up with this kind of thing at the top of a house when somebody's lying
dead underneath. Dan's voice was enough to give one the shivers, let
alone his words. Some stars came out, and I could see the outline of the
furniture: or perhaps the stars had been shining all along; only, on
first awaking, the eye is not accustomed to the darkness.
"Try and go to sleep, Dan. You'll be all right in the morning."
To go to sleep seemed, however, to be far enough from Dan's thoughts.
After a bit of uneasy turning and trembling--and I'm sure any one would
have said his legs had caught St. Vitus's dance--he gave sleep up as
a bad job, and broke out now and again with all sorts of detached
comments. I could only lie and listen.
Wondered whether he should be seeing King always?--if so, would rather
be dead. Wished he had not gone to sleep on that confounded bench
outside St. Ann's Well--might have been at hand near King, and saved
him, if he had not. It was that beastly bottled ale that made him.
Wished bottled ale had not been invented. Wished he could wring Dance's
neck--or Ferrar's--or that Wood'arts, whichever of the lot it was that
had struck King. Knew it was one of the three. What on earth could have
taken the Frogs to Malvern that day?--Wished every Frog ever born was
hanged or drowned. Thought it must be Ferrar--else why had the fellow
decamped? Thought the whole boiling of Frogs should be driven from the
town--how dared they, the insolent charity beggars, have their school
near the college school? Wondered what would be done to Ferrar if it was
proved against him? Wished it had been Ferrar to fall down in place of
King. Wished it had been himself (Dan) rather than King. Poor King!--who
was always so gentle--and never gave offence to any of them--and was so
happy with his hymns and his fancies, and his poetry!--and had said
"Lord Bateman" for them that day when told to say it, and--and----
At this thought Dan broke fairly down and sobbed as though his heart
were breaking. I felt uncommonly sorry for him; he had been very fond of
King; and I was sorry for his superstition. What a mistake it seemed for
Mrs. Sanker to have allowed them to grow up in it.
At three o'clock the next day the inquest met again. The coroner and
jury, who seemed to have got thoroughly interested in the case now, kept
their time to a minute. There was much stir in the neighbourhood, and
the street was full before the Angel Inn. As to Frog Lane, it was said
the excitement there had never been equalled. The report that it was one
of St. Peter's boys who had done it, went echoing everywhere; no one
thought of doubting it. _I_ did not. Watching Harry Dance's face when he
had given his evidence, I felt sure that every word he said was true.
Some one _had_ flung King over: and that some one, there could be no
question of it, was one of those common adversaries, the Frogs. If King
must have gone to sleep that afternoon, better that Dan, as he had said,
or one of the rest of us, had stayed by to protect him!
Mark Ferrar had turned up. His brother found him at South Crabb. He came
to the inquest in his best clothes, those he had worn at Malvern. I
noticed then, but I had not remembered it, that he had a grass-green
neckerchief on, tied with a large bow and ends. His good-natured, ugly,
honest face was redder than ever as he stood to give his evidence. He
did not show any of the stammering confusion that Dance had done, but
spoke out with modest self-possession.
His name was Mark Ferrar, aged nearly fourteen (and looking ever so much
older), second son of Thomas Ferrar, china painter. He had seen the
deceased boy, King Sanker, at Malvern on Tuesday. When he and some more
of St. Peter's boys were coming down the hill they had met King and his
party. King spoke to him and told his father, Captain Sanker, that he
was the Frog--the college boys called them Frogs--who had picked him up
out of the fight on Saturday to save him from being crushed: and Captain
Sanker thanked him and gave him half-a-crown to spend in Malvern cakes.
