The Man with a Shadow
For the moment it seemed as if Moredock was some grim old idol, carved in yellowish-brown wood, as he sat in his chair in the middle of his sanctuary, and the new comer was an idolater, bringing him a peace offering; but the idea died away as the old man snarled out:
“Mornin’, young Chegg. So you’ve brought it at last.”
“At last! Well, I haven’t had it so very long. Sixpence.”
“Sixpence! What, for sewing up that crack?”
“Yes, and cheap, too. Why, I’d ha’ charged parson a shilling. How are you?”
“How am I? Ah! that’s it, is it? That’s what you’ve come for. Not dead yet, Joe Chegg, and they don’t want another clerk and saxton for the old church.”
“Nay – ”
“Hold your tongue when I’m speaking. Think I don’t know you. Want to step in my shoes, do you? Want to marry my grandchild Dally, do you? Well, you’re not going to while I’m alive, and I’m going to live another ten year.”
“That’s all right,” said the young man, rubbing his face with a hard hand, much tanned, and coated with wax. “I don’t want you to die.”
“Yes, you do,” cried the old man fiercely. “I see you looking me up and down, and taking my measure. Think you’re going to dig my grave, do you? Well, you’re not going to these ten years to come; and p’r’aps I shall dig yours first, Joe Chegg; p’r’aps I shall dig yours.”
It was a cool morning, in the hunting season, but the young man perspired, and shifted uneasily from foot to foot.
“Oh! I don’t know, Mr Moredock, sir,” he muttered awkwardly.
“Then I do,” cried the old sexton, dragging his hand out of his trousers’ pocket. “There’s a fourpenny piece. Quite enough for your job, and I tell you now as I mean to tell you ten year hence, you ain’t going to be saxton o’ Dook’s Hampton while Jonadab Moredock’s alive, so be off.”
“I don’t want nothing but what’s friendly like, Mr Moredock, sir. I thought as when you was out o’ sorts I might be a kind o’ depitty like, to ring the bells for you, and dig a grave for you.”
“Ah!” shouted the old man, “that’s it – that’s what Parson Salis calls showing the cloven hoof. You said it, and you can’t take it back. You’d like to dig a grave for me.”
“I meant to put some one else in,” said the young man, staring.
“No, you didn’t; you meant to put me in; but I’ll live to spite you. I’ll ring my own bells, and say my own amens and ’sponses, and dig my own graves; and if you marry Dally Watlock, not a penny does she have o’ my money, and I’ll burn the cottage down.”
The young man wiped his forehead and backed slowly towards the door, just inside which he had been standing during the latter part of the interview, and as soon as he was outside he hurried away.
“Not going to die yet,” muttered the old man. “I can’t and won’t die yet. I’ll let ’em see. Doctor said a man’s no business to die till he’s quite wore out, and I’m not wore out yet – nothing like. I’ll show ’em. Only wish somebody would die, and I’d show ’em. Give up, indeed!”
A sharp fit of coughing interrupted the old man, and left him so exhausted that he took his seat and leaned back, staring at the fire, and only moving at times to put on a lump of coal, till towards evening, when he rose and made himself some tea. Then, putting a piece of candle loose in his pocket, with happy indifference to the fact that it was not wax, he took a box of matches from the mantelpiece and thrust them in with the candle, as he believed, felt in another pocket for his key, and trudged off to the church to put things in order for the next day’s service.
Moredock reached the old lych gate in the dark autumnal evening, passed through, and ascended the path, which looked like a cutting in the churchyard, six hundred years of interments having raised the ground till it formed a bank, while the church itself seemed to have become sunken.
Half-way up he struck off along a narrower path which curved round to the old iron-studded door in the tower, a door whose hinges resembled Norse runes, so twisted and twined was the iron-work.
The heavy old key was inserted, turned, and taken out, and as the door yielded to pressure the key was inserted on the other side. The next minute the door was closed and locked, and Moredock stood in the old tower, fumbling in the darkness for the horn lantern which stood in a stone niche.
The lantern was found, opened, and the piece of candle inserted in the socket. The next thing was a search for the matches, which, however, were not found, for they were reposing on the rug in the sexton’s cottage.
And there he stood fumbling and muttering for some minutes in the total darkness, till, believing that the matches must have been left behind, he uttered a loud grunt, and prepared to do without.
