopeless, hopeless!” ever crying,“Hopeless we are round you dying,Asking vainly for the aid withheld in selfish grasp;Hopeless, from the crime that’s breeding,Ever to new horrors leading,Horrors, growing, flow’ring, seeding,Soon to spread a poison round more deadly than the asp.”Still an unseen presence bound me;Still the bells were shrieking round me,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Rising, falling, ever calling,Thought and mem’ry, soul appalling,Borne away and louder crying,In the distance softly dying;Here in gentle murmurs sighing,Then again far higher flying,Swiftly o’er the houses hieing;While around these fear-begettersBound me in their brazen fetters.On I sped with brain on fire,’Mid the bell-tones, higher, higher,List’ning to their words upbraiding,Each with dread my soul new lading.Now away, the mighty chorusSwept around a church before us,In whose yard were paupers lying.From their graves I heard them crying,Joining in the words upbraiding,Loudly piercing, softly fading:“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Cease your murmurs, cease your sorrow,From our fate a lesson borrow:Never heeded, lost to pity,Dying round you through the city.Leave us to our peaceful sleeping,Freed from hunger, care, and weeping.”O’er and o’er the hillocks grassy,Now away o’er buildings massy:Ever cries, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Thro’ the wards where pain was shrieking,Where disease was vengeance wreaking,Still the sounds were hurrying, crying,As in emulation trying;Many a fev’rish slumber breaking;O’er the lips that knew no slaking.All were crying, help imploring;While the bells from roof to flooring,Still, as from the first beginning,Still the self-same burden dinning,Spite of all my writhing, tearing,Onward still my spirit bearingFar away in booming sallies,Rushing thro’ the crowded alleys,Where grim Want his wings was quiv’ringO’er the pinched forms, half clad, shiv’ring;Where disease and death were hov’ring;Where deep sorrow earth was cov’ring.Away, again, where life was failing;Away, again, by orphans wailing;Thro’ the prison bars now darting,Where the fettered wretch lay smarting,Wakened from his sleep, and starting,He too shrieked in bitter partingCurses on my aid withholden,In the glorious hours golden,Wasted, thrown away in madness—Hours that might deep sorrow, sadness.Misery, have chased from numbers,—Chased the want the earth that cumbers.Away, away, and faster speeding,Away, the tones seemed round me pleadingLessons to my madness reading,From the scenes I’d lived unheeding.Still the unseen fetters bound me;Still the burden floated round me:“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”But the words came softer, lower,Calmer still, and sweeter, slower,Till they murmured off in silence on the wintry air;Save returning, booming, rolling,Came that one vast warning, tolling“Soul!” as when at first it called me, sitting in my chair.Now again from earth rebounding,Quick and fast, the bells were sounding,And I sprang from out my seat, with wild and startled look.’Twas the blest Redeemer’s morning!—Sunshine brightly Earth adorning,—And the Christmas jocund peal my brightened casement shook.Hope has risen clearer, purer,O’er my life-course firmer, surer,Since that eve, when gloomily I pondered on my life;When I heard, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Booming on my aching brain, with murmurs thickly rife.