Master Johnny Ludlow was with the Sankers, and saw and heard this. Did
not buy the Malvern cakes: had meant to, and treat the rest of the boys;
but dinner was ready near the foot of the hill when they got down,
and forgot it afterwards. After dinner he and a lot more boys went up
another of the beacons and down on the Herefordshire side. They got back
about four o'clock, and had bread-and-butter and cider for tea. Then he
and Harry Dance went up the hill again, taking two ways, to see which
would be at St. Ann's Well first. Couldn't see Dance when he got up,
thought he might be hiding, and went looking about for him. Went along a
side-path leading off from St. Ann's; 'twas sheltered, and thought Dance
might be there. Suddenly heard himself called to: looked onwards, and
saw the lame boy, King Sanker, there, and some chairs and glasses on a
table. Went on, and King asked him to sit down, and began talking to
him, saying he had had to say "Lord Bateman" before them all. He,
Ferrar, did not know what "Lord Bateman" was, and King said he would say
it to him. Began to say it; found it was poetry verses: King had said a
good many when he broke off in the middle of one, and told him to go
then, for they were coming. Did not know who "they" meant, did not see
or hear anybody himself; but went away accordingly. Went looking all
about for Dance again; found him by-and-by on a kind of plateau on the
other side of St. Ann's. They went up the hill together, and only got
down again when it was time to start for Worcester. He did not go in the
first van; there was no room; waited for the second. Saw the other party
starting: heard that some one was missing: found it was King; offered to
help to look for him. Was going up with the rest past the Unicorn, when
some people met them, saying they'd heard groans. Ran on, and found it
was King Sanker. He seemed to have fallen right down from the place
where he had been sitting in the afternoon, and where he, Ferrar, had
left him.
Such in substance was the evidence he gave. Some of it I could
corroborate, and did. I told of King's asking that Ferrar might go up
to him the next day, and of his promising him "Lord Bateman," which he
had got by him, written out.
But Ferrar was not done with. Important questions had to be asked him
yet. Sometimes it was the coroner who put them, sometimes one or other
of the jury.
"Did you see anything at all of the deceased after leaving him as you
have described, Mark Ferrar?"
"No, sir. I never saw him again till night, when we found him lying
under a part of the hill."
"When you quitted him at his bidding, did you see any boys about, either
college boys or St. Peter's boys?"
"No, sir, I did not see any; not one. The hills about there seemed as
lonely as could be."
"Which way did you take when you left him?"
"I ran straight past St. Ann's, and got on to the part that divides the
Worcestershire beacon from the next. Waiting for Dance, I sat down on
the slope, and looked at Worcester for a bit, trying how much of the
town I could make out, and how many of the churches, and that. As I was
going back toward St. Ann's I met Dance."
"What did Dance say to you?"
"He said he had been hunting for me, and wanted to know where I had hid
myself, and I said I had been hunting for him. We went on up the hill
then and met some more of our boys; and we stayed all together till it
was time to go down."
"Did Dance say that he had heard sounds of quarrelling?"
"No, sir, never a word."
"What communication did Dance make to you on the subject the following
morning?"
"Nothing certain, sir. Dance went home in the first van, and he didn't
hear about King Sanker till the morning. I was saying then how we found
him, and that he must have fell straight off from the place above. Dance
stopped me, and said was it sure that he fell--was it sure he had not
been pushed off? I asked why he said that, but he wouldn't answer."
"Did he refuse to answer?"
"I kept asking him to tell me, but he just said it was only a fancy that
came to him. He had interrupted so eager like, that I thought he must
have heard something. Later, I asked Master Johnny Ludlow whether the
boy had been pushed off, but he said no. I couldn't get it out of my
head, however."
"What clothes did you wear, witness, that day at Malvern?"
"These here that I've got on now, sir."
"Did you wear that same green neckerchief?"
"Yes, sir. My sister Sally bought it new for me to go in."
"Did you take it off at Malvern?"
"No, sir."
"Not at all?"
"No, sir. Some of them took their handkerchers off at dinner, because it
was hot, but I didn't."
"Why did you not?"
For the first time Ferrar hesitated. His face turned scarlet.
"Come, speak up. The truth, mind."
"Sally had told me not to mess my new silk handkercher, for I wasn't
likely to have another of one while; and I thought if I got untying and
re-tying of it, I should mess it." It seemed quite a task to Ferrar to
confess this. He feared the boys would laugh at him. But I think no one
doubted that it was the true reason.
"You did not take it off while you were sitting with the deceased?"
"No, sir. I never took it off all day."
"Take it off now."
Mark Ferrar looked too surprised to understand the order, and did
nothing. The coroner repeated it.
"Take off this here handkercher, sir? Now?"
"Yes. The jury wish to see it open."
Mark untied the bow and pulled it off, his very freckles showing out
red. It was a three-cornered silk neckerchief, as green as grass.
"Was this like the kerchief you saw being swung about, Harry Dance?"
asked the coroner, holding it up, and then letting it drop on the table.
Harry Dance gazed at it as it lay, and shook his head. "I don't think it
were the one, sir," he said.
"Why don't you think it?"
