Volume Two—Chapter Nine.Watchers.The old church at Duke’s Hampton, a fine old structure, built in the latter part of the thirteenth century, stood calm and still upon its eminence that dark night. The older folks at the village said it was terribly haunted “arter dark,” and the younger believed. Strange sights and sounds were said to have been seen and heard. Ghostly forms glided on silent wing round the tower and swept low amongst the tombs, uttering weird shrieks. Curious mutterings and croaks were heard on high among the corbels and demoniacal gargoyles, the holes in the tower among the ivy, and low moans often proceeded from the shuttered windows where the big bells hung.All true, for down there in leafy Warwickshire there were plenty of owls, daws, starlings, and pigeons to make the old ivy-clothed building a bird sanctuary where they were never touched. They seemed to belong to “my church;” to Moredock; and he never took nest or destroyed their young.On the night when Dally Watlock took upon herself to watch, high up in the rood-loft, steps approached the church from the back, about half an hour later, and a dark figure entered the churchyard, to walk cautiously and silently up towards the outer door of the vestry.As it silently crossed the yard, a head slowly appeared above the wall, and watched the tall dark figure for a few minutes, as it seemed to glide in and out among the tombstones, and then fade completely away.The watcher held on by the churchyard wall for a few minutes, rigid and paralysed. There was a faint sound of breathing heard, but it was catching and spasmodic, as if the watcher were in pain. But at last, after gazing in the direction where the dark figure had disappeared, with starting eyes, and a sensation on the top of the head as if the cap there was being softly lifted, the gentleman of inquiring mind tried to wrench his hands from where they clutched the top of the wall.It was a momentary act, resulting in his grasping the coping-stone more tightly, and uttering the words:“Ha’ mussy upon us!” For Joe Chegg felt his legs give way at the knees, and that he was bathed in a cold perspiration.“If I can only get back safe home again,” he moaned to himself, “never no more—never no more!”He felt that he had gazed for the first time at one of the peripatetic horrors of which he had heard since he was a child, and in which he had always religiously believed. In fact, he would never have ventured to the churchyard at midnight had he not been moved by one of the strongest passions of our nature. He had gone there most fully convinced that somewhere about he would encounter the gentleman who met Dally Watlock; and to emphasise their meeting, he had brought his smallest mallet from his tool-basket, as being a handy kind of tool.But he had not reckoned upon seeing a tall dark figure draped in a long black cloak glide silently by him, growing taller and taller as it disappeared, leaving him with his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, and without the wit to consider that where he stood in the meadow he was in the dry ditch, that the churchyard wall formed a kind of haha at that spot by the rise of the earth resulting from centuries of interments; and that, in addition, there was a steep slope up to the church, sufficient to make any one standing by the vestry door ten feet above his head.But Joe Chegg would not have believed these simple physical facts had they been explained to him. He had seen a veritable spirit that might mean his own “fetch.” Whether or no, he wanted to go home and keep his own counsel, mentally vowing—as he at last wrenched himself away, and ran as hard as he could over the dewy grass—that, come what might, he would, if he were spared, never run such a risk again.He was in the act of dragging himself away, thankful that he was on the meadow-side of the wall, when a low muttering moan rose upon the night air, from the direction in which the monstrous figure had disappeared; and that moan acted as a spur to the frightened man.It was simple enough, as simple as the explanation of other supernatural sounds, for as the dark figure stood close to the vestry door for a few moments and at last uttered an impatient “tut-tut-tut,” there was a grumbling, muttering sound from a horizontal stone, and Moredock rose, saying in a low voice:“All right, doctor—all right. I was half asleep, and didn’t hear you come.”The next moment they had entered the Candlish vault, and the door was closed, Moredock directly after proceeding to strike a match.“How much longer’s this a-going on?” he grumbled.“Till I have finished,” said the doctor sternly; but there was a strange intonation of the voice—a peculiar manner—which made the sexton, as he struck the light and held it to the candle in his lanthorn, gaze sharply at the speaker.“All right, doctor. I don’t grumble; you’ll give me my dose again—seems to settle and comfort a man while he’s waiting.”“Yes, yes, of course,” said North hastily.“You can rouse me up if I drop off to sleep, doctor. Couldn’t get my nap i’ the chair ’safternoon, and it makes a man a bit drowsy.”North lit his lamp, which stood ready upon the stone table, and the yellow light filled the grim place with its soft glow once more—a pleasantly subdued light which displayed the surrounding niches and the empty coffin of the late squire, and shone softly upon gilt plate, handle, and tarnished nail, but lay in an intense ring of brightness upon the table that bore it and the sawdust around.The customary portion from the flask was poured out, and swallowed by the old sexton with a satisfied smack of the lips before he set down the glass upon a coffin-lid.“Ha! that’s fine, doctor,” he said with a loud laugh, as his countenance puckered into a goblin grin. “Cordial that is. Goes down into a man’s toes and the tips of his fingers, and makes his heart beat. You’re a clever one, doctor—a clever one, that you are. Rouse me up if you want me. I may go to sleep again—I may go to sleep.”“Yes, yes, I’ll call you,” said North, as the old man seated himself once more in his corner with head against the wall, while before the doctor had settled the shade of his lamp to his satisfaction, a stertorous snore came from Moredock’s corner, accompanied at intervals by a low moaning gasp.“How easy to produce death!” said North, in a low voice. “Science gives us the power to cause that and sleep, which is its semblance, at our will. Why should it be more difficult to produce life?”“How many nights is this?” he continued. “Ten, and I seem no nearer—nay, further away, for—ah!” he ejaculated savagely, “there is that wretched coward shrinking again.”He shivered and looked hastily round as he drew in his breath hard and with a curious catch.“Good heavens! of what am I afraid? The first amputator, the first explorer into Nature’s hidden paths, where she guards her secrets so religiously—they only felt the same. Have I gone so far only to hesitate to go further?”He stood shrinking, with his hand clutching the white cloth spread over the table, and his eyes fixed on vacancy.“Am I—an experienced medical man—to be frightened by a shadow? I say that there is nothing wrong in my researches,” he cried passionately, as if addressing some one in the corner of the vault. “It is for the benefit of posterity. My experiments upon this vile body here are right.“And yet I feel as if I cannot go further,” he muttered, with the same abject shiver attacking him again; “as if I dared not—as if I must pause, and I have learned so much. I dare not! It is as if the hand of one’s guardian angel were laid upon my breast, and a voice whispered—‘Rash man, pause before it is too late!’”He caught at the nearest object for support, for he was weak with excitement, and his face looked ghastly in the gloom, as he stood there trembling till he realised what he, the living, had seized to sustain him—a coffin handle—and snatched his fingers away with a cry of horror, to shrink back and rest against the further side of the vault, but only to start away again, for his shoulder was against another coffin.He glanced at Moredock, but the old man was sleeping heavily, and once more he looked wildly round the vault.“I cannot go on,” he groaned; “it is too horrible. There is a terror beyond that dark veil which seems to hold me back. I’ll wake him up. This night shall end it all, and I’ll rest in peace, contented with what I know. I dare go no further.”He drew a long breath, as if relieved, and felt stimulated by his thoughts. It was all so simple to try and leave everything as nearly as possible in its old state, generously recompense the old sexton, and return to his regular course. The proceedings of the past would be the joint secret of Moredock and himself.“I’ve done,” he said. “I’ll be satisfied. It is too horrible to go on.”He crossed to the old man, who was now sleeping quite peacefully, and had raised his hand to shake him and bid him rise and help, but his hand stopped within a few inches of the old sexton’s shoulder, and he stepped back with an ejaculation full of anger.“Coward! idiot!” he exclaimed. “That ignorant old boor sleeps as calmly as a child among these grisly relics of mortality, and you, enlightened by science, educated, a seeker after wisdom, shrink and shiver and dare do no more.“No,” he added, after a pause; “it is too horrible. There is a something holds me back.“And fame—the praise of men? And love? The kisses of Leo? Her bright looks—her pride in the man she will call husband? Horace North, are you going mad? Pause? Now? When there is triumph waiting, and a little further research will teach me all I want—maybe give me the great success?“No; not if fifty guardian angels barred my way. I will win now in spite of all.”The coward fit of shrinking had gone, and, with a laugh full of contempt for himself, he took a step to the table and snatched the white cloth from the great stone slab.
The old church at Duke’s Hampton, a fine old structure, built in the latter part of the thirteenth century, stood calm and still upon its eminence that dark night. The older folks at the village said it was terribly haunted “arter dark,” and the younger believed. Strange sights and sounds were said to have been seen and heard. Ghostly forms glided on silent wing round the tower and swept low amongst the tombs, uttering weird shrieks. Curious mutterings and croaks were heard on high among the corbels and demoniacal gargoyles, the holes in the tower among the ivy, and low moans often proceeded from the shuttered windows where the big bells hung.
All true, for down there in leafy Warwickshire there were plenty of owls, daws, starlings, and pigeons to make the old ivy-clothed building a bird sanctuary where they were never touched. They seemed to belong to “my church;” to Moredock; and he never took nest or destroyed their young.
On the night when Dally Watlock took upon herself to watch, high up in the rood-loft, steps approached the church from the back, about half an hour later, and a dark figure entered the churchyard, to walk cautiously and silently up towards the outer door of the vestry.
As it silently crossed the yard, a head slowly appeared above the wall, and watched the tall dark figure for a few minutes, as it seemed to glide in and out among the tombstones, and then fade completely away.
The watcher held on by the churchyard wall for a few minutes, rigid and paralysed. There was a faint sound of breathing heard, but it was catching and spasmodic, as if the watcher were in pain. But at last, after gazing in the direction where the dark figure had disappeared, with starting eyes, and a sensation on the top of the head as if the cap there was being softly lifted, the gentleman of inquiring mind tried to wrench his hands from where they clutched the top of the wall.
It was a momentary act, resulting in his grasping the coping-stone more tightly, and uttering the words:
“Ha’ mussy upon us!” For Joe Chegg felt his legs give way at the knees, and that he was bathed in a cold perspiration.
“If I can only get back safe home again,” he moaned to himself, “never no more—never no more!”
He felt that he had gazed for the first time at one of the peripatetic horrors of which he had heard since he was a child, and in which he had always religiously believed. In fact, he would never have ventured to the churchyard at midnight had he not been moved by one of the strongest passions of our nature. He had gone there most fully convinced that somewhere about he would encounter the gentleman who met Dally Watlock; and to emphasise their meeting, he had brought his smallest mallet from his tool-basket, as being a handy kind of tool.
But he had not reckoned upon seeing a tall dark figure draped in a long black cloak glide silently by him, growing taller and taller as it disappeared, leaving him with his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, and without the wit to consider that where he stood in the meadow he was in the dry ditch, that the churchyard wall formed a kind of haha at that spot by the rise of the earth resulting from centuries of interments; and that, in addition, there was a steep slope up to the church, sufficient to make any one standing by the vestry door ten feet above his head.
But Joe Chegg would not have believed these simple physical facts had they been explained to him. He had seen a veritable spirit that might mean his own “fetch.” Whether or no, he wanted to go home and keep his own counsel, mentally vowing—as he at last wrenched himself away, and ran as hard as he could over the dewy grass—that, come what might, he would, if he were spared, never run such a risk again.
He was in the act of dragging himself away, thankful that he was on the meadow-side of the wall, when a low muttering moan rose upon the night air, from the direction in which the monstrous figure had disappeared; and that moan acted as a spur to the frightened man.
It was simple enough, as simple as the explanation of other supernatural sounds, for as the dark figure stood close to the vestry door for a few moments and at last uttered an impatient “tut-tut-tut,” there was a grumbling, muttering sound from a horizontal stone, and Moredock rose, saying in a low voice:
“All right, doctor—all right. I was half asleep, and didn’t hear you come.”
