Chapter Twenty Four.

Chapter Twenty Four.A Terrible Silence.“Serve him right,” muttered Tom. Then rising and pushing the door, which had swung to, he entered the dark billiard-room, where he felt his way to the spirit stand, and took a hearty draught. “Curse him! he’s as strong as a horse. I wish he had broken his neck.”The brandy gave him nerve, and he returned through the baize door into the light.“Must lend him a hand, I suppose,” he muttered, as he descended the stairs to where the squire lay in a heap, his head upon the mat, one leg doubled beneath him, and the other through the balustrade, which held it fast.Tom Candlish stood peering down at him for a few moments, and then, as his brother did not move, he stooped towards him.“Here,” he said roughly, as he took hold of his wrist; “don’t lie like that; you’ll have a blood-vessel burst.”There was no reply; and, as the wrist was loosed, the arm fell in an absolutely nerveless way.“Here, Luke!” he cried; “get up. Don’t fool. Get up, man!”Still no reply, and, beginning to be startled, Tom Candlish went down upon one knee and tried to move his brother’s head into a more comfortable position.As he did so, the light fell athwart so ghastly and strange a countenance, from whose lips the blood was slowly trickling, that he let the head glide from his hands, for it to sink suddenly with a dull thud upon the stairs.“Good God!” ejaculated the young man, in a low, excited voice. “Here, Luke! Luke, old man: hold up!”There was no movement—not even a sigh; and Tom Candlish ran to alarm the house; but, as he reached the swing-door at the end of the passage, and stood gazing into the hall, he stopped and ran back to lay his hand upon his brother’s heart; then caught his wrist, and afterwards thrust a hand right into his breast, but only to withdraw it quite aghast.“Here! a doctor!” he gasped, his voice being like a hoarse whisper. “Smith! Somebody! Here!”He rose and hurried to the door leading into the entrance hall once more, but stopped again as he reached it, and stood gazing back at the distorted figure at the foot of the stairs.Then he turned and looked up the dimly-lit staircase, but all was perfectly still. No one appeared to have heard the altercation or the fall. All seemed to be sleeping; and, panting heavily, as wild thoughts full of wonder and dread flooded his brain, Tom Candlish closed the door softly, ran back along the passage, ascended the stairs, and gained the billiard-room, where he groped his way once more to the spirit stand, removed the stopper, and drank heavily from the brandy decanter.“Hah!” he ejaculated, as he took a long breath, and turned to see that the oval pane in the baize door seemed to have assumed the aspect of a huge, dull eye glaring at him.“Am I going mad?” he muttered, as he staggered to the door. “I must call help; perhaps—perhaps—he is seriously hurt.”He stole softly down the stairs, and paused by the prostrate figure, still lying perfectly motionless, and in its hideously-distorted position.“I must call help—call help!” whispered the young man, whose face was now ghastly; but though there were bells that might have been rung and people were within call, he only crept along the passage, without attempting to touch the fallen man, pushed the spring-door gently, so that it should make no noise, closed it again, stood listening, and then, in the midst of the dead silence, stole on tip-toe up the grand staircase to his bedroom, where he once more stopped to listen, and then crept softly in and closed the door.The silence in the old Hall was as that of death for a few moments, before it was broken by a faint click, as of the bolt of a lock just shot.Once more silence, and then on the dim staircase there was a musical purring noise, followed by the pleasant chimes of a clock, which rang out the half-hour after midnight.Then once again the stillness as of death.

“Serve him right,” muttered Tom. Then rising and pushing the door, which had swung to, he entered the dark billiard-room, where he felt his way to the spirit stand, and took a hearty draught. “Curse him! he’s as strong as a horse. I wish he had broken his neck.”

The brandy gave him nerve, and he returned through the baize door into the light.

“Must lend him a hand, I suppose,” he muttered, as he descended the stairs to where the squire lay in a heap, his head upon the mat, one leg doubled beneath him, and the other through the balustrade, which held it fast.

Tom Candlish stood peering down at him for a few moments, and then, as his brother did not move, he stooped towards him.

“Here,” he said roughly, as he took hold of his wrist; “don’t lie like that; you’ll have a blood-vessel burst.”

There was no reply; and, as the wrist was loosed, the arm fell in an absolutely nerveless way.

“Here, Luke!” he cried; “get up. Don’t fool. Get up, man!”

Still no reply, and, beginning to be startled, Tom Candlish went down upon one knee and tried to move his brother’s head into a more comfortable position.

As he did so, the light fell athwart so ghastly and strange a countenance, from whose lips the blood was slowly trickling, that he let the head glide from his hands, for it to sink suddenly with a dull thud upon the stairs.

“Good God!” ejaculated the young man, in a low, excited voice. “Here, Luke! Luke, old man: hold up!”

There was no movement—not even a sigh; and Tom Candlish ran to alarm the house; but, as he reached the swing-door at the end of the passage, and stood gazing into the hall, he stopped and ran back to lay his hand upon his brother’s heart; then caught his wrist, and afterwards thrust a hand right into his breast, but only to withdraw it quite aghast.

“Here! a doctor!” he gasped, his voice being like a hoarse whisper. “Smith! Somebody! Here!”

He rose and hurried to the door leading into the entrance hall once more, but stopped again as he reached it, and stood gazing back at the distorted figure at the foot of the stairs.

Then he turned and looked up the dimly-lit staircase, but all was perfectly still. No one appeared to have heard the altercation or the fall. All seemed to be sleeping; and, panting heavily, as wild thoughts full of wonder and dread flooded his brain, Tom Candlish closed the door softly, ran back along the passage, ascended the stairs, and gained the billiard-room, where he groped his way once more to the spirit stand, removed the stopper, and drank heavily from the brandy decanter.

“Hah!” he ejaculated, as he took a long breath, and turned to see that the oval pane in the baize door seemed to have assumed the aspect of a huge, dull eye glaring at him.

“Am I going mad?” he muttered, as he staggered to the door. “I must call help; perhaps—perhaps—he is seriously hurt.”

He stole softly down the stairs, and paused by the prostrate figure, still lying perfectly motionless, and in its hideously-distorted position.

“I must call help—call help!” whispered the young man, whose face was now ghastly; but though there were bells that might have been rung and people were within call, he only crept along the passage, without attempting to touch the fallen man, pushed the spring-door gently, so that it should make no noise, closed it again, stood listening, and then, in the midst of the dead silence, stole on tip-toe up the grand staircase to his bedroom, where he once more stopped to listen, and then crept softly in and closed the door.

The silence in the old Hall was as that of death for a few moments, before it was broken by a faint click, as of the bolt of a lock just shot.

Once more silence, and then on the dim staircase there was a musical purring noise, followed by the pleasant chimes of a clock, which rang out the half-hour after midnight.

Then once again the stillness as of death.

Chapter Twenty Five.Smith Finds Something Wrong.“You heard nothing?” said the doctor.“Nothing at all. I went to bed at the usual time, sir,” said the butler—“half-past ten—yes, sir, I’ve the chaise waiting; won’t you come in that, and I can tell you as we drive over?”“Yes; all right,” said the doctor, and five minutes later they were rattling along the road towards the Hall.“Now, go on,” said North. “Yes, sir; I went to bed as usual, and slept very soundly till about an hour ago, and then I suddenly woke. I don’t know what made me wake; but I did, and somehow began thinking, as I’ve often thought before, about the plate in the pantry, and whether it was safe.”“Don’t you sleep in the pantry?”“No, sir; it’s so damp. So I lay telling myself it was all nonsense and fancy; but the more I thought so, the more uncomfortable I grew, till I could stand it no longer, and I got up, slipped on my trousers and great-coat, and went to the top of the stairs, where I felt quite a chill, as I knew something was not as it should be, for the lamp was not turned out on the hall table.”“What lamp?”“The hall lamp that Sir Luke always puts out himself when he goes up to bed.”“Where do you say you left him last night?”“In the billiard-room, sir, playing with Mr Tom, sir.”“Yes; go on.”“So I went down, sir; and there saw through the baize door that the lamp was burning at the end of the passage at the foot of the billiard-room stairs.”“Yes.”“And as soon as I got through the baize door, there, under the lamp, lay my poor master, all like of a heap.”“What did you do?”“Ran to him, and tried to put him in a more comfortable position, sir; but—”“Yes; I understand.”“Then I rushed up and called Mr Tom, sir; and we went to the squire together, and rang the bells and alarmed the house. Then, as soon as the boy had put the horse in the chaise, sir, I drove over to fetch you.”“But did you do nothing to try and revive him?”“Oh! yes, sir; but—”“I understand,” said the doctor. “And Mr Tom?”“He couldn’t believe it, sir. He said he played billiards with the squire for some time, and then grew tired and went to bed, leaving him knocking the balls about, and it’s all very plain, sir. I tell you of course, though I wouldn’t say so to another soul, poor Sir Luke used to take a great deal too much. I filled the spirit stand only this morning, and the brandy decanter was quite empty. He had a deal too, at dinner, before.”“And you think he pitched downstairs, Smith?”“Yes, sir; that is my belief,” said the butler; “and Mr Tom seemed to think so too.”They reached the Hall to find every one in a state of the most intense excitement, but an ominous silence reigning through the place.“Thank goodness you’ve come at last,” cried a familiar voice, and Tom hurried to meet North. “Pray be quick; he is insensible still.”The doctor looked at the young man curiously.“Where is he?”“We carried him into the dining-room, and laid him on a sofa; but he has not stirred since. I’m afraid something is broken.”As he spoke he led North into the dining-room, where the candles were burning, the shutters were closed, and curtains drawn; and there, upon a couch in the middle of the room, lay Sir Luke Candlish, as his brother had said, without having moved since he had been borne carefully in.The doctor’s examination was short, and Tom Candlish stood looking on, apparently too much overcome to speak.“Well,” he said at last, “is he very bad? Is anything broken?”The doctor raised his eyebrows, and could have replied “his neck,” but he said simply: “Bad, sir? Can you not see that he is dead?”“Dead?” ejaculated Tom; and his jaw dropped, while his face assumed a look of intense horror.“Yes, sir. The butler’s theory seems to be quite correct. Sir Luke must have pitched headlong from the top of the stairs to the bottom.”“And there is no hope?”The doctor shook his head, and laid his hand upon the young man’s arm, signing to him to quit the room.Tom followed mechanically.“So horrible!” he said, as soon as they were in the drawing-room. “We were playing billiards together till late last night, while now—Yes, what is it?”“I beg pardon.Sir Thomas,” said the old butler softly, “the housekeeper said would you and Dr North like a cup of tea?”“Sir Thomas!” The title made Tom Candlish thrill as he stood gazing at the speaker. So soon!Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi!He was Sir Thomas Candlish. The estate was his and the rent-roll of at least five thousand a year. Last night he was enraged at the possibility of trouble arising from Thompson. Now he was a free man: he was rich.And his brother?It was his secret. And why should he trouble about the sudden death? It was an accident, and his own counsel could easily be kept. There was none to reveal the truth. The dead could never speak.As he mused like this, and the butler brought in the tea, Dr North was lost in a fit of musing, for, like a flash, the scientific fancy upon which he had so long pondered came to him, so that for the moment he stood breathless and gazing wildly at the door which seemed to open before him.The idea was bewildering. Leo had bidden her suitor distinguish himself as the price at which her love was to be won; and the more he thought, the more the idea shone out, dazzling him by its intense light—shining into the dark places of his soul.What was his theory? That if a hale, hearty man were suddenly cut off by some accident, and apparently dead, could he arrest decay, Nature herself would repair the injury done, even as a fractured bone rapidly knits together and becomes stronger than before.Here, then, was a hale, hearty man suddenly cut down; he was the medical man in attendance, and the opportunity served for restoring this man to life. Why should he not make his first essay now?The idea grew more terrible in its intensity hour by hour. It was his chance if he would grasp it. Impious? No, not more so than performing an operation or trying to save a sufferer from death. But he was dead.“What we call dead,” muttered North; “but why not suspended animation? For her sake, for my own fame, to achieve a success such as the world has not heard of before, I must—I will make the essay.”“But how?”“And suppose I make him live once more—what then?”The idea blinded him, and he covered his eyes to think.