Heart-sore and spirit-weary,Life blank, and future dreary,Mournfully I gazed upon my fire’s golden glow,Pondering on idle errors,Writhing under conscience terrors,Gloomily I murmured, with my spirits faint and low.I had drained the golden measure,Sipped the sweets of so-called pleasure,Seeing in the future but a time for newer joy;Now I found their luscious cloying,Ev’ry hope and peace destroying,Golden visions, brightest fancies - bitter, base alloy.Riches, comfort spoke then vainly,To a brain thus tinged insanely,Wildly throbbing, aching, teeming,Fancy-filled with hideous dreaming,Speaking of an aimless life, a life without a goal:While as if to chide my murmur,Came a voice which cried, “Be firmer,Would’st be like the beasts that perish? Think thou of thy soul.”Starting from my chair and trembling,Vainly to my heart dissembling,’Twas an idle fancy that had seemed to strike my ear;Still the words came stealing round me,Horror in its chains had bound me;Dripping from my aching brow, were beads of deepest fear.Hurrying to my moonlit casement,Throwing up the sash,Highest roof to lowest basementSeemed to brightly flash,Glitt’ring white, with Winter’s dressing;While each crystal was caressingPurest rays that glanced around it from the moon’s pale light.Nature slept in sweetest beauty,Gleaming stars spoke hope and duty:Calmer grew my aching brow, beneath the heavenly sight.Christmas-Eve! the Christian’s morrowSoon would dawn on joy and sorrow,Spreading cheer and holy pleasure brightly through the land;Whilst I, lonely, stricken-hearted,Under bitter mem’ries smarted,Standing like an outcast, or as one the world had banned.Sadly to my chair returning,By my fire still brightly burning,Battling with the purer rays that through the window gleamed;Like two spirits floating o’er me,Vividly rays played before me,Each to wrap me in its light that on my forehead streamed.The glowing fire with warm embracingTold of earthly, sinful racing:Warmth and pleasure in its looks, but in its touch sharp pain;While the moonbeams, paler, purer,Spoke of pleasures, sweeter, surer,Oft rejected by Earth’s sons for joys that bear a stain.Suddenly with dread I shivered,As the air around me quivered,Laden with the burden of a mighty spirit-tone,Rolling through the midnight stilly,Borne upon the night-wind chilly,Rushing through my chamber, where I sat in dread alone.“Soul!” it cried, in power pealing,“Soul!” the cry was through me stealing,Vibrating through each fibre with a wonder-breeding might.“Soul!” the voice was deeply roaring;“Soul!” rang back from roof and flooring,Booming thro’ the silence of the piercing winter night.Now came crashing, wildly dashing,Waves of sound in power splashing,Ringing, swinging, tearing, scaring,Shrieking out in words unsparing,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Roaring through my chamber portal,Borne thro’ window, borne thro’ ceilingEver to my sense revealing,Still the bells these words were pealing,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Till my room seemed filled with bells that rang the self-same strain;While, above the brazen roaring,Mightily the first tone pouring,Boomed out “Soul!” in mighty pow’r, and linked in with the chain.Then an unseen presence o’er meLeant, and from my chamber tore me:Out upon the night-wind I was swept among the sounds,Whirling on amid the pealing,Warning to the city dealingOf the coming morrow, in reverberating rounds.Still they cried, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Shrieking all around me as I floated with the wind,Ever borne away and crying,Every bell-tone swiftly flyingO’er the silent city, to its slumber now consigned.Hurried round each airy tower,Writhing with the unseen powerVainly, for a spirit-chain each struggling limb would bind;Doomed to hear those words repelling,Ever on my senses knelling,Still - a booming hurricane - we wrestled with the wind.Sweeping o’er the sluggish river,Where dark piles the waves dissever,’Neath the bridges, by the shipping,Sluice-gates, with the waters dripping,By the rustling, moaning rushes,Where the tribute-water gushes;Forced to gaze on ghastly faces,Where the dread one left his traces,Faces of the suicide, the murdered floated on,Whose blue, leaden lips, unclosing,Shrieked out words, my brain that froze in,Crying I had stayed my help in hours long passed and gone.