It was no great difficulty; for, as he stood in the basement of the old square tower, with the five bells high above his head, and the ropes hanging therefrom, he knew that to his right ran the rickety old flight of stairs leading to the different floors and the leads of the tower; on his left his tools leaning against the stone wall, and the great cupboard in which, in company with planks and ropes, were sundry grisly-looking relics, dug up from time to time, but never seen by any one but himself; behind him was the door by which he had entered, and facing him the lancet-shaped little opening through the tower wall, leading into the west end of the church.
It was dark enough where he next stood, for he was beneath the loft where the school children and the singers sat on Sundays; but in front of him, dimly seen by the great east window being beyond it, and looking like an uncouth, dwarf, one-legged monster, was the massive stone font, round which he passed slowly, and then walked straight along the centre aisle towards the tomb-encumbered chancel, cut off by its antique oaken screen.
His steps were hushed by the matting, and the darkness, in spite of the windows on either side, was intense behind, though above the old deal unpainted pews there seemed to float a dim haze, as if from the great east window, as he made his way towards the door on the north side of the chancel.
Moredock could have walked swiftly along the church in the dark, and he had often done so when he was younger. He could recall the time, too, when he had whistled softly as he went about dusting cushions and rearranging hassocks and matting. But now he had no breath left for whistling, and he walked – almost shuffled – along slowly towards the vestry, where he had nothing to do but give the gown and surplice a shake and hang them up again, and refill the large water-bottle from Gumley’s pump, which drew water from a well in remarkably close proximity to the churchyard.
The big pews shut him in right and left, so that had he been visible to any one at a distance, it would have seemed as if a head and shoulders were gliding along the church; but there was no one to see him. All the same, though, Moredock could see, and as well as was possible he saw something which made him stop short just half-way between the font and the eagle lectern, to shade his eyes and gaze towards the chancel.
He did not believe in ghosts. He had been night and day in that old church too many hundred times to be scared at anything – at least so he thought. But perhaps owing to the fact that he had been ill, he was ready to be weak and nervous, and hence it was that he stood as if sealed to the spot, gazing at a dimly seen head, draped in long folds like that of the lady on the old mural slab on the south wall by the door. It was grey and dim as that always seemed in its recess, and as it glided along the south aisle it disappeared behind a pillar, all so dimly seen as to be next to invisible, and then reappeared in front of the pulpit, passed through the screen into the chancel, where it was seen a trifle more plainly; and then, as the old man gazed, the draped head grew for a moment more distinct, and then seemed to melt into thin air.
Chapter Twelve.
The Sexton’s Fetch
“Why, Moredock, you are not going to tell me that you believe in ghosts?”
“No, doctor, for I don’t; and I’ve been in that church and the vaults sometimes all night.”
“All night, eh? What for, eh?”
“That’s my business, doctor. P’r’aps I was on the look out for body-snatchers; but I’ve been there all night, and no ghosts never troubled me.”
“And yet here you are, all shivering and nervous – too ill to attend service this morning; and you tell me you saw something in the church last night.”
“Ay, and so I did, doctor. I s’pose I swownded away, I was took so bad; and must have laid there for hours before I got up and crawled home; and Parson Salis must be in a fine taking this morning, for there’s nothing done in the church.”
“Oh! never mind that, Moredock; Mr Salis is sorry you are ill. He’s a good fellow, and he sent me on this morning. You’re a bit nervous and shaken at what you fancied you saw. Come, Moredock, old man, I’m a doctor, and you’re a sexton, and we’re too much men of the world – we’ve seen and known too much – to be afraid of ghosts, eh?”
“Ghosts! Sperits! I’m afraid of no ghosts, doctor; but I see that thing o’ Saturday night.”
“Thought you saw it, old chap!”
“Nay, doctor, I saw it; and that’s what scares me.”
“Pooh! You scared at something you saw – a hollow turnip and a sheet! A trick played by some scamp in the village.”
“Trick played? Nay, doctor; there isn’t a lad in the village dare do it. I know ’em. I aren’t scared at the thing I saw. It’s at what it means.”
“What it means! Then, what does it mean?”
“Notice to quit this here earthly habitation, as parson calls it, doctor. That’s what it means.”
“Rubbish!”
“Ah! you say that to hide your bad work, doctor, and because you know you arn’t done your duty by me.”
“Why, you ungrateful old humbug! I’ve done no end for you. Haven’t I gone on oiling your confounded old hinges for years past, to keep you from dropping off, rusted out?”