"That there looks smaller and brighter, and t'other was bigger and
darker. Leastways, I think it were."
"Was it more like this?" interrupted Dr. Teal, shaking out his
handkerchief from his pocket.
"I don't know, sir. It seemed like a big handkerchief, and was about
that there colour o' your'n."
Some inquiry was made at this point as to the neckerchiefs worn by the
other boys. It turned out that two or three had worn very large ones,
something the colour of Dr. Teal's. So that passed.
"One word, Harry Dance. Did you see Ferrar with his handkerchief off
that day?"
"I didn't notice, sir: I don't remember. Some of us took 'em off on the
hills--'twas very hot--and never put 'em on again all day."
The coroner and jury talked together, and then Harry Dance was told to
repeat the evidence he had given the day before. He went over it again:
the sounds of quarrelling, and the words in the voice he had supposed to
be King's: "Oh, don't--don't! you'll throw me over."
"Had Ferrar his neckerchief on when you met him soon after this?"
questioned Captain Chamberlain.
"I think he had, sir. I think if he had not I should ha' noticed it. I'm
nearly as sure as I can be that it wasn't off."
When Dance was done with, Mark Ferrar was begun upon again.
"What induced you to go off from your home on Wednesday evening without
notice?" asked the coroner.
"I went to South Crabb, sir."
"I don't ask you where you went, I ask why you went?"
"I go over there sometimes, sir. I told Sally I was going."
"Can't you understand my question? _Why_ did you go?"
"Nothing particular made me go, sir. Only that I had got some money; and
I was feeling so sorry that the little lame boy was dead, I couldn't
bear to be still."
"You have been punished often, Mark Ferrar, for going off on these
expeditions?" cried one of the jury.
"I used to be, sir. Father has leathered me for it at home, and Clerk
Jones at school. I can't do without going out a bit. I wish I was a
sailor."
"Oh, indeed! Well--is there one of your companions that you can suspect
of having harmed this poor little boy--accidentally or otherwise?"
"No, sir. It is being said that he was pushed over in ill-feeling, or
else by accident; but it don't seem likely."
"Did you push him over yourself?"
"Me!" returned Ferrar, in surprise. "Me push him over!"
"As far as we can learn yet, no one was with him there but you."
"I'd have saved him from it, sir, if I had been there, instead of
harming him. When he sent me away he was all right, and not sitting
anigh the edge. If it was me that had done it, sir, he'd not have asked
for me to go up to him in his room--and shook hands--and said I should
see him in heaven."
Mark Ferrar broke down at the remembrance, and sobbed like a child. I
don't think one single person present thought it was he, especially the
coroner and jury. But the question was--which of the other boys could it
have been?
Several of them were called before the coroner. One and all declared
they had done no harm to the deceased--had not been near him to do
it--would not have done it if they had been--did not know he had been
sitting in the place talked of--did not (most of them) know where the
spot was now. In short, they denied it utterly.
Mr. Jones stepped forward then. He told the coroner and jury that he had
done his best to come to the bottom of the affair, but could not find
out anything. He did not believe one of his boys had been in it; they
were mischievous enough, as he well knew, and sometimes deceitful
enough; but they all seemed to be, and he honestly believed _were_,
innocent of this.
The room was cleared while the jury deliberated. Their verdict was to
the effect that Kingsley Sanker had died from falling over a portion of
one of the Malvern hills; but whether the fall was caused by accident,
or not, there was not sufficient evidence to show.
It was late when it was over. Growing dusk. In turning out of the inn
passage to the street, I remember the great buzz around, and the people
pushing one's elbows; and I can't remember much more. If one Frog was
there, it seemed to me that there were hundreds.
I stayed at Captain Sanker's again that night. We all went up to bed
after supper and prayers--which the captain read. He said he could not
divest himself of the idea that it was a pure accident--for who would be
likely to harm a helpless lad?--and that what Dance heard must have been
some passing dispute connected with other people.
"Come along, Johnny: this one candle'll do for us both," cried Dan,
taking up a bed candlestick and waiting for me to follow him.
I kept close to him as we went by the room--_the_ room, you know--for
Dan was worse than any of them for passing it. He and King had been much
together. King followed him in age; they had always slept together and
gone to school together; the rest were older or younger--and naturally
Dan felt it most.
"I shan't be a minute, Johnny, and then you can take the candle," said
he, when we got to the top. "Come in."
