"Time is over for one more,"
"Time is over for one more,"
"Time is over for one more,"
"Time is over for one more,"
was graven on the front of it, and was borne along the valley; while the echo of the hills brought home the lesson of the reverse—
"Soon shall thy own life be o'er."
"Soon shall thy own life be o'er."
"Soon shall thy own life be o'er."
"Soon shall thy own life be o'er."
Keeping throbbing count, the listener spread the fingers of his one hand upon his threadbare waistcoat; and they trembled more and more, as the number grew towards the fatal forty-nine. When the forty-ninth stroke ceased to ring, and the last pulsation died away, he stood as if his own life depended on the number fifty. But the knell was finished; the years it told of were but forty-nine—gone by, like the minutes between the strokes.
"Old Channing perhaps is looking at the tower-clock. Hark! In a moment, he will strike another stroke." But old Channing knew his arithmetic too well.
"Now God forgive me for a sinful man—or worse than a man, an ungrateful beast!" cried the Sergeant, falling upon his knees, with sorrow embittered by the shameful thought, that while his old chief was at the latest gasp, himself had been flirting merrily with a handmaid of the house, and sniggering like a raw recruit. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and the lesson of the bell fell on him.
It had fallen at the same time upon ears more heedful, and less needful of it. Mr. Penniloe, on his homeward road, received the mournful message, and met the groom who had ridden so hard to save the angelical hour. And truly, if there be any value in the ancient saying—
"Happy is the soulThat hath a speedy toll,"
"Happy is the soulThat hath a speedy toll,"
"Happy is the soulThat hath a speedy toll,"
"Happy is the soul
That hath a speedy toll,"
the flight of Sir Thomas Waldron's spirit was in the right direction.
The clergyman turned from his homeward path, and hastened to the house of mourning. He scarcely expected that any one as yet would care to come down, or speak to him; but the least he could do was to offer his help. In the hush of the dusk, he was shown through the hall, and into a little sitting-room favoured by the ladies. Believing that he was quite alone, for no one moved, and the light was nearly spent, he took a seat by the curtained window, and sank into a train of sombre thoughts. But presently a lapping sound aroused him, and going to the sofa, there he found his favourite Nicie overcome with sorrow, her head drooping back, like a wind-tossed flower; whilePixie,with a piteous gaze, was nestling to her side, and offering every now and then the silent comfort of his tongue.
"What is it, my dear?" The Parson asked, as if he did not know too well. But who knows what to say sometimes? Then, shocked at himself, he said—"Don't, my dear." But she went on sobbing, as if he had not spoken; and he thought of his little Fay, when she lost her mother.
He was too kind to try any consolations, or press the sense of duty yet; but he put on his glasses, and took littlePixie, and began to stroke his wrinkled brow.
"This dear little thing is crying too," he whispered; and certainly there were tears, his own or another's, on the velvet nose. Then Nicie rose slowly, and put back her hair, and tried to look bravely at both of them.
"If mother could only cry," she said; "but she has not moved once, and she will not come away. There is one thing she ought to do, but she cannot; and I am afraid that I should never do it right. Oh, will you do it, Uncle Penniloe? It would be an excuse to get her out of the room; and then we might make her lie down, and be better. My father is gone; and will mother go too?"
Speaking as steadily as she could, but breaking down every now and then, she told him, that there was a certain old ring, of no great value, but very curious, which her father had said many years ago he would like to have buried with him. He seemed to have forgotten it, throughout his long illness; but his wife had remembered it suddenly, and had told them where to find it. It was found by a trusty servant now; and she was present, while Mr. Penniloe placed it on the icy finger, and dropped a tear on the forehead of his friend, holy now in the last repose.
On his homeward path that night, the Curate saw through the gloom of lonely sorrow many a storm impending. Who was there now to hold the parish in the bonds of amity, to reconcile the farmers' feuds, to help the struggling tradesman, to bury the aged cripple, to do any of those countless deeds of good-will and humanity, which are less than the discount of the interest of the debt, due from the wealthy to the poor?
And who would cheer him now with bold decision, and kind deference, in all those difficulties which beset the country clergyman, who hates to strain his duty, yet is fearful of relaxing it? Such difficulties must arise; and though there certainly was in those days, a great deal more fair give-and-take than can be now expected, there was less of settled rule and guidance for a peaceful parson. Moreover, he felt the important charge which he had undertaken, as co-trustee of large estates, as well as a nervous dread of being involved in heavy outlay, with no rich friend to back him now, concerning the repairs, and in some measure the rebuilding, of the large and noble parish church.
But all these personal troubles vanished, in the memories of true friendship, and in holy confidence, when he performed that last sad duty in the dismantled church, and then in the eastern nook of the long graveyard. He had dreaded this trial not a little, but knew what his dear friend would have wished; and the needful strength was given him.