The next moment they had entered the Candlish vault, and the door was closed, Moredock directly after proceeding to strike a match.
“How much longer’s this a-going on?” he grumbled.
“Till I have finished,” said the doctor sternly; but there was a strange intonation of the voice—a peculiar manner—which made the sexton, as he struck the light and held it to the candle in his lanthorn, gaze sharply at the speaker.
“All right, doctor. I don’t grumble; you’ll give me my dose again—seems to settle and comfort a man while he’s waiting.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said North hastily.
“You can rouse me up if I drop off to sleep, doctor. Couldn’t get my nap i’ the chair ’safternoon, and it makes a man a bit drowsy.”
North lit his lamp, which stood ready upon the stone table, and the yellow light filled the grim place with its soft glow once more—a pleasantly subdued light which displayed the surrounding niches and the empty coffin of the late squire, and shone softly upon gilt plate, handle, and tarnished nail, but lay in an intense ring of brightness upon the table that bore it and the sawdust around.
The customary portion from the flask was poured out, and swallowed by the old sexton with a satisfied smack of the lips before he set down the glass upon a coffin-lid.
“Ha! that’s fine, doctor,” he said with a loud laugh, as his countenance puckered into a goblin grin. “Cordial that is. Goes down into a man’s toes and the tips of his fingers, and makes his heart beat. You’re a clever one, doctor—a clever one, that you are. Rouse me up if you want me. I may go to sleep again—I may go to sleep.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll call you,” said North, as the old man seated himself once more in his corner with head against the wall, while before the doctor had settled the shade of his lamp to his satisfaction, a stertorous snore came from Moredock’s corner, accompanied at intervals by a low moaning gasp.
“How easy to produce death!” said North, in a low voice. “Science gives us the power to cause that and sleep, which is its semblance, at our will. Why should it be more difficult to produce life?”
“How many nights is this?” he continued. “Ten, and I seem no nearer—nay, further away, for—ah!” he ejaculated savagely, “there is that wretched coward shrinking again.”
He shivered and looked hastily round as he drew in his breath hard and with a curious catch.
“Good heavens! of what am I afraid? The first amputator, the first explorer into Nature’s hidden paths, where she guards her secrets so religiously—they only felt the same. Have I gone so far only to hesitate to go further?”
He stood shrinking, with his hand clutching the white cloth spread over the table, and his eyes fixed on vacancy.
“Am I—an experienced medical man—to be frightened by a shadow? I say that there is nothing wrong in my researches,” he cried passionately, as if addressing some one in the corner of the vault. “It is for the benefit of posterity. My experiments upon this vile body here are right.
“And yet I feel as if I cannot go further,” he muttered, with the same abject shiver attacking him again; “as if I dared not—as if I must pause, and I have learned so much. I dare not! It is as if the hand of one’s guardian angel were laid upon my breast, and a voice whispered—‘Rash man, pause before it is too late!’”
He caught at the nearest object for support, for he was weak with excitement, and his face looked ghastly in the gloom, as he stood there trembling till he realised what he, the living, had seized to sustain him—a coffin handle—and snatched his fingers away with a cry of horror, to shrink back and rest against the further side of the vault, but only to start away again, for his shoulder was against another coffin.
He glanced at Moredock, but the old man was sleeping heavily, and once more he looked wildly round the vault.
“I cannot go on,” he groaned; “it is too horrible. There is a terror beyond that dark veil which seems to hold me back. I’ll wake him up. This night shall end it all, and I’ll rest in peace, contented with what I know. I dare go no further.”
He drew a long breath, as if relieved, and felt stimulated by his thoughts. It was all so simple to try and leave everything as nearly as possible in its old state, generously recompense the old sexton, and return to his regular course. The proceedings of the past would be the joint secret of Moredock and himself.
“I’ve done,” he said. “I’ll be satisfied. It is too horrible to go on.”
He crossed to the old man, who was now sleeping quite peacefully, and had raised his hand to shake him and bid him rise and help, but his hand stopped within a few inches of the old sexton’s shoulder, and he stepped back with an ejaculation full of anger.
“Coward! idiot!” he exclaimed. “That ignorant old boor sleeps as calmly as a child among these grisly relics of mortality, and you, enlightened by science, educated, a seeker after wisdom, shrink and shiver and dare do no more.
“No,” he added, after a pause; “it is too horrible. There is a something holds me back.
“And fame—the praise of men? And love? The kisses of Leo? Her bright looks—her pride in the man she will call husband? Horace North, are you going mad? Pause? Now? When there is triumph waiting, and a little further research will teach me all I want—maybe give me the great success?
“No; not if fifty guardian angels barred my way. I will win now in spite of all.”
The coward fit of shrinking had gone, and, with a laugh full of contempt for himself, he took a step to the table and snatched the white cloth from the great stone slab.
Volume Two—Chapter Ten.A Friendly Visit.A week had passed since Horace North’s straggle with the strange fits of repugnance and dread that had assailed him on his researches: six nights, during each of which he had battled with the same feelings and mastered, and gone on, with Moredock revelling in his opiate-produced sleep in the corner.Night after night the old man slept in that vault for hours, among the remains of the Candlishes whom he had robbed, and enjoying a voluptuous pleasure in his sleep, which made him the doctor’s willing servant, whose dread was lest the visits to the mausoleum should come to an end.But these nightly visits were not without their effects, and these intense studies could not be carried on without leaving their traces on the man.Mrs Berens was taken ill, and the doctor was called in.In her lonely widowed state, with nothing but her money, her dress, her mirror, and the visits and gossip of Duke’s Hampton to amuse her, thirsting the while for the communings of a kindred spirit who would tell her she was far too young yet to give up thoughts of love, Mrs Berens felt that she must have some relaxation, and she took it in the form of fits of illness of the body and ditto ditto of the mind.For the former she called in Dr North, and told her pains.For the latter, the Reverend Hartley Salis, to whom she recounted her doubts, her sorrows, and her sufferings of mind; and in each case she felt better, though she did not take the medicine of the one nor follow out the precepts of the other.It was very wrong, no doubt, but it was very natural; and Mrs Berens, not middle-aged, and plump, and pleasing, and anxious to please, was very full of human nature.There was such satisfaction, too, in having her hand held by the doctor. So there was, too, when it was grasped at coming, and again at leaving, by bluff, manly Parson Salis; but they neither of them proposed, or went a step further than to be gently courteous and kind to the loving and lovable weak woman, who longed to empty the urn of her affection upon either head.And now poor Mrs Berens was in sad trouble.“I know it,” she sobbed to herself, after a visit from the doctor. “Mary Salis will not confess, and Leo always holds one off; but he does love Leo, and she is holding him in her wicked chains, like one of those terrible witches we read about; and, poor dear man, she is breaking his heart. I’ve tried so hard to wean him from that dreadful love of a bad, base girl, and the more I try the worse he is.”Mrs Berens sobbed till her eyes ached, and she bathed them with eau-de-cologne and water.“How dare I say she is bad and base?” she said half aloud, speaking to herself in the glass, as her handsome, large, blue swimming eyes looked appealingly at her; “because I know it. I’m sure of it. I can always feel it. I’m weak and foolish, but I should love him and cherish him, while she is trifling with him—I’m sure—and breaking his heart.“Oh, poor man, poor man!” she sighed; “how worn out and ill he looks! What shall I do? What shall I do?”Mrs Berens made up her mind what she would do. She could not send for the curate. She was not sufficiently ill for that.“And it would look so.”She could not go and see him, for that would also “look so.” Leo detested her, she knew, quite as much as she detested Leo, whom she declared to be so horribly young. But she could go and see poor Mary; and after well bathing her eyes, she stripped her little conservatory to get a good bunch of flowers for the invalid, and then went across to the Rectory.Leo was out for a ride, to Mrs Berens’ great delight.“Master’s in his study over his sermon, ma’am,” said Dally Watlock; “but Miss Mary’s in, ma’am.”“Yes, Dally, it is Miss Mary I want to see,” sighed Mrs Berens; and then, as much out of genuine kindness as with the idea of making a friend at the Rectory: “How pretty, and young, and well you do look, Dally!”“Thank ye, ma’am,” said Dally, with a distant bob, but gratified all the same.“Do you know, Dally, I’ve got a silk dress, a pale red, that would make up so nicely for you? It isn’t old, but I shall not wear it any more.”Daily’s eyes sparkled at pale red silk.“It wouldn’t fit you,” continued the widow, “but you could make it up nicely with your clever little fingers;” and she compared her own redundant charms with the trim, tight little figure of the maid.“Thank ye, ma’am. May I come for it?”“Yes, Dally, do. Now show me in to Miss Mary.”Dally ushered in the widow, and then stood in the passage thinking.“I wouldn’t go for it, that I wouldn’t, if I was quite sure. I don’t want to wear her old dresses. Nice thing for a lady who’s going to have a title and live up at the Hall to have to wear somebody else’s old silk frocks.“I think I’ll go, though,” said Dally. “No, I won’t, for it’s coming to a nice blow up for some one I know, and I’ll let ’em all see.”“Ah, my dear,” said Mrs Berens, entering the room, flower-bearing, and bending down over the invalid with a good deal of gushing sentiment, but plenty of genuine affection.“It’s very good of you to come, Mrs Berens,” cried Mary, flushing. “And the flowers—for me?”“For you? Yes,” said the widow, plumping down on her knees by Mary’s couch, and playfully laying the bouquet upon Mary’s bosom, and holding it there beneath her chin. “Now it’s perfect. It only wanted your sweet rose of a face added to it. My dear, what an angel’s face you have!”“Mrs Berens!” cried Mary, flushing more deeply, half annoyed, half amused at her visitor’s flattering words; but there was no feeling anything but pleasure at the affectionate kiss pressed upon her lips, and the tender touches of the two well-gloved hands.“There, I’ve come to have a quiet chat with you,” said the widow. “I ought to have been in before, but I have been so unwell, my dear; obliged to send for Dr North.”“I’m very sorry, Mrs Berens,” said Mary, laying her hand in those of the widow.“I knew you would be, dear; and, oh, I have been so poorly.”“But you are better now?” said Mary kindly.“No, no, my dear. I’m a poor, weak, unhappy woman, and—oh! I ought to be ashamed of myself, that I ought, to go on like that when there you are so ill and yet so patient that one never hears a murmur escape your lips.”“I don’t think I’m very ill, Mrs Berens.”“Then I do, my dear; and I shall come and see you more often, for you’ve done me no end of good. It’s like a lesson to me, and I’ll never complain any more.”“That’s right,” said Mary, smiling. “Do come oftener; I’m very much alone. We will not talk about our ailments,” she added with a smile.“No, of course not; but I have been very poorly, dear, and I sent for Dr North. Do you take any interest in Dr North?”Mrs Berens was not subtle enough of intellect to note the change in Mary’s countenance. At first there was a faint flush; then a waxen pallor; but she mastered her emotion, though her heart beat heavily as she said:“Of course. He was very good and kind to me all through my illness.”“Yes, poor man—poor, dear man!” sighed the widow. “And of course Mr Salis likes him very much?”“Yes; they are very warm friends,” said Mary quietly.“Then do—do pray talk to your brother,” cried Mrs Berens, with pathetic eagerness.“No, no, Mrs Berens,” said a bluff, deep voice. “I’m always with my sisters, and they talk to me too much.”“Oh, Mr Salis! You shouldn’t, you know,” cried the widow, all of a flutter. “You shouldn’t come in so suddenly.”“Why, I only came in to say ‘how do?’” replied Salis pleasantly, as he shook hands. “There, sit down again, and tell me what I am to be talked to about.”“Oh, really, Mr Salis, I—I—I was only going to say, pray talk to or see to poor Dr North. I’m afraid he’s very far from well.”“So am I,” cried Salis. “I have just been telling him so.”“He—he has been here, then—just now?”“Not exactly just now; I mean this morning. You noticed, then, that he seemed ill and over-excited?”“Oh, yes,” cried Mrs Berens, as Mary tried to lie back perfectly calm, but with her eyes glancing rapidly from one to the other, and her trembling fingers telling the agitation from which she suffered. “I was so poorly that I sent for him, and he quite startled me: his manner was so strange and abrupt. I’m sure he’s being worried over something.”“Studies too hard,” said Salis quietly. “He will do it, and advice is of no avail. Mrs Milt tells me that he sits up at night. Doctors are like clergymen, I’m afraid, Mrs Berens: they are fond of teaching and curing other people, but they neglect themselves.”“There, I hope you will give him a good talking to, Mr Salis,” said the widow, rising to go; “for I should really not like to ask him to see me again until he is better. He seemed to be so wild and eccentric: he quite startled me.”“Just for the sake of saying something, Mary,” said the curate as soon as they were alone; and, in answer to Mary’s inquiring eyes, “Horace has made up his mind to distinguish himself for Leo’s sake, and, heigho! my dear, things seem to be very awkward, and I don’t know how to set them right.”
