THE following evening, punctually at eight o’clock, I presented myself at
the door of the Council Chamber. But the comedy which I had been
promised was not forthcoming. To the surprise of all of us, a tragedy
was represented in its place.
It was only a self-constituted Council of four, and had nothing to do
with roadways and sanitation. And it met in the village inn of
Fleetwater on a Saturday night, as it had met in the same room at the
same time for fifty years previously. It was deliberative rather than
executive in character, for its one ostensible function was to select the
hymns for the Sunday services. And when this was done it resolved itself
into a committee for discussing the affairs of the parish and the nation
at large.
“’Twill be a privilege for ye, Master Stirling, to mix for onst wi’ men
as be so much older an’ wiser nor yerself. For wi’ all the book-learnin’
that has been yours at school and college, ’tis nowt but age an’
experience as gi’es the true wisdom. Life must be well nigh ended afore
as ever we begins to see the drift an’ bearin’ on’t. An’ so the young
can’t never be wise, though, ’tis true, the aged may sometimes be
foolish.”
You will gather from the above that Joseph Weyman did not begin by
flattering me.
The Old Inn where we met was a picturesque thatched cottage, that had
crept up beside the churchyard porch, either to shelter itself beneath
the churchyard trees, or to sanctify its reputation by the proximity of
things divine. And as it lay embowered in a valley three miles from our
western shore, it was cheered rather than saddened by a gentle sighing
from the sea, alternating at times with a deep and hollow roar when a
storm was on its way towards the coast.
Neither was the Council Chamber without a certain picturesqueness of its
own. Bare it undoubtedly was, for it boasted of only one small table,
drawn up cosily across the fire, and flanked on either side by two
settees with panelled arms and backs, designed apparently to accommodate
the number of the Council; or it may have been that the Council
pre-arranged its number to suit the accommodation supplied for it. For
myself, as the visitor of honour, one of those fine old chairs that
surprise one occasionally in the humblest of cottages had been introduced
from the adjoining room.
Of course the Council could not deliberate without the sustenance of beer
and tobacco. And the smoke of continuous churchwardens (I include both
the man and his pipe) had toned the colouring of the panels into a rich
and tawny brown, from which the quivering firelight was reflected as from
the ebon mirror favoured by Egyptian palmists.
The proceedings were opened by our drinking the health of the King with
solemn enthusiasm. And then, before the business of the sitting was
begun, a few words of general conversation were held to be admissible.
It was a former Rector who formed the key-note of it, and a strange
character he must have been if all the stories were true that I heard of
him.
“’Twas a queer christenin’ you had once in this church, Mr. Weyman, or so
at least I’m told.” The speaker was one Ebenezer Higgins, an Evangelical
of the most pronounced type. For though he represented only a minority
of the parish, it was thought right that all phases of belief within the
Church should be represented on the Council.
“Aye, ’twas that indeed, Mr. Higgins. You see, our old Rector was
gettin’ aged an’ hard o’ hearin’, an’ when Lucy Stone handed ’n the
child, he said in his easy-goin’ pleasant way, ‘An’ what be we to call
’n, Lucy?’
“‘Lucy, Sir,’ she whispered—for ’twas her first, ye see, an’ a terrible
shy young ’ooman she were—‘Lucy, Sir—same as me.’
“‘Lucifer!’ he cried, ‘’twill never do; ’tis heathenish, an’ wus than
heathenish.’
“An’ I had to shout in his ear, while they was a-titterin’ all round,
till I hadn’t no voice left in me to lead the hymn.”
“Reminds me, it do,” said Samuel Smiley—landlord he was of the Old Inn
where we met—“o’ when we was marryin’ Andrew and Rebecca Blake. Andrew
was a shy man—a very shy man he were, same as Lucy Stone. You remember
’n well, Mr. Strong. An’ when the time came for unitin’ them in one, he
wouldn’t be pushed to the fore, nohow. While his cousin, what was actin’
for ’n, was that forward that any stranger in the church would ha’ taken
he for the bridegroom. So between the two on ’m Rector were fairly
puzzled, and afore he saw the right on ’t—’tis true as I sit here—he’d
married the wrong man to the wrong ’ooman. ’Twas like to ha’ been a
troublesome business for all on us, for once ye joins a couple, there’s
no man can’t put ’em asunder. An’ they two would never ha’ jogged along
in peace an’ harmony, one with t’ other, as I knows, who’ve lived next
door to Rebecca ever since she was a gal. Howsomever, luck was wi’ us
that day, for ’twas discovered in the vestry as how his cousin, who was a
sailor an’ hadn’t come to Fleetwater not an hour afore, was married
already, an’ had two childern. So back us went into Church agin an’
wedded the proper couple. An’ rare an’ thankful we was to ’scape so
easily out o’ what might ha’ made a tidy potheration.”
“Aye, you’ve got the story right enough,” said the Chairman approvingly.