It has been said, and is true too often (through our present usages) that one funeral makes many. A strong east wind of unwonted bitterness at this time of year—it was now the last day of October—whistled through the crowd of mourners, fluttered scarf, and crape, and veil, and set old Channing's last tooth raging, and tossed the minister's whitening locks, and the leaves of the Office for the Dead. So cold was the air, that people of real pity and good feeling, if they had no friends in the village, hied to theIvy-bush, when all was over, and called for hot brandy and water.
But among them was not Mr. Jakes, though he needed a stimulus as much as any. He lingered in the churchyard, till the banking up was done, and every one else had quitted it. When all alone, he scooped a hole at the head of the grave, and filled it with a bunch of white chrysanthemums, imbedded firmly to defy the wind. Then he returned to the sombre school-room, at the west end of the churchyard, and with one window looking into it. There, although he had flint and tinder, he did not even light a dip, but sat for hours in his chair of office, with his headlaid on the old oak desk. Rough, and sad, and tumbled memories passed before his gray-thatched eyes, and stirred the recesses of his rugged heart.
Suddenly a shadow fell across his desk. He rose from his dream of the past, and turning saw the half-moon quivering aslant, through the diamond panes of the lattice. For a minute he listened, but there was nothing to be heard, except a long low melancholy wail. Then he buttoned his coat, his best Sunday black, and was ashamed to find the empty cuff wet, as the bib of an infant, but with the tears of motherless old age.
After his manner—when no boys were nigh—he condemned himself for an ancient fool, and was about to strike a light, when the sad low sound fell again upon his ears. Determined to know what the meaning of it was, he groped for his hat, and stout oak staff, and entered the churchyard by the little iron gate, the private way from the school premises.
The silence was as deep as the stillness of the dead; but, by the light of the westering moon, he made his way among the white tombstones, and the rubbish of the builders, to the eastern corner where Sir Thomas Waldron lay. His old chief's grave was fair and smooth, and the crisp earth glistened in the moonlight, for the wind had fallen, and a frost was setting in; but a small black figure lay on the crown, close to the bunch of flowers. A low growl met him; and then a dismal wail of anguish, beyond any power of words or tears, trembled along the wan alleys of the dead, and lingered in the shadowy recesses of the church.
"Good littleJess, thou art truer than mankind," said the Sergeant, and marched away to his lonely bed.
Live who may, and die who must, the work of the world shall be carried on. Of all these works, the one that can never be long in arrears is eating; and of all British victuals, next to bread, the potato claims perhaps the foremost place. Where the soil is light towards Hagdon Hill, on the property of the Dean and Chapter, potatoes, meet for any dignitary of the Church, could be dug by the ton, in those days. In these democratic and epidemic times, it is hard to find a good potato; and the reason is too near to seek. The finer the quality of fruit or root, the fiercer are they that fall on it; and the nemesis of excellence already was impending. But the fatal blow had not fallen yet; the ripe leaves strewed the earth with vivid gold, instead of reeking weltering smut; and the berries were sound, for boys and girls to pelt one another across the field; while at the lift of the glistening fork across the crumbling ridges, up sprang a cluster of rosy globes, clean as a codlin, and chubby as a cherub.
Farmer John Horner, the senior Churchwarden, and the largest ratepayer on the south side of the Perle, would never have got on as he did, without some knowledge of the weather. The bitter east wind of the previous night, and the keen frost of the morning, had made up his mind that it was high time to lift his best field of potatoes. He had two large butts to receive the filled sacks—assorted into ware and chats—and every working man on the farm, as well as his wife and children, had been ordered to stick at this job, and clear this four-acre field before nightfall. The field was a good step from the village, as well as from Farmer Horner's house; and the lower end (where the gate was) abutted on the Susscot lane, leading from the ford to Perlycross.
It was now All-Hallows day, accounted generally the farewell of autumn, and arrival of the winter. Birds, and beasts, that know their time without recourse to calendar, had made the best use of that knowledge, and followed suitof wisdom. Some from the hills were seeking downwards, not to abide in earnest yet, but to see for themselves what men had done for their comfort when the pinch should come; some of more tender kind were gone with a whistle at the storms they left behind; and others had taken their winter apparel, and meant to hold fast to the homes they understood.
Farmer John, who was getting rather short of breath from the fatness of his bacon, stirred about steadfastly among the rows, exhorting, ordering, now and then upbraiding, when a digger stuck his fork into the finest of the clump. He had put his hunting gaiters on, because the ground would clog as soon as the rime began to melt; and the fog, which still lingered in the hollows of the slopes, made him pull his triple chin out of his comforter to cough, as often as he opened his big mouth to scold. For he was not (like farmers of the present day) too thankful for anything that can be called a crop, to utter a cross word over it.
Old Mr. Channing, the clerk, came in by the gate from the lane, when the sun was getting high. Not that he meant to do much work—for anything but graves, his digging time was past, and it suited him better to make breeches—but simply that he liked to know how things were going on, and thought it not impossible that if he praised the 'taturs, Churchwarden might say—"Bob, you shall taste them; we'll drop you a bushel, when the butt comes by your door." So he took up a root or two here and there, and "hefted it," (that is to say, poised it carefully to judge the weight, as one does a letter for the post) and then stroked the sleek skin lovingly, and put it down gingerly for fear of any bruise. Farmer John watched him, with a dry little grin; for he knew what the old gentleman was up to.
