Mr Errol, seated in his pleasant drawing-room scanning a newspaper
while his wife occupied herself with some sewing in the twilight hour
before the lamps were lighted, suddenly lowered his paper, and looked
with surprised eyes towards the window, which he faced. For a moment he
doubted the evidence of his senses. Had his eyesight been less keen and
his mind less evenly balanced, he might have been deceived into
believing that his imagination was playing him tricks; but, after the
first moment of doubt, he realised that the amazing sight of Mr
Musgrave peeping surreptitiously in through the window and almost
immediately withdrawing with the guilty alacrity of a person caught in
some unlawful act was no optical illusion, but a very astounding
actuality.
He glanced at his wife to discover whether she had observed these
unusual proceedings, and, finding that her attention was absorbed in her
occupation, he rose quietly, and without saying anything to her went out
to investigate matters. Why, in the name of mystery, should John
Musgrave prowl about outside the house after the manner of a clumsy
trespasser, instead of ringing the bell and stating his business in the
ordinary way?
The vicar opened the front door and stepped out on the gravelled path,
whereupon Mr Musgrave came quickly forward from his place of
concealment, and, still looking nervous and painfully self-conscious,
approached him.
"I am so glad you have come," he said. "I was not sure whether you saw
me."
"Oh, I saw you," the vicar answered. "Anyone might have seen you. If
it had not been yourself, I should have suspected a design on my spoons.
Why didn't you come in?"
"I wanted to see you alone--on a very private matter. I want your
help."
The vicar looked faintly surprised. He had on occasions required John
Musgrave's help, though not in any personal sense, but he could not
remember in all their long acquaintance that John Musgrave had made a
demand of this nature before. It puzzled him to think what form the
request would take.
"Whatever the service may be, you can count it as promised," he said.
"Thank you," Mr Musgrave returned warmly. "I know I can rely both on
your assistance and on your discretion. The fact is, Walter, I have a--
a--ahem! a note which I wish delivered to Miss Annersley by a trusty
messenger. It must not reach any hand but her own, and--and I do not
wish to send it by one of my servants. I would prefer that the
messenger should be ignorant as to whom the note comes from."
"Won't the post serve?" the vicar asked, feeling strongly tempted to
laugh.
"There isn't time for the post; she must have the note this evening."
"So imperative as all that!"
Walter Errol looked curiously at the perturbed Mr Musgrave and
reflected awhile. Mr Musgrave filled in the pause by explaining the
nature of the communication which he was so anxious that Miss Annersley
should receive without delay. The explanation robbed the adventure of
the quality of romance with which Walter Errol had been colouring it,
and thereby detracted considerably from the interest of the enterprise.
Had John Musgrave been more experienced in the ways of the world he
would have given the explanation first and then have preferred his
request, having disarmed suspicion in advance. But Mr Musgrave was so
concerned with the necessity for secrecy and dispatch that he lost sight
altogether of certain aspects of the case which would have struck anyone
less simple of purpose; which did, in fact, strike the vicar, in whose
mind the picture of John Musgrave accompanying Miss Annersley and
Diogenes on their walk was still sufficiently vivid to predispose his
thoughts towards speculations which John Musgrave would never have
dreamed of.
The purpose of Mr Musgrave's communication to Miss Annersley was to
warn her of the escape of Diogenes, who had broken bounds when Mr
Musgrave, having freed him from the chain, imagined him to be following
him as usual into the house. Without a doubt Diogenes would return to
the Hall. The note was to warn Peggy of his possible appearance.
"It would seem," observed Mr Errol with a quiet laugh, "that it is
impossible to have Miss Annersley and Diogenes both in Moresby and keep
them apart. I should advise you to confer together, John, and come to
some better arrangement. Otherwise it looks as though you will have
trouble."
"I do not mind the trouble," replied Mr Musgrave seriously. "But I
should like Miss Annersley to be prepared. It might prove embarrassing
for her if Diogenes suddenly revealed himself to her aunt. I don't
fancy Mrs Chadwick would be deceived."
"I think it highly improbable," the vicar agreed.
He turned the note which Mr Musgrave had delivered to him on his palm,
and seemed to weigh it while he scrutinised the writer, weighing other
matters in his mind with equal deliberation.
"I'll see to this. Miss Annersley shall have it. I'm expecting Robert
every minute--he should be here now. When he comes I will send him up
to the Hall straight away. You need not fear to trust its safe delivery
to Robert; he will take very good care that it reaches no hand but the
right one."