“Hopeless, hopeless!” ever crying,“Hopeless we are round you dying,Asking vainly for the aid withheld in selfish grasp;Hopeless, from the crime that’s breeding,Ever to new horrors leading,Horrors, growing, flow’ring, seeding,Soon to spread a poison round more deadly than the asp.”Still an unseen presence bound me;Still the bells were shrieking round me,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Rising, falling, ever calling,Thought and mem’ry, soul appalling,Borne away and louder crying,In the distance softly dying;Here in gentle murmurs sighing,Then again far higher flying,Swiftly o’er the houses hieing;While around these fear-begettersBound me in their brazen fetters.On I sped with brain on fire,’Mid the bell-tones, higher, higher,List’ning to their words upbraiding,Each with dread my soul new lading.Now away, the mighty chorusSwept around a church before us,In whose yard were paupers lying.From their graves I heard them crying,Joining in the words upbraiding,Loudly piercing, softly fading:“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Cease your murmurs, cease your sorrow,From our fate a lesson borrow:Never heeded, lost to pity,Dying round you through the city.Leave us to our peaceful sleeping,Freed from hunger, care, and weeping.”O’er and o’er the hillocks grassy,Now away o’er buildings massy:Ever cries, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Thro’ the wards where pain was shrieking,Where disease was vengeance wreaking,Still the sounds were hurrying, crying,As in emulation trying;Many a fev’rish slumber breaking;O’er the lips that knew no slaking.All were crying, help imploring;While the bells from roof to flooring,Still, as from the first beginning,Still the self-same burden dinning,Spite of all my writhing, tearing,Onward still my spirit bearingFar away in booming sallies,Rushing thro’ the crowded alleys,Where grim Want his wings was quiv’ringO’er the pinched forms, half clad, shiv’ring;Where disease and death were hov’ring;Where deep sorrow earth was cov’ring.Away, again, where life was failing;Away, again, by orphans wailing;Thro’ the prison bars now darting,Where the fettered wretch lay smarting,Wakened from his sleep, and starting,He too shrieked in bitter partingCurses on my aid withholden,In the glorious hours golden,Wasted, thrown away in madness—Hours that might deep sorrow, sadness.Misery, have chased from numbers,—Chased the want the earth that cumbers.Away, away, and faster speeding,Away, the tones seemed round me pleadingLessons to my madness reading,From the scenes I’d lived unheeding.Still the unseen fetters bound me;Still the burden floated round me:“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”But the words came softer, lower,Calmer still, and sweeter, slower,Till they murmured off in silence on the wintry air;Save returning, booming, rolling,Came that one vast warning, tolling“Soul!” as when at first it called me, sitting in my chair.Now again from earth rebounding,Quick and fast, the bells were sounding,And I sprang from out my seat, with wild and startled look.’Twas the blest Redeemer’s morning!—Sunshine brightly Earth adorning,—And the Christmas jocund peal my brightened casement shook.Hope has risen clearer, purer,O’er my life-course firmer, surer,Since that eve, when gloomily I pondered on my life;When I heard, as from doom’s portal,“Soul of sorrow! murm’ring mortal!”Booming on my aching brain, with murmurs thickly rife.