"Never see'd such 'taturs in all my life," Mr. Channing declared with a sigh of admiration. "Talk of varmers! There be nobody fit to hold a can'le to our Measter John. I reckon them would fry even better than they biled; and that's where to judge of a 'tatur, I contends."
"Holloa, Mr. Clerk! How be you then, this fine morning?" The farmer shouted out, as if no muttering would do for him, while he straddled over a two-foot ridge,with the rime thawing down his gaiters. "Glad to see 'e here, old veller. What difference do 'e reckon now, betwixt a man and a 'tatur?"
Farmer John was famous for his riddles. He made them all himself, in conversation with his wife—for he had not married early—and there was no man in the parish yet with brains enough to solve them. And if any one attempted it, the farmer always snubbed him.
"There now, ye be too deep for me!" Mr. Channing made a hole in the ground with his stick, as if Mr. Horner was at the bottom of it. "It requireth a good deal more than us have got, to get underneath your meaning, sir."
"No, Bob, no! It be very zimple, and zuitable too for your trade. A 'tatur cometh out of ground, when a' be ripe; but a man the zame way goeth underground. And a good thing for him, if he 'bideth there, according to what hath been done in these here parts, or a little way up country. No call for thee to laugh, Bob, at thy time of life, when behooveth thee to think over it. But I'll give thee an order for a pair of corduroys, and thou shalt have a few 'taturs, when the butt comes by. Us, as belongs to the Church, is bound to keep her agoing, when the hogs won't miss it! But there, Lord now, I want a score of nose-rings? Have 'e see'd anything of Joe Crang, this morning? We never heer'd nort of his anvil all the time! Reckon Joe had a drop too much at theBush, last night."
"Why, here a' coom'th!" exclaimed the clerk. "Look, a' be claimbin' of an open gate! Whatever can possess the man? A' couldn't look more mazed and weist, if a hunderd ghostesses was after him?"
Joseph Crang, the blacksmith at Susscot ford, where the Susscot brook passed on its way to the Perle, was by nature of a merry turn, and showed it in his face. But he had no red now, nor even any black about him, and the resolute aspect, with which he shod a horse, or swung a big hammer, was changed into a quivering ghastly stare; his lips were of an ashy blue, like a ring of tobacco smoke; and as for his body, and legs, and clothes, they seemed to have nothing to do with one another.
"What aileth the man?" cried Mr. Channing, standing across, as he had the right to do, after bestraddling somany burials; "Master Joe Crang, I call upon thee to collect thy wits, and out with it."
"Joe, thy biggest customer hath a right to know thy meaning." Farmer John had been expecting to have to run away; but was put in courage by the clerk, and brought up his heels in a line with the old man's.
"Coompany, coompany is all I axes for," the blacksmith gasped weakly, as if talking to himself—"coompany of living volk, as rightly is alive."
"Us be all alive, old chap. But how can us tell as you be?" The clerk was a seasoned man of fourscore years, and knew all the tricks of mortality.
"I wish I wadn't. A'most I wish I wadn't, after all I zee'd last night. But veel of me, veel of me, Measter Channin', if you plaise to veel of me."
"Tull 'e what," the Churchwarden interposed; "gie 'un a drink of zider, Bob. If a' be Joe Crang, a' won't say no to thiccy. There be my own little zup over by the hedge, Joe."
Without any scruple the blacksmith afforded this proof of vitality. The cider was of the finest strain—"three stang three," as they called it—and Joe looked almost like himself, as he put down the little wooden keg, with a deep sigh of comfort.
"Maketh one veel like a man again," he exclaimed, as he flapped himself on the chest. "Master Hornder, I owe 'e a good turn for this. Lord only knoweth where I maight a' been, after a' visited me zo last night. It was a visit of the wicked one, by kitums." Master Crang hitched up his trousers, and seemed ready to be off again. But the Churchwarden gripped him by the collar.
"Nay, man. Shan't have it thy own way. After what us have doed for thy throat, us have a call upon thy breath. Strange ways with strangers; open breast with bellyful."
The honest blacksmith stood in doubt, and some of his terror crept back again. "Bain't for me to zettle. Be a job for Passon Penniloe. Swore upon my knees I did. Here be the mark on my small-clothes. Passon is the only man can set my soul to liberty."
"What odds to us about thy soul? 'Tis thy tongue we want, lad?" the senior Churchwarden cried impatiently."Thou shalt never see a groat of mine again, unless thou speakest."
"Passon hath a chill in's bones, and the doctor hath been called to him," Mr. Channing added, with a look of upper wisdom. "Clerk and Churchwarden, in council assembled, hath all the godliness of a rubric."
The blacksmith was moved, and began to scratch his head. "If a' could only see it so?" he muttered—"howsomever, horder they women vessels out o' zight. A woman hath no need to hear, if her can zee—according as the wise man sayeth. And come where us can see the sun a shinin'; for my words will make 'e shiver, if ye both was tombstones. I feel myself a busting to be rid of them."