And thus it transpired that Robert, who generally officiated in all the
more important events in the lives and after the lives of the
inhabitants of Moresby, became mixed up in the affairs of Mr Musgrave;
though when he received the letter from the hand of his vicar, with the
latter's careful and explicit instructions, Robert had no idea that he
was acting as secret agent between Mr John Musgrave and the young lady
at the Hall. He cherished, indeed, a dark suspicion that Mr Errol was
corresponding with the young lady, and was unmindful that his wife
should know it. For the first time since they had worked together the
sexton entertained grave doubts of his vicar, and while he pursued his
leisurely way to the Hall in the deepening dusk of advancing night he
recalled the story of the strong man with the shorn locks and the woman
whose beauty had robbed him of his strength. Robert held Samson in as
great contempt as he held Saint Paul in veneration. It was a relief to
him to reflect that the vicar wore his hair clipped close to his head.
Robert, while he walked to the Hall, engaged in a pleasant reverie of
his own in which a prospective reward for his services figured
prominently. A young lady receiving a _billet doux_--Robert did not
call it thus, being no sympathiser with foreign languages--would
naturally reward the messenger. Since he carried in his pocket a
shilling which John Musgrave had left with the note, these, reflections
savoured of a mercenary spirit; but payment in advance is rather an
earnest of good-will than a reward for service; the discharge of the
obligation should undoubtedly follow the faithful discharge of the duty.
As an earnest of good-will on his side Robert halted at the village inn
and wasted more valuable time there than Mr Musgrave would have
approved of in consideration of the urgent nature of his message. When
eventually Robert proceeded on his way the shadows had gathered with
sufficient density to turn his thoughts into the less pleasing direction
of the misty horrors associated with the Hall, which in the broad light
of day he was wont to deride.
Thinking of these things against his volition, he quickened his steps;
and it was possibly due to the rapidity of his pace and not to extreme
nervousness that, in passing under the dense overbranching elm-trees in
the drive, which entirely excluded the last faint glimmering of light,
the perspiration started on his forehead in large beads and a curious
thrill ran down his spine. It was not until he came within view of the
house that these uncomfortable symptoms of over-exertion abated
somewhat, and he was complacently comparing his masculine temerity with
Hannah's foolish feminine fears of ghosts and such things, when abruptly
something, unearthly of shape and terrible in appearance, started up out
of the shadows and dashed past him, nearly upsetting him in its furious
charge, and disappearing again in the shelter of the trees.
With a yell, more terrifying than any ghostly apparition, Robert started
to run, and ran on, passing Mr Chadwick, who, cigar in mouth, was
taking an evening stroll, and whom the sexton in his alarm mistook for
the Evil One, emitting fire from his mouth. And while Mr Chadwick
turned to stare after the amazing sight of the little man running for
dear life, and while Diogenes, having hunted an imaginary night-bird,
returned more leisurely to the drive and joined Mr Chadwick in his
walk, Robert gained the house, gained admittance by the back door, and
frightened the Hall servants badly with his blood-curdling description
of the horrors he had encountered on the way. It was the cook's firm
conviction, and nothing Robert found to say in expostulation could shake
her belief, that he had been drinking.
"If you aren't drunk," she announced in conclusion, "you ought to be
ashamed of yourself. A grown man to be scared out of his wits by a
ghost!"
So unreasonable is feminine logic!
It took Robert some little while to collect his scattered thoughts
sufficiently to be able to state the business that brought him there.
Had it not been for a glass of wine which a sympathetic parlourmaid
brought him, and held for him while he drank, he might not even then
have remembered the note in his pocket, and the vicar's explicit
instructions that he was to hand it to Miss Annersley himself. His
insistent demand to see the young lady confirmed the cook in her opinion
of him; but the sympathetic parlourmaid undertook to acquaint Miss
Annersley with the news of his presence and his wish to see her, and
finally Robert was conducted to a room which was known as the library,
where Peggy, a shining white figure against the dusky background of
book-lined walls, received him, with manifest wonder in her grey eyes--a
wonder which changed by imperceptible degrees to amusement as, having
received and read her note, she listened to Robert's eloquent tale of
the misty sort of thing which had risen out of the ground at his feet,
had almost knocked him over, and had then vanished into the ground
again.
"And you weren't afraid?" said Peggy, her hand resting on the
writing-table beside which she stood, her admiring gaze on Robert's
ashen face. "But that's splendid. I wish I were as brave as you. If I
had been nearly knocked down by a misty sort of thing I should never be
able to pass the spot again. Yet you'll go back presently, and won't
mind in the least. That's real courage."
Robert looked uncomfortable. He wished she had not reminded him of the
return journey. He felt far from happy when he thought of it; far from
confident that he dared pass the spot again. He had it in his mind to
invite the sympathetic parlourmaid to accompany him.
"Are you quite sure it was a ghost?" Peggy asked suddenly. "I don't
see how a misty sort of thing could knock anyone down. Wasn't it,
perhaps, a dog?"
