Lode. It had been affixed to many posts in turn, and defied them all
to hold it. Not that the pump was at fault. It was a trifling affair
enough. But the pumpers were usually garden-boys, whose impatient
energy had never failed, before many days, to wriggle the pump away
from its supports. When the gardener had, upon one occasion, spent
half a day in attaching it firmly to a post, they had at once shaken
out the post itself. Since, therefore, the matter was causing daily
inconvenience, and the gardener becoming daily more concerned for his
reputation as a rough carpenter, it was natural for him to exclaim,
"This is the very thing." It was a better stake than he had ever used,
and as had just been made evident, a stake that the ground would hold.
"Yes!" said Mr. Batchel, "it is the very thing; but can we get it up?"
The gardener always accepted this kind of query as a challenge, and
replied only by taking up a pick and setting to work, Mr. Batchel,
as usual, looking on, and making, every now and then, a fruitless
suggestion. After a few minutes, however, he made somewhat more than a
suggestion. He darted forward and laid his hand upon the pick. "Don't
you see some copper?" he asked quickly.
Every man who digs knows what a hiding place there is in the earth.
The monotony of spade work is always relieved by a hope of turning up
something unexpected. Treasure lies dimly behind all these hopes, so
that the gardener, having seen Mr. Batchel excited over so much that
was precious from his own point of view, was quite ready to look for
something of value to an ordinary reasonable man. Copper might lead to
silver, and that, in turn, to gold. At Mr. Batchel's eager question,
therefore, he peered into the hole he had made, and examined everything
there that might suggest the rounded form of a coin.
He soon saw what had arrested Mr. Batchel. There was a lustrous scratch
on the side of the stake, evidently made by the pick, and though the
metal was copper, plainly enough, the gardener felt that he had been
deceived, and would have gone on with his work. Copper of that sort
gave him no sort of excitement, and only a feeble interest.
Mr. Batchel, however, was on his hands and knees. There was a small
irregular plate of copper nailed to the stake; without any difficulty
he tore it away from the nails, and soon scraped it clean with a
shaving of wood; then, rising to his feet, he examined his find.
There was an inscription upon it, so legible as to need no deciphering.
It had been roughly and effectually made with a hammer and nail, the
letters being formed by series of holes punched deeply into the metal,
and what he read was:--
MOVE NOT THIS
STAKE, NOV. 1, 1702.
But to move the stake was what Mr. Batchel had determined upon, and the
metal plate he held in his hand interested him chiefly as showing how
long the post had been there. He had happened, as he supposed, upon an
ancient landmark. The discovery, recorded elsewhere, of a well, near to
the edge of his present lawn, had shown him that his premises had once
been differently arranged. One of the minor antiquarian tasks he had
set himself was to discover and record the old arrangement, and he felt
that the position of this stake would help him. He felt no doubt of
its being a point upon the western limit of the garden; not improbably
marked in this way to show where the garden began, and where ended the
ancient hauling-way, which had been secured to the public for purposes
of navigation.
The gardener, meanwhile, was proceeding with his work. With no small
difficulty he removed the rubble and clay which accounted for the
firmness of the stake. It grew dark as the work went on, and a distant
clock struck five before it was completed. Five was the hour at
which the gardener usually went home; his day began early. He was
not, however, a man to leave a small job unfinished, and he went on
loosening the earth with his pick, and trying the effect, at intervals,
upon the firmness of the stake. It naturally began to give, and could
be moved from side to side through a space of some few inches. He
lifted out the loosened stones, and loosened more. His pick struck
iron, which, after loosening, proved to be links of a rusted chain.
"They've buried a lot of rubbish in this hole," he remarked, as he went
on loosening the chain, which, in the growing darkness, could hardly
be seen. Mr. Batchel, meanwhile, occupied himself in a simpler task of
working the stake to and fro, by way of loosening its hold. Ultimately
it began to move with greater freedom. The gardener laid down his
tool and grasped the stake, which his master was still holding; their
combined efforts succeeded at once; the stake was lifted out.