Chapter Twenty.A Rogue and a Vagabond.“You must fetch the doctor,” says Dick, as I stood over him looking at his poor worn face, all drawed with pain and hollow-looking, although he’d got his paint on and the band and spangles were round his head, though his black hair was all rough with him a-tossing about.There was the bit of candle flaring away and guttering down, the wind flapping the canvas backwards and forwards and coming in fierce through the holes, while the rain was dripping from the top because the canvas hadn’t got well soaked and tight, and I couldn’t help thinking about what a miserable place it was for a sick man. There was the drum a-going and the clarinet squeaking, while another of the company was rattling away at a pair o’ pot-lid cymbals; the grease-pots were flaring in front of the stage, and them all a dancing and one thing and another over and over again, while Balchin’s voice, husky and bad with his cold, could be heard telling people to walk up for the last time that night; but they wouldn’t, for it was wet and miserable and spiritless as could be.Poor Dick had been out ever so long in his tights and fleshings doing his summersets and bits o’ posturing, till his thin things were wet through, when he comes in at last to me, where I was nursing little Totty, hard at work to keep her quiet, and he says with a bit of a groan—“I’m knocked over, lass. It’s like a knife in my chest,” and I could hear his breath rattling hard, as he looked that ill I couldn’t keep the tears back. You see he’d been bad for days and taking medicine for his cough; but then what good was that with us, going from place to place in wet weather and him obliged to take his turn with the rest, and we always sleeping under the canvas. Why, he ought to have been in a house and with a doctor to him, though he wouldn’t hear of it when I talked about it.“Can’t afford it, Sally,” he’d say, and then, poor fellow, he’d sit up in bed and cough till he’d fall back worn out, when as soon as he was laid down, back came the cough again worse than ever, and I’ve lain quiet and still, crying because I couldn’t help him. Don’t know anything more sad and wearying than to hear some one cough—cough—cough the whole long night through, with it resting a little when sitting up, and then coming on again worse and worse as soon as you lie down.And that’s how it was with poor Dick, but he had a heart like a lion and would never give up. All the others used to lodge about at the public-houses, ’cept Balchin, who lived in the van, but Dick said he liked being under the canvas best, for you were like in your own place, and there was no noise and bother with the landlords, besides sleeping in all sorts of dirty places after other people, so we always kept to the corner of the tent and under the stage, making use of a bit of charcoal fire in a stand.And Dick wouldn’t have the doctor till that night, when he says at last, “you must fetch him.” I’d been watching him lying there hardly able to breathe, and sometimes, when his eyes were nearly shut, you could only see the whites, while his hands tore like at the covering, he seemed in such pain.Just then in came Balchin, looking very cross and out of humour, for there was the ground to pay for, and he’d taken next to nothing that night.“What did you sneak off like that for, Dick Parker?” he says, and then Dick started up, but he fell back with a bit of a groan, when Balchin grumbled out something, and turned round and went off.“Could you mind little Totty?” I says to Dick, for I didn’t like to take the child out in the wet.He didn’t speak, but made a place aside him for the little thing, and the next minute the poor little mite had nestled up close to him, and I turned to put on my shawl, when who should lift up the canvas and come in but Balchin, with a steaming hot glass of whisky and water in his hand?“Here we are, my boy,” he says, in his rough cheery way, that he could put on when he liked. “Now is the sun of summer turned to glorious winter, so away with discontent and a merry Christmas and a happy noo year to you, my boy. You’re a bit outer sorts you are, and so was I just now, but I’m what you’re going to be directly, so tip some of this up.”But Dick only shook his head and smiled, and then whispering him to please stop till I got back, I slipped out to fetch the doctor.It isn’t hard to find the doctor’s place in a town, and I was soon there standing, ring, ring, ring, while the rain, now half sleet and snow, began to come down so, that I shivered again. But I hardly thought about it, for my mind was all upon poor Dick, for a terrible thought had come into my head, and that was, that my poor boy was going to leave me. Everything now seemed to tell me of it: the cold howling wind seemed to shriek as it tore away through the long street, the clock at the big church seemed to be tolling instead of striking twelve, while the very air seemed alive with terrible whispers of something dreadful going to happen.At last a window upstairs was opened, and I asked if the doctor was at home.“Who wants him?” said a voice.“I want him to come to my poor husband, for he’s—” I couldn’t finish the word for a sob that seemed to choke me.“Where do you live?” said the same voice.“At the show in the market-place,” I said, feeling all the while half ashamed.