“You heard nothing?” said the doctor.

“Nothing at all. I went to bed at the usual time, sir,” said the butler—“half-past ten—yes, sir, I’ve the chaise waiting; won’t you come in that, and I can tell you as we drive over?”

“Yes; all right,” said the doctor, and five minutes later they were rattling along the road towards the Hall.

“Now, go on,” said North. “Yes, sir; I went to bed as usual, and slept very soundly till about an hour ago, and then I suddenly woke. I don’t know what made me wake; but I did, and somehow began thinking, as I’ve often thought before, about the plate in the pantry, and whether it was safe.”

“Don’t you sleep in the pantry?”

“No, sir; it’s so damp. So I lay telling myself it was all nonsense and fancy; but the more I thought so, the more uncomfortable I grew, till I could stand it no longer, and I got up, slipped on my trousers and great-coat, and went to the top of the stairs, where I felt quite a chill, as I knew something was not as it should be, for the lamp was not turned out on the hall table.”

“What lamp?”

“The hall lamp that Sir Luke always puts out himself when he goes up to bed.”

“Where do you say you left him last night?”

“In the billiard-room, sir, playing with Mr Tom, sir.”

“Yes; go on.”

“So I went down, sir; and there saw through the baize door that the lamp was burning at the end of the passage at the foot of the billiard-room stairs.”

“Yes.”

“And as soon as I got through the baize door, there, under the lamp, lay my poor master, all like of a heap.”

“What did you do?”

“Ran to him, and tried to put him in a more comfortable position, sir; but—”

“Yes; I understand.”

“Then I rushed up and called Mr Tom, sir; and we went to the squire together, and rang the bells and alarmed the house. Then, as soon as the boy had put the horse in the chaise, sir, I drove over to fetch you.”

“But did you do nothing to try and revive him?”

“Oh! yes, sir; but—”

“I understand,” said the doctor. “And Mr Tom?”

“He couldn’t believe it, sir. He said he played billiards with the squire for some time, and then grew tired and went to bed, leaving him knocking the balls about, and it’s all very plain, sir. I tell you of course, though I wouldn’t say so to another soul, poor Sir Luke used to take a great deal too much. I filled the spirit stand only this morning, and the brandy decanter was quite empty. He had a deal too, at dinner, before.”

“And you think he pitched downstairs, Smith?”

“Yes, sir; that is my belief,” said the butler; “and Mr Tom seemed to think so too.”

They reached the Hall to find every one in a state of the most intense excitement, but an ominous silence reigning through the place.

“Thank goodness you’ve come at last,” cried a familiar voice, and Tom hurried to meet North. “Pray be quick; he is insensible still.”

The doctor looked at the young man curiously.

“Where is he?”

“We carried him into the dining-room, and laid him on a sofa; but he has not stirred since. I’m afraid something is broken.”

As he spoke he led North into the dining-room, where the candles were burning, the shutters were closed, and curtains drawn; and there, upon a couch in the middle of the room, lay Sir Luke Candlish, as his brother had said, without having moved since he had been borne carefully in.

The doctor’s examination was short, and Tom Candlish stood looking on, apparently too much overcome to speak.

“Well,” he said at last, “is he very bad? Is anything broken?”

The doctor raised his eyebrows, and could have replied “his neck,” but he said simply: “Bad, sir? Can you not see that he is dead?”

“Dead?” ejaculated Tom; and his jaw dropped, while his face assumed a look of intense horror.

“Yes, sir. The butler’s theory seems to be quite correct. Sir Luke must have pitched headlong from the top of the stairs to the bottom.”

“And there is no hope?”

The doctor shook his head, and laid his hand upon the young man’s arm, signing to him to quit the room.

Tom followed mechanically.

“So horrible!” he said, as soon as they were in the drawing-room. “We were playing billiards together till late last night, while now—Yes, what is it?”

“I beg pardon.Sir Thomas,” said the old butler softly, “the housekeeper said would you and Dr North like a cup of tea?”

“Sir Thomas!” The title made Tom Candlish thrill as he stood gazing at the speaker. So soon!Le Roi est mort! Vive le Roi!

He was Sir Thomas Candlish. The estate was his and the rent-roll of at least five thousand a year. Last night he was enraged at the possibility of trouble arising from Thompson. Now he was a free man: he was rich.

And his brother?

It was his secret. And why should he trouble about the sudden death? It was an accident, and his own counsel could easily be kept. There was none to reveal the truth. The dead could never speak.

As he mused like this, and the butler brought in the tea, Dr North was lost in a fit of musing, for, like a flash, the scientific fancy upon which he had so long pondered came to him, so that for the moment he stood breathless and gazing wildly at the door which seemed to open before him.

The idea was bewildering. Leo had bidden her suitor distinguish himself as the price at which her love was to be won; and the more he thought, the more the idea shone out, dazzling him by its intense light—shining into the dark places of his soul.

What was his theory? That if a hale, hearty man were suddenly cut off by some accident, and apparently dead, could he arrest decay, Nature herself would repair the injury done, even as a fractured bone rapidly knits together and becomes stronger than before.

Here, then, was a hale, hearty man suddenly cut down; he was the medical man in attendance, and the opportunity served for restoring this man to life. Why should he not make his first essay now?

The idea grew more terrible in its intensity hour by hour. It was his chance if he would grasp it. Impious? No, not more so than performing an operation or trying to save a sufferer from death. But he was dead.

“What we call dead,” muttered North; “but why not suspended animation? For her sake, for my own fame, to achieve a success such as the world has not heard of before, I must—I will make the essay.”

“But how?”

“And suppose I make him live once more—what then?”

The idea blinded him, and he covered his eyes to think.

Chapter Twenty Six.“Ah!”“How horrible!” the curate said, when he heard the news from North, who came in at breakfast time.As he spoke these words, Leo entered the room, and stopped short, gazing from one to the other.She had come down looking happy and contented, with a satisfied smile upon her curved lips, heightened by a rather mocking light which danced in her eyes, as they encountered those of the doctor. There was a feeling of triumph, the satisfaction of a vain, weak woman at the sight of the slave ready to cast himself at her feet, and her manner was coquettish as she held out her hand.But her brother’s ejaculation, the stern look on the doctor’s face, chilled her, and she stopped short, looking from one to the other, her lips parting as if for the utterance of words which would not come.“What is it?” she said at last, wildly. “What is horrible?”“Hush, Leo!” said the curate, taking her hand; “don’t be alarmed.”“But you said—”“Yes; North has brought in terrible news from the Hall.”Leo’s face turned ghastly, and she clung to her brother, while North hurriedly placed a chair, into which she sank, but only to sit up rigidly, as she stared with widely opened eyes at the doctor.“Be calm,” he said tenderly. “You are still weak.”“What is it?” she said, in a voice that did not sound like her own.“It would be better that you should not know,” said North. “There has been a sad accident at the Hall.”“I must know now,” panted Leo, as she opened and closed her hands in her excitement.“It would be better to speak,” said the curate. “My sisters have been schooled to trouble, North. There has been a terribly sudden calamity at the Hall, Leo, dear. North was called up in the night, and—”“Is he dead?” she whispered hoarsely; and then reading her answer in the eyes of both, she uttered a long, low, “Ah!” and sat with her hand tightening upon her brother’s, while she closed her eyes, and an agonising spasm seemed to contract her beautiful face.“A fit of giddiness seems to have seized Sir Luke, and he fell headlong from the top of the stairs to the bottom.”“Ah!”Once more that strange expiration of the breath, which sounded to the listeners precisely the same, for their senses were not attuned with sufficient keenness to detect the difference.“I am sorry to have given you this terrible shock, Leo,” said North tenderly; “but I felt bound to come and let Salis know.”She did not reply directly, but sat there spasmodically clinging to her brother’s hand with fingers that were damp and cold.“I am better now,” she said at last, in a low whisper. “It is very terrible. Does Mary know?”“Not yet,” said Salis. “I am going to fetch her down. Has the faintness passed away?”“Yes—yes!” she said hastily. “It was the suddenness of the news. Try not to startle Mary, Hartley; but she is not such a coward as I am.”“You have been so ill,” said North tenderly. “Your nerves are unstrung. Besides, it is a great shock to hear of so awfully sudden a death.”“Go and tell Mary,” said Leo, rising. “I am quite well now. Speak gently.”“Yes,” said the curate; and he left the room.“Tell me,” said Leo, as soon as the door closed. “How was it? Was there any quarrel? It was an accident?”She spoke in a hurriedly excited manner, and there was a wildly anxious look in her eyes.“You are excited,” said North, taking her hand, half professionally, half with the anxious touch of a lover; but she snatched it away with an angry flash from her eyes.She saw his pained look, and held out her hand the next moment.“If the pulse beats quickly,” she said, smiling, “it is no wonder.”“No, no, of course not,” he cried, taking her hand, and holding it in his.“Now, tell me.”“Oh, it was an accident,” he said, “undoubtedly. I’m afraid there was a reason for it.”Leo was silent, looking at North searchingly.“Oh, yes, I understand now,” she said quickly. “He drank very much, did he not?”“I’m afraid so,” replied North, feeling half troubled at the intimate knowledge displayed by the woman he loved.“It is very horrible,” said Leo, closing her eyes. “Hush! they are coming down. Say as little as you can. Mary is very weak.”For the curate’s heavy step was heard upon the stairs, and directly after, as North hastened to open the door, Salis entered, carrying Mary in his arms, she looking white and anxious, and gazing quickly from her sister to North and back.There was an interchange of glances all round, and then, as if by common consent, the subject of the past night was avoided for a time, and North turned to go.“But you will stay breakfast?” said Mary. “You look tired and worn out.”She coloured slightly, for the words, full of anxiety for North’s welfare, had escaped her inadvertently; and the colour deepened as, in his pleasantly frank way, he smiled in her face.“It is very good of you,” he said. “You are always so thoughtful. If Leo will only endorse the invitation, I shall be very glad to stay.”“I’m sure we shall be very pleased,” said Leo calmly; and he crossed to her side, bent down, and said, in low tone:“I like that.”“You like what?” she said coolly enough.“The brave way in which you have mastered your weakness.”She smiled and looked furtively at her sister, who was less successful in controlling her feelings.The breakfast passed over without further allusion to the catastrophe at the Hall till towards the end, when Salis said suddenly:“I have a very unpleasant duty to perform.”Mary looked up anxiously.“Yes, dear; I must go over and see Thomas Candlish.”Leo bent over her cup.“It is a duty that I must fulfil, North.”“Yes,” said the doctor gravely; “especially at a time like this.”“How horrible!”And when the doctor left soon after, and he shook hands with his friend again, the latter once more exclaimed:“How horrible!”But it was in allusion to the sudden termination of the career of a man who drank heavily, and there was noarrière penséeas to the possibility of a quarrel between the two young men.

