Easter-Day that year was nearly as late as it could be--the twenty-third
of April. That brought St. Mark's Day (the twenty-fifth) on the Tuesday;
and Easter Monday was St. Mark's Eve.
There is a superstitious belief in our county, and in some others--more
thought of in our old grannies' days than in these--that if you go to
the churchyard on St. Mark's Eve and watch the gate, the shadows, or
phantoms, of those fated to die that year, and destined there to be
buried, will be seen to enter it.
Easter Monday is a great holiday with us; the greatest in all the year.
Christmas-Day and Good Friday are looked upon more in a religious light;
but on Easter Monday servants and labourers think themselves at liberty
to take their swing. The first day of the wake is nothing to it.
Now Squire Todhetley gave in to these holidays: they did not come often,
he said. Our servants in the country are not a bit like yours in town;
yours want a day's holiday once a month, oftener sometimes, and strike
if they don't get it; ours have one or two in a year. On Easter Monday
the work was got over by mid-day; there was no cooking, and the
household could roam abroad at will. No ill had ever come of it; none
would have come of it this time, but for St. Mark's Eve falling on the
day.
Tod and I got home from school on the Thursday. It was a despicable old
school, taking no heed of Passion Week. Other fellows from other schools
could have a fortnight at Easter; we but a week. Tod entered on a
remonstrance with the pater this time; he had been planning it as we
drove home, and thought he'd put it in a strongish point of view.
"It is sinful, you know, sir; awfully so. Passion Week _is_ Passion
Week. We have no right to pass it at school at our desks."
"Well, Joe, I don't quite see that," returned the pater, twisting his
lip. "Discipline and lessons are more in accordance with the season
of Passion Week than kicking up your heels at large in all sorts of
mischief; and that's what you'd be at, you know, if you were at home.
What's the matter with Johnny."
"He has been ill for three days, with a cold or something," said Tod.
"Tell it for yourself, Johnny."
I had no more to tell than that. For three or four days I had felt ill,
feverish; yesterday (Wednesday) had done no lessons. Mrs. Todhetley
thought it was an attack of influenza. She sent me to bed, and called in
the doctor, Mr. Duffham.
I was better the next day--Good Friday. Old Duff--as Tod and I called
him for short--came in while they were at church, and said I might get
up. It was slow work, I told him, lying in bed for one's holidays. He
was a wiry little man, with black hair; good in the main, but pompous,
and always carried a gold-headed cane.
"Not to go out, you know," he said. "You must promise that, Johnny."
I promised readily. I only wanted to be downstairs with the rest. They
returned home from church, saying they had promised to go over and take
tea with the Sterlings; Mrs. Todhetley looked grave at seeing me, and
thought the doctor was wrong. At which I put on a gay air, like a fellow
suddenly cured.
But I could not eat any dinner. They had salt fish and cold boiled beef
at two o'clock--our usual way of fasting on Good Friday. Not a morsel
could I swallow, and Hannah brought me some mutton-broth.
"Do you mind our leaving you, Johnny?" Mrs. Todhetley said to me in her
kind way--which Tod never believed in. "If you do--if you think you
shall feel lonely, I'll stay at home."
I answered that I should feel very jolly, not lonely at all; and so they
started, going over in the large carriage, drawn by Bob and Blister. Mr.
and Mrs. Todhetley, with Lena, in front, Tod and Hugh behind. Standing
at the window to watch the start, I saw Roger Monk looking on from the
side of the house.
He was a small, white-faced chap of twenty or so, with a queer look in
his eyes, and black sprouting whiskers. Looking full at the eyes, when
you could get the chance, which was not very often, for they rarely
looked at you, there was nothing wrong to be seen with them, and yet
they gave a sinister cast to the face. Perhaps it was that they were too
near together. Roger Monk was not one of our regular men; for the matter
of that, he was above the condition; but was temporarily filling the
head-gardener's place, who was ill with rheumatism. Seeing me, he walked
up to the window, and I opened it to speak to him. "Are you here still,
Monk?"
"And likely to be, Mr. Ludlow, if it depends upon Jenkins's coming on
again," was the answer. "Fine cattle, those that the governor has just
driven off."
He meant Bob and Blister, and they were fine; but I did not like the
tone, or the word "governor," as applied to Mr. Todhetley. "I can't keep
the window up," I said; "I'm not well."
