I do not know when I had spent a more pleasant evening, or had enjoyed a
dinner more than that at Mr. Weatherwood's hospitable house. For one
thing, the hostess knew how to keep her guests interested and in
good-humour. The dinner was all that could be desired, and so were the
wines. But what conduced above all to my pleasure was that at table I
sat by Miss Fulton, a bright, intelligent girl, well read and
entertaining. My wife had a cold, and had sent her excuses by me. Miss
Fulton and I talked of this, that, and every thing. Towards the end of
dinner she said: "I shall be obliged to run away so soon as the ladies
leave the room to you and your cigarettes and gossip. It is rather mean,
but Mrs. Weatherwood has been forewarned, and understands. To-morrow is
our village feast at Marksleigh, and I have a host of things on my hand.
I shall have to be up at seven, and I do object to cut a slice off my
night's rest at both ends."
"Rather an unusual time of the year for a village feast," said I. "These
things are generally got over in the summer."
"You see, our church is dedicated to St. Mark, and to-morrow is his
festival, and it has been observed in one fashion or another in our
parish from time immemorial. In your parts have they any notions about
St. Mark's eve?"
"What sort of notions?"
"That if you sit in the church porch from midnight till the clock
strikes one, you will see the apparitions pass before you of those
destined to die within the year."
"I fancy our good people see themselves, and nothing but themselves, on
every day and hour throughout the twelvemonth."
"Joking apart, have you any such superstition hanging on in your
neighbourhood?"
"Not that I am aware of. That sort of thing belonged to the Golden Age
that has passed away. Board schools have reduced us to that of lead."
"At Marksleigh the villagers believe in it, and recently their faith has
received corroboration."
"How so?" I asked.
"Last year, in a fit of bravado, a young carpenter ventured to sit in
the porch at the witching hour, and saw himself enter the church. He
came home, looking as blank as a sheet, moped, lost flesh, and died nine
months later."
"Of course he died, if he had made up his mind to do so."
"Yes--that is explicable. But how do you account for his having seen his
double?"
"He had been drinking at the public-house. A good many people see double
after that."
"It was not so. He was perfectly sober at the time."
"Then I give it up."
"Would you venture on a visit to a church porch on this night--St.
Mark's eve?"
"Certainly I would, if well wrapped up, and I had my pipe."
"I bar the pipe," said Miss Fulton. "No apparition can stand tobacco
smoke. But there is Lady Eastleigh rising. When you come to rejoin the
ladies, I shall be gone."
I did not leave the house of the Weatherwoods till late. My dogcart was
driven by my groom, Richard. The night was cold, or rather chilly, but I
had my fur-lined overcoat, and did not mind that. The stars shone out of
a frosty sky. All went smoothly enough till the road dipped into a
valley, where a dense white fog hung over the river and the
water-meadows. Anyone who has had much experience in driving at night is
aware that in such a case the carriage lamps are worse than useless;
they bewilder the horse and the driver. I cannot blame Dick if he ran
his wheel over a heap of stones that upset the trap. We were both thrown
out, and I fell on my head. I sang out: "Mind the cob, Dick; I am all
right."
The boy at once mastered the horse. I did not rise immediately, for I
had been somewhat jarred by the fall; when I did I found Dick engaged in
mending a ruptured trace. One of the shafts was broken, and a carriage
lamp had been shattered.
"Dick," said I, "there are a couple of steep hills to descend, and that
is risky with a single shaft. I will lighten the dogcart by walking
home, and do you take care at the hills."
"I think we can manage, sir."
"I should prefer to walk the rest of the way. I am rather shaken by my
fall, and a good step out in the cool night will do more to put me to
rights than anything else. When you get home, send up a message to your
mistress that she is not to expect me at once. I shall arrive in due
time, and she is not to be alarmed."
"It's a good trudge before you, sir. And I dare say we could get the
shaft tied up at Fifewell."
"What--at this time of night? No, Dick, do as I say."
Accordingly the groom drove off, and I started on my walk. I was glad to
get out of the clinging fog, when I reached higher ground. I looked
back, and by the starlight saw the river bottom filled with the mist,
lying apparently dense as snow.
After a swinging walk of a quarter of an hour I entered the outskirts of
Fifewell, a village of some importance, with shops, the seat of the
petty sessions, and with a small boot and shoe factory in it.
