keeper fired, and the creature went over and over in the dry leaves
and lay struggling and screaming. It was horrible! But what astonished
me was that the dog did not come up. I heard the keeper snap out
something, and then I saw the dog making off down the avenue in the
direction of the churchyard as hard as he could go.
“The keeper was running now toward me, but the screaming of the hare,
or of whatever it was, had stopped, and I was astonished to see the man
come right up to where the beast was struggling and kicking and then
stop as if he were puzzled.
“I leaned out of the window and called to him.
“‘Right in front of you, man,’ I said; ‘for God’s sake kill the brute.’
“He looked up at me and then down again.
“‘Where is it, sir?’ he said; ‘I can’t see it anywhere.’
“And there lay the beast clear before him all the while not a yard
away, still kicking.
“Well, I went out of the room and downstairs and out to the avenue.
“The man was standing there still, looking terribly puzzled, but
the hare was gone. There was not a sign of it. Only the leaves were
disturbed, and the wet earth showed beneath.
“The keeper said that it had been a great hare; he could have sworn to
it, and that he had orders to kill all hares and rabbits in the garden
enclosure. Then he looked rather odd.
“‘Did you see it plainly, sir?’ he asked.
“I told him not very plainly; but I thought it a hare, too.
“‘Yes, sir,’ he said; ‘it was a hare, sure enough; but do you know,
sir, I thought it to be a kind of silver-gray, with white feet. I never
saw one like that before!’
“The odd thing was that not a dog would come near. His own dog was
gone, but I fetched the yard dog, a retriever, out of his kennel in the
kitchen yard, and if ever I saw a frightened dog it was this one. When
we dragged him up at last, all whining and pulling back, he began to
snap at us so fiercely that we let go, and he went back like the wind
to his kennel. It was the same with the terrier.
“Well, the bell had gone, and I had to go in and explain why I was
late; but I didn’t say anything about the color of the hare. That was
the second incident.”
Father Macclesfield stopped again, smiling reminiscently to himself.
I was very much impressed by his quiet air and composure. I think it
helped his story a good deal.
Again, before we had time to comment or question, he went on.
“The third incident was so slight that I should not have mentioned it,
or thought anything of it, if it had not been for the others; but it
seemed to me there was a kind of diminishing gradation of energy which
explained. Well, now you shall hear.
“On the other nights of that week I was at my window again, but nothing
happened till the Friday. I had arranged to go for certain next day;
the widow was much better and more reasonable, and even talked of going
abroad herself in the following week.
“On that Friday evening I dressed a little earlier and went down to
the avenue this time, instead of staying at my window, at about twenty
minutes to eight.
“It was rather a heavy, depressing evening, without a breath of wind,
and it was darker than it had been for some days.
“I walked slowly down the avenue to the gate and back again; and I
suppose it was fancy, but I felt more uncomfortable than I had felt at
all up to then. I was rather relieved to see the widow come out of the
house and stand looking down the avenue. I came out myself then and
went toward her. She started rather when she saw me and then smiled.
“‘I thought it was some one else,’ she said. ‘Father, I have made up
my mind to go. I shall go to town to-morrow, and start on Monday. My
sister will come with me.’
“I congratulated her, and then we turned and began to walk back to the
lime avenue. She stopped at the entrance, and seemed unwilling to come
any further.
“‘Come down to the end,’ I said, ‘and back again. There will be time
before dinner.’
“She said nothing, but came with me, and we went straight down to the
gate and then turned to come back.
“I don’t think either of us spoke a word; I was very uncomfortable
indeed by now, and yet I had to go on.
“We were half way back, I suppose, when I heard a sound like a gate
rattling; and I whisked round in an instant, expecting to see some one
at the gate. But there was no one.
“Then there came a rustling overhead in the leaves; it had been dead
still before. Then, I don’t know why, but I took my friend suddenly by
the arm and drew her to one side out of the path, so that we stood on
the right hand, not a foot from the laurels.
“She said nothing, and I said nothing; but I think we were both looking
this way and that, as if we expected to see something.
“The breeze died, and then sprang up again, but it was only a breath.
I could hear the living leaves rustling overhead, and the dead leaves
underfoot, and it was blowing gently from the churchyard.