A week had passed since Horace North’s straggle with the strange fits of repugnance and dread that had assailed him on his researches: six nights, during each of which he had battled with the same feelings and mastered, and gone on, with Moredock revelling in his opiate-produced sleep in the corner.
Night after night the old man slept in that vault for hours, among the remains of the Candlishes whom he had robbed, and enjoying a voluptuous pleasure in his sleep, which made him the doctor’s willing servant, whose dread was lest the visits to the mausoleum should come to an end.
But these nightly visits were not without their effects, and these intense studies could not be carried on without leaving their traces on the man.
Mrs Berens was taken ill, and the doctor was called in.
In her lonely widowed state, with nothing but her money, her dress, her mirror, and the visits and gossip of Duke’s Hampton to amuse her, thirsting the while for the communings of a kindred spirit who would tell her she was far too young yet to give up thoughts of love, Mrs Berens felt that she must have some relaxation, and she took it in the form of fits of illness of the body and ditto ditto of the mind.
For the former she called in Dr North, and told her pains.
For the latter, the Reverend Hartley Salis, to whom she recounted her doubts, her sorrows, and her sufferings of mind; and in each case she felt better, though she did not take the medicine of the one nor follow out the precepts of the other.
It was very wrong, no doubt, but it was very natural; and Mrs Berens, not middle-aged, and plump, and pleasing, and anxious to please, was very full of human nature.
There was such satisfaction, too, in having her hand held by the doctor. So there was, too, when it was grasped at coming, and again at leaving, by bluff, manly Parson Salis; but they neither of them proposed, or went a step further than to be gently courteous and kind to the loving and lovable weak woman, who longed to empty the urn of her affection upon either head.
And now poor Mrs Berens was in sad trouble.
“I know it,” she sobbed to herself, after a visit from the doctor. “Mary Salis will not confess, and Leo always holds one off; but he does love Leo, and she is holding him in her wicked chains, like one of those terrible witches we read about; and, poor dear man, she is breaking his heart. I’ve tried so hard to wean him from that dreadful love of a bad, base girl, and the more I try the worse he is.”
Mrs Berens sobbed till her eyes ached, and she bathed them with eau-de-cologne and water.
“How dare I say she is bad and base?” she said half aloud, speaking to herself in the glass, as her handsome, large, blue swimming eyes looked appealingly at her; “because I know it. I’m sure of it. I can always feel it. I’m weak and foolish, but I should love him and cherish him, while she is trifling with him—I’m sure—and breaking his heart.
“Oh, poor man, poor man!” she sighed; “how worn out and ill he looks! What shall I do? What shall I do?”
Mrs Berens made up her mind what she would do. She could not send for the curate. She was not sufficiently ill for that.
“And it would look so.”
She could not go and see him, for that would also “look so.” Leo detested her, she knew, quite as much as she detested Leo, whom she declared to be so horribly young. But she could go and see poor Mary; and after well bathing her eyes, she stripped her little conservatory to get a good bunch of flowers for the invalid, and then went across to the Rectory.
Leo was out for a ride, to Mrs Berens’ great delight.
“Master’s in his study over his sermon, ma’am,” said Dally Watlock; “but Miss Mary’s in, ma’am.”
“Yes, Dally, it is Miss Mary I want to see,” sighed Mrs Berens; and then, as much out of genuine kindness as with the idea of making a friend at the Rectory: “How pretty, and young, and well you do look, Dally!”
“Thank ye, ma’am,” said Dally, with a distant bob, but gratified all the same.
“Do you know, Dally, I’ve got a silk dress, a pale red, that would make up so nicely for you? It isn’t old, but I shall not wear it any more.”
Daily’s eyes sparkled at pale red silk.
“It wouldn’t fit you,” continued the widow, “but you could make it up nicely with your clever little fingers;” and she compared her own redundant charms with the trim, tight little figure of the maid.
“Thank ye, ma’am. May I come for it?”
“Yes, Dally, do. Now show me in to Miss Mary.”
Dally ushered in the widow, and then stood in the passage thinking.
“I wouldn’t go for it, that I wouldn’t, if I was quite sure. I don’t want to wear her old dresses. Nice thing for a lady who’s going to have a title and live up at the Hall to have to wear somebody else’s old silk frocks.
“I think I’ll go, though,” said Dally. “No, I won’t, for it’s coming to a nice blow up for some one I know, and I’ll let ’em all see.”
“Ah, my dear,” said Mrs Berens, entering the room, flower-bearing, and bending down over the invalid with a good deal of gushing sentiment, but plenty of genuine affection.
“It’s very good of you to come, Mrs Berens,” cried Mary, flushing. “And the flowers—for me?”
“For you? Yes,” said the widow, plumping down on her knees by Mary’s couch, and playfully laying the bouquet upon Mary’s bosom, and holding it there beneath her chin. “Now it’s perfect. It only wanted your sweet rose of a face added to it. My dear, what an angel’s face you have!”
“Mrs Berens!” cried Mary, flushing more deeply, half annoyed, half amused at her visitor’s flattering words; but there was no feeling anything but pleasure at the affectionate kiss pressed upon her lips, and the tender touches of the two well-gloved hands.
“There, I’ve come to have a quiet chat with you,” said the widow. “I ought to have been in before, but I have been so unwell, my dear; obliged to send for Dr North.”
“I’m very sorry, Mrs Berens,” said Mary, laying her hand in those of the widow.
“I knew you would be, dear; and, oh, I have been so poorly.”
“But you are better now?” said Mary kindly.
“No, no, my dear. I’m a poor, weak, unhappy woman, and—oh! I ought to be ashamed of myself, that I ought, to go on like that when there you are so ill and yet so patient that one never hears a murmur escape your lips.”
“I don’t think I’m very ill, Mrs Berens.”
“Then I do, my dear; and I shall come and see you more often, for you’ve done me no end of good. It’s like a lesson to me, and I’ll never complain any more.”
“That’s right,” said Mary, smiling. “Do come oftener; I’m very much alone. We will not talk about our ailments,” she added with a smile.
“No, of course not; but I have been very poorly, dear, and I sent for Dr North. Do you take any interest in Dr North?”
Mrs Berens was not subtle enough of intellect to note the change in Mary’s countenance. At first there was a faint flush; then a waxen pallor; but she mastered her emotion, though her heart beat heavily as she said:
“Of course. He was very good and kind to me all through my illness.”
“Yes, poor man—poor, dear man!” sighed the widow. “And of course Mr Salis likes him very much?”
“Yes; they are very warm friends,” said Mary quietly.
“Then do—do pray talk to your brother,” cried Mrs Berens, with pathetic eagerness.
“No, no, Mrs Berens,” said a bluff, deep voice. “I’m always with my sisters, and they talk to me too much.”
“Oh, Mr Salis! You shouldn’t, you know,” cried the widow, all of a flutter. “You shouldn’t come in so suddenly.”
“Why, I only came in to say ‘how do?’” replied Salis pleasantly, as he shook hands. “There, sit down again, and tell me what I am to be talked to about.”
“Oh, really, Mr Salis, I—I—I was only going to say, pray talk to or see to poor Dr North. I’m afraid he’s very far from well.”
“So am I,” cried Salis. “I have just been telling him so.”
“He—he has been here, then—just now?”
“Not exactly just now; I mean this morning. You noticed, then, that he seemed ill and over-excited?”
“Oh, yes,” cried Mrs Berens, as Mary tried to lie back perfectly calm, but with her eyes glancing rapidly from one to the other, and her trembling fingers telling the agitation from which she suffered. “I was so poorly that I sent for him, and he quite startled me: his manner was so strange and abrupt. I’m sure he’s being worried over something.”
“Studies too hard,” said Salis quietly. “He will do it, and advice is of no avail. Mrs Milt tells me that he sits up at night. Doctors are like clergymen, I’m afraid, Mrs Berens: they are fond of teaching and curing other people, but they neglect themselves.”
“There, I hope you will give him a good talking to, Mr Salis,” said the widow, rising to go; “for I should really not like to ask him to see me again until he is better. He seemed to be so wild and eccentric: he quite startled me.”
“Just for the sake of saying something, Mary,” said the curate as soon as they were alone; and, in answer to Mary’s inquiring eyes, “Horace has made up his mind to distinguish himself for Leo’s sake, and, heigho! my dear, things seem to be very awkward, and I don’t know how to set them right.”