Master Crang's tale—with his speech fetched up to the manner of the east of England, and his flinty words broken into our road-metal—may fairly be taken for spoken as follows:—
"No longer agone than last night, I tell you, I went to bed, pretty much as usual, with nothing to dwell upon in my mind; without it was poor Squire's funeral, because I had been attending of it. I stayed pretty nearly to the last of that, and saw the ground going in again; and then I just looked in at theBush, because my heart was downsome. All the company was lonesome, and the room was like a barn after a bad cold harvest, with a musty nose to it. There was nobody with spirit to stand glasses round, and nobody with heart to call for them. The Squire was that friendly-minded, that all of us were thinking—'The Lord always taketh the best of us. I may be the one to be called for next.' Then an old man in the corner, who could scarcely hold his pipe, began in a low voice about burials, and doctors, and the way they strip the graves up the country; and the others fell in about their experience; and with only two candles and no snuffers but the tongs, any one might take us for a company of sextons.
"The night was cruel cold, when I come out, and everything looking weist and unkid, and the big bear was right across the jags of church-tower; and with nothing inside to keep me up to the mark, and no neighbour makingcompany, the sound of my own heels was forced upon my ears, as you might say, by reason of the gloomy road, and a spark of flint sometimes coming up like steel-filings, when I ran to keep heat, for I had not so much as a stick with me. And when I got home I roused up the forge-fire, so as to make sure where I was, and comfort my knuckles; and then I brashed it down, with coals at present figure, for the morning.
"As it happened, my wife had been a little put out, about something or other in the morning; you know how the women-folk get into ways, and come out of them again, without no cause. But when she gets into that frame of mind, she never saith much, to justify it, as evil-tempered women do, but keeps herself quiet, and looks away bigly, and leaves me to do things for myself; until such time as she comes round again. So I took a drink of water from the shoot, instead of warming up the teapot, and got into bed like a lamb, without a word; leaving her to begin again, by such time as she should find repentance. And before I went to sleep, there was no sound to be heard in the house, or in the shop below; without it was a rat or two, and the children snoring in the inner room, and the baby breathing very peaceful in the cradle to the other side of the bed, that was strapped on, to come at for nursing of her.
"Well, I can't say how long it may have been, because I sleep rather heartily, before I was roused up by a thundering noise going through the house, like the roaring of a bull. Sally had caught up the baby, and was hugging and talking, as if they would rob her of it; and when I asked what all this hubbub was, 'You had better go and see,' was all she said. Something told me it was no right thing; and my heart began beating as loud as a flail, when I crept through the dark to the window in the thatch; for the place was as black almost as the bottom of my dipping-trough, and I undid the window, and called out, 'Who is there?' with as much strength as ever I was master of, just then.
"'Come down, or we'll roast you alive,' says a great gruff voice that I never heard the like of; and there I saw a red-hot clinker in my own tongs, a sputtering within an inch of my own smithy thatch.
"'For God's sake, hold hard!' says I, a thinking of the little ones. 'In less than two minutes I'll be with you.' I couldn't spare time to strike a light, and my hands were too shaky for to do it. I huddled on my working clothes anyhow, going by the feel of them; and then I groped my way downstairs, and felt along the wall to the backway into workshop, and there was a little light throwing a kind of shadow from the fire being bellowsed up; but not enough to see things advisedly. The door had been kicked open, and the bar bulged in; and there in the dark stood a terrible great fellow, bigger than Dascombe, the wrestler, by a foot; so far as I could make out by the stars, and the glimmer from the water. Over his face he had a brown thing fixed, like the front of a fiddle with holes cut through it, and something I could not make out was strapped under one of his arms like a holster.
"'Just you look here, man, and look at nothing else, or it will be worse for you. Bring your hammer and pincers, while I show a light.'
"'Let me light a lantern, sir,' I said, as well as I could speak for shivering; 'if it is a shoeing job, I must see what I am about.'
"'Do what I say, blacksmith; or I'll squash you under your anvil.'
"He could have done it as soon as looked; and I can't tell you how I put my apron on, and rose the step out of shop after him. He had got a little case of light in one hand, such as I never saw before, all black when he chose, but as light as the sun whenever he chose to flash it, and he flashed it suddenly into my eyes, so that I jumped back, like a pig before the knife. But he caught me by the arm, where you see this big blue mark, and handed me across the road like that.
"'Blast the horse! Put his rotten foot right,' he says. And sure enough there was a fine nag before me, quaking and shaking with pain and fright, and dancing his near fore-foot in the air, like a Christian disciple with a bad fit of the gout.
"That made me feel a bit like myself again; for there never was no harm in a horse, and you always know what you are speaking to. I took his poor foot gently, as if Ihad kid gloves on, and he put his frothy lips into my whiskers, as if he had found a friend at last.