The street was deserted. Some bedroom windows were lighted, for our
people have the habit of burning their paraffin lamps all night. Every
door was shut, no one was stirring.
As I passed along the churchyard wall, the story of the young carpenter,
told by Miss Fulton, recurred to me.
"By Jove!" thought I, "it is now close upon midnight, a rare opportunity
for me to see the wonders of St. Mark's eve. I will go into the porch
and rest there for a few minutes, and then I shall be able, when I meet
that girl again, to tell her that I had done what she challenged me to
do, without any idea that I would take her challenge up."
I turned in at the gate, and walked up the pathway. The headstones bore
a somewhat ghostly look in the starlight. A cross of white stone,
recently set up, I supposed, had almost the appearance of
phosphorescence. The church windows were dark.
I seated myself in the roomy porch on a stone bench against the wall,
and felt for my pipe. I am not sure that I contemplated smoking it then
and there, partly because Miss Fulton had forbidden it, but also because
I felt that it was not quite the right thing to do on consecrated
ground. But it would be a satisfaction to finger it, and I might plug
it, so as to be ready to light up so soon as I left the churchyard. To
my vexation I found that I had lost it. The tobacco-pouch was there, and
the matches. My pipe must have fallen out of my pocket when I was
pitched from the trap. That pipe was a favourite of mine.
"What a howling nuisance," said I. "If I send Dick back over the road
to-morrow morning, ten chances to one if he finds it, for to-morrow is
market-day, and people will be passing early."
As I said this, the clock struck twelve.
I counted each stroke. I wore my fur-lined coat, and was not cold--in
fact, I had been too warm walking in it. At the last stroke of twelve I
noticed lines of very brilliant light appear about the door into the
church. The door must have fitted well, as the light did no more than
show about it, and did not gush forth at all the crevices. But from the
keyhole shot a ray of intense brilliancy.
Whether the church windows were illumined I did not see--in fact, it did
not occur to me to look, either then or later--but I am pretty certain
that they were not, or the light streaming from them would have brought
the gravestones into prominence. When you come to think of it, it was
remarkable that the light of so dazzling a nature should shine through
the crannies of the door, and that none should issue, as far as I could
see, from the windows. At the time I did not give this a thought; my
attention was otherwise taken up. For I saw distinctly Miss Venville, a
very nice girl of my acquaintance, coming up the path with that swinging
walk so characteristic of an English young lady.
How often it has happened to me, when I have been sitting in a public
park or in the gardens of a Cursaal abroad, and some young girls have
passed by, that I have said to my wife: "I bet you a bob those are
English."
"Yes, of course," she has replied; "you can see that by their dress."
"I don't know anything about dress," I have said; "I judge by the
walk."
Well, there was Miss Venville coming towards the porch.
"This is a joke," said I. "She is going to sit here on the look-out for
ghosts, and if I stand up or speak she will be scared out of her wits.
Hang it, I wish I had my pipe now; if I gave a whiff it would reveal the
presence of a mortal, without alarming her. I think I shall whistle."
I had screwed up my lips to begin "Rocked in the cradle of the
deep"--that is my great song I perform whenever there is a village
concert, or I am asked out to dinner, and am entreated afterwards to
sing--I say I had screwed up my lips to whistle, when I saw something
that scared me so that I made no attempt at the melody.
The ray of light through the keyhole was shut off, and I saw standing in
the porch before me the form of Mrs. Venville, the girl's mother, who
had died two years before. The ray of white light arrested by her filled
her as a lamp--was diffused as a mild glow from her.
"Halloo, mother, what brings you here?" asked the girl.
"Gwendoline, I have come to warn you back. You cannot enter; you have
not got the key."
"The key, mother?"
"Yes, everyone who would pass within must have his or her own key."
"Well, where am I to get one?"
"It must be forged for you, Gwen. You are wholly unfit to enter. What
good have you ever done to deserve it?"
"Why, mother, everyone knows I'm an awfully good sort."
"No one in here knows it. That is no qualification."
"And I always dressed in good taste."
"Nor is that."
"And I was splendid at lawn tennis."
Her mother shook her head.
"Look here, little mummy. I won a brooch at the archery match."
"That will not do, Gwendoline. What good have you ever done to anyone
else beside yourself?"