“How horrible!” the curate said, when he heard the news from North, who came in at breakfast time.

As he spoke these words, Leo entered the room, and stopped short, gazing from one to the other.

She had come down looking happy and contented, with a satisfied smile upon her curved lips, heightened by a rather mocking light which danced in her eyes, as they encountered those of the doctor. There was a feeling of triumph, the satisfaction of a vain, weak woman at the sight of the slave ready to cast himself at her feet, and her manner was coquettish as she held out her hand.

But her brother’s ejaculation, the stern look on the doctor’s face, chilled her, and she stopped short, looking from one to the other, her lips parting as if for the utterance of words which would not come.

“What is it?” she said at last, wildly. “What is horrible?”

“Hush, Leo!” said the curate, taking her hand; “don’t be alarmed.”

“But you said—”

“Yes; North has brought in terrible news from the Hall.”

Leo’s face turned ghastly, and she clung to her brother, while North hurriedly placed a chair, into which she sank, but only to sit up rigidly, as she stared with widely opened eyes at the doctor.

“Be calm,” he said tenderly. “You are still weak.”

“What is it?” she said, in a voice that did not sound like her own.

“It would be better that you should not know,” said North. “There has been a sad accident at the Hall.”

“I must know now,” panted Leo, as she opened and closed her hands in her excitement.

“It would be better to speak,” said the curate. “My sisters have been schooled to trouble, North. There has been a terribly sudden calamity at the Hall, Leo, dear. North was called up in the night, and—”

“Is he dead?” she whispered hoarsely; and then reading her answer in the eyes of both, she uttered a long, low, “Ah!” and sat with her hand tightening upon her brother’s, while she closed her eyes, and an agonising spasm seemed to contract her beautiful face.

“A fit of giddiness seems to have seized Sir Luke, and he fell headlong from the top of the stairs to the bottom.”

“Ah!”

Once more that strange expiration of the breath, which sounded to the listeners precisely the same, for their senses were not attuned with sufficient keenness to detect the difference.

“I am sorry to have given you this terrible shock, Leo,” said North tenderly; “but I felt bound to come and let Salis know.”

She did not reply directly, but sat there spasmodically clinging to her brother’s hand with fingers that were damp and cold.

“I am better now,” she said at last, in a low whisper. “It is very terrible. Does Mary know?”

“Not yet,” said Salis. “I am going to fetch her down. Has the faintness passed away?”

“Yes—yes!” she said hastily. “It was the suddenness of the news. Try not to startle Mary, Hartley; but she is not such a coward as I am.”

“You have been so ill,” said North tenderly. “Your nerves are unstrung. Besides, it is a great shock to hear of so awfully sudden a death.”

“Go and tell Mary,” said Leo, rising. “I am quite well now. Speak gently.”

“Yes,” said the curate; and he left the room.

“Tell me,” said Leo, as soon as the door closed. “How was it? Was there any quarrel? It was an accident?”

She spoke in a hurriedly excited manner, and there was a wildly anxious look in her eyes.

“You are excited,” said North, taking her hand, half professionally, half with the anxious touch of a lover; but she snatched it away with an angry flash from her eyes.

She saw his pained look, and held out her hand the next moment.

“If the pulse beats quickly,” she said, smiling, “it is no wonder.”

“No, no, of course not,” he cried, taking her hand, and holding it in his.

“Now, tell me.”

“Oh, it was an accident,” he said, “undoubtedly. I’m afraid there was a reason for it.”

Leo was silent, looking at North searchingly.

“Oh, yes, I understand now,” she said quickly. “He drank very much, did he not?”

“I’m afraid so,” replied North, feeling half troubled at the intimate knowledge displayed by the woman he loved.

“It is very horrible,” said Leo, closing her eyes. “Hush! they are coming down. Say as little as you can. Mary is very weak.”

For the curate’s heavy step was heard upon the stairs, and directly after, as North hastened to open the door, Salis entered, carrying Mary in his arms, she looking white and anxious, and gazing quickly from her sister to North and back.

There was an interchange of glances all round, and then, as if by common consent, the subject of the past night was avoided for a time, and North turned to go.

“But you will stay breakfast?” said Mary. “You look tired and worn out.”

She coloured slightly, for the words, full of anxiety for North’s welfare, had escaped her inadvertently; and the colour deepened as, in his pleasantly frank way, he smiled in her face.

“It is very good of you,” he said. “You are always so thoughtful. If Leo will only endorse the invitation, I shall be very glad to stay.”

“I’m sure we shall be very pleased,” said Leo calmly; and he crossed to her side, bent down, and said, in low tone:

“I like that.”

“You like what?” she said coolly enough.

“The brave way in which you have mastered your weakness.”

She smiled and looked furtively at her sister, who was less successful in controlling her feelings.

The breakfast passed over without further allusion to the catastrophe at the Hall till towards the end, when Salis said suddenly:

“I have a very unpleasant duty to perform.”

Mary looked up anxiously.

“Yes, dear; I must go over and see Thomas Candlish.”

Leo bent over her cup.

“It is a duty that I must fulfil, North.”

“Yes,” said the doctor gravely; “especially at a time like this.”

“How horrible!”

And when the doctor left soon after, and he shook hands with his friend again, the latter once more exclaimed:

“How horrible!”

But it was in allusion to the sudden termination of the career of a man who drank heavily, and there was noarrière penséeas to the possibility of a quarrel between the two young men.

Chapter Twenty Seven.The Doctor’s Opportunity.About midday, on his return from visiting his patients, North looked rather black.Perhaps it was the reflection from the sleek, superfine garments of his cousin, for that gentleman was walking slowly up and down on the lawn in front of the old Manor House, and in no way adding to the attractions of the quaintly-cut, well-kept place. “You here, Thompson!”“Yes, my dear Horace; I had to come down on business to-day, and I thought you would give me a bit of lunch before I went on.”“To see Mrs Berens?”“Well—er—perhaps I may give her a call; but my business was with—dear me, how strange that you should take any interest in social matters that have nothing to do with the body!”“Am I such a very eccentric man, then, that I should study my profession hard?”“Not at all, my dear fellow—not at all. I study mine hard, my dear Horace. Left almost penniless, it was a necessity, and I have, I am proud to say, been very successful, and am practically independent. But my visit here to-day was not to see the handsome widow—there, don’t blush, old fellow.”“Don’t be a fool, Thompson,” said the doctor testily. “Now, then, what were you going to say?”“I was going to tell you that my visit would be to the Hall.”“To the Hall?” cried North excitedly. “Yes. Here, what’s the matter?” said Cousin Thompson excitedly. “He hasn’t given me the slip?”“If you mean Sir Luke Candlish—”“No,” said Thompson harshly; “I don’t mean Luke Candlish. Here, why don’t you speak, man? Has Tom Candlish gone?”“No; he is at the Hall; but—”“That’s all right, then,” said Cousin Thompson, drawing a breath of relief. “Oh, I see, you’ve been over.”“Yes, I have been over.”“And he is shamming illness again because he expected me to-day. But it won’t do, Horace—it won’t do. Come, now, he’s quite well, isn’t he? Don’t turn against your own cousin, and back him up.”“Tom Candlish is as well as a man can be under such horrible circumstances. His brother is dead.”“Phew!” whistled the lawyer—a long-drawn, low, deep whistle. “Then he is now Sir Thomas Candlish.”“Yes, and if you have lent him money at usury it will be all right.”“At usury!” snarled the lawyer; “don’t you be so fond of using that word. I must make money, and lending at interest is fair enough.”“Where are you going?”“Going down to the Hall at once.”“You said you had come to lunch.”“Hang your lunch! I must see Tom Candlish.”“Impossible. It would not be decent to go on business now.”“Decent or indecent, I must see him at once.”“My cousin; and how cordially I do dislike him!” muttered the doctor, as he watched the sleek, black back of his visitor as he went down towards the gate. “To go at a time like this! Well, thank goodness, I am not a money-grubber.”He sat down in his study, and took a manuscript book from his drawer. Over this book he began to pore, but the words danced before his eyes, and he could think of nothing but Luke Candlish, the hale, strong man, suddenly cut off by accident, and of Leo’s words bidding him distinguish himself.“No rest last night,” he said, throwing the book back into the drawer; “I can’t read, or think, or do anything.”“Are you ready for your lunch, sir?” said Mrs Milt. “Mr Thompson will join you, I suppose?”“No; but I dare say he will come to dinner.”“Ho! Lunch is quite ready, sir,” said the old lady, in an ill-used tone, as the doctor moved towards the door.“Never mind; I can’t eat to-day. Going out,” said North hastily; and he hurriedly left the house, and passed down the village, where every one was discussing the accident at the Hall, and longed to question him, if such a thing could have been ventured upon.He had not seen Moredock for two or three days, and almost immediately, to avoid the torture of his thoughts, and what was rapidly approaching the stage of a great temptation, he walked to the old sexton’s cottage.The door was ajar, and he tapped, but there was no reply, and the only sound within was the regular beat of the great clock as the heavy pendulum swung to and fro.“Asleep, perhaps,” he said to himself, and pushing the door, he walked in; but the big arm-chair was vacant, and after a glance round, in which his eyes rested for a moment upon the old carved oak coffer, the doctor went slowly out, and, without considering which way he should go, walked straight on towards the church.A sound, as of something falling, made him raise his eyes, and he saw that the chancel door was open.“What’s Salis doing there?” he said to himself; and, entering the gate, he walked up the steps to the open doorway.“You here, Salis?” he said.“Nay, sir,” came back, in a harsh, familiar tone; “parson’s been and gone. Things is looking up again, doctor.”“Looking up?”“Ay. Been trebble quiet lately: only a bit of a child as hasn’t been chrissen’ this month past. Horrible healthy place, Dook’s Hampton.”“What are you doing here?”“Doing? Here? Why, haven’t you heard as the young squire—why, of course you have; you were called up this morning. Well, he’s got to be buried, hasn’t he?”“Buried? Yes, of course,” said the doctor thoughtfully.“Yes; he’s got to be buried,” said Moredock. “Some says it arn’t decent and like Christians, as ought to be buried tight in the brown earth. But they don’t know, doctor. They can’t tell what a lot o’ water there is in the ground o’ winters. I know, and I know what ’matics is. Nobody knows how damp that there churchyard is better than I do, doctor.”North stood looking at the sexton, but his thoughts were far away.“Ay, Squire Luke ’ll be buried in the morslem—he’ll lie with his fathers, as Scripter says; and when I die, which won’t be this twenty year, that’s how I’d like to lie with my fathers. Stretched out nice and warm in his lead coffin, that’s how he’s going to be, and put on a nice dry shelf. Ay, it’s a nasty damp old churchyard, doctor, and well they folk in Church Row know it. He, he, he! their wells is allus full o’ nice clean water, but I allus goes to the fur pump.”North did not seem to hear a word, but stood holding on by the rail of the Candlish tomb, thinking. His head swam with the dazzling light that blazed into his understanding. He was confused, and full of wonder, hesitation, and doubt.Luke Candlish—dead—the mausoleum—the hale, hearty young man—struck down.“Good heavens!” he ejaculated; “has my opportunity come—at last?”End of Volume One.

