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.
Volume 2, Chapter XIV.
"WHAT HAVE! DONE?"
"Where am I?"
No answer. All was pitchy dark, but a pleasant, cool air fanned the
speaker's burning brow.
"Moredock! Are you asleep? The light's out. What's the matter?
What's this cloth about my legs?"
There was a rustling sound as Horace North rose to his feet, dragged a
fallen surplice from his feet, and began to feel about him in a confused
way.
But that was a wall, not the ends of coffins; that was an overturned
table, not the stone slab with its hideous burden; and that--
"Oh!"
Horace North reeled against the wall, and rested there as he uttered
that piteous groan; for, like a flash of lightning, the ray of memory
had shot into his darkened brain, and he saw once more the wretched idol
he had worshipped gazing wildly at him with starting eyes--she, the
woman he had set upon a pinnacle, grovelling before him in her shame!
The moment before, the lady of his frank, honest love; the next moment
revealed to him as low in mind, as degraded as some miserable rustic
wench, ready to accept the kisses of the first man who called her
"dear!"
"Am I going mad?" he groaned. "Poor Salis! Poor Mary Salis! They must
never know. And poor me! Fool! blind idiot! But I loved her," he
moaned: "and I thought her so sweet and pure and true--a woman for whom
I would have shed my heart's best blood--a woman for whom I--Pah! I
must not stand puling here! Blood? Yes, blood! The brute! He's
strong as a horse."
He took out a pocket-handkerchief, doubled it, and roughly bandaged his
head; for it was bleeding from a cut at the back.
"Clear my brain," he muttered; "I must not stand here. That place left
open! Is Moredock there?"
He felt his way to the door; and, as he stepped cautiously along, his
foot kicked against something which jingled on the tiled floor.
He felt about, touched the surplice which had been dragged down and
entangled his legs; and, as he snatched it away, the key jingled once
more, and he caught it up.
He opened and relocked the door after he had passed out, breathing more
freely as he stood in the cool, dark night.
"Moredock!" he whispered. "Are you there?"
There was no reply, but he did not stir; for a curious feeling of
confusion attacked him once more, and he put his hand to his head to try
and master his thoughts.
"Yes," he muttered; "of course I must go and close that place up. Even
if I go mad, that must not be known."
He took a few steps instinctively towards the vault, and fell over
something in the path, contriving, however, to save himself, so that he
only came down upon his hands and knees.
The shock acted like a spell, and brought back his wandering mind.
"Who's this?" he muttered. "Moredock?"
He passed his hands rapidly about the body before him, lying flat upon
its back.
"Tom Candlish!" he ejaculated, as his hands came in contact, the one
with a curiously-shaped breast-pin the young squire wore, the other with
the bunch of charms and the locket he wore on his chain.
"Good heavens! What have I done? The man is dead!"
North started to his feet, trying hard to collect his wandering ideas,
for he was at sea once more. He could not comprehend how Tom Candlish
had contrived to get there, till he recalled the window, and at the same
time recollected that he had struck at him again and again with all his
might.
"Have I killed him?" he muttered; and, suffering still from the blow
upon his head, his mental faculties seemed to be quite off their
balance. The calm medical man, with his accurate judgment, was no
longer there; but one full of wild excitement--one moment bubbling over
with delirious joy at having triumphed over his enemy, of whom he had
been madly jealous; the next, ready to shrink and tremble at the deed he
had done.
He did not--he could not--pause to calculate how it had happened, beyond
feeling that he must have beaten his enemy horribly, till he had in his
last efforts struck him down, and then crawled out from the window to
fall and die. He could not arrange all this in an orderly manner, for
he was now seized with a frantic horror of discovery; and the question
filled his mind, what was he--a murderer--to do?
Only one idea occurred to him, and that was the natural one that occurs
to the most ignorant under the circumstances: he had slain this man, and
the penalty was death for death. He did not know that he wanted to
live, the shock had been too horrible that night; but he must act--he
must do something; and, yielding entirely to his impulses, he bent down,
and, with a wonderful effort of nervous force, raised the fallen man,
and stood thinking for a few moments.
Impulse moved him then; and, without further hesitation, he bore the
body down the steps to the door of the mausoleum.
The door yielded to his pressure, and he stepped in with his load, the
darkness proving no hindrance to him, for he knew the place so well that
he could come and go without touching the sides for guidance.
He stood right in the middle of the place for a few moments, thinking;
one brother hanging over his left shoulder, the other lying motionless
upon that cold stone slab, as he had lain all through the series of
experiments which had been tried.
"It is fate," he muttered, as he softly lowered his burden down upon the
sawdust-covered floor, the brothers side by side, save that the younger
was lower--nearer to his mother earth.
Then, in a quick, business-like way, North stepped to the door, passed
through, and locked it, and then served the iron gate in the railings
the same.
"I must fetch my instruments away some day," he muttered--"if I stay.
No one will seek him there. He will be supposed to have fled from me.
But Moredock?
"Moredock can be trusted; I can silence him," he said grimly. "He knew
who was there."
North stood thinking for a few minutes in the churchyard, half startled,
but feeling a certain relief as well as pleasure in the fact that his
rival was removed from his path.
Then that word "rival" seemed to strike him a mental blow, for it
brought up to his confused intellect why it was that he and Tom Candlish
had been rivals; and at this thought he once again saw Leo, the woman he
had loved, gazing wildly in his face; and, with a low moan, he
staggered, more than walked, from the churchyard, making instinctively
for home; but as he reached the sexton's cottage, the faint light
therein attracted him, and, feeling dizzy, he put his hand to his head,
to find that it was bleeding freely.
As he hesitated whether to go in or hurry on, the door, which had been
ajar, opened more widely, and a great, claw-like hand was thrust out,
and he was guided to the big Windsor chair.
"Hurt, doctor? All over blood? Don't say you didn't dress him down."
North made no answer, for the low-ceiled room seemed sailing round as he
turned his ghastly face and gazed in the speaker's eyes.
Volume 2, Chapter XV.