The girl considered a minute, then laughed, and said: "I put into a
raffle at a bazaar--no, it was a bran-pie for an orphanage--and I drew
out a pair of braces. I had rare fun over those braces, I sold them to
Captain Fitzakerly for half a crown, and that I gave to the charity."
"You went for what you could get, not what you could give."
Then the mother stepped on one side, and the ray shot directly at the
girl. I saw that it had something of the quality of the X-ray. It was
not arrested by her garments, or her flesh or muscles. It revealed in
her breast, in her brain--penetrating her whole body--a hard, dark core.
"Black Ram, I bet," said I.
Now Black Ram is the local name for a substance found in our land,
especially in the low ground that ought to be the most fertile, but is
not so, on account of this material found in it.
The substance lies some two or three feet below the surface, and forms a
crust of the consistency of cast iron. No plough can possibly be driven
through it. No water can percolate athwart it, and consequently where it
is, there the superincumbent soil is resolved into a quagmire. No tree
can grow in it, for the moment the taproot touches the Black Ram the
tree dies.
Of what Black Ram consists is more than I can say; the popular opinion
is that it is a bastard manganese. Now I happen to own several fields
accursed with the presence in them of Black Ram--fields that ought to be
luxuriant meadows, but which, in consequence of its presence, are worth
almost nothing at all.
"No, Gwen," said her mother, looking sorrowfully at her, "there is not a
chance of your admission till you have got rid of the Black Ram that is
in you."
"Sure," said I, as I slapped my knee, "I thought I knew the article, and
now my opinion has been confirmed."
"How can I get rid of it?" asked the girl.
"Gwendoline, you will have to pass into little Polly Finch, and work it
out of your system. She is dying of scarlet fever, and you must enter
into her body, and so rid yourself in time of the Black Ram."
"Mother!--the Finches are common people."
"So much the better chance for you."
"And I am eighteen, Polly is about ten."
"You will have to become a little child if you would enter her."
"I don't like it. What is the alternative?"
"To remain without in the darkness till you come to a better mind. And
now, Gwen, no time is to be lost; you must pass into Polly Finch's body
before it grows cold."
"Well, then--here goes!"
Gwen Venville turned, and her mother accompanied her down the path. The
girl moved reluctantly, and pouted. Passing out of the churchyard, both
traversed the street and disappeared within a cottage, from the upper
window of which light from behind a white blind was diffused.
I did not follow, I leaned back against the wall. I felt that my head
was throbbing. I was a little afraid lest my fall had done more injury
than I had at first anticipated. I put my hand to my head, and held it
there for a moment.
Then it was as though a book were opened before me--the book of the life
of Polly Finch--or rather of Gwendoline's soul in Polly Finch's body. It
was but one page that I saw, and the figures in it were moving.
The girl was struggling under the burden of a heavy baby brother. She
coaxed him, she sang to him, she played with him, talked to him, broke
off bits of her bread and butter, given to her for breakfast, and made
him eat them; she wiped his nose and eyes with her pocket-handkerchief,
she tried to dance him in her arms. He was a fractious urchin, and most
exacting, but her patience, her good-nature, never failed. The drops
stood on her brow, and her limbs tottered under the weight, but her
heart was strong, and her eyes shone with love.
I drew my hand from my head. It was burning. I put my hand to the cold
stone bench to cool it, and then applied it once more to my brow.
Instantly it was as though another page were revealed. I saw Polly in
her widowed father's cottage. She was now a grown girl; she was on her
knees scrubbing the floor. A bell tinkled. Then she put down the soap
and brush, turned down her sleeves, rose and went into the outer shop to
serve a customer with half a pound of tea. That done, she was back
again, and the scrubbing was renewed. Again a tinkle, and again she
stood up and went into the shop to a child who desired to buy a
pennyworth of lemon drops.
On her return, in came her little brother crying--he had cut his finger.
Polly at once applied cobweb, and then stitched a rag about the wounded
member.
"There, there, Tommy! don't cry any more. I have kissed the bad place,
and it will soon be well."
"Poll! it hurts! it hurts!" sobbed the boy.
"Come to me," said his sister. She drew a low chair to the fireside,
took Tommy on her lap, and began to tell him the story of Jack the
Giant-killer.