"There are birds out on the bushes,
In the meadows lies the lamb,
How I wonder if they're ever
Half as frightened as I am?"
C.F. ALEXANDER.
The night-school was drawing to a close. The attendance had been good,
and the room looked cheerful. In one corner the Rector was teaching a
group of grown-up men, who (better late than never) were zealously
learning to read; in another the schoolmaster was flourishing his
stick before a map as he concluded his lesson in geography. By the
fire sat Master Arthur, the Rector's son, surrounded by his class, and
in front of him stood Beauty Bill. Master Arthur was very popular with
the people, especially with his pupils. The boys were anxious to get
into his class, and loath to leave it. They admired his great height,
his merry laugh, the variety of walking-sticks he brought with him,
and his very funny way of explaining pictures. He was not a very
methodical teacher, and was rather apt to give unexpected lessons on
subjects in which he happened just then to be interested himself; but
he had a clear simple way of explaining anything, which impressed it
on the memory, and he took a great deal of pains in his own way. Bill
was especially devoted to him. He often wished that Master Arthur
could get very rich, and take him for his man-servant; he thought he
should like to brush his clothes and take care of his sticks. He had a
great interest in the growth of his moustache and whiskers. For some
time past Master Arthur had had a trick of pulling at his upper lip
whilst he was teaching; which occasionally provoked a whisper of
"Moostarch, guvernor!" between two unruly members of his class; but
never till to-night had Bill seen anything in that line which
answered his expectations. Now, however, as he stood before the young
gentleman, the fire-light fell on such a distinct growth of hair, that
Bill's interest became absorbed to the exclusion of all but the most
perfunctory attention to the lesson on hand. Would Master Arthur grow
a beard? Would his moustache be short like the pictures of Prince
Albert, or long and pointed like that of some other great man whose
portrait he had seen in the papers? He was calculating on the probable
effect of either style, when the order was given to put away books,
and then the thought which had been for a time diverted came back
again--his walk home.
Poor Bill! his fears returned with double force from having been for
awhile forgotten. He dawdled over the books, he hunted in wrong places
for his cap and comforter, he lingered till the last boy had clattered
through the doorway, and left him with a group of elders who closed
the proceedings and locked up the school. But after this further delay
was impossible. The whole party moved out into the moonlight, and the
Rector and his son, the schoolmaster and the teachers, commenced, a
sedate parish gossip, whilst Bill trotted behind, wondering whether
any possible or impossible business would take one of them his way.
But when the turning point was reached, the Rector destroyed all his
hopes.
"None of us go your way, I think," said he, as lightly as if there
were no grievance in the case; "however, it's not far. Good-night, my
boy!"
And so with a volley of good-nights, the cheerful voices passed on up
the village. Bill stood till they had quite died away, and then when
all was silent, he turned into the lane.
The cold night-wind crept into his ears, and made uncomfortable noises
among the trees, and blew clouds over the face of the moon. He almost
wished that there were no moon. The shifting shadows under his feet,
and the sudden patches of light on unexpected objects, startled him,
and he thought he should have felt less frightened if it had been
quite dark. Once he ran for a bit, then he resolved to be brave, then
to be reasonable; he repeated scraps of lessons, hymns, and last
Sunday's Collect, to divert and compose his mind; and as this plan
seemed to answer, he determined to go through the Catechism, both
question and answer, which he hoped might carry him to the end of his
unpleasant journey. He had just asked himself a question with
considerable dignity, and was about to reply, when a sudden gleam of
moonlight lit up a round object in the ditch. Bill's heart seemed to
grow cold, and he thought his senses would have forsaken him. Could
this be the head of ----? No! on nearer inspection it proved to be
only a turnip; and when one came to think of it, that would have been
rather a conspicuous place for the murdered man's skull to have been
lost in for so many years.
My hero must not be ridiculed too much for his fears. The terrors that
visit childhood are not the less real and overpowering from being
unreasonable; and to excite them is wanton cruelty. Moreover, he was
but a little lad, and had been up and down Yew-lane both in daylight
and dark without any fears, till Bully Tom's tormenting suggestions
had alarmed him. Even now, as he reached the avenue of yews from which
the lane took its name, and passed into their gloomy shade, he tried
to be brave. He tried to think of the good GOD Who takes care of His
children, and to Whom the darkness and the light are both alike. He
thought of all he had been taught about angels, and wondered if one
were near him now, and wished that he could see him, as Abraham and
other good people had seen angels. In short, the poor lad did his best
to apply what he had been taught to the present emergency, and very
likely had he not done so he would have been worse; but as it was, he
was not a little frightened, as we shall see.
Yew-lane--cool and dark when the hottest sunshine lay beyond it--a
loitering place for lovers--the dearly-loved play-place of
generations of children on sultry summer days--looked very grim and
vault-like, with narrow streaks of moonlight peeping in at rare
intervals to make the darkness to be felt! Moreover, it was really
damp and cold, which is not favourable to courage. At a certain point
Yew-lane skirted a corner of the churchyard, and was itself crossed by
another road, thus forming a "four-want-way," where suicides were
buried in times past. This road was the old high-road, where the mail
coach ran, and along which, on such a night as this, a hundred years
ago, a horseman rode his last ride. As he passed the church on his
fatal journey did anything warn him how soon his headless body would
be buried beneath its shadow? Bill wondered. He wondered if he were
old or young--what sort of a horse he rode--whose cruel hands dragged
him into the shadow of the yews and slew him, and where his head was
hidden, and why. Did the church look just the same, and the moon shine
just as brightly, that night a century ago? Bully Tom was right. The
weathercock and moon sit still, whatever happens. The boy watched the
gleaming high road as it lay beyond the dark aisle of trees, till he
fancied he could hear the footfalls of the solitary horse--and yet,
no! The sound was not upon the hard road, but nearer; it was not the
clatter of hoofs, but something--and a rustle--and then Bill's blood
seemed to freeze in his veins, as he saw a white figure, wrapped in
what seemed to be a shroud, glide out of the shadow of the yews and
move slowly down the lane. When it reached the road it paused, raised
a long arm warningly towards him for a moment, and then vanished in
the direction of the churchyard.
What would have been the consequence of the intense fright the poor
lad experienced is more than anyone can say, if at that moment the
church clock had not begun to strike nine. The familiar sound, close
in his ears, roused him from the first shock, and before it had ceased
he contrived to make a desperate rally of his courage, flew over the
road, and crossed the two fields that now lay between him and home
without looking behind him.