"Look here," he went on after awhile, "you're thinking that you've lost
your character. Very well; any bones broken?"
"My collar-bone, I think."
"Which, at your age, will heal in no time. Anything else?"
"A twist of the hip, here, and a cut in the head, I believe."
"Tut, tut! Good appetite?"
He had approached, unwound his enormous woollen comforter, and was
beginning to bandage me with it, by no means unskilfully. I thought his
question a mad one, and no doubt my face, as he peered into it, told him
so.
"I mean," he explained, "will you ever be able to eat a beef-steak again--
say, a trifle underdone, with a dozen of oysters for prelude--and drink
beer, d'ye think, and enjoy them both?"
"No doubt."
"And kiss a pretty girl, and be glad to do it?"
"Very likely."
"And fight?"
He eyed his bandage critically, stepped back upon the road and danced
about, stamping with his feet while he cut and thrust at an imaginary
enemy. "And fight, hey?"
"I suppose so."
"Then, bless the lad," he exclaimed, stopping and looking at me as fierce
as a rat, "get on your legs, and don't sit moping as if life were a spilt
posset!"
There was no disobeying this masterful old gentleman, so I made shift to
stand up.
"We have but one life to live," said he.
"I beg your pardon?"
"--In this world. God forgive me, I'd almost forgotten my cloth!
We have, I say, only one life to live in this world, and must make the
best of it. I tell you so, and I'm a clergyman."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Damme, yes; and, what's more, I'll take odds that I'm not the rector of
this very parish."
By this time, as you will guess, I had no doubt of his madness. To begin
with, anyone less like a parson it would be hard to pick in a crowd, and,
besides, I remembered some of his language to the highwaymen.
"It _ought_ to be hereabouts," he went on meditatively. "And if it should
turn out to be my parish we must make an effort to get your money back, if
only for our credit's sake, hey?"
"Oh," said I, suspicious all of a sudden, "if these ruffians are your
parishioners and you know them--"
"Know them?" he caught me up. "How the devil should I know them?
I've never been within a hundred miles of this country in my life."
"You say 'tis your parish--"
"I don't. I only say that it may be."
"But, excuse me, if you've never seen it before--"
"I don't see it now," he snapped.
"Then excuse me again, but how on earth do you propose--here in the dead
of night, on an outlandish moorland, in a country you have never seen--to
discover a chest of treasure which seven or eight scoundrelly, able-bodied
natives are at this moment making off with and hiding?"
"The problem, my friend, as you state it is too easy; too ridiculously
easy. 'Natives' you say: I only hope they may be. The difficulty will
only begin if we discover them to be strangers to these parts."
"Have mercy then on my poor dull wits, sir, and take the case at its
easiest. We'll suppose these fellows to be natives. Still, how are you
to discover their whereabouts and the whereabouts of my pay-chest?"
"Why, man alive, by the simple expedient of finding a house, knocking at
the door, and asking! You don't suppose, do you, that seven or eight
able-bodied men can commit highway robbery upon one of His Majesty's
coaches and their neighbours be none the wiser? I tell you, these rural
parishes are the veriest gossip-shops on earth. Go to a city if you want
to lose a secret, not to a God-forsaken moor like this around us, where
every labourer's thatch hums with rumour. Moreover, you forget that as a
parish priest among this folk--as curator of their souls--I may have
unusually good opportunities--" Here he checked himself, while I shrugged
my shoulders. "By the way, it may interest you to hear how I came by this
benefice. Can you manage to walk? If so, I will tell you on the road,
and we shall be losing no time."
I stood up and announced that I could limp a little. He offered me his
arm.
"It's an instructive story," he went on, paying no heed to my dejection;
"and it may teach you how a man should comport himself in adversity.
Six weeks ago this very night I lost two fortunes in less than six hours.
You are listening?"
"With what patience I can."
"Right. You see, I was born with a taste for adventure. At this moment--
you may believe it or not--I'm enjoying myself thoroughly. But the deuce
of it is that I was also born with a poor flimsy body. Come, I'm not
handsomely built, am I?"
"Not particularly," I answered; and indeed his body was shaped like an
egg.
"Confound it, sir, you needn't agree quite so offensively. You're none
too straight in the legs yourself, if it comes to that! However," he
continued in a more equable tone, "being weak in body, I sought my
adventures in a quarter where a long head serves one better than long
legs--I mean the gaming table. Now comes my story. Six weeks ago I took
a hand at lasquenet in a company which included a nobleman whom for
obvious reasons I will only call the Duke. He is of the blood royal, sir;
but I mention him no more closely, and you as a gentleman will not press
me. Eh? Very well. By three o'clock in the morning I had lost fifteen
thousand pounds. In such a case, young man, you would probably have taken
your head in your hands and groaned. We called for wine, drank, and went
on again. By seven in the morning I had won my money back, and was the
Duke's creditor for twenty-two thousand pounds to boot."