It turned out to be furnished with an unusually long and sharp point,
which explained the firmness of its hold upon the ground. The gardener
carried it to the neighbourhood of the pump, in readiness for its next
purpose, and made ready to go home. He would drive the stake to-morrow,
he said, in the new place, and make the pump so secure that not even
the boys could shake it. He also spoke of some designs he had upon
the chain, should it prove to be of any considerable length. He was an
ingenious man, and his skill in converting discarded articles to new
uses was embarrassing to his master. Mr. Batchel, as has been said, was
a prim gardener, and he had no liking for makeshift devices. He had
that day seen his runner beans trained upon a length of old gas-piping,
and had no intention of leaving the gardener in possession of such a
treasure as a rusty chain. What he said, however, and said with truth,
was that he wanted the chain for himself. He had no practical use for
it, and hardly expected it to yield him any interest. But a chain
buried in 1702 must be examined--nothing ancient comes amiss to a man
of antiquarian tastes.
Mr. Batchel had noticed, whilst the gardener had been carrying away
the stake, that the chain lay very loosely in the earth. The pick had
worked well round it. He said, therefore, that the chain must be lifted
out and brought to him upon the morrow, bade his gardener good night,
and went in to his fireside.
This will appear to the reader to be a record of the merest trifles,
but all readers will accept the reminder that there is no such
thing as a trifle, and that what appears to be trivial has that
appearance only so long as it stands alone. Regarded in the light
of their consequences, those matters which have seemed to be least
in importance, turn out, often enough, to be the greatest. And these
trifling occupations, as we may call them for the last time, of Mr.
Batchel and the gardener, had consequences which shall now be set down
as Mr. Batchel himself narrated them. But we must take events in their
order. At present Mr. Batchel is at his fireside, and his gardener at
home with his family. The stake is removed, and the hole, in which lies
some sort of an iron chain, is exposed.
Upon this particular evening Mr. Batchel was dining out. He was a
good natured man, with certain mild powers of entertainment, and his
presence as an occasional guest was not unacceptable at some of the
more considerable houses of the neighbourhood. And let us hasten to
observe that he was not a guest who made any great impression upon
the larders or the cellars of his hosts. He liked port, but he liked
it only of good quality, and in small quantity. When he returned
from a dinner party, therefore, he was never either in a surfeited
condition of body, or in any confusion of mind. Not uncommonly after
his return upon such occasions did he perform accurate work. Unfinished
contributions to sundry local journals were seldom absent from his
desk. They were his means of recreation. There they awaited convenient
intervals of leisure, and Mr. Batchel was accustomed to say that of
these intervals he found none so productive as a late hour, or hour and
a half, after a dinner party.
Upon the evening in question he returned, about an hour before
midnight, from dining at the house of a retired officer residing in the
neighbourhood, and the evening had been somewhat less enjoyable than
usual. He had taken in to dinner a young lady who had too persistently
assailed him with antiquarian questions. Now Mr. Batchel did not like
talking what he regarded as "shop," and was not much at home with young
ladies, to whom he knew that, in the nature of things, he could be
but imperfectly acceptable. With infinite good will towards them, and
a genuine liking for their presence, he felt that he had but little
to offer them in exchange. There was so little in common between his
life and theirs. He felt distinctly at his worst when he found himself
treated as a mere scrap-book of information. It made him seem, as he
would express it, de-humanised.
Upon this particular evening the young lady allotted to him, perhaps
at her own request, had made a scrap-book of him, and he had returned
home somewhat discontented, if also somewhat amused. His discontent
arose from having been deprived of the general conversation he so
greatly, but so rarely, enjoyed. His amusement was caused by the
incongruity between a very light-hearted young lady and the subject
upon which she had made him talk, for she had talked of nothing else
but modes of burial.
He began to recall the conversation as he lit his pipe and dropped into
his armchair. She had either been reflecting deeply upon the matter,
or, as seemed to Mr. Batchel, more probable, had read something and
half forgotten it. He recalled her questions, and the answers by which
he had vainly tried to lead her to a more attractive topic. For example:
She: Will you tell me why people were buried at cross roads?