“You’d better go to Mr Smith, he’s the parish doctor,” said the voice, and then the window was shut. And I stood half blind with the tears that would come, as I dragged my shawl closer round me, and stood shivering and wondering which way to turn so as to find the parish doctor. The wind was sweeping and howling along; the snow came in heavy squalls which whitened me in a few moments, while the cold seemed to chill one’s very marrow; but I hardly thought of it, for I was all the time seeing poor Dick lying in our miserable bit of a bed by the light of the flaring candle, while above the howling of the wind I seemed to be hearing his low hacking cough.Oh! it was pitiful, pitiful, standing out there on that bitter night, close to Christmas-time, when people’s hearts are said to be more charitably disposed; but now, though bright lights shone in windows here and there, I was alone, alone, in the bitter storm, without a soul to direct me or teach me where to go for a doctor. I hurried to the end of the street—then back along the other side, up one street and down another, eagerly looking for a lighted lamp over a door, or for some one to tell me; but not a soul was to be seen, and every public-house was shut.On I went again, growing almost frantic, for the howling wind seemed to form itself into cries—wild, appealing cries to me for help for my boy, who lay suffering in our wretched wandering home; and at last I ran up to a door and rang the bell, but no one answered. Then I heard the muffled sound of wheels, and stood listening. Yes, they were coming nearer and nearer—they were in the street, and I ran into the road to try and stay the driver, as I shrieked for help, for I was most mad with anxiety; but there was the sharp stinging cut of a whip across my cheek, and half-blinded and smarting, I started back, and the next minute the round of the wheels had died away.“Oh, oh, oh!” I moaned piteously, wringing my hands; what shall I do, what shall I do? But the next moment my heart leaped, for by the light of one of the street lamps I saw a man approaching and hurried up to him.“Sir, sir,” I cried; “the doctor—the—” But an oath and a rude push, which sent me staggering off the pavement to fall in the mud and snow of the road, was my answer, and then, as half bewildered I slowly got up, I heard a harsh laugh and the man began whistling.I could not sob now, but felt as if something was clutching at my heart and tearing it, but again I hurried along half blind with the heavy snow, and now once more I saw a man in front, but dimly seen through the heavy fall.“Help, help,” I cried hoarsely, with my hands clasped together.“Eh! what?” he said.“Oh, sir, a doctor, for God’s sake—for pity’s sake—my poor boy!”“Who, who?” he said, taking hold of my arm.“My poor husband,” I said, “he’s dying.”The next moment he was walking beside me, as I thought to show me where the doctor lived, and it was nearer the market-place where the show stood.“Come in here,” he said, opening a door with a key, when feeling trembling and suspicious, I hung back, but the light falling upon my new companion, showed me a pleasant faced old man, and I followed him into a surgery, where he put something into a bottle, and five minutes after we were standing in the booth where Balchin and his wife and a couple more of the company were standing about the bed where poor Dick lay, breathing so heavily that it was pitiful to hear him, and me not daring to wake him for fear of his cough.“God bless my soul,” muttered the doctor I had so fortunately met; “what a place and what a night! Can’t you move him to a house?”“No,” said Dick, suddenly sitting up. “I’ll die here. This is good enough for a rogue and a vagabond of a strolling player. But doctor,” he said, with his eyes almost blazing, “can you cure my complaint?”“Well, well! we’ll see,” said the doctor, laying his hand upon poor Dick’s chest.“No, no; not there, sir,” said Dick. “It’s here—here—in my heart, and it’s sore about that poor girl and this little one: that’s my complaint, not this cough. What are they to do? Where are they to go? Who’s to keep them when I’m gone? Not that I’ve done much for them, poor things.”“Dick, Dick,” I said, reproachfully.“My girl!” he says, so softly and tenderly and with such a look, that I was down next moment upon my knees beside him, when he threw one arm round my neck and rested his head again my cheek so loving, so tender, while his other arm was round the little one now fast asleep.And there we all stayed for a bit; no one speaking, for the doctor stood with his head bent down and his hat off, while the light of the candle shone amongst his silver-looking hair. Two or three times over I saw Balchin and his wife and the others look hard at him, and once Balchin touched him on the sleeve, but he stood still looking on, while poor Dick lay there with his head upon my shoulder, and me, not crying but confused and struck down, and dazed like with sorrow.At last every one seemed so still and quiet, that I looked up wondering to see the doctor hold up his hand to the others to be silent, when, whispering to me that he would be back in a few minutes, he hurried away. And still no one moved for perhaps a quarter of an hour, when through being half blind now with the tears that began to come, I could not see the doctor come back; and this time he had something in his hand which he made as though he would give to Dick, but he shrunk back next moment shaking his head, gave the glass to Balchin to hold, and then as Mrs Balchin began sobbing loudly, the doctor knelt down beside the bed and said some words in a low tone at first, but getting more earnest and loud as he went on and then he was silent, and Dick seemed to give a deep drawn sigh.Then I waited to hear the next sigh, for all was still and quiet; Balchin and his wife stood with their heads bent down, and Mrs Balchin had left off sobbing; the others stood about, one here and one there, and the good doctor was still upon his knees, and I couldn’t help thinking how calm and easy poor Dick’s laboured breathing had become, when all at once little Totty began to say some prattling words in her sleep, and then as if some bright little dream was hers she began to laugh out loud in her little merry way, and nestled closer to her father.All at once I started, for a horrible thought came into my mind, and turning my face I looked as well as I could at poor Dick’s eyes. The light was very dim and I could only see that they were half open, while there was a quiet happy smile upon his lip. Then I eagerly held the back of my hand to his mouth to feel his breath, but there was nothing. I felt his heart—it was still. I whispered to him—“Dick! Dick! speak to me,” and I fancied there was just another faint sigh, but no answer—no reply—for with his arms round all he loved and who loved him on this earth, he had gone from us—gone without me fancying for a moment it was so near. And then again for a moment I could not believe it, but looked first at the doctor, and then at first one and then another, till they all turned their heads away, when with a bitter cry I clasped him to me, for I knew poor Dick was dead.