"All right, sir; shut it. As for me, I must be about my work.
There's enough to do with the gardens, one way or another; and the
responsibility lies on my shoulders."
"You must not work to-day, Monk. Squire Todhetley never allows it on
Good Friday."
He laughed pleasantly; as much as to say, what Squire Todhetley allowed,
or did not allow, was no concern of his; and went briskly away across
the lawn. And not once, during the short interview, had his eyes met
mine.
Wasn't it dull that afternoon! I took old Duffham's physic, and drank
the tea Hannah brought me, and was hot, and restless, and sick. Never a
soul to talk to; never a book to read--my eyes and head ached too much
for that; never a voice to be heard. Most of the servants were out;
all of them, for what I knew, except Hannah; and I was fit to die of
weariness. At dusk I went up to the nursery. Hannah was not there.
The fire was raked--if you understand what that means, though it is
generally applied only to kitchen fires in our county--which proved
that she was off somewhere on a prolonged expedition. Even old Hannah's
absence was a disappointment. I threw myself down on the faded sofa at
the far end of the room, and, I suppose, went to sleep.
For when I became alive again to outward things, Hannah was seated in
one chair at the fire, cracking up the coal; Molly, the cook with the
sharp tongue and red-brown eyes, in another. It was dark and late; my
head ached awfully, and I wished them and their clatter somewhere. They
were talking of St. Mark's Eve, and its popular superstition. Molly was
telling a tale of the past, the beginning of which I had not heard.
"I can't believe it," exclaimed Hannah; "I can't believe that the
shadows come."
"Did ye ever watch for 'em, woman?" asked Molly, who had been born in
the North.
"No," acknowledged Hannah.
"Then how can ye speak of what ye don't know? It is as true as that you
and me be a-sitting here. Two foolish, sickly girls they was, both of
'em sweet upon the same young man. Leastways, he was sweet upon both of
them, the deceiver, which comes to the same thing. My sister Becky was
five-and-twenty that same year; she had a constant pain and a cough,
which some said was windpipe and some said was liver. The other was
Mary Clarkson, who was subject to swimmings in the head and frightful
dartings. Any way, they'd got no health to brag on, either of 'em, and
they were just eat up with jealousy, the one of the other. Tom Town,
he knew this; and he played 'em off again' each other nicely, little
thinking what his own punishment was to be."
Hannah gently put the poker inside the bars to raise the coal, and some
more light came out. Molly went on.
"Now, Hannah, you mustn't think bad of them two young women. They did
not wish one another dead--far from it; but each thought the other
couldn't live. In natural course, if the one went off, poor thing, Tom
Town, he would be left undivided for the other."
"Was Tom Town handsome?" interrupted Hannah.
"Well, middling for that. He was under-sized, not up to their shoulders,
with big bushy red whiskers; but he had a taking way with him. He was in
a shop for himself, and doing well, so that more young women nor the two
I am telling of would have said Yes to his asking. Becky, she thought
Mary Clarkson couldn't live the year out; Mary, she told a friend that
she was sure Becky wouldn't. And what should they do but go to watch the
graveyard on St. Mark's Eve, to see the other's shadow pass!"
"Together?"
"No; but they met there. Awk'ard, wasn't it? Calling up their wits, each
of 'em, they pretended to have come out promiskous, just on the spree,
not expecting to see nobody's shadow in particular. As they _had_ come,
they stopped; standing back again' the hedge near the graveyard, holding
on to each other's arms for company, and making belief not to be scared.
Hannah, woman, I don't care to tell this. I've never told it many
times."
Molly's face had a hard, solemn look, in the fire's blaze, and Hannah
suddenly drew her chair close to her. I could have laughed out loud.
"Just as the clock struck--ten, I think it was," went on Molly, in a
half-whisper, "there was a faint rustle heard, like a flutter in the
air, and somebody came along the road. At first the women's eyes were
dazed, and they didn't see distinct, but as the gate opened to let him
in, he turned his face, and they saw it was Tom Town. Both the girls
thought it was _himself_, Hannah; and they held their breath and kept
quite still, hoping he'd not notice them, for they'd have felt ashamed
to be caught watching there."
"And it was not himself?" asked Hannah, catching up her breath.
