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 2, Chapter X.