He: Well, consecrated ground was so jealously guarded that a
criminal would be held to have forfeited the right to be buried
amongst Christian folk. His friends would therefore choose
cross roads where there was set a wayside cross, and make his
grave at the foot of it. In some of my journeys in Scotland I
have seen crosses....
But the young lady had refused to be led into Scotland. She had stuck
to her subject.
She: Why have coffins come back into use? There is nothing in our
Burial Service about a coffin.
He: True, and the use of the coffin is due, in part, to an ignorant
notion of confining the corpse, lest, like Hamlet's father, he
should walk the earth. You will have noticed that the corpse
is always carried out of the house feet foremost, to suggest a
final exit, and that the grave is often covered with a heavy
slab. Very curious epitaphs are to be found on these slabs....
But she was not to be drawn into the subject of epitaphs. She had made
him tell of other devices for confining spirits to their prison, and
securing the peace of the living, especially of those adopted in the
case of violent and mischievous men. Altogether an unusual sort of
young lady.
The conversation, however, had revived his memories of what was, after
all, a matter of some interest, and he determined to look through his
parish registers for records of exceptional burials. He was surprised
at himself for never having done it. He dismissed the matter from his
mind for the time being, and as it was a bright moonlight night he
thought he would finish his pipe in the garden.
Therefore, although midnight was close at hand, he strolled complacently
round his garden, enjoying the light of the moon no less than in the
daytime he would have enjoyed the sun; and thus it was that he arrived
at the scene of his labours upon the old rockery. There was more light
than there had been at the end of the afternoon, and when he had walked
up the bank, and stood over the hole we have already described, he could
distinctly see the few exposed links of the iron chain. Should he remove
it at once to a place of safety, out of the way of the gardener? It was
about time for bed. The city clocks were then striking midnight. He
would let the chain decide. If it came out easily he would remove it;
otherwise, it should remain until morning.
The chain came out more than easily. It seemed to have a force within
itself. He gave but a slight tug at the free end with a view of
ascertaining what resistance he had to encounter, and immediately found
himself lying upon his back with the chain in his hand. His back had
fortunately turned towards an elm three feet away which broke his fall,
but there had been violence enough to cause him no little surprise.
The effort he had made was so slight that he could not account for
having lost his feet; and being a careful man, he was a little anxious
about his evening coat, which he was still wearing. The chain, however,
was in his hand, and he made haste to coil it into a portable shape,
and to return to the house.
Some fifty yards from the spot was the northern boundary of the garden,
a long wall with a narrow lane beyond. It was not unusual, even at
this hour of the night, to hear footsteps there. The lane was used by
railway men, who passed to and from their work at all hours, as also by
some who returned late from entertainments in the neighbouring city.
But Mr. Batchel, as he turned back to the house, with his chain over
one arm, heard more than footsteps. He heard for a few moments the
unmistakable sound of a scuffle, and then a piercing cry, loud and
sharp, and a noise of running. It was such a cry as could only have
come from one in urgent need of help.
Mr. Batchel dropped his chain. The garden wall was some ten feet high
and he had no means of scaling it. But he ran quickly into the house,
passed out by the hall door into the street, and so towards the lane
without a moment's loss of time.
Before he has gone many yards he sees a man running from the lane with
his clothing in great disorder, and this man, at the sight of Mr.
Batchel, darts across the road, runs along in the shadow of an opposite
wall and attempts to escape.
The man is known well enough to Mr. Batchel. It is one Stephen Medd, a
respectable and sensible man, by occupation a shunter, and Mr. Batchel
at once calls out to ask what has happened. Stephen, however, makes no
reply but continues to run along the shadow of the wall, whereupon Mr.
Batchel crosses over and intercepts him, and again asks what is amiss.
Stephen answers wildly and breathlessly, "I'm not going to stop here,
let me go home."
As Mr. Batchel lays his hand upon the man's arm and draws him into the
light of the moon, it is seen that his face is streaming with blood
from a wound near the eye.