Volume Two—Chapter Eleven.An Interruption.Other people, too, noticed the doctor’s strangely intent manner, as he went hurriedly about among his patients every morning, and then returned to his study to pore over sundry manuscript notes and refer to certain books.Mrs Milt had to almost insist upon his taking his meals, for on two occasions his dinner had gone out untasted, and she had found him sitting, with his head resting upon his hands, deep in thought.He started upon being spoken to, and seemed once more himself; but as soon as he was alone again, he relapsed into another fit of abstraction.A few more days passed, and his task was telling upon him terribly; but he persevered, for each night he felt that he was getting nearer to success.“I shall succeed,” he said to himself, with a wild excitability of manner that was startling; but he was alone when he said these words, and no one heard them.“Arn’t it a very long experiment, doctor?” said Moredock, one night, looking at the doctor seriously, and rubbing his cheek slowly.“Yes. It is taking me longer than I thought, but I shall soon finish now.”“Glad o’ that,” said the old man drily; “because a pitcher as goes too often to the well, doctor, gets broke at last.”“What do you mean?”“Naught, only we might be found out.”“Nonsense!” said the doctor uneasily. “Nobody is likely to be about except any person should be ill, and I know exactly who is likely to want the doctor by night.”“Ah, well, let’s be careful, doctor, for it would be awkward for both if we was to be found out.”“Pish! Who would find us out, man?”“Well, say parson.”“Absurd! He is in bed, and sound asleep. There, take your glass; I want to begin.”“Nay,” said the old man, looking at the rich liqueur North poured out for him, “I don’t think I’ll have no drop to-night.”“Nonsense, man!” said North, holding out the glass, at which the old man gazed longingly. But he shook his head and thrust it away.“Nay, doctor; I’m going to keep watch to-night.”“Keep watch, man?” said North, who seemed staggered at this determination.“Yes, doctor, I’m going to keep watch. I can’t afford to have aught go wrong, if you can. You get on with your work, and I’ll be on the look-out.”“Here?”“Nay, nay. I’ll hang about outside.”“Yes, do,” said North, who seemed relieved; and he turned down the lamp to let Moredock out.“I shall give three taps on the door, doctor, when I come back,” whispered the old man. “You go on just as if I was here; but when I tap, you turn down the light again, and let me in. Don’t s’pose I shall see anybody, but I must take care.”“Yes, do,” said North hurriedly; and, as the old man passed out, he closed the door after him and made it fast.“It would have been like checking my experiment now I am so near success,” he said to himself, as, now quite alone, he once more turned up the shaded lamp, when the warm yellow glow shone out full upon the recumbent figure, carefully draped with the great white sheet.Horace North stood bending over the subject of his ghastly experiment, the remains of Luke Candlish lying apparently unchanged, and as if decay had been completely arrested.There was a strange odour of chemicals in the place, and, as the doctor removed the cloth, it was to uncover, just as they had been left on the previous night, a powerful galvanic battery, syringes, and other surgical paraphernalia.For the next hour the doctor continued his labours, feeling more and more assured that he should triumph; and, as he toiled on, he talked rapidly to himself of the apparently complete arrest of decay, and the perfectly calm manner in which his subject lay, as it were, placidly waiting for the awakening which North felt, in his excitement, absolutely sure would come.“It is so near now that I have but to vitalise and obtain positive proof that, when carried to its full extent, I have performed what is almost a miracle, and proved that what I worked out in theory is possible in practice.”He stood gazing down at the calm, cold face, with its closed eyes, hesitating, not from the horror that had half paralysed him before, but from dread lest, now he had gone so far that he could apply his final test, he should be disappointed.His head burned, his pulses throbbed heavily, and his hesitation increased.Rousing himself at last, he laid his hand upon the icy-cold forehead before him, the contact sending a chill through his frame; but he did not notice it.“Why do I stop?” he said. “It only wants this. I am alone, and no better opportunity could come. Oh, if I had but the aiding hand of that oldsavant, how easy it would be!”This brought back the scene in the theatre—the lecture, the applause; and his heart beat more rapidly in anticipation of his grand triumph when he could demonstrate this, the greatest surgical feat that had ever been performed.“And yet I hesitate,” he exclaimed excitedly; “hesitate when I have but to plunge boldly to succeed.”“And I will,” he said firmly, after a pause.The scene which followed was weird and horrible, had there been an onlooker; to North it had all the fascination of an intense scientific experiment. For he had arrived at the pitch when, according to his theory, he had but to make the warm living blood pass from his own veins, as in a case of transfusion, to prove that his studies bore the fruit of success.The preliminaries were all arranged, and, with a sigh of satisfaction, North took a bright, keen lancet from its case, but only to let it fall back, starting violently, for he was, as it were, snatched back from his scientific dream by a faint rap upon the door of the great vault, and this was followed directly after by two more.North rapidly replaced the great sheet, and turned down the light before going softly to the entry.“Well?” he said harshly; “returned?”“Hist!” whispered the old sexton. “Out here!”He caught the doctor’s hand and drew him out from the entry of the vault to stand within the iron railings.“Why have—”“Hist!” whispered the old man again. “Come with me.”North hesitated again, but yielded to his companion and followed him softly right round the church to the belfry door, which yielded to the old man’s touch.“What does this mean?” said the doctor angrily. “Why have you brought me here?”“Come and see,” whispered the old man so earnestly that North hesitated no longer, but followed him wonderingly into the church, and along the matting-covered aisle, to the old oak screen, where Moredock paused and caught his arm.“Some one watching?” whispered North, as they stood together in the darkness; “in yonder?”For the old man had indicated the vestry door with his outstretched hand.It seemed strange, for a minute before they had been beside the outer door of the vestry, and now he had been brought in to stand by the inner door in the chancel.“You’re wanted there,” whispered Moredock—“yonder!”“Watchers?”“You’re wanted there, doctor,” whispered the old man. “Go in and see.”The silence was painful in the extreme, as North stood wondering there, but the next moment, feeling attracted by he knew not what desire to see who was within there face to face, he took a couple of steps forward to the old oak door, when a faint whispering seemed to come from the other side, followed by a low cough, which sent the blood surging to his brain.There was no hesitation now, for, half-mad with excitement and the strange passion that seemed for the moment to stifle him, he seized the great latch, which snapped loudly as he threw it up, and strode into the little stone-walled room.
Other people, too, noticed the doctor’s strangely intent manner, as he went hurriedly about among his patients every morning, and then returned to his study to pore over sundry manuscript notes and refer to certain books.
Mrs Milt had to almost insist upon his taking his meals, for on two occasions his dinner had gone out untasted, and she had found him sitting, with his head resting upon his hands, deep in thought.
He started upon being spoken to, and seemed once more himself; but as soon as he was alone again, he relapsed into another fit of abstraction.
A few more days passed, and his task was telling upon him terribly; but he persevered, for each night he felt that he was getting nearer to success.
“I shall succeed,” he said to himself, with a wild excitability of manner that was startling; but he was alone when he said these words, and no one heard them.
“Arn’t it a very long experiment, doctor?” said Moredock, one night, looking at the doctor seriously, and rubbing his cheek slowly.
“Yes. It is taking me longer than I thought, but I shall soon finish now.”
“Glad o’ that,” said the old man drily; “because a pitcher as goes too often to the well, doctor, gets broke at last.”
“What do you mean?”
“Naught, only we might be found out.”
“Nonsense!” said the doctor uneasily. “Nobody is likely to be about except any person should be ill, and I know exactly who is likely to want the doctor by night.”
“Ah, well, let’s be careful, doctor, for it would be awkward for both if we was to be found out.”
“Pish! Who would find us out, man?”
“Well, say parson.”
“Absurd! He is in bed, and sound asleep. There, take your glass; I want to begin.”
“Nay,” said the old man, looking at the rich liqueur North poured out for him, “I don’t think I’ll have no drop to-night.”
“Nonsense, man!” said North, holding out the glass, at which the old man gazed longingly. But he shook his head and thrust it away.
“Nay, doctor; I’m going to keep watch to-night.”
“Keep watch, man?” said North, who seemed staggered at this determination.
“Yes, doctor, I’m going to keep watch. I can’t afford to have aught go wrong, if you can. You get on with your work, and I’ll be on the look-out.”
“Here?”
“Nay, nay. I’ll hang about outside.”
“Yes, do,” said North, who seemed relieved; and he turned down the lamp to let Moredock out.
“I shall give three taps on the door, doctor, when I come back,” whispered the old man. “You go on just as if I was here; but when I tap, you turn down the light again, and let me in. Don’t s’pose I shall see anybody, but I must take care.”
“Yes, do,” said North hurriedly; and, as the old man passed out, he closed the door after him and made it fast.
“It would have been like checking my experiment now I am so near success,” he said to himself, as, now quite alone, he once more turned up the shaded lamp, when the warm yellow glow shone out full upon the recumbent figure, carefully draped with the great white sheet.
Horace North stood bending over the subject of his ghastly experiment, the remains of Luke Candlish lying apparently unchanged, and as if decay had been completely arrested.
There was a strange odour of chemicals in the place, and, as the doctor removed the cloth, it was to uncover, just as they had been left on the previous night, a powerful galvanic battery, syringes, and other surgical paraphernalia.
For the next hour the doctor continued his labours, feeling more and more assured that he should triumph; and, as he toiled on, he talked rapidly to himself of the apparently complete arrest of decay, and the perfectly calm manner in which his subject lay, as it were, placidly waiting for the awakening which North felt, in his excitement, absolutely sure would come.
“It is so near now that I have but to vitalise and obtain positive proof that, when carried to its full extent, I have performed what is almost a miracle, and proved that what I worked out in theory is possible in practice.”
He stood gazing down at the calm, cold face, with its closed eyes, hesitating, not from the horror that had half paralysed him before, but from dread lest, now he had gone so far that he could apply his final test, he should be disappointed.
His head burned, his pulses throbbed heavily, and his hesitation increased.
Rousing himself at last, he laid his hand upon the icy-cold forehead before him, the contact sending a chill through his frame; but he did not notice it.
“Why do I stop?” he said. “It only wants this. I am alone, and no better opportunity could come. Oh, if I had but the aiding hand of that oldsavant, how easy it would be!”
This brought back the scene in the theatre—the lecture, the applause; and his heart beat more rapidly in anticipation of his grand triumph when he could demonstrate this, the greatest surgical feat that had ever been performed.
“And yet I hesitate,” he exclaimed excitedly; “hesitate when I have but to plunge boldly to succeed.”
“And I will,” he said firmly, after a pause.
The scene which followed was weird and horrible, had there been an onlooker; to North it had all the fascination of an intense scientific experiment. For he had arrived at the pitch when, according to his theory, he had but to make the warm living blood pass from his own veins, as in a case of transfusion, to prove that his studies bore the fruit of success.
The preliminaries were all arranged, and, with a sigh of satisfaction, North took a bright, keen lancet from its case, but only to let it fall back, starting violently, for he was, as it were, snatched back from his scientific dream by a faint rap upon the door of the great vault, and this was followed directly after by two more.
North rapidly replaced the great sheet, and turned down the light before going softly to the entry.
“Well?” he said harshly; “returned?”
“Hist!” whispered the old sexton. “Out here!”
He caught the doctor’s hand and drew him out from the entry of the vault to stand within the iron railings.
“Why have—”
“Hist!” whispered the old man again. “Come with me.”
North hesitated again, but yielded to his companion and followed him softly right round the church to the belfry door, which yielded to the old man’s touch.
“What does this mean?” said the doctor angrily. “Why have you brought me here?”
“Come and see,” whispered the old man so earnestly that North hesitated no longer, but followed him wonderingly into the church, and along the matting-covered aisle, to the old oak screen, where Moredock paused and caught his arm.
“Some one watching?” whispered North, as they stood together in the darkness; “in yonder?”
For the old man had indicated the vestry door with his outstretched hand.
It seemed strange, for a minute before they had been beside the outer door of the vestry, and now he had been brought in to stand by the inner door in the chancel.
“You’re wanted there,” whispered Moredock—“yonder!”
“Watchers?”
“You’re wanted there, doctor,” whispered the old man. “Go in and see.”
The silence was painful in the extreme, as North stood wondering there, but the next moment, feeling attracted by he knew not what desire to see who was within there face to face, he took a couple of steps forward to the old oak door, when a faint whispering seemed to come from the other side, followed by a low cough, which sent the blood surging to his brain.
There was no hesitation now, for, half-mad with excitement and the strange passion that seemed for the moment to stifle him, he seized the great latch, which snapped loudly as he threw it up, and strode into the little stone-walled room.