Molly gave her head a shake. "No more than it was you or me: it was his
shadow. He walked on up the path, looking neither to the right nor left,
and they lost sight of him. I was with mother when they came home. Mary
Clarkson, she came in with Beck, and they said they had seen Tom Town,
and supposed he had gone out watching, too. Mother advised them to hold
their tongues: it didn't look well, she said, for them two, only sickly
young girls, to have run out to the graveyard alone. A short while
after, Tom Town, in talking of that night, mother having artfully led to
it, said he had gone up to bed at nine with a splitting headache, and
forgot all about its being St. Mark's Eve. When mother heard that, she
turned the colour o' chalk, and looked round at me."
"And Tom Town died?"
"He died that blessed year; the very day that folks was eating their
Michaelmas gooses. A rapid decline took him off."
"It's very strange," said Hannah, musingly. "People believe here that
the shadows appear, and folks used to go watching, as it's said. I don't
think many go now. Did the two young women die?"
"Not they. Becky's married, and got half-a-dozen children; and Mary
Clarkson, she went off to America. Shouldn't you like to watch?"
"Well, I should," acknowledged Hannah; "I would, too, if I thought I
should see anything. I've said more than once in my life that I should
just like to go out on St. Mark's Eve, and see whether there is anything
in it or not. My mother went, I know."
"If you'll go, I'll go."
Hannah made no answer to this at first. She sat looking at the fire with
a cross face. It had always a cross look when she was deep in thought.
"The mistress would think me such a fool, Molly, if she came to know of
it."
"If! How could she come to know of it? Next Monday will be the Easter
holidays, and we mayn't never have the opportunity again. I shouldn't
wonder but the lane's full o' watchers. St. Mark's Eve don't often come
on a Easter Monday."
There's no time to go on with what they said. A good half-hour the two
sat there, laying their plans: when once Hannah had decided to go in
for the expedition, she made no more bones over it. The nursery-windows
faced the front, and when the carriage was heard driving in, they both
decamped downstairs--Hannah to the children, Molly to her kitchen. I
found Tod, and told him the news: Hannah and Molly were going to watch
in the churchyard for the shadows on St. Mark's Eve.
"We'll have some fun over this, Johnny," said he, when he had done
laughing. "You and I will be on to them."
Monday came; and, upon my word, it seemed as if things turned out on
purpose. Mr. Todhetley went off to Worcester with Dwarf Giles, on some
business connected with the Quarter Sessions, and was not expected
home until midnight, as he stayed to dine at Worcester. Mrs. Todhetley
had one of her excruciating face-aches, and she went to bed when the
children did--seven o'clock. Hannah had said in the morning that she and
Molly were going to spend an hour or two with Goody Picker after the
children were in bed; upon which Mrs. Todhetley told her to get them to
bed early. It was something rare for Hannah to take any holiday; she
generally said she did not want it. Goody Picker's husband used to be a
gamekeeper--not ours. Since his death she lived how she could, on her
vegetables, or by letting her odd room; Roger Monk had it now. Sometimes
she had her grandchild with her; and the parents, well-to-do shopkeepers
at Alcester, paid her well. Goody Picker was thought well of at our
house, and came up occasionally to have tea in the nursery with Hannah.
I was well by Monday; nothing but a bit of a cough left; and Tod and I
looked forward to the night's fun. Not a word had we heard since; but we
had seen the two women-servants whispering together whenever they got
the chance; and so we knew they were going. What Tod meant to do, he
wouldn't tell me; I think he hardly knew himself. The big turnips were
all gone, or he might have scooped one out for a death's head, and stuck
it on the gate-post, with a candle in it.
The night came. A clear night, with a miserable moon. Miserable for our
sport, because it was so bright.
"A pitch-dark night would have had some sense in it, you know, Johnny,"
Tod remarked to me, as we stood at the door, looking out. "The moon
should hide her face on St. Mark's Eve."
Just as he spoke, the clock struck nine. Time to be going. There was
nobody to let or hinder us. Mrs. Todhetley was in bed groaning with
toothache; old Thomas and Phoebe, neither of whom had cared to take
holiday, were at supper in the kitchen. She was a young girl lately had
in to help the housemaid.
"You go on, Johnny; I'll follow presently. Take your time; they won't go
on the watch for this half-hour yet."