“Then I saw a thing that one often sees; but I could not take my eyes
off it, nor could she. It was a little column of leaves, twisting and
turning and dropping and picking up again in the wind, coming slowly up
the path. It was a capricious sort of draught, for the little scurry
of leaves went this way and that, to and fro across the path. It came
up to us, and I could feel the breeze on my hands and face. One leaf
struck me softly on the cheek, and I can only say that I shuddered as
if it had been a toad. Then it passed on.
“You understand, gentlemen, it was pretty dark; but it seemed to me
that the breeze died and the column of leaves--it was no more than a
little twist of them--sank down at the end of the avenue.
“We stood there perfectly still for a moment or two, and when I turned
she was staring straight at me, but neither of us said one word.
“We did not go up the avenue to the house. We pushed our way through
the laurels and came back by the upper garden.
“Nothing else happened; and the next morning we all went off by the
eleven o’clock train.
“That is all, gentlemen.”
XI
_Father Stein’s Tale_
Old Father Stein was a figure that greatly fascinated me during my
first weeks in Rome, after I had got over the slight impatience that
his personality roused in me. He was slow of speech and thought
and movement, and had that distressing grip of the obvious that is
characteristic of the German mind. I soon rejoiced to look at his heavy
face, generally unshaven, his deep twinkling eyes, and the ponderous
body that had such an air of eternal immovability, and to watch his
mind, as through a glass case, laboring like an engine over a fact that
he had begun to assimilate. He took a kind of paternal interest in me,
too, and would thrust his thick hand under my arm as he stood by me,
or clap me heavily on the shoulder as we met. But he was excellently
educated, had seen much of the world, although always through a haze of
the Fatherland that accompanied him everywhere, and had acquired an
exceptional knowledge of English during his labors in a London mission.
He used his large vocabulary with a good deal of skill.
I was pleased then when Monsignor announced on the following evening
that Father Stein was prepared to contribute a story. But the German,
knowing that he was master of the situation, would utter nothing at
first but hoarse ejaculations at the thought of his reminiscences, and
it was not until we had been seated for nearly half an hour before the
fire that he consented to begin.
* * * * *
“It is of a dream,” he said; “no more than that; and yet dreams, too,
are under the hand of the good God, so I hold. Some, I know, are just
folly, and tell us nothing but the confusion of our own nature when the
controlling will is withdrawn; but some, I hold, are the whispers of
God, and tell us of what we are too dull to hear in our waking life.
You do not believe me? Very well; then listen.
“I knew a man in Germany, thirty years ago, who had lived many years
away from God. He had been a Catholic, and was well educated in
religion till he grew to be a lad. Then he fell into sin, and dared not
confess it; and he lied, and made bad confessions, and approached the
altar so. He once went to a strange priest to tell his sin, and dared
not when the time came; and so added sin to sin, and lost his faith.
It is ever so. We know it well. The soul dare not go on in that state,
believing in God, and so by an inner act of the will renounces Him. It
is not true, it is not true, she cries; and at last the voice of faith
is silent and her eyes blind.”
The priest stopped and looked round him, and the old Rector nodded once
or twice and murmured assent.
“For twenty years he had lived so, without God, and he was not unhappy;
for the powers of his soul died one by one, and he could no longer
feel. Once or twice they struggled, in their death agony, and he
stamped on them again. Once, when his mother died, he nearly lived
again; and his soul cried once more within him, and stirred herself;
but he would not hear her; it is useless, he said to her; there is no
hope for you; lie still; there is nothing for you; you are dreaming;
there is no life such as you think; and he trampled her again, and she
lay still.”
We were all very quiet now. I certainly had not suspected such passion
in this old priest; he had seemed to me slow and dull and not capable
of any sort of delicate thought or phrase, far less of tragedy; but
somehow now his great face was lighted up, his eyebrows twitched as
he talked, and it seemed as if we were hearing of a murder that this
man had seen for himself. Monsignor sat perfectly motionless, staring
intently into the fire, and Father Brent was watching the German
sideways; Father Stein took a deliberate pinch of snuff, snapped his
box, and put it away, and went on.
“This man had lived on the sea coast as a child, but was now in
business in a town on the Rhine, and had never visited his old home
since he left it with his mother on his father’s death. He was now
about thirty-five years of age, when God was gracious to him. He was
living in a cousin’s house, with whom he was partner.