Volume Two—Chapter Twelve.Dally’s Appeal.“Nay! nay! nay! I know what you want. There, give me my pipe,” said Moredock, settling himself down in his big-armed Windsor chair.“Yes, gran’fa, dear,” cried Dally, bustling about and fetching the clay pipe with a clean white bowl, consequent upon its having been thoroughly burned in the fire before it was stood up in the corner on the hob. “There’s your pipe, dear, and there’s your tobacco box. Oh, how heavy it is!”“It arn’t heavy with ’bacco, lass. Should ha’ thought a girl as I’ve brought up, as I’ve brought up you ever since your mother and father died, would have give her poor old gaffer a pinch o’ ’bacco now and agen.”“And so I will, gran’fa, dear,” cried Dally, taking the lid off the heavy leaden pot. “Next time I go into town I’ll bring you a beautiful packet of the best. Let me fill your pipe, dear, same as I used to.”“Ay, you was a good little gel then,” said Moredock, as he watched the brown, plump fingers busily charging the bowl, while a grim smile puckered his face, and he lay back with a satisfied air.“So I am now, gran’fa, dear.”“Nay; you’ve come to bother your poor old gran’fa about money for silk dresses, and feathers, and gloves. I know.”“No, you don’t, gran’fa, dear,” cried Dally. “There, now it’s nice and full.”“You’ve jammed it in too tight.”“No, I haven’t, gran’fa. I know exactly how you like it. There! hold still while I fetch you a light. There! there, then. Now pull. Don’t you remember how you used to puff the smoke in my face and make me cough?”“Ay; and I ’member how you tried to smoke my pipe, and how sick it made you.”“Yes, I remember,” said Dally, clapping her hands. “Ah! how happy I used to be then with you, gran’fa! Do you remember how you used to take me to the church?”“Ay,” grunted the old man, puffing away, with a dreamy look in his face.“And how you used to pretend to bury yourself in the graves when you were digging, so as to frighten me?”“Ah!” grunted Moredock.“Then there was that old skull, gran’fa, that I had to play with. What became of that skull?”“Up in the cupboard in your old bedroom,” grunted Moredock.“How happy I used to be then!” sighed Dally, stroking a thin wisp off her grandfather’s hideous old forehead.“Ah, you was a good little gel then, and thought about your poor old gran’fa, and didn’t come bothering him for money.”“Yes, I did, gran’fa—for sweeties,” said Dally.“Ay; but I wouldn’t give you none, gel.”“Yes, you did sometimes, gran’fa; and so you would now to buy some nice things—a pretty bonnet—if I asked you.”“Nay, I wouldn’t. And I knew it. You’ve come a-purpose to worry me out of some money.”“No, I haven’t, gran’fa.”“Ay, but you have. I know. Look here, how’s that going on? If it’s going to be my leddy, you shall have as much as you want; but not without. Is he courting of you?”“No, gran’fa.”“Whaaart?”“Only sometimes, gran’fa; and that’s what made me come to you.”“You—you haven’t come for the brass?”“No, gran’fa, I want you to help me, for I’m such a miserable little girl.”“What about?—what about?” cried the old man, smoking furiously, and staring with a peculiarly angry look at the girl.“I wanted to tell you, gran’fa,” cried Dally, plumping herself down at the old man’s feet, and laying her rosy cheek upon his corduroy-covered knee, stained with the clay from many a grave. “It’s all such a muddle.”“What is?—what is?”“Why, everything,” cried Dally, with a petulant twitch; “but he’s not going to play with me. He’s told me many a time that he’d marry me, and make me Lady Candlish; and he shall, shan’t he, gran’fa?”“Ay, that he shall,” cried the old man, patting Dally’s curly head. “That’s sperrit, that is. You keep him to it. But what’s all a muddle?”“Why, everything, gran’fa,” cried Dally, bursting into tears, and speaking in an excited, passionate way. “But he shall marry me; and you’ll help me make him, won’t you, gran’fa?”“Ay, that I will, my pretty. That’s the way. Don’t you be beat.”“I won’t; and I won’t have him come courting Leo Salis.”“Nay, you won’t,” said the old man, smoking away as he patted the fierce little creature’s head.“He said it was all nonsense, and I believed him because he was so fond of me; but he courts her, too.”“Nay, does he, Dally?”“Yes, gran’fa; and he shan’t. He shall marry me. If he don’t, I’ll kill him!”“So you shall, my pretty,” chuckled the old man; “and I’ll bury him. And then the doctor—”He checked himself and chuckled again. “What’s the use of the doctor when he’s dead?” cried Dally pettishly, as she tugged angrily at a fold of the old man’s trousers. “And Doctor North’s a fool!”“Nay! nay! nay! Doctor’s a very clever man, Dally.”“He isn’t; he’s a fool, gran’fa!”“Tut, tut! Shoo, shoo!”“I say he is, or he wouldn’t be courting and making love to Miss Leo.”“Do he, Dally?—do he?”“Why, yes, gran’fa, of course he does and she’s carrying on all the time with Tom. Oh, how I do hate her! Wish he’d let her die!”“Ay, would ha’ been a good job for everybody—and for me, Dally. But doctor don’t know?”“Know? Of course not. He’s too stupid. He’s a fool!”“Nay, he’s not a fool,” said the old man, smoking rapidly. “Doctor’s head’s screwed on right way. He don’t know, or—”“Or what, gran’fa—or what?”“He! he! he!” chuckled the old man, as Dally screwed herself round and gazed eagerly in his face. “Here, gently, gently! Don’t stick your little claws into my legs like that, pussy.”“But what, gran’fa, what?—what would the doctor do?”“Give him a nasty dose, I should say, Dally,” chuckled the old man. “Doctor don’t know—he arn’t no fool. Does Miss Leo know young squire courts you?”“I don’t know,” cried Dally thoughtfully.“She be a bad ’un,” grunted the old man.“She’s a wretch, and I hate her! Oh, I wish master was the doctor instead of the parson!”“Why, Dally, my lass?” said the old man, whose lips were drawn open to a terrible extension—a savage grin—as if he gloried in the display of fierce vindictive spite which the girl displayed.“I’d get something out of the surgery and poison her!”“Nay, nay, Dally, that wouldn’t do,” he chuckled. “They’d find you out and hang you.”“I wouldn’t care if I killed her first,” said Dally fiercely. “She shouldn’t have him.”“What—the doctor?”“No. Don’t be so stupid. You know—Tom.”“Ah, well, wait a bit. Dessay the things ’ll come right. Wait till doctor finds it out; he’ll half kill Tom Candlish, same as Parson Salis did when squire was after Miss Leo.”“Did he? Oh, I know! It was when master’s knuckles was all cut.”“That’s right, Dally. I was in the wood and see it all, but I never said a word till now. And don’t you. I thought it was all over between young Tom and pretty Miss up at the Rect’ry.”“But it isn’t all over, gran’fa, and I won’t have it. They shan’t meet. I’ll tear her eyes out first. Nice one she is to lecture me!”“You wait till doctor finds it out, if he’s courting Leo Salis. He’ll half kill Tom Candlish.”“But I don’t want him half killed,” cried Dally. “Yes I do; it’ll bring him to his senses, and when he’s ill I can go and give him a bit of my mind.”“Ah, to be sure; so you can, my pretty.”“I’ll let him know. He shall marry me, that he shall.”“Ay, so he shall, Dally.”“And you’ll help me, gran’fa?”“Of course I will, my pretty.”“Then I’ll tell you what I came to say.”“Wasn’t it for money, then?”“Money? No. A girl with a face like mine don’t want money, and I shall have plenty when I’m up at the Hall.”“Toe be sure, Dally. Toe be sure. Ay, but you are a clever gel!”“Then, look here, gran’fa, you’ll help me to make doctor give Tom Candlish a big thrashing.”“Ay, if I can. I should like it. He threatened me wi’ his whip t’other day ’cause I said the sheep mustn’t come in th’ churchyard. Parson May found fault, and Squire ca’d me an old mummy, and said he’d put in pigs if he liked. I’d like to see doctor mummying him, same as he does his brother—eh; help you, lass?”“Yes; but it wasn’t the doctor, it was master made a mummy of Squire Tom. You’re mixing ’em up.”“Ay, I s’pose I am, Dally; but I’m not very old yet.”“Then you’ll help me, gran’fa?”“Will it help you to get to be my lady at the Hall?” said the old man dubiously. “Of course, gran’fa, or I wouldn’t do it,” said the girl, who had wrenched herself round, kneeling at the old man’s feet, and resting her elbows on his knees, her little dimpled chin upon her hands.“What do you want me to do, then?”“I want you to help me serve them out.”“Ay, and how?”“I want doctor to find out that Leo Salis is a down bad one.”“Ay, she is, my lass; and not good enough for him.”“And I want the doctor to beat Tom Candlish and stop him from going after Leo Salis, and then he’d come altogether to me.”“Ay, that’s right, Dally; that’s right. I want to see thee my leddy up at the Hall.”“Then, look here: you take the doctor some night, and show him when Leo—ugh! how I hate the minx!—is along with my Tom.”“Ay, but how, lass, how?”“I’ll tell you, gran’fa,” whispered Dally vindictively. “Master ordered Squire Tom never to come to the Rectory again.”“Ay.”“So he gave me notes to take to Miss Leo.”“And you was fool enough to take ’em?”“Yes, gran’fa; but that’s how it began with me, and he soon told me he didn’t care for her, and that he only wrote to Leo so as to make her send me out with notes to him, so that we could court.”“Oh! He’s a nice ’un,” growled Moredock. “He allus was. Well?”“And now Tom’s fooling me and meets Leo, and they court, and I dare say they laugh at me,” cried Dally vindictively.“I dessay; but you’ll make him marry you, Dally.”“I will, gran’fa. Now listen: because Tom can’t come to the Rectory, and Leo can’t go to him because master watches her, they meet of a night.”“Nay. Tchah!”“They do, gran’fa.”“What? Does he come to the Rect’ry o’ nights?”“No. She waits till every one’s asleep, and then she goes to him.”“Nay, do she, lass?” cried the old man. “Yes, gran’fa. She gets out of her bedroom window, and down on to the summer-house, and then goes.”“How do you know?”“Because I’ve seen her out of my window, gran’fa, night after night: and then she runs down the green path to the meadows, and—”“Meets him there?”“No,” said Dally, shaking her head.“Where does she go, then?”“Can’t you guess, gran’fa?”“Nay. Yes. Up to the Hall.”“Where the servants would find it out? No; they’re too cunning for that.”“Where then?” cried the old man, chuckling, and evidently enjoying it all.“Why, to a place where nobody would go of a night—where it would all be quiet and still, and people would be afraid to walk for fear of seeing ghosts. Where would that be, gran’fa?”Old Moredock’s jaw dropped, and he gazed down at his grandchild in a startled way.“Not to the old morslem?” he whispered, in an awe-stricken tone.“Pooh! No; but next door to it.”“Not to my church, gel?”“Not quite, gran’fa; but to the vestry.”“What?”“Yes, gran’fa,” whispered Dally excitedly. “Leo Salis gets out of the window and goes straight to the vestry, and meets Tom Candlish there night after night.”“And she gets parson’s keys, and goes in at the south door, and through the porch, and ’long the south aisle, and then across to the chancel?”“Yes, gran’fa, with a great veil all over her head; but how did you know?”“Why, you’re telling me, arn’t you?” said the old man testily, as he recalled the draped head he had seen hastily gliding above the pews. “And Squire Tom?”“He goes across the meadows and over the churchyard wall, and in at the vestry door by the big vault.”“Does he, though?” said Moredock, with his jaw dropped still more; “and how does he get the keys?—of course, he’s churchwarden! Hah! nice game in my church! Tchah!” he cried, after a pause. “Stuff! You dreamt it.”“Oh, no, I didn’t,” said Dally. “I watched her, and saw her go. And another night I watched and followed, and I saw a man go up to the Candlish vault.”“Eh! You saw that?” cried the old man, catching the girl’s arm.She nodded.“Who was it, eh? Not me?”“You? No, gran’fa!”“Nor the doctor?”“The doctor? No! It was my Tom Candlish!”“Are you sure, gel?”“I am now, gran’fa; I wasn’t then. I half thought it was the doctor, and I did hope it was him. It was so dark, I couldn’t quite be sure; and he stopped by the gate in the iron railings and looked about so that I daren’t go and make sure.”“Phew!” whistled the old man, dropping his pipe and wiping his brow as the fragile stem broke into atoms. “And you there, Dally, watching?”“Yes, gran’fa; for I was, oh, so jealous!”“And you’re not sure now?”“Yes I am, gran’fa; for I made sure.”“You went again—in the middle of the night?”“Yes, gran’fa. I got out of my bedroom window next time and went first.”“And you saw them go. Did you see—?”The old man stopped short.“No, I didn’t see much, gran’fa; but I heard. I went into the church.”“How did you get in?”“Through one of the lead windows, as I’ve often climbed through when I was a little girl; and then went into the vestry and up the screw stairs, and into the little place in the loft.”“How did you get the key?”“How did I get the key? Why, I came and took it from here.”“You jade.”“And you came and caught me.”“Did you take anything else?”“No, gran’fa, of course not,” cried the girl. “I was obliged to do it. Then I waited till I could just see Leo Salis come in along the church, and she passed under me and went into the vestry.”“Sure?”“Sure? Of course I am; and then I stole down the screw stairs and waited by the door till I heard him come in from the churchyard.”“And me about there in the morslem all the time!” muttered Moredock. “Well,” he added aloud, “was it young Squire Tom?”“Yes, gran’fa; it was him, safe enough, and it was Leo Salis, and she scolded him for being so late, and they stopped together for ever so long; him smoking.”“Smoking?”“Yes; I heard him strike a match, and I could smell it—a wretch!”“And I thought it was the parson,” said Moredock, chuckling.“They stayed there two hours, gran’fa; and they go regular, and I had to wait till they’d gone before I could go back.”“And weren’t you afraid, Dally?” said the old man with a grin.“’Fraid! What of?” said the girl. “I wasn’t afraid, but I felt as if I could have killed them both.”“Ay, you must, my pretty. And now what do you mean me to do?”“Do? Take the doctor there, and let him find Leo out, and beat Tom. It’ll stop it all, and serve him right. You will, won’t you, gran’fa?”“Ay, lass, I will.”“You good old, darling old gran’fa; and—look—look!”The old man’s eyes caught sight of a face at the lattice window at the same moment; and almost before she had spoken, Moredock had caught up the heavy leaden tobacco jar, and hurled it with so good an aim that it went out through the diamond panes with a loud crash.Daily stood in the fire-lit room half paralysed; but the old man had hobbled to the door, and gazed out in the darkness for a few moments, listening to the sound of retreating feet.“Who was it, gran’fa?” whispered Dally.“Well, I arn’t quite sure,” said the old man with asperity; “but I should say it was that Joe Chegg.”“And he heard all I said?”“Nay, I shouldn’t think he did; but I just give him warning if he comes spying and listening about my place, he’ll get it with the maddick or the spade.”“I don’t think he came to spy, gran’fa.”“Then it was after you, and I won’t have it.”“Never mind him, gran’fa,” said Dally, with quiet confidence; “even if he did hear, I can silence him.”“No courtin’, for I won’t have it.”“Courting with him!” cried Dally scornfully. “Don’t be afraid that I shall do that, gran’fa! But you’ll tell doctor?”“Don’t you be afraid, my gel.”“And when?”“First chance I have,” said the old man grimly; and then to himself: “He shan’t call me a mummy for naught.”“Good night, gran’fa.”“Good night, my leddy,” cried the old man, chuckling. “Don’t you be skeered. I’ll do it, and p’r’aps to-night.”