"But, Tod, what is it that you are going to do?"
"Never you mind. If you hear a great noise, and see a light blaze up,
don't you be scared."
"I scared, Tod! That's good."
"All right, Johnny. Take care not to be seen. It might spoil sport."
The church was about half-a-mile from our house, whether you crossed the
fields to it or took the highway. It stood back from the road, in its
big churchyard. A narrow lane, between two dwarf hedges, led up from the
road to the gate; it was hardly wide enough for carriages; they wound
round the open road further on. A cross-path, shut in by two stiles, led
right across the lane near to the churchyard gate. Stories went that a
poor fellow who had hung himself about twenty years ago was buried by
torchlight under that very crossing, with never a parson to say a prayer
over him.
We guessed where the women would stand--at one of these crossing stiles,
with the gate and the churchyard in full view. As Tod said, it stood
to reason that shadows and the watchers for them would not choose the
broader road, where all was open, and not so much as a tree grew for
shelter.
I stole along cautiously, taking the roadway and keeping under shade of
the hedge, and got there all right. Not a creature was about. The old
grey church, built of stone, the many-shaped graves in the churchyard,
stood white and cold in the moonlight. I went behind the cross-stile at
the side furthest from our house, and leaned over it, looking up and
down the lane. That the women would be on the opposite side was certain,
because the churchyard gate could not be seen so well from this.
The old clock did not tell the quarters, only struck the hour; time went
on, and I began to wonder how long I was to wait. It must be turned
half-past nine; getting nearer to a quarter to ten; and still nobody
came. Where were the watchers? And where was Tod? The shadows of the
trees, of the hedges, of the graves, fell in distinct lines on the
grass; and I don't mind confessing that it felt uncommonly lonely.
"Hou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou!" burst forth over my head with a sudden and
unearthly sound. I started back in a fright for one moment, and called
myself an idiot the next, for it was only an owl. It had come flying
forth from the old belfry, and went rushing on with its great wings,
crying still, but changing its note. "Tu-whit; tu-whoo."
And while I watched the owl, other sounds, as of whispering, made
themselves manifest, heralding the approach of the women from the
opposite field, making for the stile in front of me, through the little
copse. Drawing behind the low hedge, to sit down on the stump of a tree,
I pushed my head forward, and took a look at them through the lower bars
of the stile. They were standing at the other, in their light shawls
and new Easter straw-bonnets; Molly's trimmed with green, Hannah's with
primrose. The moonlight fell full on their faces--mine was in the shade.
But they might see me, and I drew back again.
Presently they began to gabble; in low tones at first, which increased,
perhaps unconsciously to themselves, to higher ones. They said how
lonely it was, especially with "them grave-marks" in view close by; and
they speculated upon whether any shadows would appear to them. My sense
of loneliness had vanished. To have two practical women, each of them a
good five-and-thirty, for neighbours, took it off. But I wondered what
had become of Tod.
Another owl! or perhaps the last one coming back again. It was not so
startling a noise as before, and created no alarm. I thought it a good
opportunity to steal another look, and propelled my head forward an
inch at a time. Their two faces were turned upwards, watching the owl's
flight towards the belfry.
But to my intense astonishment there was a _third_ face. A face behind
them peeping out from the close folds of a mantle, and almost resting
on their shoulders. At the first moment I thought of Tod; but soon the
features became familiar to me in the bright light, and I knew them for
Phoebe's. Phoebe, whom I had left in the kitchen, supping quietly!
That she had stolen up unseen and unheard while they talked, was
apparent.
A wild screech! Two wild screeches. Phoebe had put her hands on the
startled women, and given vent to a dismal groan. _She_ laughed: but the
others went into a desperate passion. First at having been frightened,
next at having been followed. When matters came to be investigated
later, it turned out that Phoebe had overheard a conversation between
Molly and Hannah, which betrayed what they were about to do, and had
come on purpose to startle them.
A row ensued. Bitter words on both sides; mutual abusings. The elder
servants ordered Phoebe home; she refused to go, and gave them some
sauce. She intended to stay and see what there was to be seen, she said;
for all she could tell, _their_ shadows might pass, and a good thing if
they did; let alone that she'd not dare to go back by herself at that
hour and meet the ghosts. Hannah and Molly cut the matter short by
leaving the stile to her; they went round, and took up their places by
the churchyard gate.