About midday, on his return from visiting his patients, North looked rather black.

Perhaps it was the reflection from the sleek, superfine garments of his cousin, for that gentleman was walking slowly up and down on the lawn in front of the old Manor House, and in no way adding to the attractions of the quaintly-cut, well-kept place. “You here, Thompson!”

“Yes, my dear Horace; I had to come down on business to-day, and I thought you would give me a bit of lunch before I went on.”

“To see Mrs Berens?”

“Well—er—perhaps I may give her a call; but my business was with—dear me, how strange that you should take any interest in social matters that have nothing to do with the body!”

“Am I such a very eccentric man, then, that I should study my profession hard?”

“Not at all, my dear fellow—not at all. I study mine hard, my dear Horace. Left almost penniless, it was a necessity, and I have, I am proud to say, been very successful, and am practically independent. But my visit here to-day was not to see the handsome widow—there, don’t blush, old fellow.”

“Don’t be a fool, Thompson,” said the doctor testily. “Now, then, what were you going to say?”

“I was going to tell you that my visit would be to the Hall.”

“To the Hall?” cried North excitedly. “Yes. Here, what’s the matter?” said Cousin Thompson excitedly. “He hasn’t given me the slip?”

“If you mean Sir Luke Candlish—”

“No,” said Thompson harshly; “I don’t mean Luke Candlish. Here, why don’t you speak, man? Has Tom Candlish gone?”

“No; he is at the Hall; but—”

“That’s all right, then,” said Cousin Thompson, drawing a breath of relief. “Oh, I see, you’ve been over.”

“Yes, I have been over.”

“And he is shamming illness again because he expected me to-day. But it won’t do, Horace—it won’t do. Come, now, he’s quite well, isn’t he? Don’t turn against your own cousin, and back him up.”

“Tom Candlish is as well as a man can be under such horrible circumstances. His brother is dead.”

“Phew!” whistled the lawyer—a long-drawn, low, deep whistle. “Then he is now Sir Thomas Candlish.”

“Yes, and if you have lent him money at usury it will be all right.”

“At usury!” snarled the lawyer; “don’t you be so fond of using that word. I must make money, and lending at interest is fair enough.”

“Where are you going?”

“Going down to the Hall at once.”

“You said you had come to lunch.”

“Hang your lunch! I must see Tom Candlish.”

“Impossible. It would not be decent to go on business now.”

“Decent or indecent, I must see him at once.”

“My cousin; and how cordially I do dislike him!” muttered the doctor, as he watched the sleek, black back of his visitor as he went down towards the gate. “To go at a time like this! Well, thank goodness, I am not a money-grubber.”

He sat down in his study, and took a manuscript book from his drawer. Over this book he began to pore, but the words danced before his eyes, and he could think of nothing but Luke Candlish, the hale, strong man, suddenly cut off by accident, and of Leo’s words bidding him distinguish himself.

“No rest last night,” he said, throwing the book back into the drawer; “I can’t read, or think, or do anything.”

“Are you ready for your lunch, sir?” said Mrs Milt. “Mr Thompson will join you, I suppose?”

“No; but I dare say he will come to dinner.”

“Ho! Lunch is quite ready, sir,” said the old lady, in an ill-used tone, as the doctor moved towards the door.

“Never mind; I can’t eat to-day. Going out,” said North hastily; and he hurriedly left the house, and passed down the village, where every one was discussing the accident at the Hall, and longed to question him, if such a thing could have been ventured upon.

He had not seen Moredock for two or three days, and almost immediately, to avoid the torture of his thoughts, and what was rapidly approaching the stage of a great temptation, he walked to the old sexton’s cottage.

The door was ajar, and he tapped, but there was no reply, and the only sound within was the regular beat of the great clock as the heavy pendulum swung to and fro.

“Asleep, perhaps,” he said to himself, and pushing the door, he walked in; but the big arm-chair was vacant, and after a glance round, in which his eyes rested for a moment upon the old carved oak coffer, the doctor went slowly out, and, without considering which way he should go, walked straight on towards the church.

A sound, as of something falling, made him raise his eyes, and he saw that the chancel door was open.

“What’s Salis doing there?” he said to himself; and, entering the gate, he walked up the steps to the open doorway.

“You here, Salis?” he said.

“Nay, sir,” came back, in a harsh, familiar tone; “parson’s been and gone. Things is looking up again, doctor.”

“Looking up?”

“Ay. Been trebble quiet lately: only a bit of a child as hasn’t been chrissen’ this month past. Horrible healthy place, Dook’s Hampton.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Doing? Here? Why, haven’t you heard as the young squire—why, of course you have; you were called up this morning. Well, he’s got to be buried, hasn’t he?”

“Buried? Yes, of course,” said the doctor thoughtfully.

“Yes; he’s got to be buried,” said Moredock. “Some says it arn’t decent and like Christians, as ought to be buried tight in the brown earth. But they don’t know, doctor. They can’t tell what a lot o’ water there is in the ground o’ winters. I know, and I know what ’matics is. Nobody knows how damp that there churchyard is better than I do, doctor.”

North stood looking at the sexton, but his thoughts were far away.

“Ay, Squire Luke ’ll be buried in the morslem—he’ll lie with his fathers, as Scripter says; and when I die, which won’t be this twenty year, that’s how I’d like to lie with my fathers. Stretched out nice and warm in his lead coffin, that’s how he’s going to be, and put on a nice dry shelf. Ay, it’s a nasty damp old churchyard, doctor, and well they folk in Church Row know it. He, he, he! their wells is allus full o’ nice clean water, but I allus goes to the fur pump.”

North did not seem to hear a word, but stood holding on by the rail of the Candlish tomb, thinking. His head swam with the dazzling light that blazed into his understanding. He was confused, and full of wonder, hesitation, and doubt.

Luke Candlish—dead—the mausoleum—the hale, hearty young man—struck down.

“Good heavens!” he ejaculated; “has my opportunity come—at last?”