“Nay! nay! nay! I know what you want. There, give me my pipe,” said Moredock, settling himself down in his big-armed Windsor chair.
“Yes, gran’fa, dear,” cried Dally, bustling about and fetching the clay pipe with a clean white bowl, consequent upon its having been thoroughly burned in the fire before it was stood up in the corner on the hob. “There’s your pipe, dear, and there’s your tobacco box. Oh, how heavy it is!”
“It arn’t heavy with ’bacco, lass. Should ha’ thought a girl as I’ve brought up, as I’ve brought up you ever since your mother and father died, would have give her poor old gaffer a pinch o’ ’bacco now and agen.”
“And so I will, gran’fa, dear,” cried Dally, taking the lid off the heavy leaden pot. “Next time I go into town I’ll bring you a beautiful packet of the best. Let me fill your pipe, dear, same as I used to.”
“Ay, you was a good little gel then,” said Moredock, as he watched the brown, plump fingers busily charging the bowl, while a grim smile puckered his face, and he lay back with a satisfied air.
“So I am now, gran’fa, dear.”
“Nay; you’ve come to bother your poor old gran’fa about money for silk dresses, and feathers, and gloves. I know.”
“No, you don’t, gran’fa, dear,” cried Dally. “There, now it’s nice and full.”
“You’ve jammed it in too tight.”
“No, I haven’t, gran’fa. I know exactly how you like it. There! hold still while I fetch you a light. There! there, then. Now pull. Don’t you remember how you used to puff the smoke in my face and make me cough?”
“Ay; and I ’member how you tried to smoke my pipe, and how sick it made you.”
“Yes, I remember,” said Dally, clapping her hands. “Ah! how happy I used to be then with you, gran’fa! Do you remember how you used to take me to the church?”
“Ay,” grunted the old man, puffing away, with a dreamy look in his face.
“And how you used to pretend to bury yourself in the graves when you were digging, so as to frighten me?”
“Ah!” grunted Moredock.
“Then there was that old skull, gran’fa, that I had to play with. What became of that skull?”
“Up in the cupboard in your old bedroom,” grunted Moredock.
“How happy I used to be then!” sighed Dally, stroking a thin wisp off her grandfather’s hideous old forehead.
“Ah, you was a good little gel then, and thought about your poor old gran’fa, and didn’t come bothering him for money.”
“Yes, I did, gran’fa—for sweeties,” said Dally.
“Ay; but I wouldn’t give you none, gel.”
“Yes, you did sometimes, gran’fa; and so you would now to buy some nice things—a pretty bonnet—if I asked you.”
“Nay, I wouldn’t. And I knew it. You’ve come a-purpose to worry me out of some money.”
“No, I haven’t, gran’fa.”
“Ay, but you have. I know. Look here, how’s that going on? If it’s going to be my leddy, you shall have as much as you want; but not without. Is he courting of you?”
“No, gran’fa.”
“Whaaart?”
“Only sometimes, gran’fa; and that’s what made me come to you.”
“You—you haven’t come for the brass?”
“No, gran’fa, I want you to help me, for I’m such a miserable little girl.”
“What about?—what about?” cried the old man, smoking furiously, and staring with a peculiarly angry look at the girl.
“I wanted to tell you, gran’fa,” cried Dally, plumping herself down at the old man’s feet, and laying her rosy cheek upon his corduroy-covered knee, stained with the clay from many a grave. “It’s all such a muddle.”
“What is?—what is?”
“Why, everything,” cried Dally, with a petulant twitch; “but he’s not going to play with me. He’s told me many a time that he’d marry me, and make me Lady Candlish; and he shall, shan’t he, gran’fa?”
“Ay, that he shall,” cried the old man, patting Dally’s curly head. “That’s sperrit, that is. You keep him to it. But what’s all a muddle?”
“Why, everything, gran’fa,” cried Dally, bursting into tears, and speaking in an excited, passionate way. “But he shall marry me; and you’ll help me make him, won’t you, gran’fa?”
“Ay, that I will, my pretty. That’s the way. Don’t you be beat.”
“I won’t; and I won’t have him come courting Leo Salis.”
“Nay, you won’t,” said the old man, smoking away as he patted the fierce little creature’s head.
“He said it was all nonsense, and I believed him because he was so fond of me; but he courts her, too.”
“Nay, does he, Dally?”
“Yes, gran’fa; and he shan’t. He shall marry me. If he don’t, I’ll kill him!”
“So you shall, my pretty,” chuckled the old man; “and I’ll bury him. And then the doctor—”
He checked himself and chuckled again. “What’s the use of the doctor when he’s dead?” cried Dally pettishly, as she tugged angrily at a fold of the old man’s trousers. “And Doctor North’s a fool!”
“Nay! nay! nay! Doctor’s a very clever man, Dally.”
“He isn’t; he’s a fool, gran’fa!”
“Tut, tut! Shoo, shoo!”
“I say he is, or he wouldn’t be courting and making love to Miss Leo.”
“Do he, Dally?—do he?”
“Why, yes, gran’fa, of course he does and she’s carrying on all the time with Tom. Oh, how I do hate her! Wish he’d let her die!”
“Ay, would ha’ been a good job for everybody—and for me, Dally. But doctor don’t know?”
“Know? Of course not. He’s too stupid. He’s a fool!”
“Nay, he’s not a fool,” said the old man, smoking rapidly. “Doctor’s head’s screwed on right way. He don’t know, or—”
“Or what, gran’fa—or what?”
“He! he! he!” chuckled the old man, as Dally screwed herself round and gazed eagerly in his face. “Here, gently, gently! Don’t stick your little claws into my legs like that, pussy.”
“But what, gran’fa, what?—what would the doctor do?”
“Give him a nasty dose, I should say, Dally,” chuckled the old man. “Doctor don’t know—he arn’t no fool. Does Miss Leo know young squire courts you?”
“I don’t know,” cried Dally thoughtfully.
“She be a bad ’un,” grunted the old man.
“She’s a wretch, and I hate her! Oh, I wish master was the doctor instead of the parson!”
“Why, Dally, my lass?” said the old man, whose lips were drawn open to a terrible extension—a savage grin—as if he gloried in the display of fierce vindictive spite which the girl displayed.
“I’d get something out of the surgery and poison her!”
“Nay, nay, Dally, that wouldn’t do,” he chuckled. “They’d find you out and hang you.”
“I wouldn’t care if I killed her first,” said Dally fiercely. “She shouldn’t have him.”
“What—the doctor?”
“No. Don’t be so stupid. You know—Tom.”
“Ah, well, wait a bit. Dessay the things ’ll come right. Wait till doctor finds it out; he’ll half kill Tom Candlish, same as Parson Salis did when squire was after Miss Leo.”
“Did he? Oh, I know! It was when master’s knuckles was all cut.”
“That’s right, Dally. I was in the wood and see it all, but I never said a word till now. And don’t you. I thought it was all over between young Tom and pretty Miss up at the Rect’ry.”
“But it isn’t all over, gran’fa, and I won’t have it. They shan’t meet. I’ll tear her eyes out first. Nice one she is to lecture me!”
“You wait till doctor finds it out, if he’s courting Leo Salis. He’ll half kill Tom Candlish.”
“But I don’t want him half killed,” cried Dally. “Yes I do; it’ll bring him to his senses, and when he’s ill I can go and give him a bit of my mind.”
“Ah, to be sure; so you can, my pretty.”
“I’ll let him know. He shall marry me, that he shall.”
“Ay, so he shall, Dally.”
“And you’ll help me, gran’fa?”
“Of course I will, my pretty.”
“Then I’ll tell you what I came to say.”
“Wasn’t it for money, then?”
“Money? No. A girl with a face like mine don’t want money, and I shall have plenty when I’m up at the Hall.”
“Toe be sure, Dally. Toe be sure. Ay, but you are a clever gel!”
“Then, look here, gran’fa, you’ll help me to make doctor give Tom Candlish a big thrashing.”
“Ay, if I can. I should like it. He threatened me wi’ his whip t’other day ’cause I said the sheep mustn’t come in th’ churchyard. Parson May found fault, and Squire ca’d me an old mummy, and said he’d put in pigs if he liked. I’d like to see doctor mummying him, same as he does his brother—eh; help you, lass?”
“Yes; but it wasn’t the doctor, it was master made a mummy of Squire Tom. You’re mixing ’em up.”
“Ay, I s’pose I am, Dally; but I’m not very old yet.”
“Then you’ll help me, gran’fa?”
“Will it help you to get to be my lady at the Hall?” said the old man dubiously. “Of course, gran’fa, or I wouldn’t do it,” said the girl, who had wrenched herself round, kneeling at the old man’s feet, and resting her elbows on his knees, her little dimpled chin upon her hands.
“What do you want me to do, then?”
“I want you to help me serve them out.”
“Ay, and how?”
“I want doctor to find out that Leo Salis is a down bad one.”
“Ay, she is, my lass; and not good enough for him.”
“And I want the doctor to beat Tom Candlish and stop him from going after Leo Salis, and then he’d come altogether to me.”
“Ay, that’s right, Dally; that’s right. I want to see thee my leddy up at the Hall.”