It seems very stupid to be writing of this, I dare say; it must read
like an old ghost-story out of a fable-book; but every word is true, as
the people that lived round us then could tell you.
There we waited; Hannah and Molly gathered close against the hedge by
the churchyard gate; Phoebe, wrapped in her shawl, leaning on the top
of the stile; I on the old tree stump, feeling inclined to go to sleep.
It seemed a long time, and the night grew cold. Evidently there were no
watchers for St. Mark's shadows abroad that night, except ourselves.
Without warning, the old clock boomed out the strokes of the hour. Ten.
Did you ever have the opportunity of noticing how long it takes for a
sound like this to die quite away on the calm night-air? I seemed to
hear it still, floating off in the distance, when I became aware that
some figure was advancing up the lane towards us with a rather swift
step. It's Tod this time, I thought, and naturally looked out; and I
don't mind telling that I caught hold of the bars of the stile for
companionship, in my shock of terror.
I had never seen the dead walking; but I do believe I thought I saw
it then. It looked like a corpse in its winding-sheet; whether man or
woman, none could tell. An ashey-white, still, ghastly face, enveloped
around with bands of white linen, was turned full to the moonlight, that
played upon the rigid features. The whole person, from the crown of the
head to the soles of the feet, was enshrouded in a white garment. All
thoughts of Tod went out of me; and I'm not sure but my hair rose up on
end as the thing came on. You may laugh at me, all of you, but just you
go and try it.
My fear went for nothing, however; it didn't damage me. Of all the
awful cries ever heard, shrill at first, changing to something like the
barking of a dog afterwards, those were the worst that arose opposite.
They came from Phoebe. The girl had stood petrified, with straining
eyes and laboured breath, like one who has not the power to fly, while
the thing advanced. Only when it stopped close and looked at her did the
pent-up cries come forth. Then she turned to fly, and the white figure
leaped the stile, and went after her into the copse. What immediately
followed I cannot remember--never could remember it; but it seemed
that not more than a minute had elapsed when I and Molly and Hannah
were standing over Phoebe, lying in convulsions on the ground, and the
creature nowhere to be seen. The cries had been heard in the road, and
some people passing came running up. They lifted the girl in their arms,
and bore her homewards.
My senses were coming to me, showing plainly enough that it was no
"shadow," but some ill-starred individual dressed up to personate one.
Poor Phoebe! I could hear her cries still, though the group was
already out of the copse and crossing the open field beyond. Somebody
touched me on the shoulder.
"Tod! Did you do it?"
"Do what?" asked Tod, who was out of breath with running. "What was all
that row?"
I told him. Somebody had made himself into a ghost, with a tied-up
whitened face, just as the dead have, and came up the Green Lane in a
sheet; and Phoebe was being carried home in convulsions.
"You are a fool, Johnny," was his wrathful answer. "I am not one to risk
a thing of that sort, not even for those two old women we came out to
frighten. Look here."
He went to the edge of the copse near the road, and showed me some
things--the old pistol from the stable, and gunpowder lights that went
off with a crash yards high. It's not of much use going into it now. Tod
had meant, standing at a safe distance, to set a light to the explosive
articles, and fire off his pistol at the same time.
"It would have been so good to see the women scutter off in their
fright, Johnny; and it couldn't have hurt them. They might have looked
upon it as the blue-light from below."
"What made you so late?"
"Late!" returned Tod, savagely; "I am late, and the fun's spoilt. That
confounded old Duff and his cane came in to see you, Johnny, just as I
was starting; there was nobody else, and I couldn't leave him. I said
you were in bed and asleep, but it didn't send him away. Down he sat,
telling a tale of how hard-worked he'd been all day, and asking for
brandy-and-water. The dickens take him!"
"And, Tod, it was really not you?"
"If you repeat that again, Johnny, I'll strike you. I swear it was not
me. There! I never told you a lie yet."
He never had; and from that moment of strong denial I know that Tod had
no more to do with the matter than I had.
"I wonder who it could have been?"
"I'll find that out, as sure as my name's Todhetley," he said, catching
up his pistols and lights.
We ran all the way home, looking out in vain for the ghost on our way,
and got in almost as soon as the rest. What a hullabaloo it was! They
put a mattress on the kitchen floor, and laid Phoebe on it. Mr.