Before I had well turned round, after getting in, I declare Dan had
rushed all his things off in a heap and leaped into bed. Poor King used
not to be so quick, and Dan always made him put the light out.
"Good-night, Dan."
"Good-night, Johnny. I hope I shall get to sleep."
He put his head under the bedclothes as I went away with the candle. I
was not long getting into bed either. The stars were bright in the sky.
Before there was time to get to sleep, Dan came bursting in, shivering
as on the past night, and asking to be let get into the bed. I did not
mind his being in the bed--liked it rather, for company--but I did
think it a great stupid pity that he should be giving way to these
superstitious fears as though he were a girl.
"Look here, Dan: I should be above it. One of the smallest of those
Frogs couldn't show out more silly than this."
"He's in my bed again, Johnny. Lying down. I can't sleep there another
night."
"You know that he is below in his coffin--with the room-door locked."
"I don't care--he's there in the bed. You had no sooner gone with the
light than King crept in and lay down beside me. He used to have a way
of putting his left arm over me outside the clothes, and he put it so
to-night."
"Dan!"
"I tell you he did. Nobody would believe it, but he did. I felt it like
a weight. It was heavy, just as dead arms are. Johnny, if this goes on,
I shall die. Have you heard what mamma says?"
"No. What?"
"She says _she_ saw King last night. She couldn't sleep; and by-and-by,
happening to look out of bed, she saw him standing there. He was looking
very solemn, and did not speak. She turned to awake papa, in spite of
the way he goes on ridiculing such things, but when she looked next King
had gone. I wish he was buried, Johnny; I shouldn't think he could come
back into the house then. Should you?"
"He's not in it now--in that sense. It's all imagination."
"Is it! I should like you to have been in my bed, instead of me; you'd
have seen whether it was imagination or not. Do you suppose his heavy
arm across me was fancy?"
"Well, he does not come in here. Let us go to sleep. Good-night, Dan."
Dan lay still for a good bit, and I was nearly asleep when he awoke me
sobbing. His face was turned the other way.
"I wish you'd kill me, Johnny."
"Kill you!"
"I don't care to live any longer without King. It is so lonely. There's
nobody now. Fred's getting to be almost a man, and Toby's a little
duffer. King was best. I've many a time snubbed him and boxed him, and I
always put upon him; and--and now he's gone. I wish I had fallen down
instead of him."
"You'll get over it, Dan."
"Perhaps. But it's such a thing to get over. And the time goes so
slowly. I wish it was this time next year!"
"Do you know what some of the doctors say?"
"What do they say?" returned Dan, putting the tip of his nose out of
bed.
"Dr. Teal told Captain Sanker of it; I was by and heard him. They think
that poor King would not have lived above another year, or so: that
there was no chance of his living to grow up. So you might have lost him
soon in any case, Dan."
"But he'd have been here till then; he wouldn't have died through
falling down Malvern Hill. Oh, and to think that I was rough with him
often!--and didn't try to help him when he wanted it! and laughed at his
poetry! Johnny, I wish you'd kill me! I wish it had been me to fall over
instead of him!"
There was not one of them that felt it as keenly as Dan did: but the
chances were that he would forget King the soonest. Dan was of that
impetuous warm nature that's all fire at first; and all forgetfulness
when the fire goes out.
I went home the next day to Crabb Cot. Mr. Coney came into Worcester to
attend the corn-market, and offered to drive me back in his gig. So I
took my leave of the Sankers, and my last look at poor King in his
coffin. He was to be buried on Monday in St. Peter's churchyard.
* * * * *
The next news we had from Worcester was that Mark Ferrar had gone to
sea. His people had wanted him to take up some trade at home; but Mark
said he was not going to stay there to be told every day of his life
that he killed King Sanker. For some of the Frogs had taken up the
notion that it must have been he--why else, they asked, did the coroner
and the rest of 'em want to see his green handkercher shook out? So his
father, who was just as much hurt at the aspersions as Mark, allowed him
to have his way and go to sea; in spite of Sally crying her eyes out,
and foretelling that he would come home drowned. Mark was sent to London
to some friend, who undertook to make the necessary arrangements; he was
bound apprentice to the sea, and shipped off in a trading vessel sailing
for Spain.
It was Michaelmas when we next went in to Worcester (save for a day at
the festival), driving in from Dyke Manor: the Squire, Mrs. Todhetley,
and I. You have heard the expedition mentioned before, for it was
the one when we hired the dairymaid, Grizzel, at St. John's mop. That
business over, we went down to Captain Sanker's and found them at home.
