Old Judith sat in her kitchen. Her hands were clasped upon her knees,
and her head was bent in thought. Rare indeed was it to catch Judith
indulging in a moment’s idleness. She appeared to be holding soliloquy
with herself.
“It’s the most incomprehensible thing in the world! I have heard of
ghosts--and, talking about ghosts, that child was in a tremor, last
night, again--I’m sure he was. Brave little heart! he goes up to bed
in the dark on purpose to break himself of the fear. I went in for them
shirts missis told me of, and he started like anything, and his face
turned white. He hadn’t heard me till I was in the room; I’d no candle,
and ‘twas enough to startle him. ‘Oh, is it you, Judith?’ said he,
quietly, making believe to be as indifferent as may be. I struck a
light, for I couldn’t find the shirts, and then I saw his white face. He
can’t overget the fear: ‘twas implanted in him in babyhood: and I only
wish I could get that wicked girl punished as I’d punish her, for it was
her work. But about the t’other? I have heard of ghosts walking--though,
thank goodness, I’m not frightened at ‘em, like the child is!--but for
a young man to go upstairs, night after night, pretending to go to rest,
and sitting up till morning light, is what I never did hear on. If it
was once in a way, ‘twould be a different thing; but it’s always. I’m
sure it’s pretty nigh a year since--”
“Why, Judith, you are in a brown study!”
The interruption came from Constance, who had entered the kitchen to
give an order. Judith looked up.
“I’m in a peck of trouble, Miss Constance. And the worst is, I don’t
know whether to tell about it, or to keep it in. He’d not like it to get
to the missis’s ears, I know: but then, you see, perhaps I ought to tell
her--for his sake.”
Constance smiled. “Would you like to tell me, instead of mamma? Charley
has been at some mischief again, among the saucepans? Burnt out more
bottoms, perhaps?”
“Not he, the darling!” resentfully rejoined Judith. “The burning out of
that one was enough for him. I’m sure he took contrition to himself, as
if it had been made of gold.”
“What is it, then?”
“Well,” said Judith, looking round, as if fearing the walls would hear,
and speaking mysteriously, “it’s about Mr. Hamish. I don’t know but I
_will_ tell you, Miss Constance, and it’ll be, so far, a weight off my
mind. I was just saying to myself that I had heard of ghosts walking,
but what Mr. Hamish does every blessed night, I never did hear of, in
all my born days.”
Constance felt a little startled. “What does he do?” she hastily asked.
“You know, Miss Constance, my bedroom’s overhead, above the kitchen
here, and, being built out on the side, I can see the windows at the
back of the house from it--as we can see ‘em from this kitchen window,
for the matter of that, if we put our heads out. About a twelvemonth
ago--I’m sure its not far short of it--I took to notice that the light
in Mr. Hamish’s chamber wasn’t put out so soon as it was in the other
rooms. So, one night, when I was half-crazy with that face-ache--you
remember my having it, Miss Constance?--and knew I shouldn’t get to
sleep, if I lay down, I thought I’d just see how long he kept it in.
Would you believe, Miss Constance, that at three o’clock in the morning
his light was still burning?”
“Well,” said Constance, feeling the tale was not half told.
“I thought, what on earth could he be after? I might have feared that
he had got into bed and left it alight by mistake, but that I saw his
shadow once or twice pass the blind. Well, I didn’t say a word to him
next day, I thought he might not like it: but my mind wouldn’t be easy,
and I looked out again, and I found that, night after night, that light
was in. Miss Constance, I thought I’d trick him: so I took care to put
just about an inch of candle in his bed candlestick, and no more:
but, law bless me! when folks is bent on forbidden things, it is not
candle-ends that will stop ‘em!”
“I suppose you mean that the light burnt still, in spite of your inch of
candle?” said Constance.
“It just did,” returned Judith. “He gets into my kitchen and robs my
candle-box, I thought to myself. So I counted my candles and marked ‘em;
and I found I was wrong, for they wasn’t touched. But one day, when I
was putting his cupboard to rights, I came upon a paper right at the
back. Two great big composite candles it had in it, and another half
burnt away. Oh, this is where you keep your store, my young master, is
it? I thought. They were them big round things, which seems never to
burn to an end, three to the pound.”
Constance made no reply. Judith gathered breath, and continued:
“I took upon myself to speak to him. I told him it wasn’t well for
anybody’s health, to sit up at night, in that fashion; not counting the
danger he ran of setting the house on fire and burning us all to cinders
in our beds. He laughed--you know his way, Miss Constance--and said he’d
take care of his health and of the house, and I was just to make myself
easy and hold my tongue, and that _I_ need not be uneasy about fire, for
I could open my window and drop into the rain-water barrel, and there I
should be safe. But, in spite of his joking tone, there ran through it
a sound of command; and, from that hour to this, I have never opened my
lips about it to anybody living.”