“Ah! I don’t say anything again that, doctor; but you’ve always thought me a poor man, and you’ve treated me like a poor man – exactly like. If you’d thought me well off, and you could send me in a big bill, you’d have had me in such condition that I shouldn’t have seen my fetch last night.”
“Seen your grandmother, man.”
“Ay, you may laugh, doctor; but what have you told me over and over again? ‘Moredock,’ says you, ‘a healthy man’s no business to die till he’s quite worn out.’ And ‘What age will that be, doctor?’ says I. ‘Oh! at any age,’ says you; and here am I, a hale, hearty man, only a little more’n ninety, and last night I see my fetch.”
“But you’re not a hale, hearty man, Moredock.”
“Tchah! Whatcher talking about? Why, I’d ’bout made up my mind to be married again.”
“You? Married? Why, even I don’t think of such a thing.”
“You? No,” said the old man, contemptuously. “You’re not half the man I’ve been. My son’s gal – Dally Watlock’s ’fended me, and if she don’t mind she’ll lose my bit o’ money.”
“You take my advice, Moredock, and don’t marry.”
“Shan’t leave you nothing, if I don’t marry, doctor,” said the old man, with a cunning leer; “and you needn’t send in no bills because you’ve found out I’ve got a bit saved up.”
“Why, you wicked old ruffian, I suppose you’ve scraped together a few pounds by trafficking in old bones, and of what you’ve robbed the church.”
“Never you mind, doctor, how I got it, or how much it is.”
“I don’t; but just you be wise, sir. You’re not going to marry again, and you’re going to leave your money to your grandchild.”
“Eh? What – what? Do you want to marry her?”
“No, I don’t, Moredock; but if you don’t behave yourself, hang me if I come and doctor you any more. You may send over to King’s Hampton for Dr Wellby, or die if you like: I won’t try and save you.”
“No, no, no; don’t talk like that, doctor – don’t talk like that,” whimpered the old man; “just now, too, when I’m so shook.”
“Then don’t you talk about disinheriting your poor grandchild. Come, hold up, Moredock! I didn’t mean it. There’s nothing much the matter.”
“Ah! but there is, doctor. I saw my fetch last night.”
“No, you did not. You were not strong enough to go up to the church, and you fancied you saw something.”
“I see it.”
“Well, suppose you did. Some one had gone into the church to fetch a hymn-book, or put in a new cushion.”
“Nobody couldn’t, but me and parson, and squire and you. I see it, and it was my fetch.”
“No, no, old fellow; you’re mistaken. You were in the dark, and your head weak.”
“I see it, and it was my fetch, doctor.”
“Very well, then, Moredock, it was your fetch; but we won’t let it fetch you for some years to come. What do you say to that?”
“Ah! now you’re talking sensible, doctor,” cried the old man, brightening up. “Look here, doctor, you do what’s right by me, and let me have the best o’ stuff – good physic, you know – and there isn’t anything I won’t do for you. A skull, or a bone of any kind, or a whole set, or – ”
“There, that will do, Moredock. I’ll do my duty by you, and I don’t want any reward.”
“No, you don’t. You’re a good fellow, doctor; and you do understand my complaint, don’t you?”
“Yes, thoroughly. There, sit back in your chair, and keep quiet. Mr Salis is coming in to see you by-and-by.”
“Nay, nay, nay! I don’t want he. It makes a man feel as if he’s very bad when parson comes to see him.”
“Why, I’m sure he’s a thoroughly good friend to you, old fellow.”
“Oh! yes, he’s right enough; but as soon as ever he comes in this here room, he’ll begin talking to me about what a sinner I’ve been.”
“Well, quite right, too.”
“Maybe, doctor, maybe,” said the old man, bursting into a loud cachinnation; “but he don’t know everything, doctor, do he? If he did, he’d lay it on thicker; and he wouldn’t be quite so friendly with you.”
“Come, come, Moredock,” said the doctor, laughing. “Suppose we leave professional secrets alone, eh?”
“Ay, ay, doctor, we will. I don’t forget what you’ve told me; but do go and tell parson I’m a deal better, and that he needn’t come.”
“Why? A visit won’t do you any harm.”
“Maybe not, doctor – p’r’aps not; but as soon as he comes he’ll want to read me a chapter and then pray over me; and I’m that soaked with it all, after these many years, that I haven’t room for no more.”
“But, Moredock – ”
“There, it’s of no use for you to talk. Think I don’t know! Why, I know more chapters and bits of the sarvice by heart than half-a-dozen parsons.”