“An’ now to business, if _you_ please. An’ thank ye kindly, Mr. Higgins,
I’ll take another glass afore we begins. It isn’t long that’s left me
for the drinkin’ o’ good ale, seein’ I was eighty-four yesterday, an’
(thank God) never a drunkard, an’ not much time for it now. As I told my
old gran’mother what died at eighty-six, an’ was real afeard of a
spoonful of brandy to stay her stomach: ‘Don’t ye be frettin’ yerself, my
dear old soul, ’tis they as begins sooner nor you did what has cause to
fear the drink.’”
All had been peace and amity so far, but the discussion that followed on
the choice of the hymns threatened to be acrimonious.
“There be seasons,” said the Chairman reflectively, “when marriage bain’t
that satisfaction as it ought to be. ’Twas only just afore I came along
that I said to my wife, ‘Mary Ann,’ says I, ‘I be that downhearted an’
low-sperrit’d in my mind, for all the world as if I’d met a buryin’. An’
I see’d a magpie by hisself to-day, an’ I took off my hat to ’n, I did.’
“‘Aye, Joseph,’ said she, when what I wanted was cheerin’ an’ cossettin’
’long of my downheartedness, ‘Aye, Joseph, we be all on us bound to go,
and p’raps ’tis yerself as’ll be the next. ’Tis breakin’ up fast ye be,
an’ no mistake, an’ ye looks terrible rough an’ aged, ye does. I doubt
as how ye’ll be much longer wi’ us.’ An’, to make sure as how I doesn’t
forget it, nowt’ll satisfy her to-morrow but ‘There’s no repentance in
the grave,’ or one o’ they dreary grave-diggin’ tunes as I can’t stomach
no how. She says as how the childern of the parish be gettin’ that
oudacious that nowt won’t turn ’em from their wickedness but one of they
scarin’ terrifyin’ hymns.”
“An’ right she be, to my way o’ thinkin’,” said Ebenezer Higgins. “’Tis
nowt we hear now a long but o’ the marcy of the Lord—not a word of His
judgments, an’ o’ the fire and brimston’ what’s in store for the wicked.
Where be the sense, I axes, o’ strainin’ an’ strivin’ after the narrer
gate an’ takin’ no part in the sins an’ wickedness o’ this wurld, if ’tis
all one at the end, whether ye’ve been on the Lord’s side or on Satan’s?”
“No, Mr. Higgins; I can’t go wi’ ye so far,” said Andrew Strong, the
advanced freethinker of the parish. “I don’t hold nowise wi’ scarin’
souls into the path o’ peace. An’ ’tis queer to my mind, that the ’oomen
of all people, wi’ their tender hearts as wouldn’t hurt a worm, should be
so set on punishin’ wi’ out no end to it. An’ there be wiser men nor we,
an’ our own passon too, as doesn’t find such doctrine written in the
Book, save an’ except you twists an’ turns God’s word to suit yer own
imaginin’s. Bain’t reasonable, it seems to I, not to gi ’us another
chance, an’ may be more nor one, same as you’d gi’ yer own childern if so
be they crossed an’ shamed ye. An’ we be told, bain’t we? as how there’s
preachin’ to the sperrits in the wurld below? Now where be the good o’
preachin’, I axes, if so be that no good’s to come to ’m along o’ it?
Why, even in this wurld taint no good beatin’ an’ bastin’ yer childern
wi’ out ye throws in a word o’ hope to sweeten it.”
“I think as how ye be right,” said Samuel Smiley, who was a trimmer by
nature, and felt sure of his way now that he had a majority to follow.
“An’ I gives my vote for ‘O ’twas a joyful sound to hear,’ an’ some o’
they other lively tunes what leaves ye wi’ an appetite for your vittles
and doesn’t curdle the very food in yer stomach wi’ terror. An’ ye can
tell yer wife, Mr. Weyman, as how we don’t admit no ’oomen on this here
Council, no more nor ’postle Paul allowed ’m to be preachers an’
busybodies in the Church. Shame on me to say it, but ’tis my hope as how
there’ll be a corner or two in Heaven where th’ ’oomen will ha’ silent
tongues.”
It was at this point, when feeling began to run high, that the situation
was saved by a remark from the Chairman.
“Heaven help us!” he said, “an’ who be that, I wonder, starin’ in at us
through the winder, just as if ’twere a raree show or a menagerie? I’m
blessed if it bain’t old Bob (you knows him well, Mr. Smiley) what has a
pension o’ five shillings from the Government—thirteen pound a year it
be—an’ how he lives on ’t no man knows. For ’tis too aged he be for
work, an’ spends his time now-a-long in pickin’ up odds an’ ends what
comes ashore wi’ the tide. ’Tis miles he’ll walk for a few bits of
timber or a coil of old rope as bain’t worth sixpence when he’s got ’em.
An’ ’tis bits of firewood he’s got on his back now by the look on’t—from
the wreck, I allow, what come ashore last week.”