He is somewhat calmed by the familiar voice of Mr. Batchel, and is
about to speak, when another scream is heard from the lane. The voice
is that of a boy or woman, and no sooner does Stephen hear it than he
frees himself violently from Mr. Batchel and makes away towards his
home. With no less speed does Mr. Batchel make for the lane, and finds
about half way down a boy lying on the ground wounded and terrified.
At first the boy clings to the ground, but he, too, is soon reassured
by Mr. Batchel's voice, and allows himself to be lifted on to his
feet. His wound is also in the face, and Mr. Batchel takes the boy
into his house, bathes and plasters his wound, and soon restores him
to something like calm. He is what is termed a call-boy, employed by
the Railway Company to awaken drivers at all hours, and give them their
instructions.
Mr. Batchel is naturally impatient for the moment he can question
the boy about his assailant, who is presumably also the assailant
of Stephen Medd. No one had been visible in the lane, though the
moon shone upon it from end to end. At the first available moment,
therefore, he asks the boy, "Who did this?"
The answer came, without any hesitation, "Nobody." "There was nobody
there," he said, "and all of a sudden somebody hit me with an iron
thing."
Then Mr. Batchel asked, "Did you see Stephen Medd?" He was becoming
greatly puzzled.
The boy replied that he had seen Mr. Medd "a good bit in front," with
nobody near him, and that all of a sudden someone knocked him down.
Further questioning seemed useless. Mr. Batchel saw the boy to his
home, left him at the door, and returned to bed, but not to sleep.
He could not cease from thinking, and he could think of nothing but
assaults from invisible hands. Morning seemed long in coming, but came
at last.
Mr. Batchel was up betimes and made a very poor breakfast. Dallying
with the morning paper, rather than reading it, his eye was arrested by
a headline about "Mysterious assaults in Elmham." He felt that he had
mysteries of his own to occupy him and was in no mood to be interested
in more assaults. But he had some knowledge of Elmham, a small town ten
miles distant from Stoneground, and he read the brief paragraph, which
contained no more than the substance of a telegram. It said, however,
that three persons had been victims of unaccountable assaults. Two of
them had escaped with slight injuries, but the third, a young woman,
was dangerously wounded, though still alive and conscious. She declared
that she was quite alone in her house and had been suddenly struck
with great violence by what felt like a piece of iron, and that she
must have bled to death but for a neighbour who heard her cries. The
neighbour had at once looked out and seen nobody, but had bravely gone
to her friend's assistance.
Mr. Batchel laid down his newspaper considerably impressed, as was
natural, by the resemblance of these tragedies to what he had
witnessed himself. He was in no condition, after his excitement and
his sleepless night, to do his usual work. His mind reverted to the
conversation at the dinner party and the trifle of antiquarian research
it had suggested. Such occupation had often served him when he found
himself suffering from a cold, or otherwise indisposed for more serious
work. He would get the registers and collect what entries there might
be of irregular burial.
He found only one such entry, but that one was enough. There was a note
dated All Hallows, 1702, to this effect:
"This day did a vagrant from Elmham beat cruelly to death two
poor men who had refused him alms, and upon a hue and cry being
raised, took his own life. He was buried in one Parson's Close
with a stake through his body and his arms confined in chains,
and stoutly covered in."
No further news came from Elmham. Either the effort had been exhausted,
or its purpose achieved. But what could have led the young lady, a
stranger to Mr. Batchel and to his garden, to hit upon so appropriate
a topic? Mr. Batchel could not answer the question as he put it to
himself again and again during the day. He only knew that she had given
him a warning, by which, to his shame and regret, he had been too
obtuse to profit.
VII.
THE INDIAN LAMP-SHADE.
What has been already said of Mr. Batchel will have sufficed to inform
the reader that he is a man of very settled habits. The conveniences
of life, which have multiplied so fast of late, have never attracted
him, even when he has heard of them. Inconveniences to which he is
accustomed have always seemed to him preferable to conveniences with
which he is unfamiliar. To this day, therefore, he writes with a quill,
winds up his watch with a key, and will drink no soda-water but from a
tumbling bottle with the cork wired to its neck.
