At ten o'clock at night on the 4th of October, 1785, the master of
Waynflete Hall sat playing at cards with Mr Maxwell of Ouseley, his
neighbour and his enemy. By the fireside sat Waynflete's brother, the
parson of the parish, and over the chimney, in the light of the candle's
on the card-table, was the picture of his eldest son and heir. The
squire and the vicar were big, powerful men, with fair, bushy brows, and
faces that told of rough riding and coarse living, hard weather and hard
drinking, the only mark of their gentle blood that frank expectation of
deference and service which marks a ruling class. The keener, thinner
face of their visitor had the opposite look, that of a man accustomed to
defer, and perhaps to flatter, for his livelihood. The face of the boy
in the picture was fair and delicate, with eyes that seemed pleading and
entreating for dear life.
Outside, all was dark and dreary, a wild autumn wind sweeping over the
wide Yorkshire moors, and a noisy river, swelled by recent floods,
rushing through the valley in which Waynflete stood. Within, the
candles and the fire were reflected in panels of polished oak all round
the little octagon-shaped chamber, and showed choice furniture with
slender spindle legs and fine inlaying. The common mould candles burnt
in heavy silver candlesticks of Corinthian pattern, and the many-times
used cards lay on a pattern of thick twining roses worked in finest
tent-stitch.
On a little side table was placed a shabby leather case, and a small oak
chest with iron hasps and hinges. On another, within easy reach of the
card-players, was a plentiful supply of port wine and of spirits.
Now and again, when the tall clock in the corner struck a quarter or a
half-hour, the vicar got up and, opening one of the deep-recessed
windows, stared out into the night. Then he flung the casement back
again in silence, came back to his chair, and he and his brother filled
their glasses full and drank them down. But Mr Maxwell of Ouseley only
set his lips to his. At last eleven strokes, quick, sharp, and loud,
rang out from the clock in the corner. The squire flung his cards down,
and the parson swore a round oath.
"Time gets on," said Maxwell of Ouseley. "I hope Mr Guy's journey has
not been unduly delayed. I hope it sincerely."
"Do you, Mr Maxwell of Ouseley?" said the squire. "Your hope's very
likely to be disappointed, for my son Guy never fulfilled anybody's
hopes in his life. Not his mother's."
And the squire looked round at the familiar furniture, dropped his rough
hand on the delicate needlework, and looked with his frowning brows at
the picture, the token of his dead wife's love for her first-born son.
"Time yet, time yet," said the parson, and got heavily up once more, and
flung the window open. The wind rushed in, wailing and howling, and
with it a sound as of a horse galloping on the wet ground.
"He is coming!" cried Maxwell; but the Waynfletes laughed.
"No, no, no!" cried the squire; "that horse never draws bridle. He has
galloped ever since Guy Waynflete betrayed his friend to King James the
Second, and saved his own dirty skin. Ye'll hear him, Mr Maxwell, when
you sleep under this roof when the wind's up--and luck's down. Maybe
ye'll see the traitor's ghost. My son Guy has seen him--or else he
lied, which is like enough. Shut the window, brother Godfrey, and snuff
the candles."
"Will you deal again, sir?" said Maxwell of Ouseley.
"No," cried the squire; "cards won't bring the lad back. Get your book,
brother Godfrey, and read us a prayer. Pray, man, pray! and Mr Maxwell
can join us."
"With pleasure, sir," said Maxwell of Ouseley, bowing.
"The prayer-book's in the church, brother," said the parson.
Then the squire got up and opened a drawer in the little side table, and
took out a well-worn book with a red cover.
"There's the mother's book," he said. "Read on. We'll fight it out to
the last."
Then the parson of the parish turned his heavy chair round towards the
light, and knelt up against the back of it, for his bones were something
too stiff to reach the floor.
"What--what do you want to pray for, brother?" he said.
"What?" cried the squire with an oath, "that my fool of a son may get
here before the clock strikes twelve, and save his honour and his house.
Can't you find a prayer? Read the first in the book. The Almighty'll
understand it."
The squire leant his elbows on the card-table and his forehead on his
hands. Mr Maxwell of Ouseley stood up decorously, and held his
three-cornered hat before his face.
And the parson turned to the evening service, and read it straight
through sonorously. The words implored pardon and peace, and light in
darkness; but they carried but one prayer up to the throne of Heaven,
"Let him come."
Then the parson began the Litany till he came to the travellers by land
and by water, when he rustled over the leaves of his book, and behold
there was a mark in the prayer for those at sea, which did not run so
ill in a storm of trouble and distress. "Save, Lord, or else we
perish," he said, and the squire groaned and said, "Amen."
And through the storm and the loud rough voice the clock ticked and
struck, quarter, half-hour, and three quarters, till at last, with his
rough voice shaking and growing thick, and his dull old heart beating
fit to choke him, the parson found himself reading the prayer for "All
sorts and conditions of men."
"Mind, body and estate--"
"Eh-h!" groaned the squire.
"And a happy issue out of all--"
The first note of twelve clanged out, and the parson flung down his
book.
"Lord help us!" he cried, and Mr Maxwell of Ouseley took his hat from
before his face, and waited till the clock had struck twelve. Then the
squire got up from his chair, and took up the oak chest and set it down
upon the card-table with a heavy thud. He turned the key in the lock,
and took out a bundle of parchments and laid them down on his dead
wife's needlework, among the cards and the wine-glasses, with her
prayer-book by their side.
Then he drew himself straight up, and bowed. "Mr Maxwell of Ouseley,"
he said, "these are the terms on which we stand. This house and estate
were to pass to you, my attorney-at-law, in repayment of the loans ye've
made me, unless my son Guy came back by twelve to-night, ready to sign
such other bonds as ye might please, and to marry your girl whom ye'd
like to make a lady of quality as well as the heiress of ye're gains and
gettings."
"Yes, Mr Waynflete, those were the terms, and I regret--"
The squire turned and swore at him, then went on in the same tone as
before, "But my eldest son Guy, who broke his mother's heart, and was
too late for her deathbed, is _too late_ to save his father, and
himself. I leave him my curse for a coward and a fool. And I leave it
for all that come after him to follow in his steps. And for t'other
one, brother Godfrey, you'd better take and put him into the Church, if
you can; he's a thickhead, but an honest lad. So there, Attorney
Maxwell, take your own, and the luck ye've earned go with it!"
And Mr Maxwell, still murmuring regrets that he daren't speak aloud,
closed his long fingers over the deeds. And the parson, the son of the
house, put his handkerchief over his face and wept, while the wind rose
higher and wailed louder, till it seemed as if cries and prayers for
mercy mingled with the thud of the hoofs of the horse that never drew
bridle at any door.
Then Waynflete of Waynflete Hall took up his dead wife's prayer-book and
kissed it, then he walked over to the side table, and stood with his
back to the other two. "God have mercy on my soul!" said he, and took
something out of the leathern box. And there was a loud noise and a
heavy fall, and the old drinking, gambling, hard-living squire never
lived to see whether his unlucky son came home too late.
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But in the gloomy mists of the next morning, while the scared household
were watching the body laid out for its last sleep in the room where it
had fallen, there staggered into the midst of them the ruined heir, his
trim locks wild and wet, his fair face marred and degraded, and his eyes
mad with fear.
"The traitor's ghost--or the devil in his shape--stood in my way--I was
coming--" he stuttered in thick, shaking tones.
"To the devil with your ghost! You're drunk!" shouted the old parson,
and lifted his hand.
The boy cowered, stumbled and fell on the threshold. He was indeed too
late.
That was what happened at Waynflete Hall, in October, 1785.