"The big man threw the light upon the poor thing's foot, and it was oozing with blood and black stuff like tar. 'What a d——d fuss he makes about nothing!' says the man, or the brute I should call him, that stood behind me. But I answered him quite spirity, for the poor thing was trying to lick my hand with thankfulness, 'You'd make a d——der, if it was your foot,' I said; 'he hath got a bit of iron driven right up through his frog. Have him out of shafts. He isn't fit to go no further.' For I saw that he had a light spring-cart behind him, with a tarpaulin tucked in along the rails.
"'Do him where he stands, or I'll knock your brains out;' said the fellow pushing in, so as to keep me from the cart. 'Jem, stand by his head. So, steady, steady!'
"As I stooped to feel my pincers, I caught just a glimpse under the nag's ribs of a man on his off-side, with black clothes on, a short square man, so far as I could tell: but he never spoke a word, and seemed ever so much more afraid to show himself than the big fellow was, though he was shy enough. Then I got a good grip on the splinter of the shoe, which felt to me more like steel than iron, and pulled it out steadily and smoothly as I could, and a little flow of blood came after it. Then the naggie put his foot down, very tenderly at first, the same as you put down an over-filled pint.
"'Gee-wugg's the word now,' says the big man to the other; and sorry I am to my dying bones that I stopped them from doing it. But I felt somehow too curious, through the thicket of my fright, and wise folks say that the Lord hath anger with men that sleep too heartily.
"'Bide a bit,' I told him, 'till I kill the inflammation, or he won't go a quarter of a mile before he drops;' and before he could stop me, I ran back, and blew up a merry little blaze in the shop, as if to make a search for something, and then out I came again with a bottle in my hand, and the light going flickering across the road. The big man stood across, as if to hide the cart; but the man behind the horse skitted back into a bush, very nimble and clever, but not quite smart enough.
"The pretty nag—for he was a pretty one and kind, and now I could swear to him anywhere—was twitching his bad foot up and down, as if to ask how it was getting on; and I got it in my hand, and he gave it like a lamb, while I poured in a little of the stuff I always keep ready for their troubles, when they have them so. For the moment I was bold, in the sense of knowing something, and called out to the man I was so mortal frit of—'Master, just lend a hand for a second, will you; stand at his head in case it stingeth him a bit.' Horse was tossing of his head a little, and the chap came round me, and took him by the nose, the same as he had squeezed me by the arm.
"'I must have one hind-foot up, or he will bolt,' says I; though the Lord knows that was nonsense; and I slipped along the shaft, and put my hand inside the wheel, and twitched up the tarpaulin that was tucked below the rail. At the risk of my life it was; and I knew that much, although I was out of the big man's sight. And what think you I saw, in the flickering of the light? A flicker it was, like the lick of a tongue; but it's bound to abide as long as I do. As sure as I am a living sinner, what I saw was a dead man's shroud. Soft, and delicate, and white it was, like the fine linen that Dives wore, and frilled with rare lace, like a wealthy baby's christening; no poor man, even in the world to come, could afford himself such a winding-sheet. Tamsin Tamlin's work it was; the very same that we saw in her window, and you know what that was bought for. What there was inside of it was left for me to guess.
"I had just time to tuck the tarpaulin back, when the big man comes at me with his light turned on. 'What the —— are you doing with that wheel?' says he, and he caught me by the scruff of the neck, and swung me across the road with one hand, and into my shop, like a sack with the corn shot out of it. 'Down on your knees!' he said, with no call to say it, for my legs were gone from under me, and I sprawled against my own dipping-trough, and looked up to be brained with my own big hammer. 'No need for that,' he saith, for he saw me glancing at it; 'my fist would be enough for a slip such as you. But you be a little too peart, Master Smith. What right have you to call a pair of honest men sheep-stealers?'
"I was so astonished that I could not answer, for the thought of that had never come nigh me. But I may have said—Shish—shish!to soothe the nag; and if I did, it saved my life, I reckon.
"'Now swear, as you hoped to be saved,' says he, 'that never a word shall pass your lips about this here little job to-night.' I swore it by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; but I knew that I never could stick to it. 'You break it,' says he, 'and I'll burn you in your bed, and every soul that belongs to you. Here's your dibs, blacksmith! I always pay handsome.' He flung me a crown of King George and the Dragon, and before I could get up again, the cart was gone away.
"Now, I give you my word, Farmer Hornder, and the very same to you Clerk Channing, it was no use of me to go to bed again, and there never was a nightcap would stay on my head without double-webbing girths to it. By the mercy of the Lord, I found a thimbleful of gin, and then I roused up light enough to try to make it cheerful; and down comes Sally, like a faithful wife, to find out whatever I was up to. You may trust me for telling her a cock-and-bull affair; for 'twas no woman's business, and it might have killed the baby."
"Now, Master Joe Crang," the Churchwarden said firmly, but not quite as sternly as he meant to put it, because he met the blacksmith's eyes coming out of head; "how are we to know that you have not told us what you call a cock-and-bull affair? Like enough you had a very fearsome dream, after listening to a lot about those resurrection-men, and running home at night with the liquor in your head."