Duffham was upon the scene in no time; the Squire had returned earlier
than was thought for, and Mrs. Todhetley came down with her face
smothered in a woollen handkerchief.
As to any concealment now, it was useless to think of it. None was
attempted, and Molly and Hannah had to confess that they went out to
watch for the shadows. The Squire blustered at them a little, but Mrs.
Todhetley said the keenest thing, in her mild way:
"At your age, Hannah!"
"I have known a person rendered an idiot for life with a less fright
than this," said old Duff, turning round to speak. "It was the following
her that did the mischief."
Nothing could be done that night as to investigation; but with the
morning the Squire entered upon it in hot anger. "Couldn't the fool have
been contented with what he'd already done, without going over the stile
after her? If I spend a fifty-pound note, I'll unearth him. It looks to
me uncommonly like a trick you two boys would play," he added, turning
sharply upon me and Tod.
And the suspicion made us all the more eager to find out the real fox.
But not a clue could we discover. Nobody had known of the proposed
expedition except Goody Picker; and she, as everybody testified, was
true to the backbone. As the day went on, and nothing came of it, Tod
had one of his stamping fits.
"If one could find out whether it was man or woman! If one could divine
how they got at the knowledge!" stamped Tod. "The pater does not look
sure about us yet."
"I wonder if it could have been Roger Monk?" I said, speaking out a
thought that had been dimly creeping up in my mind by starts all day.
"Roger Monk!" repeated Tod, "why pitch upon him?"
"Only that it's just possible he might have got it out of Goody Picker."
Away went Tod, in his straightforward fashion, to look for Roger Monk.
He was in the hot-house, doing something to his plants.
"Monk, did you play that trick last night?"
"What trick, sir?" asked Monk, twitching a good-for-nothing leaf off a
budding geranium.
"What trick! As if there were more tricks than one played! I mean
dressing yourself up like a dead man, and frightening Phoebe."
"I have too much to do with my work, Mr. Todhetley, to find time to play
tricks. I took no holiday at all yesterday, day or night, but was about
my business till I went to bed. They were saying out here this morning
that the Squire thought _you_ had done it."
"Don't you be insolent, Monk. That won't answer with me."
"Well, sir, it is not pleasant to be accused point-blank of a crime, as
you've just accused me. I know nothing at all about the matter. 'Twasn't
me. I had no grudge against Phoebe, that I should harm her."
Tod was satisfied; I was not. He never once looked in either of our
faces as he was speaking. We leaped the wire-fence and went across to
Goody Picker's, bursting into her kitchen without ceremony.
"I say, Mrs. Picker, we can't find out anything about that business last
night," began Tod.
"And you never will, gentlemen, as is my opinion," returned Mrs. Picker,
getting up in a bustle and dusting two wooden chairs. "Whoever did that,
have took himself off for a bit; never doubt it. 'Twas some one o' them
village lads."
"We have been wondering whether it was Roger Monk."
"Lawk-a-mercy!" cried she, dropping a basin on the brick floor. And if
ever I saw a woman change colour, she did.
"What's the matter now?"
"Why, you sent me into a tremble, gentlemen, saying that," she answered,
stooping to pick up the broken crockery. "A young man lodging in my
place, do such a villain's trick! I'd not like to think it; I shouldn't
rest in my bed. The two servants having started right out from here for
the churchyard have cowed-down my heart bad enough, without more ill
news."
"What time did Monk come in last night?" questioned Tod. "Do you
remember?"
"He come in after Mrs. Hannah and the other had gone," she replied,
taking a moment's pause. "Close upon it; I'd hardly shut my door on them
when I had to open it to him."
"Did he go out again?"
"Not he, sir. He eat his supper, telling me in a grumbling tone about
the extra work he'd had to do in the greenhouses and places, because the
other man had took holiday best part o' the day. And then he went up to
bed. Right tired he seemed."
We left her fitting the pieces of the basin together, and went home. "It
wasn't Monk," said Tod. "But now--where to look for the right man,
Johnny?"
Look as we might, we did not find him. Phoebe was better in a day or
two, but the convulsive fits stuck to her, coming on at all sorts of
unexpected times. Old Duff thought it might end in insanity.
And that's what came of Watching for the Shadows on St. Mark's Eve!