“Then, look here: you take the doctor some night, and show him when Leo—ugh! how I hate the minx!—is along with my Tom.”
“Ay, but how, lass, how?”
“I’ll tell you, gran’fa,” whispered Dally vindictively. “Master ordered Squire Tom never to come to the Rectory again.”
“Ay.”
“So he gave me notes to take to Miss Leo.”
“And you was fool enough to take ’em?”
“Yes, gran’fa; but that’s how it began with me, and he soon told me he didn’t care for her, and that he only wrote to Leo so as to make her send me out with notes to him, so that we could court.”
“Oh! He’s a nice ’un,” growled Moredock. “He allus was. Well?”
“And now Tom’s fooling me and meets Leo, and they court, and I dare say they laugh at me,” cried Dally vindictively.
“I dessay; but you’ll make him marry you, Dally.”
“I will, gran’fa. Now listen: because Tom can’t come to the Rectory, and Leo can’t go to him because master watches her, they meet of a night.”
“Nay. Tchah!”
“They do, gran’fa.”
“What? Does he come to the Rect’ry o’ nights?”
“No. She waits till every one’s asleep, and then she goes to him.”
“Nay, do she, lass?” cried the old man. “Yes, gran’fa. She gets out of her bedroom window, and down on to the summer-house, and then goes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen her out of my window, gran’fa, night after night: and then she runs down the green path to the meadows, and—”
“Meets him there?”
“No,” said Dally, shaking her head.
“Where does she go, then?”
“Can’t you guess, gran’fa?”
“Nay. Yes. Up to the Hall.”
“Where the servants would find it out? No; they’re too cunning for that.”
“Where then?” cried the old man, chuckling, and evidently enjoying it all.
“Why, to a place where nobody would go of a night—where it would all be quiet and still, and people would be afraid to walk for fear of seeing ghosts. Where would that be, gran’fa?”
Old Moredock’s jaw dropped, and he gazed down at his grandchild in a startled way.
“Not to the old morslem?” he whispered, in an awe-stricken tone.
“Pooh! No; but next door to it.”
“Not to my church, gel?”
“Not quite, gran’fa; but to the vestry.”
“What?”
“Yes, gran’fa,” whispered Dally excitedly. “Leo Salis gets out of the window and goes straight to the vestry, and meets Tom Candlish there night after night.”
“And she gets parson’s keys, and goes in at the south door, and through the porch, and ’long the south aisle, and then across to the chancel?”
“Yes, gran’fa, with a great veil all over her head; but how did you know?”
“Why, you’re telling me, arn’t you?” said the old man testily, as he recalled the draped head he had seen hastily gliding above the pews. “And Squire Tom?”
“He goes across the meadows and over the churchyard wall, and in at the vestry door by the big vault.”
“Does he, though?” said Moredock, with his jaw dropped still more; “and how does he get the keys?—of course, he’s churchwarden! Hah! nice game in my church! Tchah!” he cried, after a pause. “Stuff! You dreamt it.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t,” said Dally. “I watched her, and saw her go. And another night I watched and followed, and I saw a man go up to the Candlish vault.”
“Eh! You saw that?” cried the old man, catching the girl’s arm.
She nodded.
“Who was it, eh? Not me?”
“You? No, gran’fa!”
“Nor the doctor?”
“The doctor? No! It was my Tom Candlish!”
“Are you sure, gel?”
“I am now, gran’fa; I wasn’t then. I half thought it was the doctor, and I did hope it was him. It was so dark, I couldn’t quite be sure; and he stopped by the gate in the iron railings and looked about so that I daren’t go and make sure.”
“Phew!” whistled the old man, dropping his pipe and wiping his brow as the fragile stem broke into atoms. “And you there, Dally, watching?”
“Yes, gran’fa; for I was, oh, so jealous!”
“And you’re not sure now?”
“Yes I am, gran’fa; for I made sure.”
“You went again—in the middle of the night?”
“Yes, gran’fa. I got out of my bedroom window next time and went first.”
“And you saw them go. Did you see—?”
The old man stopped short.
“No, I didn’t see much, gran’fa; but I heard. I went into the church.”
“How did you get in?”
“Through one of the lead windows, as I’ve often climbed through when I was a little girl; and then went into the vestry and up the screw stairs, and into the little place in the loft.”
“How did you get the key?”
“How did I get the key? Why, I came and took it from here.”
“You jade.”
“And you came and caught me.”
“Did you take anything else?”
“No, gran’fa, of course not,” cried the girl. “I was obliged to do it. Then I waited till I could just see Leo Salis come in along the church, and she passed under me and went into the vestry.”
“Sure?”
“Sure? Of course I am; and then I stole down the screw stairs and waited by the door till I heard him come in from the churchyard.”
“And me about there in the morslem all the time!” muttered Moredock. “Well,” he added aloud, “was it young Squire Tom?”
“Yes, gran’fa; it was him, safe enough, and it was Leo Salis, and she scolded him for being so late, and they stopped together for ever so long; him smoking.”
“Smoking?”
“Yes; I heard him strike a match, and I could smell it—a wretch!”
“And I thought it was the parson,” said Moredock, chuckling.
“They stayed there two hours, gran’fa; and they go regular, and I had to wait till they’d gone before I could go back.”
“And weren’t you afraid, Dally?” said the old man with a grin.
“’Fraid! What of?” said the girl. “I wasn’t afraid, but I felt as if I could have killed them both.”
“Ay, you must, my pretty. And now what do you mean me to do?”
“Do? Take the doctor there, and let him find Leo out, and beat Tom. It’ll stop it all, and serve him right. You will, won’t you, gran’fa?”
“Ay, lass, I will.”
“You good old, darling old gran’fa; and—look—look!”
The old man’s eyes caught sight of a face at the lattice window at the same moment; and almost before she had spoken, Moredock had caught up the heavy leaden tobacco jar, and hurled it with so good an aim that it went out through the diamond panes with a loud crash.
Daily stood in the fire-lit room half paralysed; but the old man had hobbled to the door, and gazed out in the darkness for a few moments, listening to the sound of retreating feet.
“Who was it, gran’fa?” whispered Dally.
“Well, I arn’t quite sure,” said the old man with asperity; “but I should say it was that Joe Chegg.”
“And he heard all I said?”
“Nay, I shouldn’t think he did; but I just give him warning if he comes spying and listening about my place, he’ll get it with the maddick or the spade.”
“I don’t think he came to spy, gran’fa.”
“Then it was after you, and I won’t have it.”
“Never mind him, gran’fa,” said Dally, with quiet confidence; “even if he did hear, I can silence him.”
“No courtin’, for I won’t have it.”
“Courting with him!” cried Dally scornfully. “Don’t be afraid that I shall do that, gran’fa! But you’ll tell doctor?”
“Don’t you be afraid, my gel.”
“And when?”
“First chance I have,” said the old man grimly; and then to himself: “He shan’t call me a mummy for naught.”
“Good night, gran’fa.”
“Good night, my leddy,” cried the old man, chuckling. “Don’t you be skeered. I’ll do it, and p’r’aps to-night.”
Volume Two—Chapter Thirteen.Moredock Keeps his Word.Old Moredock kept his word, for after leaving North alone to carry out his experiment, he went round the old church, proceeding cautiously from tombstone to tombstone, his red, watery eyes twinkling with excitement, till he reached the belfry door.This yielded to the key he always carried, deep down in his old coat pocket, and passing through into the lower part of the tower, he continued his way by the low, arched doorway to the font.Here he paused and listened, but all was perfectly still, and, running his hand along the tops of the pews, he went slowly on till he reached the screen, where he hesitated for a few moments, and then littering a low chuckle, that sounded like that of a cuckoo over a caterpillar feast, he turned aside, mounted the stairs, and seated himself in the pulpit, where he made himself comfortable with the big purple velvet cushion, and waited patiently for what was to come.He had not to wait long, for as he sat, with his arms resting on the front of the oaken erection, his ears twitching, a familiar sound in the church porch warned him that some one was at hand.Drawing in his breath he strained his eyes, and before long he had the satisfaction of seeing the matter-of-fact elucidation of the mystery which had shaken his well-hardened nerves, for though much less plainly seen, and from a different point of view, there was the draped head which had alarmed him passing before the pulpit, round into the chancel, and into the vestry, whose latch gave a slight click.“Yes,” he muttered; “doctor shall find you, and to-night, my lady. You don’t stand between her and her rights.”He chuckled in anticipation of the scene that was to come, and, slowly descending from the pulpit, followed the figure till he was pretty close to the chancel door, but inside the rectory pew, over whose side he could listen as he knelt on the cushion of one of the seats, but quite ready to bob down into sheltering darkness should there be a risk of being seen.Again he had not long to wait, for as he listened he heard the sound of a key in the outer door, the entering of some one, the withdrawal of the key, its insertion on the vestry side, and the locking of the door, followed by a low murmuring of voices.“Pretty doves!” muttered the old sexton. “Coo away, sweet, soft critters! Mummy, am I, Squire Tom? Hideous old figure, am I, Miss Leo? Oh, you needn’t deny it. You’ve told my Dally I was, scores of times. All right. He! he! he! Chilly place to make love. Dessay you’ll catch colds, so I’ll bring the doctor!”He kept his word, and North had his hand upon the latch, while Moredock gleefully rubbed his hands in anticipation of a scene that should relieve some of the tedium of his existence, and advance his grandchild’s ends, but quietly slipped away home.“I’d like to see it,” he said; “but there may be trouble, and I’m best away.”As if fate had determined that Horace North should be fully enlightened as to the character of the woman he worshipped, it so happened that as the door was thrown open, Tom Candlish was striking a flaming fusee.The sharp crick—crick—crack of the explosive end overcame the sound made by the latch, and the match burst into a reddish blue flame, illuminating the whole place, for the young squire for the moment was too much taken aback to cast it down.North uttered a hoarse groan as he gazed at the group before him: Tom Candlish seated in the curate’s chair by the oaken table, and Leo upon his knee with her arm about his neck, and her head resting upon his shoulder, while seen by the lurid light there appeared to be a couple of clergymen, one in black, the other in white, standing behind them in the background, as if to give sanction to their proceedings by performing some holy rite.“The devil!” shouted Candlish, as Leo leaped from his lap, and crouched away in one corner of the vestry, her shame concealed by the sudden darkness that fell as Tom Candlish cast down the match.“You scoundrel!” cried North, as, furious with rage, he dashed at the man whom he felt to have been the cause of his agonising pang.For a moment he had turned towards where he had seen Leo shrink away, his eyes flashing as if he could have withered the wretched creature whom he had believed to be all that was good and true, but who, in spite of his passion for her, seemed now to be too base to be worthy even of a word.He could not crush her. He could not assail her with the bitterness of the words which rushed to his lips. The veil had fallen from his eyes, and in that dire moment, as he saw her hanging upon the neck of the brutal, coarse young squire, his doting love turned to a savage hate.But he could not crush her; he could not strike her even with his contempt; but a fierce laugh escaped his throat as he felt how good and kind fate had been to him in giving him the opportunity for taking ample revenge.And how sweet it seemed as he sprang in the dusk at Tom Candlish.Fate was kind to him again for the moment, for, as if instinctively, North’s hands caught the sturdy young giant in his fierce grip, and for a few moments they swayed here and there, striking against the wall, the simple furniture of the place, crashing against the closet where the registers were kept, and tearing down the surplice and gown to trample them on the floor.“Are you mad, doctor?” panted Tom Candlish.“Yes,” came hissing through the doctor’s teeth.“Don’t be a cursed fool. Recollect where you are.”“Recollect where I am!” cried North with a bitter laugh. “You say that to me, you sacrilegious hound!”They swayed here and there again, North striving hard to get a hand free to strike a blow, but in vain; and the struggle was one savage wrestle, in which the weaker man seemed to be made the equal of the stronger by the passion in his breast.Meanwhile Leo Salis, trembling in every limb, crouched in the dark far corner of the vestry, and half lay huddled up, listening to the fierce struggle, too much unnerved to move.At last, though, the desire to escape—to make her way home—mastered all else, and she made for the nearest point of exit—the door into the churchyard; but though she passed her hand over it again and again, the key was not there. Tom Candlish had it in his pocket, and he was unable to set her free.She tried to creep past the contending couple to the chancel door, but as she strove for it, Tom Candlish was driven against her, nearly fell, and uttered a savage curse, which drowned her cry of agony, for he had crushed her delicate hand beneath his heel.She shrank back into the corner again, sobbing with fear: but as the struggle continued she nerved herself once more, and this time rose to her feet and tried the other way, just as Tom Candlish was gaining the mastery, and swung North round so savagely that he struck the wretched girl, and drove her heavily against the wall.Leo uttered a hoarse gasp, and stretched out her hands to save herself, when her left touched the oaken door leading into the chancel.This revived her just as her feelings were overcoming her and she was turning faint.With a quick motion she caught the latch, dragged it up, passed through the opening, and, closing the heavy oaken door, sped along the chancel and south aisle to the big door, unlatched it, and, hardly knowing what she did, passed into the porch, and relocked the door before running down to the lych-gate, round to the meadows, and then breathlessly back to the Rectory garden.“Safe!” she panted; “safe!” as she reached the rustic summer-house, and climbed rapidly up to gain her room, and, after softly closing the casement, sink down sobbing on the floor, bathed in perspiration, and with her breath coming in sobs. “That idiot will not dare to speak. I hope Tom will half kill him. What an escape! But no one will know.”At this thought she breathed more freely, in happy ignorance of the fact that Dally was just closing her window, gleefully hoping that there had been a scene.That scene was over now, for as the big south door closed on Leo the struggle was at its fiercest, and Tom Candlish was getting the worst of the encounter.“Loose my throat, North!” he cried. “So cursedly ungentlemanly.”“Yes; I am dealing with a scoundrel, whom Hartley Salis thrashed, and I’ll thrash you too, you dog!”As he spoke, he dealt with his now freed hand a fierce blow right between Tom Candlish’s eyes, making him stagger back.But the triumph was momentary, for, rendered savage by the pain, the young squire flung himself upon his adversary, and bore him back as a jingling of a falling key was heard. The wrestling grew wilder and fiercer, and then Horace North felt as if his legs were suddenly enmeshed. He strove to free them, but in vain; and before he could recover the ground he had lost he was flung heavily, his head coming with a crash upon the stone floor, just where the matting did not cover it, and he lay without motion, and made no sound.“Curse him for a fool! Let him lie there till he comes to,” panted Tom Candlish. “Where’s the key? What a fool! I heard it fall as we struggled. Matches? They went too, and if they didn’t I daren’t light one.”He felt his way to the chancel door, but in his confusion he could not open it, as Leo had made it fast.“She’s got away home by now,” muttered Candlish. “Where’s my hat? All right; I put it on the window-ledge. Hah!—yes, that will do.”He stepped up on the oaken chest beneath the long, narrow window, opened the iron-framed casement, and, squeezing himself through, stood in a bent attitude, holding on for a few moments, and then leaped down into the black darkness.A dull thud as he came down on the gravel, a crushing blow, followed by another rapidly given; a heavy groan, and then silence.A minute later a rustling sound as of some one stealing away.