"Go and see my door ahanging on the hinges, master, and the mark of the big man's feet in the pilm, and the track of wheels under the hedge, and the blood from the poor nag's frog, and the splinter of shoe I pulled out with the pincers.But mercy upon me, I be mazed almost! I forgot I put the iron in my pocket. Here it is?"
There it was sure enough, with dried blood on the jag of it, and the dint from a stone which had driven it, like a knife through an oyster-shell, into the quick. Such is the nature of human faith, that the men, handling this, were convinced of every word. They looked at each other silently, and shook their heads with one accord, and gave the shivering blacksmith another draught of cider.
"Joe, I beg your pardon for doubting of your word," Farmer John answered, as his own terror grew; "you have been through a most awesome night. But tell us a thing or two you have left out. What way do you reckon the cart came from, and what was the colour, and was there any name on it, and by the sound, which way did it drive off?"
"Ay, ay, he hath hit it," the clerk chimed in; "the finest head-piece in all the county belongeth to the hat of our Master John Horner."
"I'll tell 'e every blessed thing I knows, but one," Joe Crang was growing braver, after handing horrors on; "can't say which way the cart come from, because I was sound in my bed just then. But her hadn't been through the ford, by the look of wheels, and so it seems her must have come from Perlycrass direction. The colour was dark; I should say, a reddish brown, so far as the light supported me. There was no name to see; but I was on her near side, and the name would be t'other side of course, if there wur one. Her drove off the way her was standing, I believe; at least according to the sound of it; and I should have heard the splash, if they had driven through the ford. Any other questions, master?"
"There may be some more, Joe, when I come to think. But I don't see clearly how you could have been on the near side of horse, to the other side of lane, in case they were coming from our village way."
"You'm right enough there, sir, if so be they hadn't turned. I could see by the marks that they went by my shop, and then turned the poor horse, who was glad enough to stop; and then bided under hedge, in a sort of dark cornder. Might a' come down the lane a' purpose like,seeking of me to do the job. Seemeth as if they had heard of my shop, but not ezactually where it waz."
"When you come to think of it, might be so." Farmer John was pretty safe in his conclusions, because they never hurried him. "And if that was the meaning, we should all have reason to be very joyful, Joe. You cannot see it yet; nor even Master Channing. But to my mind it proveth that the chaps in this queer job—mind, I don't say but what they may have been respectable, and driving about because they could afford it—but to my mind it showeth they were none of our own parish. Nor next parish either, so far as reason goes. Every child in Perlycross, with legs to go on, knows afore his alphabet, where Susscot forge be."
"A' knoweth it too well, afore he gets his breeches. Three quarters of a mile makes no odds to they childer, when they take it in their heads to come playing with the sparks. And then their mothers after 'em, and all the blame on me!"
"It is the way of human nature, when it is too young. Master Clerk, a word with you, before we go too far. Sit down upon this sack, Joe, and try to eat a bit, while the wiser heads be considering."
The Churchwarden took the ancient clerk aside, and the blacksmith beginning to be in better heart, renewed his faith in human nature upon bread and bacon.
Before he was sure that he had finished, the elder twain came back to him, fortified by each other's sense of right, and high position in the parish. But Channing was to put the questions now, because they were unpleasant, and he was poor.
"According to my opinion, Master Crang, you have told us everything wonderful clear, as clear as if we had been there to see it, considering of the time of night. But still there is one thing you've kept behind, causally perhaps, and without any harm. But Churchwarden Horner saith, and everybody knows the value of his opinion, that the law is such, that every subject of the King, whatever his own opinion may be, hath to give it the upper course, and do no more harm than grumble."
"Big or little, old or young, male or female, nodistinction, baronet or blacksmith;" said Farmer John, impressively.
"And therefore, Joe, in bounden duty we must put the question, and you must answer. Who was the man according to your judgment, that kept so close behind the horse, and jumped away so suddenlike, when the light of your fire shone into the lane? You said that the big man called him 'Jem,' and you as good as told us that you certified his identity."
"I don't understand 'e, Master Channing. I never was no hand at big words." The blacksmith began to edge away, till the farmer took the old man's staff, and hooked him by the elbow.
"No lies, Crang! You know me pretty well. I am not the man to stand nonsense. Out of this potato-field you don't budge, till you've told us who the short man was."
"A' worn't short, sir; a' worn't short at all—taller than I be, I reckon; but nort to what the other were. Do 'e let go of me, Farmer Hornder. How could I see the man, through the nag?"
"That's your own business, Crang. See him you did. Horse or no horse, you saw the man; and you knew him, and you were astonished. Who was he, if you please, Master Joseph Crang?"
"I can't tell 'e, sir, if I was to drop down dead this minute. And if I said ort to make 'e vancy that I knowed the gentleman, I must a' been mazed as a drummeldrone."
"Oh, a gentleman, was it? A queer place for a gentleman! No wonder you cockle yourself to keep it dark. A five-pound note to be made out of that, Joe; if the officers of justice was agreeable."