“And he burns the light still?”
“Except Saturday and Sunday nights, it’s always alight, longer or
shorter. Them two nights, he gets into bed respectable, as the rest of
the house do. You have noticed, Miss Constance, that, the evenings he is
not out, he’ll go up to his chamber by half-past nine or ten?”
“Frequently,” assented Constance. “As soon as the reading is over, he
will wish us good night.”
“Well, them nights, when he goes up early, he puts his light out
sooner--by twelve, or by half-past, or by one; but when he spends his
evenings out, not getting home until eleven, he’ll have it burning till
two or three in the morning.”
“What can he sit up for?” involuntarily exclaimed Constance.
“I don’t know, unless it is that the work at the office is too heavy
for him,” said Judith. “He has his own work to do there, and master’s as
well.”
“It is not at all heavy,” said Constance. “There is an additional clerk
since papa’s illness, you know. It cannot be that.”
“It has to do with the office-books, for certain,” returned Judith. “Why
else is he so particular in taking ‘em into his room every night?”
“He takes--them--for safety,” spoke Constance, in a very hesitating
manner, as if not feeling perfectly assured of the grounds for her
assertion.
“Maybe,” sniffed Judith, in disbelief. “It can’t be that he sits up to
read,” she resumed. “Nobody in their senses would do that. Reading may
be pleasant to some folks, especially them story-books; but sleep is
pleasanter. This last two or three blessed nights, since that ill news
come to make us miserable, I question if he has gone to bed at all, for
his candle has only been put out when daylight came to shame it.”
“But, Judith, how do you know all this?” exclaimed Constance, after a
few minutes’ reflection. “You surely don’t sit up to watch the light?”
“Pretty fit I should be for my work in the morning, if I did! No, Miss
Constance. I moved my bed round to the other corner, so as I could see
his window as I lay in it; and I have got myself into a habit of waking
up at all hours and looking. Truth to say, I’m not easy: fire is sooner
set alight than put out: and if there’s the water-butt for me to drop
into, there ain’t water-butts for the rest of the house.”
“Very true,” murmured Constance, speaking as if she were in reflection.
“Nobody knows the worry this has been upon my mind,” resumed Judith.
“Every night when I have seen his window alight, I have said to myself,
‘I’ll tell my mistress of this when morning comes;’ but, when the
morning has come, my resolution has failed me. It might worry her, and
anger Mr. Hamish, and do no good after all. If he really has not time
for his books in the day, why he must do ‘em at night, I suppose; it
would never do for him to fall off, and let the master’s means drop
through. What ought to be done, Miss Constance?”
“I really do not know, Judith,” replied Constance. “You must let me
think about it.”
She fell into an unpleasant reverie. The most feasible solution she
could come to, was the one adopted by Judith--that Hamish passed his
nights at the books. If so, how sadly he must idle away his time in the
day! Did he give his hours up to nonsense and pleasure? And how could he
contrive to hide his shortcomings from Mr. Channing? Constance was not
sure whether the books went regularly under the actual inspection of Mr.
Channing, or whether Hamish went over them aloud. If only the latter,
could the faults be concealed? She knew nothing of book-keeping, and was
unable to say. Leaving her to puzzle over the matter, we will return to
Hamish himself.
We left him in the last chapter, you may remember, objecting to go down
a certain side-street which would have cut off a short distance of their
road; his excuse to Arthur being, that a troublesome creditor of his
lived in it. The plea was a true one. Not to make a mystery of it, it
may as well be acknowledged that Hamish had contracted some debts,
and that he found it difficult to pay them. They were not many, and a
moderate sum would have settled them; but that moderate sum Hamish did
not possess. Let us give him his due. But that he had fully counted upon
a time of wealth being close at hand, it is probable that he never
would have contracted them. When Hamish erred, it was invariably from
thoughtlessness--from carelessness--never from deliberate intention.
Arthur, of course, turned from the objectionable street, and continued
his straightforward course. They were frequently hindered; the streets
were always crowded at assize time, and acquaintances continually
stopped them. Amongst others, they met Roland Yorke.
“Are you coming round to Cator’s, to-night?” he asked of Hamish.
“Not I,” returned Hamish, with his usual gay laugh. “I am going to draw
in my expenses, and settle down into a miser.”
“Moonshine!” cried Roland.
“Is it moonshine, though? It is just a little bit of serious fact,
Yorke. When lord chancellors turn against us and dash our hopes, we
can’t go on as though the exchequer had no bottom to it.”
“It will cost you nothing to come to Cator’s. He is expecting one or two
fellows, and has laid in a prime lot of Manillas.”
“Evening visiting costs a great deal, one way or another,” returned
Hamish, “and I intend to drop most of mine for the present. You needn’t
stare so, Yorke.”
