MY GRANDMOTHER'S LONG STOCKING.
There was a friend of the family of whose name I have no
remembrance, and whom, from a certain personal peculiarity, I must
denominate Snaggletooth. He was a large man--very tall, and round in
proportion--with a glistening bald head, a smooth full-fleshed face,
and clear gray eyes. In repose, and when he was not speaking, he was
by no means an unpleasant-looking man; his face was benignant, and his
clear gray eyes beamed kindly upon you. But directly he smiled he
became transformed, and his features were made to assume an almost
fiendish expression by reason of a hideous snaggle-tooth which thrust
itself forward immediately he opened his mouth. It stuck out like a
horn, and the change it effected in his appearance was something
marvellous.
As the friend of the family, Snaggletooth came forward and offered his
assistance. My father being confined to his bed by sickness, there was
no man in the house to look after the funeral of my grandmother, and
Snaggletooth's services were gladly accepted. I fancy that he was fond
of funerals, from the zealous manner in which he attended to the
details of this and a sadder one which followed not long afterwards.
Setting this fancy aside, he proved himself a genuine and
disinterested friend. We had no near relatives; my mother was an only
daughter, and my father had but one brother, older than he, whom I had
never seen, and who had disappeared from the place many years ago. He
was supposed to be dead; and from certain chance words which I must
have heard, I had gained a vague impression that he was not a credit
to the family.
It was a strange experience for me to sit in my grandmother's room
after her death, gazing at her empty armchair. I could not keep away
from the room; I crept into it at all hours of the day, and sat there
trembling. I mentally asked the stone monkey-figure what it thought of
my grandmother's death, and I put my fingers in my ears lest I should
hear an answer. Jane Painter found me there in the evening when she
came to put me to bed, and stated that my grandmother's spirit was
present, and that she was in communication with it. She held imaginary
conversations with my grandmother's ghost in the dusk, speaking very
softly and waiting for the answers. The effect was ghastly and
terrifying. These conversations related to nothing but poor me, and
the exquisite pain Jane Painter inflicted upon me by these means may
be easily imagined.
The first thing Snaggletooth did after my grandmother's funeral was to
search for her long stocking and the treasures it was supposed to
contain. Taking the words in their literal sense, I really thought
that the long stocking would be found hidden somewhere--under the bed
perhaps, or among the feathers, or up the chimney--stuffed with money,
in shape resembling my grandmother's leg, which I knew from actual
observation to be a substantial one.
'Perhaps she made a will,' observed Snaggletooth to my mother. Jane
Painter was present, hovering about us with hungry jealous eyes, lest
she should be cheated.
'She did make a will,' said Jane Painter, 'and I'm down in it.'
'Then we will find it,' said Snaggletooth cheerfully.
My grandmother's desk was opened, and every piece of paper in it was
examined. No will was there, nor a word relating to it. Her trunk was
searched with a like result.
'Never mind,' said Snaggletooth, with a genial smile, 'we shall be
sure to find the old lady's long stocking.'
And he set to work. But although a rigid search was made, no long
stocking could be found. Snaggletooth became immensely excited. Very
hot, very dusty and dirty, and with his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his
shoulders, he gazed at vacancy, and paused to take breath.
Disappointed as he was up to this point, his faith in my grandmother's
long stocking was not shaken; he had it not, and yet he saw it in form
as palpable as the lisle-thread stockings of my grandmother, which
were scattered about the room. A closer and more systematic search was
commenced. The hunt became more and more exciting, and still not a
glimpse of the fox's tail could be seen. Under Snaggletooth's
instructions the bedstead was taken down, the pillows and mattresses
were ripped open (Snaggletooth being determined not to leave a feather
unturned), the posts were sounded to discover if they were hollow, and
the strictest examination was made of every vestige of my
grandmother's clothing without a satisfactory result. Dirtier and
hotter than ever, and covered with fluff and feathers, Snaggletooth
looked about him with an air of 'What next?' His eye fell upon my
grandmother's armchair. Out came the stuffing that it contained, and
nothing more. My grandmother's footstool: a like result. Her portly
pincushion: nothing but bran. Up came the carpet, and almost blinded
us with dust. And then Snaggletooth sat down in the midst of the wreck
and said disconsolately:
'I am afraid we must give it up.'
So it was given up, and the mystery of my grandmother's long stocking
took honourable place in the family records as an important legend for
ever afterwards.
Jane Painter passed through many stages of emotion, and ended by being
furious. She vowed--no, she swore; it is more appropriate--that she
had been robbed, and openly declared that my mother had secreted my
grandmother's long stocking, and had destroyed the will. Nay, more;
she screamed that she had seen the treasure, which consisted of new
Bank of England notes and a heap of gold, and that in the will my
grandmother had left her three hundred pounds.
'Woman!' exclaimed Snaggletooth, rising from the ruins, 'be quiet!'
'Woman yourself!' screamed Jane Painter. 'You're in the plot to rob a
poor girl, and I'll have the law of you; I'll have the law, I'll have
the law!'
'Take it and welcome,' replied Snaggletooth. 'I hate it.'
But he was no match for Jane Painter, and he retired from the contest
discomfited; did not even stop to wash his face.
My mother was sad and puzzled. I did not entirely realise at the time
the cause of her sadness, because I did not know how poor she really
was, but I learnt it afterwards. She gathered sufficient courage to
tell Jane Painter that of course she could not stop in the house after
what she had said.
'If every hair in your head was a diamond,' gasped Jane Painter, 'I
wouldn't stop. No, not if you went down on your bended knees! I'll go
to-morrow.'
Then she pounced upon two silk dresses and some other articles of
clothing, and said that my grandmother had given them to her. My
mother submitted without a word, and Jane Painter marched to her room
and locked them in her box. She did as much mischief as she could on
her last evening in our house; broke things purposely and revenged
herself grandly on poor little me. After undressing and putting me to
bed as usual, and after smelling about the room, and under the bed,
and up the chimney for blood, she imparted to me the cheerful
intelligence that my grandmother's ghost would come and take me away
exactly at twelve o'clock that night. Near to our house was a church,
and many a night had I lain awake waiting for the tolling of the hour;
but I never listened with such intensity of purpose as I listened on
this night. As midnight drew near, I clenched my fists, I bit my lips,
I drew my knees almost up to my nose. I trembled and shook in the
darkness. I would not look, I thought; and when the hour tolled, every
note seemed charged with terrible meaning, and I shut my eyes tighter
and held my breath under the clothes. But when the bell had done
tolling, my state of horrible curiosity and fear compelled me to peep
out, and there in the middle of the room stood a tall figure in white.
So loud and shrill were my hysterical cries that my mother ran into
the room, there to find Jane Painter in her nightdress. I think the
woman herself; fearful lest she had gone too far, was glad to quit the
house the following day without being called to account for her
misdeeds. She did not leave without a few parting words. She called us
all a parcel of thieves, and said that a judgment would fall upon us
one day for robbing a poor servant of the money her dead mistress had
left her.