They were all getting pretty well over the death now, except Dan. Dan's
grief and nervousness were as bad as ever. Worse, even. Captain and Mrs.
Sanker enlarged upon it.
"Dan grieves after his brother dreadfully: they were always companions,
you see," said the captain. "He has foolish fancies also: thinks he sees
King continually. We have had to put him to sleep with Fred downstairs,
for nothing would persuade him that King, poor fellow, did not come
and get into his old place in bed. The night the poor lad was buried,
Dan startled the whole house up; he flew down the stairs crying and
shrieking, and saying that King was there. We don't know what to do: he
seems to get worse, rather than better. Did you notice how thin he has
become? You saw him as you came in."
"Like a bag of bones," said the Squire.
"Ay. Some days he is so nervous and ill he can't go to school. I never
knew such a thing, for my part. I was for trying flogging, but his
mother wouldn't have it."
"But--do you mean to tell us, Sanker, that he fancies he sees King's
_ghost_?" cried the Squire, in great amazement.
"Well, I suppose so," answered the captain. "He fancies he sees _him_:
and poor King, as far as this world's concerned, can be nothing but
a ghost now. The other evening, when Dan had been commanded to the
head-master's house for something connected with the studies and
detained till after dark, he came rushing in with a white face and his
hair all wet, saying he had met King under the elm-trees, as he was
running back through the green towards Edgar Tower. How can you deal
with such a case?"
"I should say flogging would be as good as anything," said the Squire,
decidedly.
"So I thought at first. He's too ill for it now. There's nothing,
hardly, left of him to flog."
"Captain Sanker, there is only one thing for you to do," put in Mrs.
Todhetley. "And that is, consult a clever medical man."
"Why, my dear lady, we have taken him to pretty nearly all the medical
men in Worcester," cried the captain. "He goes regularly to Dr.
Hastings."
"And what do the doctors say?"
"They think that the catastrophe of King's unhappy death has seized upon
the lad's mind, and brought on a sort of hypochondriacal affection. One
of them said it was what the French would call a _maladie des nerfs_.
Dan seems so full of self-reproach, too."
"What for?"
"Well, for not having made more of King when he was living. And also, I
think, for having suffered himself to fall asleep that afternoon on the
bench outside the Well: he says had he kept awake he might have been
with King, and so saved him. But, as I tell Dan, there's nothing to
reproach himself with in that: he could not foresee that King would meet
with the accident. The doctors say now that he must have change of air,
and be got away altogether. They recommend the sea."
"The sea! Do you mean sea-air?"
"No; the sea itself; a voyage: and Dan's wild to go. A less complete
change than that, they think, will be of little avail, for his illness
borders almost--almost upon lunacy. I'm sure, what with one thing and
another, we seem to be in for a peck of misfortunes," added the captain,
rumpling his hair helplessly.
"And shall you let him go to sea?"
"Well, I don't know. I stood out against it at first. Never meant to
send a son of mine to sea; that has always been my resolution. Look
at what I had to starve upon for ever so many years--a lieutenant's
half-pay--and to keep my wife and bring up my children upon it! You
can't imagine it, Squire; it's cruel. Dan's too old for the navy,
however; and, if he does go, it must be into the merchant service. I
don't like that, either; we regular sailors never do like it, we hold
ourselves above it; but there's a better chance of getting on in it and
of making money."
"I'm sure I am very sorry for it altogether," said Mrs. Todhetley. "A
sailor cannot have any comfort."
"I expect he'll have to go," said the captain, ruefully: "he must get
these ideas out of his head. It's such a thing, you see, for him to be
always fancying he sees King."
"It is a dreadful thing."
"My wife had a brother once who was always seeing odd colours wherever
he looked: colours and shadows and things. But that was not as bad as
this. His doctor called it nerves: and I conclude Dan takes after him."
"My dear, I think Dan takes after your side, not mine," calmly put in
Mrs Sanker, who had her light hair flowing and something black in it
that looked like a feather. "He is so very passionate, you know: and I
could not go into a passion if I tried."
"I suppose he takes after us both," returned Captain Sanker. "I know he
never got his superstitious fancies from me, or from any one belonging
to me. We may be of a passionate nature, we Sankers, but we don't see
ghosts."