“I am staring at you. Drop evening visiting! Any one, dropping that, may
expect to be in a lunatic asylum in six months.”
“What a prospect for me!” laughed Hamish.
“_Will_ you come to Cator’s?”
“No, thank you.”
“Then you are a muff!” retorted Roland, as he went on.
It was dusk when they reached the cathedral.
“I wonder whether the cloisters are still open!” Arthur exclaimed.
“It will not take a minute to ascertain,” said Hamish. “If not, we must
go round.”
They found the cloisters still unclosed, and passed in. Gloomy and
sombre were they at that evening hour. So sombre that, in proceeding
along the west quadrangle, the two young men positively started, when
some dark figure glided from within a niche, and stood in their way.
“Whose ghost are you?” cried Hamish.
A short covert whistle of surprise answered him. “You here!” cried the
figure, in a tone of excessive disappointment. “What brings you in the
cloisters so late?”
Hamish dextrously wound him towards what little light was cast from
the graveyard, and discerned the features of Hurst. Half a dozen more
figures brought themselves out of the niches--Stephen Bywater, young
Galloway, Tod Yorke, Harrison, Hall, and Berkeley.
“Let me alone, Mr. Hamish Channing. Hush! Don’t make a row.”
“What mischief is going on, Hurst?” asked Hamish.
“Well, whatever it may have been, it strikes me you have stopped it,”
was Hurst’s reply. “I say, wasn’t there the Boundaries for you to go
through, without coming bothering into the cloisters?”
“I am sorry to have spoiled sport,” laughed Hamish. “I should not have
liked it done to me when I was a college boy. Let us know what the
treason was.”
“You won’t tell!”
“No; if it is nothing very bad. Honour bright.”
“Stop a bit, Hurst,” hastily interposed Bywater. “There’s no knowing
what he may think ‘very bad.’ Give generals, not particulars. Here the
fellow comes, I do believe!”
“It was only a trick we were going to play old Ketch,” whispered Hurst.
“Come out quickly; better that he should not hear us, or it may spoil
sport for another time. Gently, boys!”
Hurst and the rest stole round the cloisters, and out at the south door.
Hamish and Arthur followed, more leisurely, and less silently. Ketch
came up.
“Who’s this here, a-haunting the cloisters at this time o’ night? Who be
you, I ask?”
“The cloisters are free until they are closed, Ketch,” cried Hamish.
“Nobody haven’t no right to pass through ‘em at this hour, except the
clergy theirselves,” grumbled the porter. “We shall have them boys
a-playing in ‘em at dark, next.”
“You should close them earlier, if you want to keep them empty,”
returned Hamish. “Why don’t you close them at three in the afternoon?”
The porter growled. He knew that he did not dare to close them before
dusk, almost dark, and he knew that Hamish knew it too; and therefore he
looked upon the remark as a quiet bit of sarcasm. “I wish the dean ‘ud
give me leave to shut them boys out of ‘em,” he exclaimed. “It ‘ud be a
jovial day for me!”
Hamish and Arthur passed out, wishing him good night. He did not reply
to it, but banged the gate on their heels, locked it, and turned to
retrace his steps through the cloisters. The college boys, who had
hidden themselves from his view, came forward again.
“He has got off scot-free to-night, but perhaps he won’t do so
to-morrow,” cried Bywater.
“Were you going to set upon him?” asked Arthur.
“We were not going to put a finger upon him; I give you my word, we were
not,” said Hurst.
“What, then, were you going to do?”
But the boys would not be caught. “It might stop fun, you know, Mr.
Hamish. You might get telling your brother Tom; and Tom might let it out
to Gaunt; and Gaunt might turn crusty and forbid it. We were going to
serve the fellow out; but not to touch him or to hurt him; and that’s
enough.”
“As you please,” said Hamish. “He is a surly old fellow.”
“He is an old brute! he’s a dog in a kennel! he deserves hanging!” burst
from the throng of boys.
“What do you think he went and did this afternoon?” added Hurst to the
two Channings. “He sneaked up to the dean with a wretched complaint of
us boys, which hadn’t a word of truth in it; not a syllable, I assure
you. He did it only because Gaunt had put him in a temper at one
o’clock. The dean did not listen to him, that’s one good thing. How
_jolly_ he’d have been, just at this moment, if you two had not come up!
Wouldn’t he, boys?”
The boys burst into a laugh; roar upon roar, peal upon peal; shrieking
and holding their sides, till the very Boundaries echoed again. Laughing
is infectious, and Hamish and Arthur shrieked out with them, not knowing
in the least what they were laughing at.
But Arthur was heavy at heart in the midst of it. “Do you owe much
money, Hamish?” he inquired, after they had left the boys, and were
walking soberly along, under the quiet elm-trees.