“No, you are wrong there, Mr. Weyman. ’Tain’t wood from the wreck he’s
got wi’ ’n now. That be all fine clean planks, new as new can be, for
’twas straight from Norway she came, wi’ as fine a lot of timber in her
as ever I see’d in my life. An’ what he’s got on his back be old bits of
blackened wood what’s been floatin’ by the look on ’t for weeks in the
water. Though why he should ha’ been at the pains to gather ’m is more
nor I can say, wi’ all that fine new stuff afore his feet, what’d keep
all the parishes along the coast in firewood for years to come. But wi’
your permission, Mr. Chairman, we’ll call ’n in an’ axe him. ’Tis a
quiet God-fearin’ old chap he be, wi’ a friendly word for everyone. An’
’twere sorry I were when he left us an’ went to Bayview.”
It was Samuel Smiley who left the room in quest of him. “No, he won’t
come in, Mr. Weyman. An’ what’s more, I can’t get speech wi ’n. He’s
gone down along the road towards th’ old church an’ village. But he
turned now an’ agin as if he wanted a word wi’ us. An’ he looks pale an’
frighted like—or so it seem’d to I in the dim light—same as if he’d had a
scare. May be he _were_ scared to see us all seated so serious,
discussin’ questions o’ the Church and Parish. For he’s a quiet man what
never intrudes hisself, ’cept it be to beg a plug of ’bacca now an’ agin
when he meets one on the shore. Seems as how chewin’ be his sole
satisfaction. Though why he can’t smoke his ’bacca sensible in a pipe
like the rest on us has allus been a puzzle to I. May be he got the
notion in the wars agin old Boney, where he gained his pension.”
Not sorry to be interrupted in their deliberations, for the question of
the hymns had been practically settled, and discussion could only have
tended to further embitterment, the Council sallied forth, and I followed
in their wake. We found the old man still lingering by the churchyard
porch, but, as soon as he saw we were following him, he turned and
continued his walk in the direction of the village, travelling quietly,
it is true, but still at a steady rate that surprised me in so old a man,
quicker by far than I should have imagined he could walk, especially when
encumbered with so heavy a load.
“Seems queer an’ strange,” said our Chairman, “why he don’t stop an’ talk
wi’ us, when we’ve been old friends and neighbours time out o’ memory.
An’ ’tis fast he travels for an aged man like he. I be out o’ breath, I
be, wi’ follerin’ ’n, an’ seems as how we don’t get no nigher to ’n for
all our hurry-in’. An’ where on earth be he bound for? One’d fancy he
were makin’ for the shore, unless so be he intends to stop at Widder
Russell’s, for there bain’t no other buildin’ along the road, ’cept the
old church, an’ ’tain’t likely as how he be makin’ for that.”
But no; it wasn’t Widow Russell’s he was bound for. Past the house he
went, still onwards to the shore, ever and again turning to see that we
still followed him, until he had reached the gate of the old churchyard.
Of the old church nothing was left but the chancel. The main building
had been swept away by the sea in the hurricane of 1824, and not a stone
remained to show where it had formed a continuation of the chancel. Of
all the eccentricities that accompany the action of water, none of a
surety was ever more surprising than this. Sheared as by a knife from
the rest of the building, the nave had vanished; the chancel still stood,
wreathed from head to foot in a draping of ivy, but without the
displacement of a single stone, and as solid, to all appearance, as on
the day of its erection hundreds of years ago. Our parish services had
long been transferred to the new church, safe out of harm’s way at the
head of the valley. But the old churchyard was—and is to this day—still
used for interments. And though the size of the parish has increased
since then, there is no fear of its being overcrowded yet.
At the gate of the churchyard he paused, and then turned into it, with a
final look behind him as if to satisfy himself that we had not abandoned
the pursuit.
“Sakes alive,” said old Weyman, “if he bain’t standin’ nigh the very bit
o’ ground as I’d mapped out in my mind’s eye for our next buryin’. I’m
well nigh scared, I be, by the thought that what we’ve been a-follerin’
ain’t flesh an’ blood at all, but a sperrit. Else why don’t he say a
word to I, when he sees I be spent an’ weary wi’ all this traipsin’ after
’n? ’Stead of which ’tis speerin’ an’ pointin’ he be to that plot o’
ground as if to show us ’tis there he be choosin’ a spot for his last
restin’ place.”
But no; again he passed on and out of the churchyard through another
gate, which opened into the same road, and steadily pursued his way along
an old smuggling lane which led straight downwards to the sea. And when
he had reached the water’s edge he paused—and vanished.
Yes; the mystery was solved at last—the quest on which he had led us was
ended and explained. For there, in only two feet of water, lay his body,
encumbered as we had seen it with its heavy load of timber, collected, it
must have been, with infinite toil and, as we now realised, at the cost
of his life.
In default of all certainty, the theory was accepted that he had lost his
life a fortnight previously, but where and how there was no evidence to
show. Probably he had over-balanced himself in reaching for a baulk of
floating timber, and had been drifted by the ebb and flow of each
recurring tide from the place of his death—no one knew where—to the home
of his birth where he had chosen his grave.
A humble example of the Irony of Fate, which on the day that followed his
death had strewn his path lavishly with the objects of his quest. Only
he was not there to gather them.