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 but 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.'"