"Master Hornder, you'm a rich man, and I be but a poor one. I wouldn't like to say that you behaved below yourself, by means of what I thought; without knowing more than vancy."
"Joe, you are right, and I was wrong;" the farmer was a just man, whenever he caught sight of it; "I was going to terrify of 'e, according to the orders of the evil-thinkers, that can't believe good, because it bain't inside theirselves. But I put it to you now, Joe, as a bit of dooty; and itmust tell up for you, in t'other way as well. For the sake of all good Christians, and the peace of this here parish, you be held to bail by your own conscience, the Lord having placed you in that position, to tell us the full names of this man, gentleman or ploughboy, gipsy or home-liver."
The blacksmith was watching Mr. Horner's eyes, and saw not a shadow of relenting. Then he turned to the old man, for appeal. But the Clerk, with the wisdom of fourscore years, said,—"Truth goes the furthest. Who would go to jail for you, Joe?"
"Mind that you wouldn't give me no peace; and that I says it against my will, under fear of the King and religion"—Master Crang protested, with a twist, as if a clod-crusher went over him—"likewise that I look to you to bear me harmless, as a man who speaketh doubtful of the sight of his own eyes. But unless they was wrong, and misguided by the Devil, who were abroad last night and no mistake, t'other man—in the flesh, or out of it, and a' might very well a' been out of it upon such occasion, and with that there thing behind him, and they say that the Devil doth get into a bush, as my own grandmother zee'd he once—'twixt a Rosemary tree, which goes far to prove it, being the very last a' would have chosen——"
"None of that stuff," cried the Churchwarden sternly; and the Clerk said, "No beating about the bush, Joe! As if us didn't know all the tricks of Zatan!"
"Well then, I tell 'e—it waz Doctor Jemmy Vox."
They both stood, and stared at him, as if to ask whether his brain was out of order, or their own ears. But he met their gaze steadily, and grew more positive, on the strength of being doubted.
"If ever I zee'd a living man, I tell 'e that man, t'other side of the nag, waz Doctor Jemmy Vox, and no other man."
The men of Devon have earned their place (and to their own knowledge the foremost one) in the records of this country, by taking their time about what they do, and thinking of a thing before they say it. Shallow folk, having none of this gift, are apt to denounce it as slowness of brain, and even to become impatient with the sage deliberators.
Both Horner, and Channing, had excellent reasons for thinking very highly of Dr. Fox. The Churchwarden, because the doctor had saved the life of his pet child Sally, under Providence; and the Clerk, inasmuch as he had the privilege of making the gentleman's trousers, for working and for rustic use.
"Now I tell 'e what it is," said Farmer John, looking wrathful, because he saw nothing else to do, and Channing shrank back from doing anything; "either thou art a born liar, Joe; or the Devil hath gotten hold of thee."
"That's the very thing I been afeared of. But would un let me spake the truth, without contempt of persons?"
"Will 'e stand to it, Joe, afore a Justice of the Peace?" The Clerk thought it was high time to put in a word. "Upon occasion, I mean, and if the law requireth."
"There now! Look at that! The right thing cometh, soon or late;" cried the persecuted blacksmith. "Take me afore Squire Walders himself—no, no, can't be, considerin' I were at his funeral yesterday—well take me afore Squire Mockham, if be fitty; and ax of him to putt, I don't care what it be, stocks, or dead water, or shears atop of me; and I'll tell un the very zame words I telled to thee. Can't hev no relief from gospel, if the Passon's by the heels; shall have some relief by law, if the Lord hath left it living. No man can't spake no vairer than that there be."
This adjuration was of great effect. "To Zeiser shalt thou go?" replied the senior Churchwarden; "us have no right to take the matter out of Zeiser's hands. I was dwelling in my mind of that all along, and so was you, Clerk."
Mr. Channing nodded, with his conscience coming forward; and after some directions at the upper end of field—where the men had been taking it easily, and the women putting heads together—the two authorities set off along the lane, with the witness between them, towards Perlycross.
But, as if they had not had enough of excitement to last them for a month of thoughts and words, no sooner did they turn the corner at the four-cross roads (where the rectory stands, with the school across the way), than theycame full butt upon a wondrous crowd of people hurrying from the Churchyard.
"Never heard the like of it!" "Can't believe my eyes a'most." "Whatever be us a'coming to?" "The Lord in heaven have mercy on the dead!" "The blessed dead, as can't help theirselves!"
These, and wilder cries, and shrieks, from weeping women along the cottage-fronts; while in the middle of the street came slowly men with hot faces, and stern eyes. Foremost of all was Sergeant Jakes, with his head thrown back, and his gray locks waving, and his visage as hard as when he scaled the ramparts, and leaped into the smoke and swordflash. Behind him was a man upon a foaming horse, and the strength of the village fiercely silent.
"Where be all agoing to? What's up now? Can't any of 'e spake a word of sense?" cried Farmer John, as the crowd stopped short, and formed a ring around him.
"High Jarks, tell un."
"Us was going to your house."
"Hold your tongue, will 'e, and let High Jarks speak."
