You reach a chilling chamber, where you dread Damps.--Crabbe’s Borough.
I could not sleep the whole of that night, and the next morning, I set
off early, with the resolution of discovering where Glanville had taken
up his abode; it was evident from his having been so frequently seen,
that it must be in the immediate neighbourhood.
I went first to Farmer Sinclair’s; they had often remarked him, but
could give me no other information. I then proceeded towards the coast;
there was a small public house belonging to Sir Lionel close by the sea
shore; never had I seen a more bleak and dreary prospect than that which
stretched for miles around this miserable cabaret. How an innkeeper
could live there is a mystery to me at this day--I should have imagined
it a spot upon which anything but a sea-gull or a Scotchman would have
starved.
“Just the sort of place, however,” thought I, “to hear something of
Glanville.” I went into the house; I inquired, and heard that a strange
gentleman had been lodging for the last two or three weeks at a cottage
about a mile further up the coast. Thither I bent my steps; and after
having met two crows, and one officer on the preventive service, I
arrived safely at my new destination.
It was a house very little better, in outward appearance, than the
wretched hut I had just left, for I observe in all situations, and in
all houses, that “the public” is not too well served. The situation was
equally lonely and desolate; the house, which belonged to an individual,
half fisherman and half smuggler, stood in a sort of bay, between two
tall, rugged, black cliffs. Before the door hung various nets, to dry
beneath the genial warmth of a winter’s sun; and a broken boat, with
its keel uppermost, furnished an admirable habitation for a hen
and her family, who appeared to receive en pension, an old
clerico-bachelor-looking raven. I cast a suspicious glance at the
last-mentioned personage, which hopped towards me with a very hostile
appearance, and entered the threshold with a more rapid step, in
consequence of sundry apprehensions of a premeditated assault.
“I understand,” said I, to an old, dried, brown female, who looked like
a resuscitated red-herring, “that a gentleman is lodging here.”
“No, Sir,” was the answer: “he left us this morning.”
The reply came upon me like a shower bath; I was both chilled and
stunned by so unexpected a shock. The old woman, on my renewing my
inquiries, took me up stairs, to a small, wretched room, to which the
damps literally clung. In one corner was a flock-bed, still unmade, and
opposite to it, a three-legged stool, a chair, and an antique carved oak
table, a donation perhaps from some squire in the neighbourhood; on this
last were scattered fragments of writing paper, a cracked cup half
full of ink, a pen, and a broken ramrod. As I mechanically took up the
latter, the woman said, in a charming patois, which I shall translate,
since I cannot do justice to the original: “The gentleman, Sir, said he
came here for a few weeks to shoot; he brought a gun, a large dog, and a
small portmanteau. He used to spend all the mornings in the fens, though
he must have been but a poor shot, for he seldom brought home anything;
and we fear, Sir, that he was rather out of his mind, for he used to
go out alone at night, and stay sometimes till morning. However, he was
quite quiet, and behaved to us like a gentleman; so it was no business
of ours, only my husband does think--”
“Pray,” interrupted I, “why did he leave you so suddenly?”
“Lord, Sir, I don’t know! but he told us for several days past that he
should not stay over the week, and so we were not surprised when he left
us this morning at seven o’clock. Poor gentleman, my heart bled for him
when I saw him look so pale and ill.”
And here I did see the good woman’s eyes fill with tears: but she wiped
them away, and took advantage of the additional persuasion they gave to
her natural whine to say, “If, Sir, you know of any young gentleman who
likes fen-shooting, and wants a nice, pretty, quiet apartment--”
“I will certainly recommend this,” said I.
“You see it at present,” rejoined the landlady, “quite in a litter like:
but it is really a sweet place in summer.”
“Charming,” said I, with a cold shiver, hurrying down the stairs, with a
pain in my ear, and the rheumatism in my shoulder.
“And this,” thought I, “was Glanville’s residence for nearly a month! I
wonder he did not exhale into a vapour, or moisten into a green damp.”
I went home by the churchyard. I paused on the spot where I had last
seen him. A small gravestone rose over the mound of earth on which he
had thrown himself; it was perfectly simple. The date of the year and
month (which showed that many weeks had not elapsed since the death of
the deceased) and the initials G. D. were all that was engraved upon the
stone. Beside this tomb was one of a more pompous description, to the
memory of a Mrs. Douglas, which had with the simple tumulus nothing in
common, unless the initial letter of the surname corresponding with
the latter initial on the neighbouring gravestone, might authorize
any connection between them, not supported by that similitude of style
usually found in the cenotaphs of the same family: the one, indeed,
might have covered the grave of a humble villager--the other, the
resting-place of the lady of the manor.
I found, therefore, no clue for the labyrinth of surmise: and I went
home, more vexed and disappointed with my day’s expedition than I liked
to acknowledge to myself.
Lord Vincent met me in the hall. “Delighted to see you,” said he, “I
have just been to--, (the nearest town) in order to discover what sort
of savages abide there. Great preparations for a ball--all the tallow
candles in the town are bespoken--and I heard a most uncivilized fiddle,
“‘Twang short and sharp, like the shrill swallow’s cry.’”
The one milliner’s shop was full of fat squiresses, buying muslin
ammunition, to make the ball go off; and the attics, even at four
o’clock, were thronged with rubicund damsels, who were already, as
Shakspeare says of waves in a storm,
“‘Curling their monstrous heads.’”