"But," said I, "a minute ago you told me you had lost two fortunes."
"I am coming to that. Later in the day the Duke met me in St. James'
Street, and said, 'Noy'--my name is Noy, sir, Timothy Noy--'Noy,' said he,
'I owe you twenty-two thousand pounds; and begad, sir, it's a desperate
business for I haven't the money, nor the half of it.' Well, I didn't fly
out in a rage, but stood there beside him on the pavement, tapping my shoe
with my walking-cane and considering. At last I looked up, and said I,
'Your Grace must forgive my offering a suggestion; for 'tis a cursedly
awkward fix your Grace is in, and one to excuse boldness in a friend,
however humble.' 'Don't put it so, I beg,' said he. 'My dear Noy, if you
can only tell me how to get quits with you, I'll be your debtor
eternally.'"
The old gentleman paused, lightly disengaged his arm from mine, and
fumbled among his many waistcoats till he found a pocket and in it a
snuff-box.
"Now that," he pursued as he helped himself to a pinch, "was, for so
exalted a personage, passably near a _mot_. 'Your Grace,' said I, 'has a
large Church patronage.' 'To be sure I have.' 'And possibly a
living--with an adequate stipend for a bachelor--might be vacant just
now?' 'As it happens,' said the Duke, 'I have a couple at this moment
waiting for my presentation, and two stacks of letters, each a foot high,
from applicants and the friends of applicants, waiting for my perusal.'
'Might I make bold,' I asked, 'to enquire their worth?' 'There's one in
Norwich worth 900 pounds a year, and another in Cornwall worth 400.
But how the deuce can this concern you, man?' 'The cards are too
expensive for me, your Grace, and I have often made terms with myself that
I would repent of them and end my days in a country living. This comes
suddenly, to be sure; but so, for that matter, does death itself, and a
man who makes a vow should hold himself ready to be taken at his word.'
'But, my dear fellow,' cries his Grace, 'with the best will in the world
you can't repent and end your days in two livings at once.' 'I might try
my best,' said I; 'there are such things as curates to be hired, I
believe, and, at the worst, I was always fond of travelling.'"
The Reverend Timothy stowed away his snuff-box and gave me his arm again.
"The Duke," he continued, "took my point. He is, by the way, not half
such a fool as he looks and is vulgarly supposed to be. He wrote that
same day to his brother-in-law (whom I will take leave to call the Bishop
of Wexcester), and made me its bearer. It is worth quotation. It ran:
'Dear Ted,--Ordain Noy, and oblige yours, Fred.' The answer which I
carried back two days later was equally laconic. 'Dear Fred,--Noy
ordained. Yours, Ted.' Consequently," wound up Mr. Noy, "I am down here
to take over my cure of souls, and had in one of my pockets a sermon
composed for my induction by a gifted young scholar of the University of
Oxford. I paid him fifteen shillings and the best part of a bottle of
brandy for it. The rascals have taken it, and I think they will find some
difficulty in converting it into cash. Hullo! is that a cottage yonder?"
It was a small cottage, thatched and whitewashed, and glimmering in the
moonlight beside the road on which its whitewashed garden-wall abutted.
The moonlight, too, showed that its upper windows were closed with wooden
shutters. Mr. Noy halted before the garden-gate.
"H'm, we shall have trouble here belike. Poor cottagers living beside a
highroad don't open too easily at this hour to a couple of come-by-chance
wayfarers. To be sure, you wear the King's uniform, and that may be a
recommendation. What's that track yonder, and where does it lead, think
you?"
The track to which he pointed led off the road at right angles, past the
gable-end of the cottage, and thence (as it seemed to me) up into the
moorland, where it was quickly lost in darkness, being but a rutted
cartway overgrown with grass. But as I stepped close to examine it my eye
caught the moon's ray softly reflected by a pile of masonry against the
uncertain sky-line, and by-and-by discerned the roof and chimney-stacks of
a farmhouse, with a grey cluster of outbuildings and the quadrilateral of
a high-walled garden.
"A farmhouse?" cried his reverence, when I reported my discovery.
"That's more in our line by a long way. Only beware of dogs."
Sure enough, when we reached the courtlage gate in front of the main
building his lifting of the latch was the signal for half a dozen dogs to
give tongue. By the mercy of heaven, however, they were all within doors
or chained, and after an anxious and unpleasant half-minute we made bold
to defy their clamour and step within the gate. Almost as we entered a
window was opened overhead, and a man's voice challenged us.
"Whoever you be, I've a gun in my hand here!" he announced.