Volume Two—Chapter One.The First Baronet’s Tomb.As Horace North battled with his thoughts, Moredock chuckled and went on:“They drinks it, doctor, the idiots, and all the time they say it’s horrid to eat a bit o’ churchyard mutton. Squire Luke didn’t care, though. He wouldn’t have said no to a bit o’ mutton ’cause it was pastured in the churchyard. But he has to send they sheep right t’other side o’ the county to sell ’em. Folks ’bout here wouldn’t touch a bit o’ churchyard mutton. Such stuff! Keeps the graves nibbled off clean and neat. Don’t hurt they. Mutton’s sweet enough, and so they goes on drinking the water all round the yard, as is piled up with dead folk as I’ve buried, and my father and grandfather before me. Ay, they drinks the water, but wouldn’t touch the mutton; they’d rather starve. Damp churchyard; and squire ’ll lay snug on his dry shelf, and me—some day—in the cold, wet ground.”“It all comes to the same thing, Moredock,” said the doctor, rousing himself.“May be, doctor: may be as you’re right,” said the old man, shaking his head solemnly—“‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;’ but there’s a deal o’ differ, and it takes a deal longer to come to that. I say, doctor, ’member what I said to you ’bout squire drinking himself to death?” said the old man, stooping to pick up a crowbar that he had let fall a few minutes before.“Yes,” said North, gazing thoughtfully at the old man, and hardly realising what he said.“More strange things happen than what I told you. I knowed it wouldn’t be long before he drank himself to death.”“The squire died from an accident, Moredock,” said the doctor sternly.“Ay, but what made the accident?” said the old man, with a chuckle. “Was it steps, was it bottles, was it corks? Nay, it were something inside the bottle. Drop o’ brandy’s good, but when you gets too much, it’s poison.”The doctor did not speak, only stood just inside the chancel door, gazing fixedly at the old man, with his thoughts wandering from the mausoleum built by the vestry, to the squire’s remains lying up at the Hall, and his strange schemes, by which humanity might, perhaps, be spared much pain and care.“I’ve took the last o’ that there physic, doctor.”“Perhaps be of incalculable benefit to coming generations,” mused the doctor, as he went on dreaming, standing there with one hand resting on the tomb rail, and seeming to look through the present in the shape of the crabbed and gnarled old sexton to a future where all was health and strength.“It was rare stuff, doctor,” continued old Moredock, with a chuckle, as he glanced sidewise at the dreaming man. “Mussy me! a drop o’ that allus seemed to make my toes tingle, and it went right up into the roots of my hair.”“Why not—why not try?” It seemed a great experiment, but how little as compared with what had been done of old! “Why not—why not try?”“You’ll let me have another bottle, doctor. It does me a sight of good.”“I must. It seems like fate urging me on. It is for her—to do something to distinguish myself. Here is the opportunity, and I hesitate.”“One day I took a dose, doctor, and I thought it was trubble nasty, but five minutes after I said to myself, this beats brandy from the inn. They sperrets don’t make your fingers go cricking and your toes tingle. Rare stuff, doctor. What’s he gone to sleep?”“Yes, I will do it; but how? No; it is impossible.”“You’ll let me have another bottle o’ that there physic, doctor, won’t yer?”“Physic, Moredock? Physic?” said the doctor, starting. “You don’t require more now.”“Ah! but I do. See what a lot o’ good last lot did me. I’m a deal stronger than I used to were. You’ll let me have another bottle, doctor?”“Well, well, I’ll see. Terrible job this, Moredock.”“Ay, it be trubble job, doctor. I’m going to open the morslem. Say, doctor, ’member what I said ’bout my Dally. Be strange thing if she got to be missus up at Hall now. Why, he be dreaming like again,” he added to himself.“Remember what?” said the doctor. “Your Dally—the Rectory maid?”“Ay, doctor; seems as if them as is maids may be missuses. Who knows, eh?”“Who knows, you old wretch!” cried the doctor angrily. “You look sharply after your grandchild, for fear trouble should come.”“All right, doctor, I will. I’ll look out, and I’m not going to quarrel with you. I arn’t forgot what you did when I cut my hand with the spade.”“And suffered from blood poisoning, eh? Ah! I saved your life then, Moredock.”“And you will again, won’t you, doctor?” said the old man smoothly; “for I’ve a deal to do yet. Don’t be jealous, doctor. If my gal gets to be my lady you shall ’tend her. You’re a clever one, doctor; but there, I must go on, for I’ve a deal to do.”The old man gave the doctor a ghoul-like smile, and went off to busy himself, doing nothing apparently, though he was busier than might have been supposed; while, as if unable to tear himself away, Horace North stood holding on to the railing of the tomb in the chancel—the tomb where the founder of the family lay—the next in descent of the line of baronets having preferred to build the noble mausoleum on the opposite side, where it looked like a handsome chapel of the fine old ecclesiastical structure; and it would be there that the last dead baronet would in a few days lie.North gazed straight before him, as he held on by that metal rail of the Candlish tomb, with a dark plunge before him, and beyond that, after battling with the waters of discovery, a wonderland opening out, wherein he was about to explore, to find fame and win the woman he told himself he loved, and who, he believed, loved him as dearly in return. And yet all the while, as, from time to time, Moredock looked in with a smile, after pottering about the entrance to the mausoleum, whose keys he held, the doctor seemed to be staring at the Candlish tomb, which took up so much of the chancel, just as its occupant had taken up space when he was alive.It was a curious structure, that tomb, curious as the railings which the doctor held. The edifice resembled nothing so much as an ornamental, extremely cramped, four-post bedstead, built in marble, with the palisade to keep the vulgar from coming too close to the stony effigy of the great Sir Wyckeley Candlish, Baronet, of the days of good King James; the more especially that, in company with his wife, Dame Candlish, he had apparently gone to bed with all his clothes on. He had been, unless the sculptor’s chisel had lied, a man like a bull-headed butcher who had married a cook, and she was represented in her puffs and furbelows, and he in his stuffed breeches and rosetted shoes, feathered cap, and short cape. His feet had the appearance of ornaments, not members for use; and his lady’s hands, joined in prayer, were like small gloves, as they lay there side by side. A pair of ornaments upon which their posterity might gaze what time they came to read the eulogy in Latin carved in a panel of the stone bedstead, with arms and escutcheons, and mottoes and puffs that were not true, after the fashion of the time.It was a curious specimen of old-world vanity, so large that it seemed as if it were the principal object of the place—an idol altar, with its gods, about which the chancel had been built for protection.“What trash!” exclaimed North, when he suddenly seemed to awaken to the object at which he gazed, “as if a Candlish was ever of any value in this world—ever did one good or virtuous act.”“Any good in this world? Why not at last. Everything seems to point to it. Even the worst of the race might do some good. I’ll hesitate no longer. He can’t refuse me.”“Doctor! Been asleep?”“Asleep, man? No. Never more thoroughly awake.”“I asked you to let me have another bottle of that—the tingling stuff. It done me a mort o’ good.”“Yes, yes,” said North huskily. “You shall have some more, old man!”“Ay; that’s right,” said the old fellow, giving his hands a rub. “Couldn’t tell me what it is, could you, so as I might get some of it myself without troubling you?”“What is it? One of my secrets, Moredock, just as you have yours. Trust me, and you shall have as much as is for your good.”“Hah! that’s right, doctor; that’s right,” chuckled the old fellow horribly. “I mean to live a long time yet, and may as well do it comfortably. I’ll come round to your surgery to-night, and—hist!” he whispered; “is there anything I can bring?”“No—no,” said the doctor hastily; “but, Moredock, I do want you to do something for me.”“Eh? I do something for you, doctor? It isn’t money, is it?”“Money, man? No; I’ll tell you what I want.”“Hist! parson!” said the old man, giving him a nudge, as a familiar step was heard upon the gravel path of the churchyard; and, directly after, the tall figure of the curate darkened the door.“Ah! North; you here? Having a look round?”“Yes,” said the doctor; “and a chat with my old patient.”“Ah!” said the curate, shaking his head at the sexton.“Doctor’s going to let me have another bottle of the stuff as I told you ’bout, sir.”“Indeed!” said Salis, rather gruffly. “I wish you could do without so many bottles of stuff, Moredock. But, there, I wanted to see you about the preparations.”“Don’t you trouble yourself about that, sir,” grumbled the old fellow. “It ain’t the first time a Candlish has died, and I’ve put things ready. That’ll be all right, sir. That’s my business. You shan’t have no cause to complain.”“Be a little extra particular about the church and the yard, Moredock; and, above all, have those sheep out. Mr May writes me word that he shall come down from town on purpose to read the service over Sir Luke, and he hates to see sheep in the churchyard.”“’Member what I said, doctor?” chuckled the old man. “But what am I to do, sir? Churchwarden Sir Luke had ’em put there; who’s to order ’em to be took away?”“I will!” said the curate sharply. “There, that will do.”Moredock trudged away.“I’m afraid I have a morbid antipathy to that old man,” said the curate.“Ah, he’s a character.”“Yes, and a bad one, too: I’m glad we have his grandchild away from him.”“So am I, and if I were you, Salis, I’d keep a sharp look-out on the girl.”“Yes, of course!” said the curate impatiently. “But you heard what I said about May coming down?”“Yes; but what does that matter?”“Only a long series of lectures to me, which makes my blood boil. I’ve had another unpleasantly, too. I went up to the Hall to see—Sir Thomas—I suppose I must call him now, and he sent me out an insolent message; at least, I thought it so.”“Never mind, old fellow; we all have our troubles.”“Not going to trouble,” said the curate quietly. “Coming my way?”“No. I want another word with Moredock, and then I’m going home.”“Ah, he’s a queer old fellow,” said the curate, glancing towards the sexton as he went round the chancel with a crowbar over his shoulder, the old man turning to give both a cunning, magpie-like look, as he went out of sight.The two friends parted, and then North followed the sexton.“I don’t like it,” he muttered. “Salis would be horrified; he would never forgive me; and yet to win the sister’s, I am risking the brother’s love. Oh, but it is more than that,” he said excitedly; “far more than that. It is in the service of science and of humanity at large. I can’t help it. I must—I will!”There was tremendous emphasis on that “I will!” and, as if now fully resolved, he went to where the old sexton was scraping and chopping about the entrance of the mausoleum, and sometimes stooping to drag out a luxuriant weed.“Ah, doctor,” he said; “back again? Parson’s a bit hard on me. I hope he hasn’t been running me down.”“Nonsense! No. Look here, Moredock, you have always expressed a desire to serve me?”“Yes, doctor; of course.”“Then, look here,” said North, bending down towards the old man. “I want you to—”He finished his speech in a low voice by the old man’s ear.“You want what?” was the reply.The doctor whispered to him again more earnestly than before.The old man let the crowbar fall to his side, his jaw dropped, and he stood in a stooping position, staring.“You want me to do that, doctor?” he whispered, with a tremble in his voice.“Yes, I want your help in this.”“No, no, doctor; I couldn’t indeed!”“You could, Moredock; and you will!”The old man shivered.“I’ve done a deal,” he whispered; “and I’ve seen a deal; but oh, doctor! don’t ask me to do this.”“I don’t ask you,” said the doctor sternly. “I only say you must—you shall!”

As Horace North battled with his thoughts, Moredock chuckled and went on:

“They drinks it, doctor, the idiots, and all the time they say it’s horrid to eat a bit o’ churchyard mutton. Squire Luke didn’t care, though. He wouldn’t have said no to a bit o’ mutton ’cause it was pastured in the churchyard. But he has to send they sheep right t’other side o’ the county to sell ’em. Folks ’bout here wouldn’t touch a bit o’ churchyard mutton. Such stuff! Keeps the graves nibbled off clean and neat. Don’t hurt they. Mutton’s sweet enough, and so they goes on drinking the water all round the yard, as is piled up with dead folk as I’ve buried, and my father and grandfather before me. Ay, they drinks the water, but wouldn’t touch the mutton; they’d rather starve. Damp churchyard; and squire ’ll lay snug on his dry shelf, and me—some day—in the cold, wet ground.”

“It all comes to the same thing, Moredock,” said the doctor, rousing himself.

“May be, doctor: may be as you’re right,” said the old man, shaking his head solemnly—“‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;’ but there’s a deal o’ differ, and it takes a deal longer to come to that. I say, doctor, ’member what I said to you ’bout squire drinking himself to death?” said the old man, stooping to pick up a crowbar that he had let fall a few minutes before.

“Yes,” said North, gazing thoughtfully at the old man, and hardly realising what he said.

“More strange things happen than what I told you. I knowed it wouldn’t be long before he drank himself to death.”

“The squire died from an accident, Moredock,” said the doctor sternly.

“Ay, but what made the accident?” said the old man, with a chuckle. “Was it steps, was it bottles, was it corks? Nay, it were something inside the bottle. Drop o’ brandy’s good, but when you gets too much, it’s poison.”

The doctor did not speak, only stood just inside the chancel door, gazing fixedly at the old man, with his thoughts wandering from the mausoleum built by the vestry, to the squire’s remains lying up at the Hall, and his strange schemes, by which humanity might, perhaps, be spared much pain and care.

“I’ve took the last o’ that there physic, doctor.”

“Perhaps be of incalculable benefit to coming generations,” mused the doctor, as he went on dreaming, standing there with one hand resting on the tomb rail, and seeming to look through the present in the shape of the crabbed and gnarled old sexton to a future where all was health and strength.

“It was rare stuff, doctor,” continued old Moredock, with a chuckle, as he glanced sidewise at the dreaming man. “Mussy me! a drop o’ that allus seemed to make my toes tingle, and it went right up into the roots of my hair.”

“Why not—why not try?” It seemed a great experiment, but how little as compared with what had been done of old! “Why not—why not try?”

“You’ll let me have another bottle, doctor. It does me a sight of good.”

“I must. It seems like fate urging me on. It is for her—to do something to distinguish myself. Here is the opportunity, and I hesitate.”

“One day I took a dose, doctor, and I thought it was trubble nasty, but five minutes after I said to myself, this beats brandy from the inn. They sperrets don’t make your fingers go cricking and your toes tingle. Rare stuff, doctor. What’s he gone to sleep?”

“Yes, I will do it; but how? No; it is impossible.”

“You’ll let me have another bottle o’ that there physic, doctor, won’t yer?”

“Physic, Moredock? Physic?” said the doctor, starting. “You don’t require more now.”

“Ah! but I do. See what a lot o’ good last lot did me. I’m a deal stronger than I used to were. You’ll let me have another bottle, doctor?”

“Well, well, I’ll see. Terrible job this, Moredock.”

“Ay, it be trubble job, doctor. I’m going to open the morslem. Say, doctor, ’member what I said ’bout my Dally. Be strange thing if she got to be missus up at Hall now. Why, he be dreaming like again,” he added to himself.

“Remember what?” said the doctor. “Your Dally—the Rectory maid?”

“Ay, doctor; seems as if them as is maids may be missuses. Who knows, eh?”

“Who knows, you old wretch!” cried the doctor angrily. “You look sharply after your grandchild, for fear trouble should come.”

“All right, doctor, I will. I’ll look out, and I’m not going to quarrel with you. I arn’t forgot what you did when I cut my hand with the spade.”