“Ah, well! I’ll send you a bottle of mixture as soon as I get home, so sit up and make yourself comfortable.”
“May I smoke my pipe, doctor?”
“Oh, yes, as long as you like, man. You’re not bad; and take my advice: just you forget all about your fetch, as you call it, and don’t go to the church any more in the dark.”
Chapter Thirteen.
After Church
The doctor left the sexton’s cottage, thinking deeply on the way in which the brain is affected by the weakness of the body.
“Poor old fellow!” he muttered; “nearly a hundred years old, and clinging to life more tightly than ever. Believes he saw something, of course. Not fit to go out alone. But he’ll pull round, and perhaps last for years. Wonderful constitution, but also an exemplification of my pet theory. Humph! coming out of church. Well, I must meet ’em, I suppose. Hallo! what’s going to happen? Has Salis converted the pair of reprobates? Morning, Squire; morning, Mr Candlish.”
He shook hands – professionally, as he called it – with the young squire and his brother, who were just out of church, and walked slowly on with them, discussing the hunt, election matters, and the state of the country.
“Why don’t you hunt more, doctor?” said the squire, a florid, fine-looking man, singularly like his brother, but more athletic of build.
“Want of time,” said the doctor good-humouredly. “Too many irons in the fire.”
“You work too hard. But look here – don’t be offended; I’ve always a spare mount or two when you are disposed for a gallop.”
“Thanks; I’ll ask one of these days – which never come,” the doctor added to himself. “And now, good-day.”
“No, no; come on, and have a bit of dinner with us – early dinner to-day.”
“Thanks – no; I’ve a patient or two to see, and I want a word with the parson.”
“We don’t,” said the squire; “eh, Tom? We’ve had ours.”
Tom Candlish scowled.
“Well, always glad to see you, doctor – non-professionally,” said the squire; and they went on, while North turned back to meet Salis, wondering why Tom Candlish had condescended to come to church.
“To stare at Leo, I’ll be sworn, and Salis must have felt it. I’ll be bound to say he made a dozen mistakes in the service this morning through that fellow coming. And, as for the squire – that young man drinks, and he had better look out, or Moredock will have a grand funeral to attend.”
“Good morning, doctor. Were you coming to see me?”
“Ah, Mrs Berens! I beg your pardon; I didn’t see you.”
“No, doctor, you never do seem to see me. You forget your most anxious patients,” said the lady pathetically.
“But, really, you did not send me word.”
“No, I did not send you word. I lived in hope of your coming.”
“Thank goodness!” thought the doctor. “This woman is growing dangerous.”
His pious ejaculation was consequent upon the fact that his friend, the curate, was approaching in company with Leo.
Mrs Berens became aware of the fact at the same time, and though she uttered no pious ejaculation, she was equally pleased, for two reasons.
The first was that through the past two hours she had been seated in the same building with Leo Salis; the pews were high, and Leo could only have seen the top of her bonnet, whereas the handsome widow did not go to great expense for the most fashionable modes et robes, as the dressmakers express it, for nothing. The most elegant head-gear, though it may afford some satisfaction to the wearer, is hardly worth wearing, unless it be envied by those of the one sex and admired by the other. This encounter with the doctor would give handsome Leo a good opportunity for envious glances, and as Mrs Berens could not rival her neighbour in contour, she would have some chance of standing upon an equal footing.
The other reason was that she wished the curate to come up and speak to her at the same time as she was talking to the doctor. For Mrs Berens was not deeply in love; she only wished to be. The doctor and the curate were both fine, manly fellows, to either of whom she would have been willing to give herself and fortune; but somehow they had both been terribly unimpressionable, and though she had shown as plainly as she dared, any time during the past year, the tenderness waiting to burst forth, she was still Mrs Berens, and twelve months older.
Here was an opportunity of playing one-off against the other; for men could often be stirred, she knew, into learning the value of something when they saw that it was gliding from their grasp.
The couple from the Rectory came up, and Mrs Berens felt a pang as, after her warm salutations, in which her hand had rested in that of the curate for a few moments, to receive nothing more than a frank, friendly pressure, she saw that of Leo Salis rest in the doctor’s longer than she considered prudent. Leo seemed unusually handsome, too, that morning. There was a bright flush on her cheeks; her eyes sparkled, and she looked twenty, while Mrs Berens felt that she looked nearly forty.