“One night he dreamed he was a child, and walking with one whom he
knew was his sister who had died before he was born, but he could not
see her face. They were on a white, dusty road, and it was the noon
of a hot summer day. There was nothing to be seen round him but great
slopes of a dusty country with dry grass, and the burning sky overhead,
and the sun. He was tired, and his feet ached, and he was crying as he
walked, but he dared not cry loud for fear that his sister would turn
and look at him, and he knew she was a--a _revenant_, and did not wish
to see her eyes. There was no wind and no birds and no clouds; only the
grasshoppers sawed in the dry grass, and the blood drummed in his ears
until he thought he would go mad with the noise. And so they walked,
the boy behind his sister, up a long hill. It seemed to him that they
had been walking so for hours, for a lifetime, and that there would be
no end to it. His feet sank to the ankles in dust, the sun beat on to
his brain from above, the white road glared from below, and the tears
ran down his cheeks.
“Then there was a breath of salt wind in his face, and his sister began
to go faster, noiselessly; and he tried, too, to go faster, but could
not; his heart beat like a hammer in his throat, and his feet lagged
more and more, and little by little his sister was far in front, and
he dared not cry out to her not to leave him for fear she should turn
and look at him; and at last he was walking alone, and he dared not lie
down or rest.
“The road passed up a slope, and when he reached the top of it at last
he saw her again, far away, a little figure that turned to him and
waved its hand, and behind her was the blue sea, very faint and in a
mist of heat, and then he knew that the end of the bitter journey was
very near.
“As he passed up the last slope the sea-line rose higher against the
sky, but the line was only as the fine mark of a pencil where sea and
sky met, and a dazzling white bird or two passed across it and then
dropped below the cliff. By the time he came near his sister the dusty
road had died away into the grass, and he was walking over the fresh
turf that felt cool to his hot feet. He threw himself down on the edge
of it by his sister, where she was lying with her head on her hands
looking out at the sea where it spread itself out, a thousand feet
below; and still he had not seen her face.
“At the foot of the cliff was a little white beach, and the rocks ran
down into deep water on every side of it, and threw a purple shadow
across the sand; there were birds here, too, floating out from the
cliff and turning and returning; and the sea beneath them was a clear
blue, like a Cardinal’s ring that I saw once, and the breeze blew up
from the water and made him happy again.”
Father Stein stopped again, with something of a sob in his old heavy
voice, and then he turned to us.
“You know such dreams,” he said; “I cannot tell it as--as he told me;
but he said it was like the bliss of the redeemed to look down on the
sea and feel the breeze in his hair, and taste its saltness.
“He did not wish his sister to speak, though he was afraid of her no
more; and yet he knew that there was some secret to be told that would
explain all--why they were here, and why she had come back to him, and
why the sea was here, and the little beach below them, and the wind and
the birds. But he was content to wait until it was time for her to tell
him, as he knew she would. It was enough to lie here, after the dusty
journey, beside her, and to wait for the word that should be spoken.
“Now, at first he was so out of breath and his heart beat so in his
ears that he could hear nothing but that and his own panting; but it
grew quieter soon, and he began to hear something else--the noises
of the sea beneath him. It was a still day, but there was movement
down below, and the surge heaved itself softly against the cliff and
murmured in deep caves below, like the pedal note of the Frankfort
organ, solemn and splendid; and the waves leaned over and crashed
gently on the sand. It was all so far beneath that he saw the breaking
wave before the sound came up to him, and he lay there and watched and
listened; and that great sound made him happier even than the light on
the water and the coolness and rest; for it was the sea itself that was
speaking now.
“Then he saw suddenly that his sister had turned on her elbow and was
looking at him; and he looked into her eyes, and knew her, though she
had died before he was born. And she, too, was listening, with her lips
parted, to the sound of the surge. And now he knew that the secret was
to be told; and he watched her eyes, smiling. And she lifted her hand,
as if to hold him silent, and waited, and again the sweet murmur and
crash rose up from the sea, and she spoke softly.
“‘It is the Precious Blood,’ she said.”