The Sergeant took discipline, and told his tale in a few strong words, which made the Farmer's hair stand up.
"Let me see the proof," was all he said; for his brain was going round, being still unseasoned to any whirl fiercer than rotation of farm-crops. All the others fell behind him, with that sense of order which still swayed the impulse of an English crowd; for he was now the foremost layman in the parish, and everybody knew that the Parson was laid up. The gloom of some black deed fell upon them; and they passed along the street like a funeral.
"Clap the big gate to, and shoot the iron bar across. No tramping inside more than hath been a'ready."
Master Horner gave this order, and it was obeyed, even by those who excluded themselves. At the west end, round the tower, was a group of "foreign" workmen—as the artisans from Exeter were called—but under orders from Mr. Adney they held back, and left the parish matter to the natives thereof.
"Now come along with me, the men I call for;" commanded the Churchwarden, with his hand upon thebars, as he rose to the authority conferred upon him; "and they be Sergeant Jakes, Clerk Channing, Bob that hath ridden from Walderscourt, and Constable Tapscott, if so be he hath arrived."
"I be here, sure enough, and my staff along o' me—hath the pictur' of His Majesty upon him. Make way, wull 'e, for the Officer of the King?"
Then these men, all in a cold sweat more or less—except Sergeant Jakes, who was in a hot one—backing up one another, took the narrow path which branched to the right from the Churchyard cross, to the corner where brave Colonel Waldron had been laid.
"My young friend, I must get up," Mr. Penniloe exclaimed, if so feeble a sound could be called an exclamation. "It is useless to talk about my pulse, and look so wise. Here have I been perhaps three days. I am not quite certain, but it must be that. And who is there to see to the parish, or even the service of the Church, while I lie like this? It was most kind of you—I have sense enough to feel it—to hurry from your long ride, without a bit to eat—Mrs. Muggridge said as much, and you could not deny it. But up I must get; and more than that, I must get out. It will soon be dark again, by the shadows on the blind, and I am sure that there is something gone amiss, I know not what. But my duty is to know it, and to see what I can do. Now go, and have some dinner, while I just put on my clothes."
"Nothing of that sort, sir, will you do to-day. You are weaker than a cat—as that stupid saying goes. That idiot Jackson has bled you to a skeleton, put a seton in your neck, and starved you. And he has plied you with drastics, by day and by night. Why, the moment I heard of that Perliton booby getting you in his clutches—but thank God I was in time! It is almost enough to make one believe in special Providences."
"Hush, Jemmy, hush? You cannot want to vex me now."
"Neither now, nor ever, sir; as you are well aware. So you must do likewise, and not vex me. I have trouble enough of my own, without rebellion by my patients."
"I forgot that, Jemmy. It was not kind of me. But I am not quite clear in my head just now. I fear I am neglecting some great duty. But just for the moment, I am not sure what it is. In a minute or two, I shall remember what it is."
"No, you won't, my good friend, not for twenty hours yet;" the young doctor whispered to himself. "You have had a narrow shave, and another day of Jackson would have sent you to the world you think too much of. There never was a man who dwelt in shadows—or in glory, as you take it—with his whole great heart, as you do. Well, I wish there were more of them, and that I could just be one."
The peace that had settled on the Parson's face was such as no lineaments of man can win, without the large labours of a pure life past, and the surety of recompense full in view. Fox kept his eye on him, and found his pulse improve, as hovering slumber deepened into tranquil sleep. "Rare stuff that!" he said, referring not to faith, but to a little phial-bottle he had placed upon the drawers; "he shan't go to glory yet, however fit he may be. It is high time,—I take it, for me to have a little peck."
The young man was right. He had ridden thirty miles from his father's house that afternoon, and hearing at the "Old Barn," as he called his present home, of poor Mr. Penniloe's serious illness, had mounted his weary mare again, and spurred her back to the rectory. Of the story with which all the parish was ringing he had not heard a word as yet, being called away by his anxious mother, on the very night after the Squire was buried. But one thing had puzzled him, as he passed and repassed the quiet streets of Perlycross—the people looked at him, as if he were a stranger, and whispered to one another as he trotted by. Could they have known what had happened to his father?
With the brown tops still upon his sturdy legs, and spurs thickly clotted with Somerset mud (crustier even than that of Devon) Fox left the bedroom with the door ajar, and found little Fay in a beehive chair, kneeling with her palms put together on the back, and striving hard to pray, but disabled by deep sobs. Her lovely little cheeks and thick bright curls were dabbled into one another by the flood of tears; as a moss-rose, after a thundershower, has its petals tangled in the broidery of its sheath.
"Will he die, because I am so wicked? Will he die, because I cannot see the face of God?" She was whispering, with streaming eyes intent upon the sky-light, as if she were looking for a healthy Father there.
"No, my little darling, he will not die at all. Not for many years, I mean, when Fay is a great tall woman."
The child turned round with a flash of sudden joy, and leaped into his arms, and flung her hair upon his shoulders, and kissed him, vehemently,