“You must fetch the doctor,” says Dick, as I stood over him looking at his poor worn face, all drawed with pain and hollow-looking, although he’d got his paint on and the band and spangles were round his head, though his black hair was all rough with him a-tossing about.

There was the bit of candle flaring away and guttering down, the wind flapping the canvas backwards and forwards and coming in fierce through the holes, while the rain was dripping from the top because the canvas hadn’t got well soaked and tight, and I couldn’t help thinking about what a miserable place it was for a sick man. There was the drum a-going and the clarinet squeaking, while another of the company was rattling away at a pair o’ pot-lid cymbals; the grease-pots were flaring in front of the stage, and them all a dancing and one thing and another over and over again, while Balchin’s voice, husky and bad with his cold, could be heard telling people to walk up for the last time that night; but they wouldn’t, for it was wet and miserable and spiritless as could be.

Poor Dick had been out ever so long in his tights and fleshings doing his summersets and bits o’ posturing, till his thin things were wet through, when he comes in at last to me, where I was nursing little Totty, hard at work to keep her quiet, and he says with a bit of a groan—

“I’m knocked over, lass. It’s like a knife in my chest,” and I could hear his breath rattling hard, as he looked that ill I couldn’t keep the tears back. You see he’d been bad for days and taking medicine for his cough; but then what good was that with us, going from place to place in wet weather and him obliged to take his turn with the rest, and we always sleeping under the canvas. Why, he ought to have been in a house and with a doctor to him, though he wouldn’t hear of it when I talked about it.

“Can’t afford it, Sally,” he’d say, and then, poor fellow, he’d sit up in bed and cough till he’d fall back worn out, when as soon as he was laid down, back came the cough again worse than ever, and I’ve lain quiet and still, crying because I couldn’t help him. Don’t know anything more sad and wearying than to hear some one cough—cough—cough the whole long night through, with it resting a little when sitting up, and then coming on again worse and worse as soon as you lie down.

And that’s how it was with poor Dick, but he had a heart like a lion and would never give up. All the others used to lodge about at the public-houses, ’cept Balchin, who lived in the van, but Dick said he liked being under the canvas best, for you were like in your own place, and there was no noise and bother with the landlords, besides sleeping in all sorts of dirty places after other people, so we always kept to the corner of the tent and under the stage, making use of a bit of charcoal fire in a stand.

And Dick wouldn’t have the doctor till that night, when he says at last, “you must fetch him.” I’d been watching him lying there hardly able to breathe, and sometimes, when his eyes were nearly shut, you could only see the whites, while his hands tore like at the covering, he seemed in such pain.

Just then in came Balchin, looking very cross and out of humour, for there was the ground to pay for, and he’d taken next to nothing that night.