Father Stein was silent, and we all were silent for a while. As far
as I was concerned, at least, the story had somehow held me with an
extraordinary fascination, I scarcely knew why.
There was a movement among the others, and presently the Frenchman
spoke.
“_Et puis?_” he said.
“The man awoke,” said Father Stein, “and found tears on his face.”
* * * * *
It was such a short story that there were still a few minutes before
the time for night-prayers, and we sat there without speaking again
until the clock sounded in the campanile overhead, and the Rector rose
and led the way into the west gallery of the church. I saw Father Stein
waiting at the door for me to come up, and I knew why he was waiting.
He took my arm in his thick hand and held it a moment as the others
passed down the two steps.
“I was that man,” he said.
XII
_Mr. Percival’s Tale_
When I came in from mass into the refectory on the morning following
Father Stein’s story, I found a layman breakfasting there with the
Father Rector. We were introduced to each other, and I learned that Mr.
Percival was a barrister, who had arrived from England that morning on
a holiday, and was to stay at St. Filippo for a fortnight.
I yield to none in my respect for the clergy; at the same time a layman
feels occasionally something of a pariah among them. I suppose this
is bound to be the case, so I was pleased then to find another dog of
my breed with whom I might consort, and even howl, if I so desired. I
was pleased, too, with his appearance. He had that trim, academic air
that is characteristic of the Bar, in spite of his twenty-two hours’
journey, and was dressed in an excellently made gray suit. He was
very slightly bald on his forehead, and had those sharp-cut, mask-like
features that mark a man as either lawyer, priest or actor; he had,
besides, delightful manners and even, white teeth. I do not think I
could have suggested any improvements in person, behavior, or costume.
By the time that my coffee had arrived the Father Rector had run dry of
conversation, and I could see that he was relieved when I joined in.
In a few minutes I was telling Mr. Percival about the symposium we had
formed for the relating of preternatural adventures, and I presently
asked him whether he had ever had any experience of the kind.
He shook his head.
“I have not,” he said in his virile voice; “my business takes my time.”
“I wish you had been with us earlier,” put in the Rector. “I think you
would have been interested.”
“I am sure of it,” he said. “I remember once--but you know, Father,
frankly I am something of a sceptic.”
“You remember?” I suggested.
He smiled very pleasantly with eyes and mouth.
“Yes, Mr. Benson; I was once next door to such a story. A friend of
mine saw something; but I was not with him at the moment.”
“Well, we thought we had finished last night,” I said; “but do you
think you would be too tired to entertain us this evening?”
“I shall be delighted to tell the story,” he said easily. “But indeed I
am a sceptic in this matter; I cannot dress it up.”
“We want the naked fact,” I said.
I went sight-seeing with him that day, and found him extremely
intelligent and at the same time accurate. The two virtues do not
run often together, and I felt confident that whatever he chose to
tell us would be salient and true. I felt, too, that he would need
few questions to draw him out; he would say what there was to be said
unaided.
When we had taken our places that night he began by again apologizing
for his attitude of mind.
“I do not know, reverend Fathers,” he said, “what are your own
theories in this matter; but it appears to me that if what seems to be
preternatural can possibly be brought within the range of the natural,
one is bound scientifically to treat it in that way. Now in this story
of mine--for I will give you a few words of explanation first in order
to prejudice your minds as much as possible--in this story the whole
matter might be accounted for by the imagination. My friend, who saw
what he saw, was under rather theatrical circumstances, and he is an
Irishman. Besides that, he knew the history of the place in which he
was; and he was quite alone. On the other hand, he has never had an
experience of the kind before or since; he is perfectly truthful, and
he saw what he saw in moderate daylight. I give you these facts first,
and I think you would be perfectly justified in thinking they account
for everything. As for my own theory, which is not quite that, I have
no idea whether you will agree or disagree with it. I do not say that
my judgment is the only sensible one, or anything offensive like that.
I merely state what I feel I am bound to accept for the present.”
There was a murmur of assent. Then he crossed his legs, leaned back and
began:
* * * * *
“In my first summer after I was called to the Bar I went down South
Wales for a holiday with another man who had been with me at Oxford.
His name was Murphy; he is a J.P. now, in Ireland, I think. I cannot
think why we went to South Wales; but there it is. We did.