“And suffered from blood poisoning, eh? Ah! I saved your life then, Moredock.”

“And you will again, won’t you, doctor?” said the old man smoothly; “for I’ve a deal to do yet. Don’t be jealous, doctor. If my gal gets to be my lady you shall ’tend her. You’re a clever one, doctor; but there, I must go on, for I’ve a deal to do.”

The old man gave the doctor a ghoul-like smile, and went off to busy himself, doing nothing apparently, though he was busier than might have been supposed; while, as if unable to tear himself away, Horace North stood holding on to the railing of the tomb in the chancel—the tomb where the founder of the family lay—the next in descent of the line of baronets having preferred to build the noble mausoleum on the opposite side, where it looked like a handsome chapel of the fine old ecclesiastical structure; and it would be there that the last dead baronet would in a few days lie.

North gazed straight before him, as he held on by that metal rail of the Candlish tomb, with a dark plunge before him, and beyond that, after battling with the waters of discovery, a wonderland opening out, wherein he was about to explore, to find fame and win the woman he told himself he loved, and who, he believed, loved him as dearly in return. And yet all the while, as, from time to time, Moredock looked in with a smile, after pottering about the entrance to the mausoleum, whose keys he held, the doctor seemed to be staring at the Candlish tomb, which took up so much of the chancel, just as its occupant had taken up space when he was alive.

It was a curious structure, that tomb, curious as the railings which the doctor held. The edifice resembled nothing so much as an ornamental, extremely cramped, four-post bedstead, built in marble, with the palisade to keep the vulgar from coming too close to the stony effigy of the great Sir Wyckeley Candlish, Baronet, of the days of good King James; the more especially that, in company with his wife, Dame Candlish, he had apparently gone to bed with all his clothes on. He had been, unless the sculptor’s chisel had lied, a man like a bull-headed butcher who had married a cook, and she was represented in her puffs and furbelows, and he in his stuffed breeches and rosetted shoes, feathered cap, and short cape. His feet had the appearance of ornaments, not members for use; and his lady’s hands, joined in prayer, were like small gloves, as they lay there side by side. A pair of ornaments upon which their posterity might gaze what time they came to read the eulogy in Latin carved in a panel of the stone bedstead, with arms and escutcheons, and mottoes and puffs that were not true, after the fashion of the time.

It was a curious specimen of old-world vanity, so large that it seemed as if it were the principal object of the place—an idol altar, with its gods, about which the chancel had been built for protection.

“What trash!” exclaimed North, when he suddenly seemed to awaken to the object at which he gazed, “as if a Candlish was ever of any value in this world—ever did one good or virtuous act.”

“Any good in this world? Why not at last. Everything seems to point to it. Even the worst of the race might do some good. I’ll hesitate no longer. He can’t refuse me.”

“Doctor! Been asleep?”

“Asleep, man? No. Never more thoroughly awake.”

“I asked you to let me have another bottle of that—the tingling stuff. It done me a mort o’ good.”

“Yes, yes,” said North huskily. “You shall have some more, old man!”

“Ay; that’s right,” said the old fellow, giving his hands a rub. “Couldn’t tell me what it is, could you, so as I might get some of it myself without troubling you?”

“What is it? One of my secrets, Moredock, just as you have yours. Trust me, and you shall have as much as is for your good.”

“Hah! that’s right, doctor; that’s right,” chuckled the old fellow horribly. “I mean to live a long time yet, and may as well do it comfortably. I’ll come round to your surgery to-night, and—hist!” he whispered; “is there anything I can bring?”

“No—no,” said the doctor hastily; “but, Moredock, I do want you to do something for me.”

“Eh? I do something for you, doctor? It isn’t money, is it?”

“Money, man? No; I’ll tell you what I want.”

“Hist! parson!” said the old man, giving him a nudge, as a familiar step was heard upon the gravel path of the churchyard; and, directly after, the tall figure of the curate darkened the door.

“Ah! North; you here? Having a look round?”

“Yes,” said the doctor; “and a chat with my old patient.”

“Ah!” said the curate, shaking his head at the sexton.

“Doctor’s going to let me have another bottle of the stuff as I told you ’bout, sir.”

“Indeed!” said Salis, rather gruffly. “I wish you could do without so many bottles of stuff, Moredock. But, there, I wanted to see you about the preparations.”

“Don’t you trouble yourself about that, sir,” grumbled the old fellow. “It ain’t the first time a Candlish has died, and I’ve put things ready. That’ll be all right, sir. That’s my business. You shan’t have no cause to complain.”

“Be a little extra particular about the church and the yard, Moredock; and, above all, have those sheep out. Mr May writes me word that he shall come down from town on purpose to read the service over Sir Luke, and he hates to see sheep in the churchyard.”

“’Member what I said, doctor?” chuckled the old man. “But what am I to do, sir? Churchwarden Sir Luke had ’em put there; who’s to order ’em to be took away?”

“I will!” said the curate sharply. “There, that will do.”

Moredock trudged away.

“I’m afraid I have a morbid antipathy to that old man,” said the curate.

“Ah, he’s a character.”

“Yes, and a bad one, too: I’m glad we have his grandchild away from him.”

“So am I, and if I were you, Salis, I’d keep a sharp look-out on the girl.”

“Yes, of course!” said the curate impatiently. “But you heard what I said about May coming down?”

“Yes; but what does that matter?”

“Only a long series of lectures to me, which makes my blood boil. I’ve had another unpleasantly, too. I went up to the Hall to see—Sir Thomas—I suppose I must call him now, and he sent me out an insolent message; at least, I thought it so.”

“Never mind, old fellow; we all have our troubles.”

“Not going to trouble,” said the curate quietly. “Coming my way?”

“No. I want another word with Moredock, and then I’m going home.”

“Ah, he’s a queer old fellow,” said the curate, glancing towards the sexton as he went round the chancel with a crowbar over his shoulder, the old man turning to give both a cunning, magpie-like look, as he went out of sight.

The two friends parted, and then North followed the sexton.

“I don’t like it,” he muttered. “Salis would be horrified; he would never forgive me; and yet to win the sister’s, I am risking the brother’s love. Oh, but it is more than that,” he said excitedly; “far more than that. It is in the service of science and of humanity at large. I can’t help it. I must—I will!”

There was tremendous emphasis on that “I will!” and, as if now fully resolved, he went to where the old sexton was scraping and chopping about the entrance of the mausoleum, and sometimes stooping to drag out a luxuriant weed.

“Ah, doctor,” he said; “back again? Parson’s a bit hard on me. I hope he hasn’t been running me down.”

“Nonsense! No. Look here, Moredock, you have always expressed a desire to serve me?”

“Yes, doctor; of course.”

“Then, look here,” said North, bending down towards the old man. “I want you to—”

He finished his speech in a low voice by the old man’s ear.

“You want what?” was the reply.

The doctor whispered to him again more earnestly than before.

The old man let the crowbar fall to his side, his jaw dropped, and he stood in a stooping position, staring.

“You want me to do that, doctor?” he whispered, with a tremble in his voice.

“Yes, I want your help in this.”

“No, no, doctor; I couldn’t indeed!”

“You could, Moredock; and you will!”

The old man shivered.

“I’ve done a deal,” he whispered; “and I’ve seen a deal; but oh, doctor! don’t ask me to do this.”

“I don’t ask you,” said the doctor sternly. “I only say you must—you shall!”

