THE STRANGE VISITOR TO THE OLD CHURCH AT NIGHT.
The request of Will Stephens to be allowed to put some sawdust in the
vault of the Croftons, was one of those regular things that he always
propounded to any one who had a vault opened beneath the old church,
and he generally made a very good thing of it.
People were always too much taken up with thinking of the loss of the
relation who had just been placed in that dismal repository, to think
much of a guinea to Will for a shilling’s worth of sawdust, and if they
did ever intimate that they thought it rather too much, he always had
his answer ready at the tip of his tongue.
“How should you like, sir, or madam, as the case may be, to go into a
vault among the dead, to lay the sawdust for ’em.”
That argument was generally conclusive, and Will would get his guinea.
With Sir George Crofton he was quite sure and safe, so he had no
scruples upon the subject, and the little bit of sawdust he meant to
carry in when he had time, was more for the say of the thing, than for
any utility it was at all likely to be of, but then as he said,—
“Where’s the odds, the dead ’uns can’t see it, and living ’uns won’t go
to see it, so it does very well, and I pockets my guinea, which does
better still, for after all a sexton’s ain’t the most agreeable life
in the world, and he ought to be paid well; not that I care much about
it, being used to it, but there was a time when I had my qualms, and
I’ve had to get over ’em the best way I could, somehow, if I am now all
right.”
These were Will’s arguments and reflections to himself before night,
when he meant to go and place the little bag of saw-dust in the
Croftons’ family vault.
But, before we follow Will Stephens on his saw-dust expedition, as
we intend to do, we wish first to draw the attention of the reader
to another circumstance, the relation of which to Will Stephen’s
proceedings will very shortly appear indeed.
As the night came on there was some appearance of stormy weather. The
wind blew in a strange, gusty and uncertain manner, shifting about
from point to point of the compass in an odd way, as though it had not
made up its mind from whence to blow. The most weather-wise personages
of the neighbourhood were puzzled, for just as they prognosticated
one species of weather from the particular direction whence the wind
came, it shifted and came from some other quarter very nearly directly
opposite.
This was extremely provoking, but at all events it was generally agreed
that the moon would not on that night, shed its soft light upon the
earth.
How far they were mistaken in this surmise we shall presently see.
Will Stephens had an opinion, from certain admonitory symptoms arising
from his corns, that it would rain; so he delayed going to the church
until he should see what sort of weather it was going to be, inwardly
deciding that it would be a capital excuse not to go at all that night
if the rain should come down pretty sharply.
This period of indecision he passed at a public house, known as the
Blue Lion, the charms of the excellent ale of that establishment
materially assisting him in coming to the conclusion that if it should
rain ever so little it would be better to put off his job until the
morning.
Now it was not that Will was afraid that he hesitated. He was too used
to death to feel now any terrors of fear. It was nothing but the ale.
Why then was the hurry? Simply that the flat stone which was over the
vault of the Croftons was left unfastened until the aforesaid saw-dust
was placed within the receptacle of the dead, and the next day was
Sunday, so that the job must be finished before the service should
commence.
At night, therefore, or very early the following morning, Will must
seem to earn his guinea by going to the vault. He did not like to
venture saying he had been and yet neglect going, for he knew there
were too many gossips about the village to make that safe.
While he is however regaling himself at the ale house, another person
totally, to all appearance, heedless of wind and threatening rain, is
abroad in the neighbourhood of the church.
A tall figure enveloped in a large murky looking cloak, is moving
slowly past the few cottages in the immediate vicinage of the church,
and so noiselessly that it looks like a spirit of the dead rather than
a living person.
It was unseen by any one, for it was a time of the night—half-past
eleven—now at which few persons in that little quiet place were abroad,
and as we have said, Will Stephens, perhaps the only inhabitant who
had any real business to be abroad at such an hour, was still solacing
himself at the Blue Lion with the ale that seemed to get better every
glass he took.
The figure moved on at a slow and steady pace among the old tomb stones
that lay so thick around in the circuit of the church-yard, until it
reached the church itself, and then it walked slowly around the sacred
edifice, looking with a curious eye at the windows that presented
themselves to observation, and apparently scanning the height from the
ground.
Finally he paused at a rugged-looking part of the wall, and commenced,
with great muscular power and most wonderful agility, climbing up to
one of the windows.
To look at that wall it would have seemed that nothing human could
possibly have succeeded in ascending it, and yet this stranger,
catching at asperities which scarcely seemed to be such, did, with a
wonderful power and strength, drag himself up until he grasped an iron
bar, close to the window immediately above him, and then he had a firm
hold.
After this his progress was easy, assuming that his object was merely
to get up to the window of the old church, for he stood upon the narrow
ledge without in a few moments.
There was a slight noise, it was of the breaking of a pane of glass,
and then the stranger introduced his hand into the church, and
succeeded in removing a rude primitive looking fastening which held the
window in its place.
In another moment he disappeared from external observation within the
sacred building.
What could he want there at such an hour, and who was he? Did he
contemplate disturbing the repose of the dead with some unhallowed
purpose? Was robbery his aim?
Let us be patient, and probably we shall soon enough perceive that some
affairs are in progress that require the closest attention, and which
in the vaults are calculated to fill the reflecting mind with the most
painful images, and awake sensations of horror at the idea that such
things can really be, and are permitted tacitly by Heaven to take place
on the beautiful earth destined for the dwelling place of man.