The reader accordingly will learn without surprise that Mr. Batchel
continues to use the reading-lamp he acquired 30 years ago as a
Freshman in College. He still carries it from room to room as
occasion requires, and ignores all other means of illumination. It
is an inexpensive lamp of very poor appearance, and dates from a
time when labour-saving was not yet a fine art. It cannot be lighted
without the removal of several of its parts, and it is extinguished
by the primitive device of blowing down the chimney. What has always
shocked the womenfolk of the Batchel family, however, is the lamp's
unworthiness of its surroundings. Mr. Batchel's house is furnished in
dignified and comfortable style, but the handsome lamp, surmounting
a fluted brazen column, which his relatives bestowed upon him at his
institution, is still unpacked.
One of his younger and subtler relatives succeeded in damaging the old
lamp, as she thought, irretrievably, by a well-planned accident, but
found it still in use a year later, most atrociously repaired. The
whole family, and some outsiders, had conspired to attack the offending
lamp, and it had withstood them all.
The single victory achieved over Mr. Batchel in this matter is quite
recent, and was generally unexpected. A cousin who had gone out to
India as a bride, and that of Mr. Batchel's making, had sent him
an Indian lamp-shade. The association was pleasing. The shade was
decorated with Buddhist figures which excited Mr. Batchel's curiosity,
and to the surprise of all his friends he set it on the lamp and there
allowed it to remain. It was not, however, the figures which had
reconciled him to this novel and somewhat incongruous addition to the
old lamp. The singular colour of the material had really attracted
him. It was a bright orange-red, like no colour he had ever seen, and
the remarks of visitors whose experience of such things was greater
than his own soon justified him in regarding it as unique. No one had
seen the colour elsewhere; and of all the tints which have acquired
distinctive names, none of the names could be applied without some
further qualification. Mr. Batchel himself did not trouble about
a name, but was quite certain that it was a colour that he liked;
and more than that, a colour which had about it some indescribable
fascination. When the lamp had been brought in, and the curtains drawn,
he used to regard with singular pleasure the interiors of rooms with
whose appearance he was unaccustomed to concern himself. The books in
his study, and the old-fashioned solid furniture of his dining room, as
reflected in the new light, seemed to assume a more friendly aspect,
as if they had previously been rigidly frozen, and had now thawed
into life. The lamp-shade seemed to bestow upon the light some active
property, and gave to the rooms, as Mr. Batchel said, the appearance of
being wide-awake.
These optical effects, as he called them, were especially noticeable in
the dining room, where the convenience of a large table often induced
him to spend the evening. Standing in a favourite attitude, with his
elbow on the chimney-piece, Mr. Batchel found increasing pleasure in
contemplating the interior of the room as he saw it reflected in a
large old mirror above the fireplace. The great mahogany sideboard
across the room, seemed, as he gazed upon it, to be penetrated by the
light, and to acquire a softness of outline, and a sort of vivacity,
which operated pleasantly upon its owner's imagination. He found
himself playfully regretting, for example, that the mirror had no power
of recording and reproducing the scenes enacted before it since the
close of the 18th century, when it had become one of the fixtures of
the house. The ruddy light of the lamp-shade had always a stimulating
effect upon his fancy, and some of the verses which describe his
visions before the mirror would delight the reader, but that the
author's modesty forbids their reproduction. Had he been less firm in
this matter we should have inserted here a poem in which Mr. Batchel
audaciously ventured into the domain of Physics. He endowed his mirror
with the power of retaining indefinitely the light which fell upon it,
and of reflecting it only when excited by the appropriate stimulus. The
passage beginning
The mirror, whilst men pass upon their way,
Treasures their image for a later day,
might be derided by students of optics. Mr. Batchel has often read
it in after days, with amazement, for, when his idle fancies came to be
so gravely substantiated, he found that in writing the verses he had
stumbled upon a new fact--a fact based as soundly, as will soon appear,
upon experiment, as those which the text-books use in arriving at the
better-known properties of reflection.