Volume Two—Chapter Two.“A Fine Berrin’.”Boom!The big tenor bell made the louvres rattle in the tower windows, as it sent forth its sonorous note to announce far and wide that the Candlish mausoleum was open and ready to receive the remains of the last owner of the title conferred by King James.Boom! again: so heavy and deep a sound that it seemed to strike the cottage windows and rebound like a wave, to go quivering off upon the wind and collect the people from far and near.It was early yet, but one little trim-looking body was astir, in the person of Dally Watlock, who stole out of the back door at the Rectory, made her way into the meadows, hurried down to the river, and along behind the Manor House, and so reached the churchyard at the back, where the vestry door in the north-east corner was easily accessible.Dally walked and ran, looking sharply from side to side to see if she were noticed, gave a quick glance at the steps leading down to the mausoleum, and longed to peep in, but refrained, and darted in at the vestry door.She knew the vestry would be empty, for she had left the curate at home, and she had heard that the Reverend Maurice May would not be over for nearly an hour, so there was an excellent chance for her to obtain the seat she wished, and see the funeral, and to that end she had come.“How tiresome!” she cried, giving the oaken door in the corner of the vestry an angry thump. “Locked!”Boom! went the big bell.“And gran’fa’s got the key,” she cried. “I’ll make him give it to me.”Dally looked a good deal like a big black rabbit turned by a fairy into a girl, as she darted out of the vestry, and dodged in and out among the tombstones and old vaults on her way round to the big west door in the tower, from which came another loud boom to fly quivering away upon the air.The big door was ajar, and yielded readily to her touch as she thrust, and the next minute she had entered, and pushed it to, to stand facing old Moredock, as he dragged away at the rope and brought forth from the big tenor another heavy boom.The old man was in his shirt-sleeves, and his coat hung up behind the door, with his cap above it, so that it bore a strong resemblance to the old sexton, who had apparently been bringing his existence to an end by means of a piece of rope belonging to a bell.“Hallo, Dally!” said the old man, giving her one of his ghoulish grins, as if proud of the yellow tooth still left; “what have you come for?”“I want to see squire’s funeral, gran’fa. To get a good place.”“Ah, I know’d you’d come,” said the old man. “I say, Dally; Sir Tom Candlish, eh? Have you tried how it sounds?”“What nonsense, gran’fa! and do a-done. You’ll have some one hear you.”“He—he—he! Let ’em,” chuckled the old man; “let ’em. Sir Thomas Candlish, eh?”“I don’t know what you mean,” said the girl, giving her head a vain toss.Boom! went the bell, after the rope had rattled; and the old man groaned with the effort.“He—he—he! No, no, you don’t know,” he chuckled, moving sidewise, and giving the girl a sharp nudge with his elbow. “But, my word, Dally, you do look pretty this morning.”“Don’t, gran’fa. What stuff!”“Oh, but you do,” said the old man, looking at her critically; “and fine and smart too for coming to a funeral.”“Why, you wouldn’t have had me wear black, gran’fa, would you?”They were quite alone in the belfry, and as the old man talked, he from time to time gave a steady pull at the rope, and a heavy, jarringboomwas the result.“Ah, and I might have said wear black, if I’d ha’ thought of it,” said the old man, examining the girl from top to toe.“Then I hadn’t got any black, and if I had I would not have worn it, because it makes one look so ugly,” said the girl, giving her head another toss. “Now do tell me where to go. I want to see well. Can’t you put me up in that loft place over the vestry?”“What! where you could see down into squire’s pew?” said the old man, giving another tug at the rope.“Yes, gran’fa; it’s a nice snug place, where no one could see me.”“Oh, yes, they could,” said the old man, chuckling. “Anybody looked up from the squire’s pew he could see your bonny face.”“I’m sure I didn’t know,” said the girl; “and you’re very fond of calling it a bonny face all at once. You said one day I was an ugly little witch.”“Did I?” said the old man, whose voice was nearly drowned by the boom he produced from the bell. “I s’pose I was cross that day. But, Dally, why didn’t you come and ask your old grandfather for some money to buy black?”“Because he’d have called me an idle hussy, and told me to go about my business,” said the girl pertly.“No, he wouldn’t, my dear,” said the old man, tugging at the rope. “He’d have given you enough to buy a new silk dress, and a bonnet and feather—black ’uns, so that you might have come to the berrin’ looking as well as the best of ’em.”“Would you, gran’fa?” cried the girl, with her eyes sparkling.“Ay, that I would, my chuck, and the noo squire could have seen you, and—hist!”—boom!—“he’d have thought more of you than ever.”“Oh, for shame, gran’fa,” said Dally. “You shouldn’t. But will you give me the money now?”“It’s too late, my chucky.”“No, no, it isn’t, gran’fa.”“But you must mind what you’re doing, Dally.”Another tug at the bell-rope, and a loudboom! made the place quiver.“I don’t understand you, gran’pa.”“Oh, yes, you do. There, you come and see me to-night—no, to-morrow morning, and I’ll see what I can do.”“You dear old gran’fa!” cried the girl. “But make haste; I want to go into that loft. You’ve got the key.”“Have I?”“Yes, and if you don’t make haste, Mr Salis and Mr May will be here, and I can’t get through the vestry.”“Ah well, you feel in my pocket there—in the coat behind the door. It’s the littlest key.”The girl darted to the old coat, and the next minute had drawn out four keys, all polished by long usage, the littlest being a great implement, big enough to use for a weapon of war.“There,” said old Moredock, chuckling; “bring it back to me when you’ve done.”“Yes, gran’fa.”“And mind young squire don’t see you.”“Oh, gran’fa, of course I will.”Rope rattle, boom, and a loud chuckle.“Ah, that you will, Dally. There, be off, and don’t forget to come to me to-morrow morning.”“I shan’t forget, gran’fa,” cried the girl, hurrying out, and going round by the back of the church to the vestry door, as another loud boom rang out from the church tower.People were gathering, but Dally was not seen, and passing into the vestry, she opened the old oaken door in the corner, drew out the key to insert it on the other side, draw it to after her and lock herself in, and stand panting for a few moments before ascending the narrow, corkscrew staircase, which led to the traceried opening in the side of the chancel, from which place she could have an excellent view of all that was about to take place.For it was to be “a fine berrin’.”This was the accepted term for Luke Candlish’s funeral.His brother, Tom, heir to the title and estate, consequent upon Luke’s single life, had given orders to the London undertaker—very much to the disgust of the King’s Hampton carpenter and upholsterer, as his sign-board announced, for this individual wanted to know why he couldn’t bury the squire as well as a Londoner—that everything should be worthy of the family. So the London man had brought down his third best suite of funeral paraphernalia. The first was retained for magnates: the second for London folk of rank; the third for the leading country families, who always ordered and believed they had the beat.But it was very nearly the same. The ostrich plumes of sable hue were common to all ranks, and the velvet and silk palls and carriages that were used for the higher magnates one year, descended to the second place a year or so later, and then came into country use. It was only a question of freshness, and what could that matter when the eyes of the mourners were so veiled with tears that they could not tell the new from the old?So it was a fine berrin’, with the carriages of all the neighbouring gentry sent down to follow, and a most impressive service, which, read impressively by the rector, who had driven over from King’s Hampton, sounded almost blasphemous to Hartley Salis, who had the misfortune to know the character of the deceased by heart. The coffin of polished mahogany, with gilt handles, had been greatly admired; the favoured few had read the inscription; and when it was borne from the Hall to the church, that edifice was fairly well filled, and the carriages extended from the lych-gate right away down to Moredock’s cottage—three hundred yards.It was a funeral, but to very few was it a scene of sadness, being looked upon as a sight quite as interesting as a wedding, and the lookers-on had duly noted who descended from the various carriages to enter the church, among the followers being Cousin Thompson, who had found it necessary to stay down at his cousin’s house with Horace North, to transact a certain amount of business for the new baronet.The doctor was not well pleased, for the society of his cousin bored him just at a time when his mind was full of great ideas which he was anxious to carry out; but he submitted with as good a grace as he could assume, and at the funeral they sat side by side in one of the carriages, and then occupied the same position in a pew. And while the Reverend Maurice May spoke with tears in his throat of the departed brother, the doctor thought of science, and his cousin of money, and of the brother who had not departed.Mrs Berens uttered a loud, hysterical sob once during the service, for she had gone so far as to hope at one time that she might become the mistress at the Hall.This sob came from one part of the church, while a second sob came from the Rectory pew, where Leo sat—another who had once thought it possible that she might become the lady of the Hall through the deceased; and, as she sat there, she recalled certain love passages which had taken place between them, prior to Luke Candlish displaying a greater fondness for a love of a more spirituous character, when his brother stepped into his place, and the fierce quarrels which had been common nearly ceased.There were spectators in all parts of the church, Dally Watlock being the best placed, and out of sight of the congregation. She sat aloft, with her elbows on her knees, and her chin in her hands, watching two people—Leo Salis and Sir Thomas Candlish.The girl’s eyes flashed, and displayed her nervous excitement, as, with her head perfectly motionless, she watched, with her gaze now in one pew, now in the other, ready to trap the first glance. For to her it was no solemn scene, only a worldly battle, in which she had made up her little mind to come out victor.The service proceeded, and Tom Candlish half sat, half knelt in his rarely occupied place, close to the grotesque effigy of his ancestors. He did not kneel, for he had an antipathy to making the knees of his new black trousers dusty; but his mien was quite contrary to established custom. When he did attend Duke’s Hampton church, he spent as much as possible of his time standing, with his hands resting over the side of the pew, staring at every woman in the place. Now, to Dally’s great satisfaction, he did not once look about him, but kept his chin upon his breast—his way of displaying his grief.Leo, in her place in the Rectory pew, was as careful of mien, and an ordinary watcher would have been content. But Dally Watlock was not an ordinary watcher, and she had settled in her own mind that Tom Candlish and Leo would, sooner or later, look at one another, if only for a moment, and it was to catch that glance she waited.Dally was right, and the glance was so keen and quick that she was the only one who noticed it. But there it was, sure enough, just at the moment when the rector stepped down from the reading-desk, and there was a shuffling noise in the centre aisle, where the undertaker’s men were busy. One quick interchange at one moment, as if those two instinctively knew that the time had come, and Dally Watlock drew a long breath between her set teeth, while her little eyes glittered, and again seemed to flash.Then the church slowly emptied, the churchyard filled, and the people formed a half-circle about the mausoleum, whose railing-gates stood open, and whose door at the foot of the stone steps gaped, while a faint glare came from within, to shine upon an end of the coffin, as the sun shone upon the other.The Reverend Maurice May’s pathetic voice rose and sank through the rest of the service to the time when the coffin was borne down the steps, and there rested once more; and his words sounded even more tearful still as he finished, closed the book, and with bent head took four steps into the vestry, and sat down and sighed, before removing his gown, bowing to his curate as if too much overcome to speak, and returning to his carriage, to follow the others to the Hall.Meanwhile, with a great show of importance, Moredock assisted the undertaker’s men in the closing of the yawning door of the vault, afterwards shutting the iron gates with a strange, echoing clang, and turning the key; while North, who seemed wrapped in thought, stood watching him.At that moment Salis came out of the vestry, with his sister, and was about to go up to North and speak; but he drew back as Cousin Thompson came round the end of the chancel.“Why, here you are!” exclaimed the latter. “The carriage is waiting, and all the rest are gone.”“Gone?” said the doctor dreamily. “Gone where?”“Where? Why, up to the Hall, of course. We must hear the will.”“No,” said North coldly; “the will does not concern me. I am not coming.”“Not coming?” cried Cousin Thompson. “Why, the man must be mad.”He hurried along the path, to spring into the carriage waiting at the gate, while after a glance round at the knots of people waiting about the churchyard, North walked slowly up to old Moredock.The old man saw him coming, and half turned away as if to speak to his grandchild, but North checked him.“Moredock,” he said quietly, “you’ll want that medicine to-night.”“No, no, doctor,” said the old man uneasily, “no more—no more.”“Yes, you will want some more,” said the doctor meaningly; and the old man returned his fixed look, and then stood rubbing his withered yellow cheek with the key of the vault as the doctor walked away.“I don’t like it,” he muttered. “I don’t like it. Not in my way. Ah, Dally, my lass, going home?”“I’m going back to the Rectory, if that’s what you mean,” said the girl shortly, as she turned away.“Ah, there she goes,” muttered the old man, “and why not? She’s handsome enough. But the doctor—the doctor, coming down to-night. Well, I must do it; I must do it, I suppose, for I can’t get on without him, and it’s too soon to die just yet. Bit o’ money, too—a bit o’ money. Man must save up, so as not to go in the workhouse. Dally, too. Fine clothes and feathers, and make a lady of her. Why not, eh? How do I know he wouldn’t poison me next time if I didn’t mind what he said?”

Boom!

The big tenor bell made the louvres rattle in the tower windows, as it sent forth its sonorous note to announce far and wide that the Candlish mausoleum was open and ready to receive the remains of the last owner of the title conferred by King James.

Boom! again: so heavy and deep a sound that it seemed to strike the cottage windows and rebound like a wave, to go quivering off upon the wind and collect the people from far and near.

It was early yet, but one little trim-looking body was astir, in the person of Dally Watlock, who stole out of the back door at the Rectory, made her way into the meadows, hurried down to the river, and along behind the Manor House, and so reached the churchyard at the back, where the vestry door in the north-east corner was easily accessible.

Dally walked and ran, looking sharply from side to side to see if she were noticed, gave a quick glance at the steps leading down to the mausoleum, and longed to peep in, but refrained, and darted in at the vestry door.

She knew the vestry would be empty, for she had left the curate at home, and she had heard that the Reverend Maurice May would not be over for nearly an hour, so there was an excellent chance for her to obtain the seat she wished, and see the funeral, and to that end she had come.

“How tiresome!” she cried, giving the oaken door in the corner of the vestry an angry thump. “Locked!”

Boom! went the big bell.

“And gran’fa’s got the key,” she cried. “I’ll make him give it to me.”

Dally looked a good deal like a big black rabbit turned by a fairy into a girl, as she darted out of the vestry, and dodged in and out among the tombstones and old vaults on her way round to the big west door in the tower, from which came another loud boom to fly quivering away upon the air.

The big door was ajar, and yielded readily to her touch as she thrust, and the next minute she had entered, and pushed it to, to stand facing old Moredock, as he dragged away at the rope and brought forth from the big tenor another heavy boom.

The old man was in his shirt-sleeves, and his coat hung up behind the door, with his cap above it, so that it bore a strong resemblance to the old sexton, who had apparently been bringing his existence to an end by means of a piece of rope belonging to a bell.