"We are two travellers by the mail coach," Mr. Noy announced; "one a
clergyman and the other an officer in the King's service."
"You don't tell me the coach is upset?"
"And one of us has a broken collar-bone, and craves shelter in Christian
charity. What's the name of this parish?"
"Hey?" The man broke off to silence the noise of his dogs.
"What's the name of this parish?"
"Braddock."
"I thought so. Then mine is Noy--Timothy Noy--and I'm your rector.
Weren't you expecting me?"
"Indeed, sir, if you're Mr. Noy, the Squire had word you might be coming
down this week; and 'twas I, as churchwarden, that posted your name on the
church door. If you'll wait a moment, sir--the coach upset, you say!"
He disappeared from the window, and we heard him shouting to awaken the
household. By-and-by the door was unchained and he admitted us,
exclaiming again, "The coach upset, you say, sir!"
"Worse than that: it has been robbed. We keep some bad characters in our
parish, Mr.--"
"Menhennick, sir; George Menhennick--and this is Tresaher Farm.
Bad characters, sir? I hope not. We keep no highway robbers in this
parish."
He faced us, rush-lamp in hand, in his great vaulted kitchen, and the
light fell on an honest, puzzled face. As for Mr. Noy's face, I regret to
say that it fell when he heard this vindication of his flock.
"I brought ye into the kitchen, sirs," went on Farmer Menhennick,
"because 'tis cosier. We keep a fire banked up here all night."
He bent to revive it, but desisted as his wife entered with one of the
house-wenches, and gave them orders to light a lamp, fetch a billet or two
of wood, and make the place cheerful.
My face, I daresay, and the news of the robbery, scared the two women, who
went about their work at once with a commendable quietness. But I think
it was a whisper from the maidservant which caused the farmer to
ejaculate, as he helped me to a chair:
"And you've walked across Blackadon Down at this hour of night! My word,
sirs, and saving your reverence, but you had a nerve, if you'd only known
it!"
"Why, what's the matter with Blackadon?" asked Mr. Noy sharply.
Farmer Menhennick faced him with a deprecatory grin.
"Nothing, sir--leastways, nothing more than old woman's tales, not worth a
man's heeding."
"Has it by chance," said I, "anything to do with a hearse?"
"A hearse!" Mr. Noy stared at me, and then his eye fell on the farmer,
who had been helping to unbutton my tunic, but was now drawn back a pace
from me with amazement written all over his honest face. "A hearse?"
repeated Mr. Noy.
"Why, however--" began the farmer, with his eyes slowly widening.
"A hearse," said I, "with black nodding plumes and (I believe) a headless
driver. Let me see--" I began to hum the air sung by Jim the guard:--
"The wheels go round without a sound--"
The two women had dropped their work and stood peering at me, the pair of
them quaking.
"He's seen it--he's seen it!" gasped the farmer's wife.
"A hearse?" cried Mr. Noy once more, and this time almost in a scream.
"When? where?"
"On Blackadon Down, sir," answered Mr. Menhennick. "'Tis an old story
that the moor's haunted, and folks have been putting it round that the
thing's been seen two or three times lately. But there--'tis nothing to
pay any heed to."
"Oh, isn't it!"
"You understand, sir, 'tisn't a _real_ hearse--"
"Oh, isn't it!" repeated Mr. Noy in scorn.
"And _you_, sir--" He had almost caught and shaken me by the collar,
but remembered my hurt just in time. "And do you, sir, sit there and tell
me that you've known this all along, and yet--oh, you numskull!" He flung
up two protesting hands.
"But even if it's a real hearse--" I began.
"That's the kind most frequently met, I believe. And 'the wheels go
round without a sound.' Yes, they _would_--on Blackadon turf! Any more
questions? No? Then I'll take my turn with a few." He wheeled round
upon the farmer. "Ever seen it yourself?"
"No, sir."
"Has anyone here seen it?"
No; but the maidservant's father had seen it, three weeks ago--the very
night that Squire Granville's house was tried--
Mr. Noy was almost capering. "Splendid!" he cried. "Splendid! That will
sharpen his temper if it don't his wits. The Squire's house was tried,
you say?" He turned on the farmer again. "Hullo, my friend! I understood
there were no law-breakers in this parish?"
"'Tisn't known for certain that the house was tried," the farmer
explained. "'Tis thought that some of the lads was giving the old boy a
scare, he having been extra sharp on the poaching this year. All that's
known is, he heard some person trying his shutters, and let fly out of his
bedroom window with a gun; and what you can build on that I don't see."
"You shall though." He began to cross-examine the girl. "At what time
that night did your father see the hearse?"
"I believe, sir, 'twas soon after eleven. He has a cow, sir, in calf, and
went round to the chall to make sure she was all right--"