“What did you sneak off like that for, Dick Parker?” he says, and then Dick started up, but he fell back with a bit of a groan, when Balchin grumbled out something, and turned round and went off.

“Could you mind little Totty?” I says to Dick, for I didn’t like to take the child out in the wet.

He didn’t speak, but made a place aside him for the little thing, and the next minute the poor little mite had nestled up close to him, and I turned to put on my shawl, when who should lift up the canvas and come in but Balchin, with a steaming hot glass of whisky and water in his hand?

“Here we are, my boy,” he says, in his rough cheery way, that he could put on when he liked. “Now is the sun of summer turned to glorious winter, so away with discontent and a merry Christmas and a happy noo year to you, my boy. You’re a bit outer sorts you are, and so was I just now, but I’m what you’re going to be directly, so tip some of this up.”

But Dick only shook his head and smiled, and then whispering him to please stop till I got back, I slipped out to fetch the doctor.

It isn’t hard to find the doctor’s place in a town, and I was soon there standing, ring, ring, ring, while the rain, now half sleet and snow, began to come down so, that I shivered again. But I hardly thought about it, for my mind was all upon poor Dick, for a terrible thought had come into my head, and that was, that my poor boy was going to leave me. Everything now seemed to tell me of it: the cold howling wind seemed to shriek as it tore away through the long street, the clock at the big church seemed to be tolling instead of striking twelve, while the very air seemed alive with terrible whispers of something dreadful going to happen.

At last a window upstairs was opened, and I asked if the doctor was at home.

“Who wants him?” said a voice.

“I want him to come to my poor husband, for he’s—” I couldn’t finish the word for a sob that seemed to choke me.

“Where do you live?” said the same voice.

“At the show in the market-place,” I said, feeling all the while half ashamed.

“You’d better go to Mr Smith, he’s the parish doctor,” said the voice, and then the window was shut. And I stood half blind with the tears that would come, as I dragged my shawl closer round me, and stood shivering and wondering which way to turn so as to find the parish doctor. The wind was sweeping and howling along; the snow came in heavy squalls which whitened me in a few moments, while the cold seemed to chill one’s very marrow; but I hardly thought of it, for I was all the time seeing poor Dick lying in our miserable bit of a bed by the light of the flaring candle, while above the howling of the wind I seemed to be hearing his low hacking cough.

Oh! it was pitiful, pitiful, standing out there on that bitter night, close to Christmas-time, when people’s hearts are said to be more charitably disposed; but now, though bright lights shone in windows here and there, I was alone, alone, in the bitter storm, without a soul to direct me or teach me where to go for a doctor. I hurried to the end of the street—then back along the other side, up one street and down another, eagerly looking for a lighted lamp over a door, or for some one to tell me; but not a soul was to be seen, and every public-house was shut.

On I went again, growing almost frantic, for the howling wind seemed to form itself into cries—wild, appealing cries to me for help for my boy, who lay suffering in our wretched wandering home; and at last I ran up to a door and rang the bell, but no one answered. Then I heard the muffled sound of wheels, and stood listening. Yes, they were coming nearer and nearer—they were in the street, and I ran into the road to try and stay the driver, as I shrieked for help, for I was most mad with anxiety; but there was the sharp stinging cut of a whip across my cheek, and half-blinded and smarting, I started back, and the next minute the round of the wheels had died away.

“Oh, oh, oh!” I moaned piteously, wringing my hands; what shall I do, what shall I do? But the next moment my heart leaped, for by the light of one of the street lamps I saw a man approaching and hurried up to him.

“Sir, sir,” I cried; “the doctor—the—” But an oath and a rude push, which sent me staggering off the pavement to fall in the mud and snow of the road, was my answer, and then, as half bewildered I slowly got up, I heard a harsh laugh and the man began whistling.

I could not sob now, but felt as if something was clutching at my heart and tearing it, but again I hurried along half blind with the heavy snow, and now once more I saw a man in front, but dimly seen through the heavy fall.