“Hallo, Dally!” said the old man, giving her one of his ghoulish grins, as if proud of the yellow tooth still left; “what have you come for?”

“I want to see squire’s funeral, gran’fa. To get a good place.”

“Ah, I know’d you’d come,” said the old man. “I say, Dally; Sir Tom Candlish, eh? Have you tried how it sounds?”

“What nonsense, gran’fa! and do a-done. You’ll have some one hear you.”

“He—he—he! Let ’em,” chuckled the old man; “let ’em. Sir Thomas Candlish, eh?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said the girl, giving her head a vain toss.

Boom! went the bell, after the rope had rattled; and the old man groaned with the effort.

“He—he—he! No, no, you don’t know,” he chuckled, moving sidewise, and giving the girl a sharp nudge with his elbow. “But, my word, Dally, you do look pretty this morning.”

“Don’t, gran’fa. What stuff!”

“Oh, but you do,” said the old man, looking at her critically; “and fine and smart too for coming to a funeral.”

“Why, you wouldn’t have had me wear black, gran’fa, would you?”

They were quite alone in the belfry, and as the old man talked, he from time to time gave a steady pull at the rope, and a heavy, jarringboomwas the result.

“Ah, and I might have said wear black, if I’d ha’ thought of it,” said the old man, examining the girl from top to toe.

“Then I hadn’t got any black, and if I had I would not have worn it, because it makes one look so ugly,” said the girl, giving her head another toss. “Now do tell me where to go. I want to see well. Can’t you put me up in that loft place over the vestry?”

“What! where you could see down into squire’s pew?” said the old man, giving another tug at the rope.

“Yes, gran’fa; it’s a nice snug place, where no one could see me.”

“Oh, yes, they could,” said the old man, chuckling. “Anybody looked up from the squire’s pew he could see your bonny face.”

“I’m sure I didn’t know,” said the girl; “and you’re very fond of calling it a bonny face all at once. You said one day I was an ugly little witch.”

“Did I?” said the old man, whose voice was nearly drowned by the boom he produced from the bell. “I s’pose I was cross that day. But, Dally, why didn’t you come and ask your old grandfather for some money to buy black?”

“Because he’d have called me an idle hussy, and told me to go about my business,” said the girl pertly.

“No, he wouldn’t, my dear,” said the old man, tugging at the rope. “He’d have given you enough to buy a new silk dress, and a bonnet and feather—black ’uns, so that you might have come to the berrin’ looking as well as the best of ’em.”

“Would you, gran’fa?” cried the girl, with her eyes sparkling.

“Ay, that I would, my chuck, and the noo squire could have seen you, and—hist!”—boom!—“he’d have thought more of you than ever.”

“Oh, for shame, gran’fa,” said Dally. “You shouldn’t. But will you give me the money now?”

“It’s too late, my chucky.”

“No, no, it isn’t, gran’fa.”

“But you must mind what you’re doing, Dally.”

Another tug at the bell-rope, and a loudboom! made the place quiver.

“I don’t understand you, gran’pa.”

“Oh, yes, you do. There, you come and see me to-night—no, to-morrow morning, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“You dear old gran’fa!” cried the girl. “But make haste; I want to go into that loft. You’ve got the key.”

“Have I?”

“Yes, and if you don’t make haste, Mr Salis and Mr May will be here, and I can’t get through the vestry.”

“Ah well, you feel in my pocket there—in the coat behind the door. It’s the littlest key.”

The girl darted to the old coat, and the next minute had drawn out four keys, all polished by long usage, the littlest being a great implement, big enough to use for a weapon of war.

“There,” said old Moredock, chuckling; “bring it back to me when you’ve done.”

“Yes, gran’fa.”

“And mind young squire don’t see you.”

“Oh, gran’fa, of course I will.”

Rope rattle, boom, and a loud chuckle.

“Ah, that you will, Dally. There, be off, and don’t forget to come to me to-morrow morning.”

“I shan’t forget, gran’fa,” cried the girl, hurrying out, and going round by the back of the church to the vestry door, as another loud boom rang out from the church tower.

People were gathering, but Dally was not seen, and passing into the vestry, she opened the old oaken door in the corner, drew out the key to insert it on the other side, draw it to after her and lock herself in, and stand panting for a few moments before ascending the narrow, corkscrew staircase, which led to the traceried opening in the side of the chancel, from which place she could have an excellent view of all that was about to take place.

For it was to be “a fine berrin’.”

This was the accepted term for Luke Candlish’s funeral.

His brother, Tom, heir to the title and estate, consequent upon Luke’s single life, had given orders to the London undertaker—very much to the disgust of the King’s Hampton carpenter and upholsterer, as his sign-board announced, for this individual wanted to know why he couldn’t bury the squire as well as a Londoner—that everything should be worthy of the family. So the London man had brought down his third best suite of funeral paraphernalia. The first was retained for magnates: the second for London folk of rank; the third for the leading country families, who always ordered and believed they had the beat.

But it was very nearly the same. The ostrich plumes of sable hue were common to all ranks, and the velvet and silk palls and carriages that were used for the higher magnates one year, descended to the second place a year or so later, and then came into country use. It was only a question of freshness, and what could that matter when the eyes of the mourners were so veiled with tears that they could not tell the new from the old?

So it was a fine berrin’, with the carriages of all the neighbouring gentry sent down to follow, and a most impressive service, which, read impressively by the rector, who had driven over from King’s Hampton, sounded almost blasphemous to Hartley Salis, who had the misfortune to know the character of the deceased by heart. The coffin of polished mahogany, with gilt handles, had been greatly admired; the favoured few had read the inscription; and when it was borne from the Hall to the church, that edifice was fairly well filled, and the carriages extended from the lych-gate right away down to Moredock’s cottage—three hundred yards.

It was a funeral, but to very few was it a scene of sadness, being looked upon as a sight quite as interesting as a wedding, and the lookers-on had duly noted who descended from the various carriages to enter the church, among the followers being Cousin Thompson, who had found it necessary to stay down at his cousin’s house with Horace North, to transact a certain amount of business for the new baronet.

The doctor was not well pleased, for the society of his cousin bored him just at a time when his mind was full of great ideas which he was anxious to carry out; but he submitted with as good a grace as he could assume, and at the funeral they sat side by side in one of the carriages, and then occupied the same position in a pew. And while the Reverend Maurice May spoke with tears in his throat of the departed brother, the doctor thought of science, and his cousin of money, and of the brother who had not departed.

Mrs Berens uttered a loud, hysterical sob once during the service, for she had gone so far as to hope at one time that she might become the mistress at the Hall.

This sob came from one part of the church, while a second sob came from the Rectory pew, where Leo sat—another who had once thought it possible that she might become the lady of the Hall through the deceased; and, as she sat there, she recalled certain love passages which had taken place between them, prior to Luke Candlish displaying a greater fondness for a love of a more spirituous character, when his brother stepped into his place, and the fierce quarrels which had been common nearly ceased.

There were spectators in all parts of the church, Dally Watlock being the best placed, and out of sight of the congregation. She sat aloft, with her elbows on her knees, and her chin in her hands, watching two people—Leo Salis and Sir Thomas Candlish.

The girl’s eyes flashed, and displayed her nervous excitement, as, with her head perfectly motionless, she watched, with her gaze now in one pew, now in the other, ready to trap the first glance. For to her it was no solemn scene, only a worldly battle, in which she had made up her little mind to come out victor.

The service proceeded, and Tom Candlish half sat, half knelt in his rarely occupied place, close to the grotesque effigy of his ancestors. He did not kneel, for he had an antipathy to making the knees of his new black trousers dusty; but his mien was quite contrary to established custom. When he did attend Duke’s Hampton church, he spent as much as possible of his time standing, with his hands resting over the side of the pew, staring at every woman in the place. Now, to Dally’s great satisfaction, he did not once look about him, but kept his chin upon his breast—his way of displaying his grief.

Leo, in her place in the Rectory pew, was as careful of mien, and an ordinary watcher would have been content. But Dally Watlock was not an ordinary watcher, and she had settled in her own mind that Tom Candlish and Leo would, sooner or later, look at one another, if only for a moment, and it was to catch that glance she waited.

Dally was right, and the glance was so keen and quick that she was the only one who noticed it. But there it was, sure enough, just at the moment when the rector stepped down from the reading-desk, and there was a shuffling noise in the centre aisle, where the undertaker’s men were busy. One quick interchange at one moment, as if those two instinctively knew that the time had come, and Dally Watlock drew a long breath between her set teeth, while her little eyes glittered, and again seemed to flash.

Then the church slowly emptied, the churchyard filled, and the people formed a half-circle about the mausoleum, whose railing-gates stood open, and whose door at the foot of the stone steps gaped, while a faint glare came from within, to shine upon an end of the coffin, as the sun shone upon the other.

The Reverend Maurice May’s pathetic voice rose and sank through the rest of the service to the time when the coffin was borne down the steps, and there rested once more; and his words sounded even more tearful still as he finished, closed the book, and with bent head took four steps into the vestry, and sat down and sighed, before removing his gown, bowing to his curate as if too much overcome to speak, and returning to his carriage, to follow the others to the Hall.

Meanwhile, with a great show of importance, Moredock assisted the undertaker’s men in the closing of the yawning door of the vault, afterwards shutting the iron gates with a strange, echoing clang, and turning the key; while North, who seemed wrapped in thought, stood watching him.

At that moment Salis came out of the vestry, with his sister, and was about to go up to North and speak; but he drew back as Cousin Thompson came round the end of the chancel.

“Why, here you are!” exclaimed the latter. “The carriage is waiting, and all the rest are gone.”

“Gone?” said the doctor dreamily. “Gone where?”

“Where? Why, up to the Hall, of course. We must hear the will.”

“No,” said North coldly; “the will does not concern me. I am not coming.”

“Not coming?” cried Cousin Thompson. “Why, the man must be mad.”

He hurried along the path, to spring into the carriage waiting at the gate, while after a glance round at the knots of people waiting about the churchyard, North walked slowly up to old Moredock.

The old man saw him coming, and half turned away as if to speak to his grandchild, but North checked him.

“Moredock,” he said quietly, “you’ll want that medicine to-night.”

“No, no, doctor,” said the old man uneasily, “no more—no more.”

“Yes, you will want some more,” said the doctor meaningly; and the old man returned his fixed look, and then stood rubbing his withered yellow cheek with the key of the vault as the doctor walked away.

“I don’t like it,” he muttered. “I don’t like it. Not in my way. Ah, Dally, my lass, going home?”

“I’m going back to the Rectory, if that’s what you mean,” said the girl shortly, as she turned away.

“Ah, there she goes,” muttered the old man, “and why not? She’s handsome enough. But the doctor—the doctor, coming down to-night. Well, I must do it; I must do it, I suppose, for I can’t get on without him, and it’s too soon to die just yet. Bit o’ money, too—a bit o’ money. Man must save up, so as not to go in the workhouse. Dally, too. Fine clothes and feathers, and make a lady of her. Why not, eh? How do I know he wouldn’t poison me next time if I didn’t mind what he said?”

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