“We took the train to Cardiff, sent on our luggage up the Taff Valley
to an inn of which I cannot remember the name, but it was close to
where Lord Bute has a vineyard. Then we walked up to Llandaff, saw St.
Tylo’s tomb, and went on again to this village.
“Next morning we thought we would look about us before going on, and we
went out for a stroll. It was one of the most glorious mornings I ever
remember, quite cloudless and very hot, and we went up through woods to
get a breeze at the top of the hill.
“We found that the whole place was full of iron mines, disused now, as
the iron is richer further up the country; but I can tell you that they
enormously improved the interest of the place. We found shaft after
shaft, some protected and some not, but mostly overgrown with bushes,
so we had to walk carefully. We had passed half a dozen, I should
think, before the thought of going down one of them occurred to Murphy.
“Well, we got down at last, though I rather wished for a rope once or
twice, and I think it was one of the most extraordinary sights I have
ever seen. You know, perhaps, what the cave of a demon-king is like in
the first act of a pantomime. Well, it was like that. There was a kind
of blue light that poured down the shafts, refracted from surface to
surface, so that the sky was invisible. On all sides passages ran into
total darkness; huge reddish rocks stood out fantastically everywhere
in the pale light; there was a sound of water falling into a pool from
a great height, and presently, striking matches as we went, we came
upon a couple of lakes of marvelously clear blue water, through which
we could see the heads of ladders emerging from other black holes of
unknown depth below.
“We found our way out after a while into what appeared to be the
central hall of the mine. Here we saw plain daylight again, for there
was an immense round opening at the top, from the edges of which curved
away the sides of the shaft, forming a huge circular chamber.
“Imagine the Albert Hall roofless; or, better still, imagine Saint
Peter’s with the top half of the dome removed. Of course, it was far
smaller, but it gave an impression of great size, and it could not
have been less than two hundred feet from the edge, over which we saw
the trees against the sky, to the tumbled, dusty, rocky floor where we
stood.
“I can only describe it as being like a great burnt-out hell in the
_Inferno_. Red dust lay everywhere; escape seemed impossible; and vast
crags and galleries, with the mouths of passages showing high up,
marked by iron bars and chains, jutted out here and there.
“We amused ourselves here for some time by climbing up the sides,
calling to one another, for the whole place was full of echoes, rolling
down stones from some of the upper edges; but I nearly ended my days
there.
“I was standing on a path, about seventy feet up, leaning against the
wall. It was a path along which feet must have gone a thousand times
when the mine was in working order, and I was watching Murphy, who was
just emerging onto a platform opposite me, on the other side of the
gulf.
“I put my hand behind me to steady myself, and the next instant very
nearly fell forward over the edge at the violent shock to my nerves
given by a wood-pigeon who burst out of a hole, brushing my hand as he
passed. I gripped on, however, and watched the bird soar out across
space, and then up and out at the opening; and then I became aware
that my knees were beginning to shake. So I stumbled along, and threw
myself down on the little platform onto which the passage led.
“I suppose I had been more startled than I knew, for I tripped as I
went forward, and knocked my knee rather sharply on a stone. I felt for
an instant quite sick with the pain on the top of jangling nerves, and
lay there saying what I am afraid I ought not to have said.
“Then Murphy came up when I called, and we made our way together
through one of the sloping shafts, and came out onto the hillside among
the trees.”
Mr. Percival paused; his lips twitched a moment with amusement.
“I am afraid I must recall my promise,” he said. “I told you all this
because I was anxious to give a reason for the feeling I had about the
mine, and which I am bound to mention. I felt I never wanted to see
the place again--yet in spite of what followed I do not necessarily
attribute my feelings to anything but the shock and the pain that I had
had. You understand that?”
His bright eyes ran round our faces.
“Yes, yes,” said Monsignor sharply; “go on, please, Mr. Percival.”
“Well, then!”
The lawyer uncrossed his legs and placed them the other way.
“During lunch we told the landlady where we had been, and she begged us
not to go there again. I told her that she might rest easy; my knee was
beginning to swell. It was a wretched beginning to a walking tour.
“It was not that, she said; but there had been a bad accident there.
Four men had been killed there twenty years before by a fall of rock.
That had been the last straw on the top of ill-success, and the mine
had been abandoned.