“Help, help,” I cried hoarsely, with my hands clasped together.

“Eh! what?” he said.

“Oh, sir, a doctor, for God’s sake—for pity’s sake—my poor boy!”

“Who, who?” he said, taking hold of my arm.

“My poor husband,” I said, “he’s dying.”

The next moment he was walking beside me, as I thought to show me where the doctor lived, and it was nearer the market-place where the show stood.

“Come in here,” he said, opening a door with a key, when feeling trembling and suspicious, I hung back, but the light falling upon my new companion, showed me a pleasant faced old man, and I followed him into a surgery, where he put something into a bottle, and five minutes after we were standing in the booth where Balchin and his wife and a couple more of the company were standing about the bed where poor Dick lay, breathing so heavily that it was pitiful to hear him, and me not daring to wake him for fear of his cough.

“God bless my soul,” muttered the doctor I had so fortunately met; “what a place and what a night! Can’t you move him to a house?”

“No,” said Dick, suddenly sitting up. “I’ll die here. This is good enough for a rogue and a vagabond of a strolling player. But doctor,” he said, with his eyes almost blazing, “can you cure my complaint?”

“Well, well! we’ll see,” said the doctor, laying his hand upon poor Dick’s chest.

“No, no; not there, sir,” said Dick. “It’s here—here—in my heart, and it’s sore about that poor girl and this little one: that’s my complaint, not this cough. What are they to do? Where are they to go? Who’s to keep them when I’m gone? Not that I’ve done much for them, poor things.”

“Dick, Dick,” I said, reproachfully.

“My girl!” he says, so softly and tenderly and with such a look, that I was down next moment upon my knees beside him, when he threw one arm round my neck and rested his head again my cheek so loving, so tender, while his other arm was round the little one now fast asleep.

And there we all stayed for a bit; no one speaking, for the doctor stood with his head bent down and his hat off, while the light of the candle shone amongst his silver-looking hair. Two or three times over I saw Balchin and his wife and the others look hard at him, and once Balchin touched him on the sleeve, but he stood still looking on, while poor Dick lay there with his head upon my shoulder, and me, not crying but confused and struck down, and dazed like with sorrow.

At last every one seemed so still and quiet, that I looked up wondering to see the doctor hold up his hand to the others to be silent, when, whispering to me that he would be back in a few minutes, he hurried away. And still no one moved for perhaps a quarter of an hour, when through being half blind now with the tears that began to come, I could not see the doctor come back; and this time he had something in his hand which he made as though he would give to Dick, but he shrunk back next moment shaking his head, gave the glass to Balchin to hold, and then as Mrs Balchin began sobbing loudly, the doctor knelt down beside the bed and said some words in a low tone at first, but getting more earnest and loud as he went on and then he was silent, and Dick seemed to give a deep drawn sigh.

Then I waited to hear the next sigh, for all was still and quiet; Balchin and his wife stood with their heads bent down, and Mrs Balchin had left off sobbing; the others stood about, one here and one there, and the good doctor was still upon his knees, and I couldn’t help thinking how calm and easy poor Dick’s laboured breathing had become, when all at once little Totty began to say some prattling words in her sleep, and then as if some bright little dream was hers she began to laugh out loud in her little merry way, and nestled closer to her father.

All at once I started, for a horrible thought came into my mind, and turning my face I looked as well as I could at poor Dick’s eyes. The light was very dim and I could only see that they were half open, while there was a quiet happy smile upon his lip. Then I eagerly held the back of my hand to his mouth to feel his breath, but there was nothing. I felt his heart—it was still. I whispered to him—

“Dick! Dick! speak to me,” and I fancied there was just another faint sigh, but no answer—no reply—for with his arms round all he loved and who loved him on this earth, he had gone from us—gone without me fancying for a moment it was so near. And then again for a moment I could not believe it, but looked first at the doctor, and then at first one and then another, till they all turned their heads away, when with a bitter cry I clasped him to me, for I knew poor Dick was dead.

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