Robert felt offended, and showed it.
"I reckon I knows a dog when I sees one," he replied with dignity, "an'
I reckon I knows a ghost. Hannah always allows she seen the ghost in
the elm avenue, and it was in the avenue as I seed it. Big, it was--big
as a elephant, and misty like. There was two of 'em."
"Two?" said Peggy, with a questioning intonation. "That's strange,
Robert, because there are supposed to be two ghosts--a lady and a dog.
Are you quite sure there wasn't a dog, after all?"
"There mid 'a' been a dog," Robert conceded reluctantly. "But it warn't
like a human dog, nohow. Its eyes was like flames, an' it didn' seem to
'ave any legs, seemed to move wi'out touching of the ground. Why not
come an' see for yourself?" he suggested cunningly, "if you don't
believe me. I'll take care of 'ee."
Peggy looked thoughtfully at the trembling sexton and appeared to
deliberate. It was plain to her that Robert was badly shaken, that his
nerve was not equal to the strain of making the return journey alone.
She was shrewd enough to penetrate his design in suggesting that she
should accompany him, and being of a naturally kindly disposition she
fell in with the idea, the more readily because, since reading the note,
she was anxious to meet Robert's ghost, and secure it.
"I don't disbelieve you," she returned. "But I should like to see for
myself. I should never feel afraid with you."
So subtle was this flattery and so seemingly sincere, that Robert
unconsciously assumed the courageous bearing expected of him; and, when
Miss Annersley led him out through a side door into the grounds, he drew
himself up and expanded his chest, and bade her keep close to him and he
would see she came to no harm. Peggy laughed softly as she drew nearer
to him, and the contact of the tall slender figure afforded Robert that
comfortable sense of human companionship which helps to minimise the
unknown terrors of the dark, even a darkness peopled with misty
apparitions. He began to believe quite firmly in his intrepidity.
At the entrance to the avenue they encountered Mr Chadwick; and for a
moment it seemed as though Robert's vaunted courage would desert him, as
Diogenes bounded forward out of the gloom and sprang excitedly upon
Peggy, greeting her with an effusiveness which, with her uncle looking
on, Peggy found secretly embarrassing.
"Is this your ghost?" she asked, glancing up at Robert, while she
attempted to restrain the dog, which, in the first moments of joyful
recognition, was an impossibility. "I begin to believe we are about to
solve the mystery."
Robert drew his squat figure up to its full height, which was
insignificant enough, and eyed her with contemptuous disapproval.
"Be that hanimal as big as a elephant?" he asked. "Be 'e misty like?
Would you say, now, that 'e could move wi'out walking, or that 'e shot
flames from his eyes? Would you, now?"
"No," Peggy answered. "I don't think he tallies with that description."
"Then 'ow can thicky be wot I seed?"
"True," she mused. "Plainly it wasn't Diogenes. We'll walk on, I
think, and look for your ghost."
Peggy was anxious to walk on. Mr Chadwick was advancing towards them
and she was not prepared just then for an encounter. She waved a hand
to him.
"I am going to the gate with Robert," she called to him, "to look for
spooks. You can come to meet me, to see that I am not carried away on a
broomstick."
Robert did not approve of the levity of her manner. He felt, indeed, so
resentful as he hurried along the avenue at her side, with Diogenes in
attendance, that he was doubly relieved when they reached the lodge
gates without any further supernatural visitation, the absence of which
he attributed, he informed her, to the presence of the dog. But the
transfer of half a crown from Peggy's slim hand to Robert's horny palm
softened his resentment sufficiently to allow him to wish her a friendly
good-night, and to further express the hope that "nothing dreadful" met
her on the way back.
Nothing more dreadful than Mr Chadwick awaited her in the elm avenue;
but Peggy at the moment would almost as soon have encountered a ghost as
her uncle; a ghost, at least, would not have asked awkward questions.
"What did Robert want?" Mr Chadwick inquired.
"He came with a message--for me."
"What about?"
"A private message," Peggy replied.
"Oh?" he said. He threw away his cigar and linked an arm within
Peggy's. "I thought he might have come to fetch Musgrave's dog. That
animal seems pretty much at home here."
"Y-es," Peggy returned dubiously.
"I wonder if Musgrave would be inclined to sell him. I've half a mind
to ask him."
"Oh, please don't do that!" Peggy said quickly.
"Why not?"
"I think--he wouldn't like it. He is so fond of the dog."
Will Chadwick laughed, and since his niece did not express any curiosity
as to the cause of his amusement, he did not explain it. But he
wondered why, when they changed the colour of Diogenes' coat, they had
not taken the precaution to buy him a new collar. He had been
interested that evening in inspecting the collar and reading his own
name and address inscribed thereon.