Salis was glad of the encounter, for it was true that he had been making mistakes that morning. The very fact that Tom Candlish was in the church was disturbing, and when he knew that he must have come – he could not believe otherwise – expressly to stare at Leo, the presence of the man whom he had thrashed in so unclerical a way acted on his thoughts as a pointsman acts over trains at a busy junction – sent them flying in different directions beyond the drivers’ control.
The curate’s colour was heightened, for he knew that he had appeared at a disadvantage before the more thoughtful of his congregation. He was anxious, too, about Leo, who looked excited, and he dreaded any renewal of the past trouble; so that the encounter was satisfactory, if only from the fact that it afforded temporary relief from worrying thoughts and cares.
Mrs Berens was sweetness itself to all, and Leo seemed to rouse herself to be pleasant to the doctor, the result being that Mrs Berens was seen home – to part most affectionately from Leo, and with most tenderly friendly pressures of the hand to the gentlemen; after which she hurried into her room, to tear off her new bonnet and indulge in a passionate burst of sobbing.
“She’s as deceitful as she is young,” she cried. “She has thrown over Tom Candlish, and now she is winning over that foolish doctor; while Hartley Salis is as immovable as a stone.
“I’ll be even with her,” she cried. “Either Tom Candlish or the squire would be glad to marry me. I’ll have one of them, and I’ll make her half die with envy by asking her to my house, and – yes, there they go, and Horace North is going into the house with them. Ugh! the monster! He deserves to have the doorstep sink beneath his feet. But I’ll be revenged. No, no, no! they’re too bad,” she sobbed; “but I couldn’t stoop to that.”
Mrs Berens subsided into an easy-chair, to go on reddening her eyes; while the doctor accompanied his friends to the Rectory, and stopped chatting for a few minutes, but refused another invitation to dine even when Mary Salis and Leo both added their persuasions.
“No,” he said, “I’ve promised old Moredock his dose, and I’m going to see that he has it.” And then, after a few kindly words to Mary concerning her health – words that were almost tender, but which seemed to burn and sear the poor girl, as she read them aright – he went away, to hurry to his surgery in the Manor House.
“I’m very glad, for poor old Hartley’s sake, that the affair’s all off. It is, evidently; for Madam Leo seemed as cool as could be, and she’s as handsome and ladylike a girl as a man need wish to call wife. Humph! I’ll give him a little chloral – just a suspicion – to calm him down. Poor old boy! and he thinks he’s going to die. Well, it’s my theory,” he continued, as he compounded the sexton’s mixture and carefully corked it up; “and, think about it from whichever point I may, it seems to be quite right. There, Master Moredock, there’s your dose. That will lay any ghost in the United Kingdom, given sufficiently strong!”
Chapter Fourteen.
How Horace North did not go to the Meet
“What a morning for a run with the hounds!” said Horace North, as he stood at the door of the fine old Manor House, where he had come to cool himself, after a scene with Mrs Milt, his housekeeper, owing to a committee of ways and means.
Mrs Milt had wanted to have everything her way. The doctor had shown a desire to have everything his way, and the approach of the two forces had resulted in an explosion.
“Candlish offered me a mount, and I’ve a good mind to take the offer, just for once. A good gallop would do me a world of good. No; I’ll go and have a chat with old Moredock, see Mrs Berens, Biddy Tallis, and Brown’s baby, and then settle down to a good, quiet study. Hah!”
Horace North was dubious. A slight puff upon his vane would have sent it in either direction, and it seemed as if the decisive puff came just then in the shape of something as light as air. For there was the sound of hoofs; and directly after, looking exceedingly handsome in her tightly-fitting riding-habit and natty hat, Leo Salis passed on her pretty mare.
She caught sight of him, and returned a coquettish nod and smile to his low bow, but did not draw rein, though she must have seen his intention to hurry down to the gate; cantering gently on, as charming a specimen of early womanhood as ever rode gracefully upon a well-bred mare.
“By George! that settles it,” said the doctor. “Where’s the meet?”
He hurried in, snatched up the county paper, and found that it was at Fir Tree Hill, four miles beyond the Hall.
“The very thing,” he cried. “I’ll just get on my boots, and walk over to the Hall, get my mount, and go on. No, I won’t; I’ll drive.”
He rang the bell, and Mrs Milt – a very severe-looking, handsome, elderly lady – in the whitest of caps, bibs, and tuckers, appeared frowning, as if still charged with the remaining clouds of the late storm.