“More than I can pay, old fellow, just at present,” was the answer.
“But is it _much_, Hamish?”
“No, it is not much, taking it in the abstract. Quite a trifling sum.”
Arthur caught at the word “trifling;” it seemed to dissipate his fears.
Had he been alarming himself for nothing! “Is it ten pounds, Hamish?”
“Ten pounds!” repeated Hamish, in a tone of mockery. “That would be
little indeed.”
“Is it fifty?”
“I dare say it may be. A pound here and a pound there, and a few pounds
elsewhere--yes, taking it altogether, I expect it would be fifty.”
“And how much more?” thought Arthur to himself. “You said it was a
trifling sum, Hamish!”
“Well, fifty pounds is not a large sum. Though, of course, we estimate
sums, like other things, by comparison. You can understand now, why I
was not sanguine with regard to Constance’s hopeful project of helping
my father to get to the German baths. I, the eldest, who ought to be the
first to assist in it, am the least likely to do so. I don’t know how I
managed to get into debt,” mused Hamish. “It came upon me imperceptibly;
it did, indeed. I depended so entirely upon that money falling to us,
that I grew careless, and would often order things which I was not in
need of. Arthur, since that news came, I have felt overwhelmed with
worry and botheration.”
“I wish you were free!”
“If wishes were horses, we should all be on horseback. How debts grow
upon you!” Hamish continued, changing his light tone for a graver one.
“Until within the last day or two, when I have thought it necessary to
take stock of outstanding claims, I had no idea I owed half so much.”
“What shall you do about it?”
“That is more easily asked than answered. My own funds are forestalled
for some time to come. And, the worst is, that, now this suit is known
to have terminated against us, people are not so willing to wait as they
were before. I have had no end of them after me to-day.”
“How shall you contrive to satisfy them?”
“Satisfy them in some way, I must.”
“But how, I ask, Hamish?”
“Rob some bank or other,” replied Hamish, in his off-hand, joking way.
“Shall you speak to my father?”
“Where’s the use?” returned Hamish. “He cannot help me just now; he is
straitened enough himself.”
“He might help you with advice. His experience is larger than yours, his
judgment better. ‘In the multitude of counsellors there is safety,’ you
know, Hamish.”
“I have made up my mind to say nothing to my father. If he could assist
me, I would disclose all to him: as it is, it would only be inflicting
upon him unnecessary pain. Understand, Arthur, what I have said to you
is in confidence: you must not speak of it to him.”
“Of course not. I should not think of interfering between you and him. I
wish I could help you!”
“I wish you could, old fellow. But you need not look so serious.”
“How you can be so gay and careless over it, I cannot imagine,” said
Arthur.
Hamish laughed. “If there’s only a little patch of sunshine as large as
a man’s hand, I am sure to see it and trust to it.”
“Is there any sunshine in this?”
“A little bit: and I hope it will help me out of it. I am sure I was
born with a large share of hope in my composition.”
“Show me the bit of sunshine, Hamish.”
“I can’t do that,” was the answer. “I fear it is not so much actual
sunshine that’s to be seen yet--only its reflection. You could not see
it at all, Arthur; but I, as I tell you, am extravagantly hopeful.”
The same ever-gay tone, the same pleasant smile, accompanied the words.
And yet, at that moment, instead of walking straightforward into the
open space beyond the elm-trees, as Arthur did, Hamish withdrew his arm
from his brother’s, and halted under their shade, peering cautiously
around. They were then within view of their own door.
“What are you looking at?”
“To make sure that the coast is clear. I heard to-day--Arthur, I know
that I shall shock you--that a fellow had taken out a writ against me. I
don’t want to get it served, if I can help it.”
Arthur was indeed shocked. “Oh, Hamish!” was all he uttered. But the
tone betrayed a strange amount of pain mingled with reproach.
“You must not think ill of me. I declare that I have been led into this
scrape blindfolded, as may be said. I never dreamt I was getting into
it. I am not reckless by nature; and, but for the expectation of that
money, I should be as free now as you are.”
Thought upon thought was crowding into Arthur’s mind. He did not speak.
“I cannot charge myself with any foolish or unnecessary expenditure,”
Hamish resumed. “And,” he added in a deeper tone, “my worst enemy will
not accuse me of rashly incurring debts to gratify my own pleasures. I
do not get into mischief. Were I addicted to drinking, or to gambling,
my debts might have been ten times what they are.”
“They are enough, it seems,” said Arthur. But he spoke the words in
sadness, not in a spirit of reproof.
“Arthur, they may prove of the greatest service, in teaching me caution
for the future. Perhaps I wanted the lesson. Let me once get out of this
hash, and I will take pretty good care not to fall into another.”
“If you only can get out of it.”
“Oh, I shall do it, somehow; never fear. Let us go on, there seems to be
no one about.”