Old Moredock kept his word, for after leaving North alone to carry out his experiment, he went round the old church, proceeding cautiously from tombstone to tombstone, his red, watery eyes twinkling with excitement, till he reached the belfry door.
This yielded to the key he always carried, deep down in his old coat pocket, and passing through into the lower part of the tower, he continued his way by the low, arched doorway to the font.
Here he paused and listened, but all was perfectly still, and, running his hand along the tops of the pews, he went slowly on till he reached the screen, where he hesitated for a few moments, and then littering a low chuckle, that sounded like that of a cuckoo over a caterpillar feast, he turned aside, mounted the stairs, and seated himself in the pulpit, where he made himself comfortable with the big purple velvet cushion, and waited patiently for what was to come.
He had not to wait long, for as he sat, with his arms resting on the front of the oaken erection, his ears twitching, a familiar sound in the church porch warned him that some one was at hand.
Drawing in his breath he strained his eyes, and before long he had the satisfaction of seeing the matter-of-fact elucidation of the mystery which had shaken his well-hardened nerves, for though much less plainly seen, and from a different point of view, there was the draped head which had alarmed him passing before the pulpit, round into the chancel, and into the vestry, whose latch gave a slight click.
“Yes,” he muttered; “doctor shall find you, and to-night, my lady. You don’t stand between her and her rights.”
He chuckled in anticipation of the scene that was to come, and, slowly descending from the pulpit, followed the figure till he was pretty close to the chancel door, but inside the rectory pew, over whose side he could listen as he knelt on the cushion of one of the seats, but quite ready to bob down into sheltering darkness should there be a risk of being seen.
Again he had not long to wait, for as he listened he heard the sound of a key in the outer door, the entering of some one, the withdrawal of the key, its insertion on the vestry side, and the locking of the door, followed by a low murmuring of voices.
“Pretty doves!” muttered the old sexton. “Coo away, sweet, soft critters! Mummy, am I, Squire Tom? Hideous old figure, am I, Miss Leo? Oh, you needn’t deny it. You’ve told my Dally I was, scores of times. All right. He! he! he! Chilly place to make love. Dessay you’ll catch colds, so I’ll bring the doctor!”
He kept his word, and North had his hand upon the latch, while Moredock gleefully rubbed his hands in anticipation of a scene that should relieve some of the tedium of his existence, and advance his grandchild’s ends, but quietly slipped away home.
“I’d like to see it,” he said; “but there may be trouble, and I’m best away.”
As if fate had determined that Horace North should be fully enlightened as to the character of the woman he worshipped, it so happened that as the door was thrown open, Tom Candlish was striking a flaming fusee.
The sharp crick—crick—crack of the explosive end overcame the sound made by the latch, and the match burst into a reddish blue flame, illuminating the whole place, for the young squire for the moment was too much taken aback to cast it down.
North uttered a hoarse groan as he gazed at the group before him: Tom Candlish seated in the curate’s chair by the oaken table, and Leo upon his knee with her arm about his neck, and her head resting upon his shoulder, while seen by the lurid light there appeared to be a couple of clergymen, one in black, the other in white, standing behind them in the background, as if to give sanction to their proceedings by performing some holy rite.
“The devil!” shouted Candlish, as Leo leaped from his lap, and crouched away in one corner of the vestry, her shame concealed by the sudden darkness that fell as Tom Candlish cast down the match.
“You scoundrel!” cried North, as, furious with rage, he dashed at the man whom he felt to have been the cause of his agonising pang.
For a moment he had turned towards where he had seen Leo shrink away, his eyes flashing as if he could have withered the wretched creature whom he had believed to be all that was good and true, but who, in spite of his passion for her, seemed now to be too base to be worthy even of a word.
He could not crush her. He could not assail her with the bitterness of the words which rushed to his lips. The veil had fallen from his eyes, and in that dire moment, as he saw her hanging upon the neck of the brutal, coarse young squire, his doting love turned to a savage hate.
But he could not crush her; he could not strike her even with his contempt; but a fierce laugh escaped his throat as he felt how good and kind fate had been to him in giving him the opportunity for taking ample revenge.
And how sweet it seemed as he sprang in the dusk at Tom Candlish.
Fate was kind to him again for the moment, for, as if instinctively, North’s hands caught the sturdy young giant in his fierce grip, and for a few moments they swayed here and there, striking against the wall, the simple furniture of the place, crashing against the closet where the registers were kept, and tearing down the surplice and gown to trample them on the floor.
“Are you mad, doctor?” panted Tom Candlish.
“Yes,” came hissing through the doctor’s teeth.
“Don’t be a cursed fool. Recollect where you are.”
“Recollect where I am!” cried North with a bitter laugh. “You say that to me, you sacrilegious hound!”
They swayed here and there again, North striving hard to get a hand free to strike a blow, but in vain; and the struggle was one savage wrestle, in which the weaker man seemed to be made the equal of the stronger by the passion in his breast.
Meanwhile Leo Salis, trembling in every limb, crouched in the dark far corner of the vestry, and half lay huddled up, listening to the fierce struggle, too much unnerved to move.
At last, though, the desire to escape—to make her way home—mastered all else, and she made for the nearest point of exit—the door into the churchyard; but though she passed her hand over it again and again, the key was not there. Tom Candlish had it in his pocket, and he was unable to set her free.
She tried to creep past the contending couple to the chancel door, but as she strove for it, Tom Candlish was driven against her, nearly fell, and uttered a savage curse, which drowned her cry of agony, for he had crushed her delicate hand beneath his heel.
She shrank back into the corner again, sobbing with fear: but as the struggle continued she nerved herself once more, and this time rose to her feet and tried the other way, just as Tom Candlish was gaining the mastery, and swung North round so savagely that he struck the wretched girl, and drove her heavily against the wall.
Leo uttered a hoarse gasp, and stretched out her hands to save herself, when her left touched the oaken door leading into the chancel.
This revived her just as her feelings were overcoming her and she was turning faint.
With a quick motion she caught the latch, dragged it up, passed through the opening, and, closing the heavy oaken door, sped along the chancel and south aisle to the big door, unlatched it, and, hardly knowing what she did, passed into the porch, and relocked the door before running down to the lych-gate, round to the meadows, and then breathlessly back to the Rectory garden.
“Safe!” she panted; “safe!” as she reached the rustic summer-house, and climbed rapidly up to gain her room, and, after softly closing the casement, sink down sobbing on the floor, bathed in perspiration, and with her breath coming in sobs. “That idiot will not dare to speak. I hope Tom will half kill him. What an escape! But no one will know.”
At this thought she breathed more freely, in happy ignorance of the fact that Dally was just closing her window, gleefully hoping that there had been a scene.
That scene was over now, for as the big south door closed on Leo the struggle was at its fiercest, and Tom Candlish was getting the worst of the encounter.
“Loose my throat, North!” he cried. “So cursedly ungentlemanly.”
“Yes; I am dealing with a scoundrel, whom Hartley Salis thrashed, and I’ll thrash you too, you dog!”
As he spoke, he dealt with his now freed hand a fierce blow right between Tom Candlish’s eyes, making him stagger back.
But the triumph was momentary, for, rendered savage by the pain, the young squire flung himself upon his adversary, and bore him back as a jingling of a falling key was heard. The wrestling grew wilder and fiercer, and then Horace North felt as if his legs were suddenly enmeshed. He strove to free them, but in vain; and before he could recover the ground he had lost he was flung heavily, his head coming with a crash upon the stone floor, just where the matting did not cover it, and he lay without motion, and made no sound.
“Curse him for a fool! Let him lie there till he comes to,” panted Tom Candlish. “Where’s the key? What a fool! I heard it fall as we struggled. Matches? They went too, and if they didn’t I daren’t light one.”
He felt his way to the chancel door, but in his confusion he could not open it, as Leo had made it fast.
“She’s got away home by now,” muttered Candlish. “Where’s my hat? All right; I put it on the window-ledge. Hah!—yes, that will do.”
He stepped up on the oaken chest beneath the long, narrow window, opened the iron-framed casement, and, squeezing himself through, stood in a bent attitude, holding on for a few moments, and then leaped down into the black darkness.
A dull thud as he came down on the gravel, a crushing blow, followed by another rapidly given; a heavy groan, and then silence.
A minute later a rustling sound as of some one stealing away.