"Yes," said Mr. West, "if you like to call it so. My conscience tells
me that the whole procedure in regard to setting up these chimes is so
wrong, so manifestly unjust, that I have determined not to allow them
to be heard until the rates levied for them are refunded to the poor
and oppressed. I believe I have the power to close the belfry-tower,
and I shall act upon it."
"By Jove! do you think _you_ are going to stand between me and my will?"
cried the Captain passionately. "Every individual who has not yet paid
the rate shall be made to pay it to-morrow."
"There is another world, Captain Monk," interposed the mild voice of the
minister, "to which, I hope, we are all----"
"If you attempt to preach to me----"
At this moment a spoon fell to the ground by the sideboard. The Vicar
turned to look; his back was towards it; the Captain peered also at the
end of the rapidly-darkening room: when both became aware that one of
the servants--Michael, who had shown in Mr. West--stood there; had stood
there all the time.
"What are you waiting for, sirrah?" roared his master. "We don't want
_you_. Here! put this window open an inch or two before you go; the
room's close."
"Shall I bring lights, sir?" asked Michael, after doing as he was
directed.
"No: who wants lights? Stir the fire into a blaze."
Michael left them. It was from him that thus much of the conversation
was subsequently known.
Not five minutes had elapsed when a commotion was heard in the
dining-room. Then the bell rang violently, and the Captain opened the
door--overturning a chair in his passage to it--and shouted out for a
light. More than one servant flew to obey the order: in his hasty moods
their master brooked not delay: and three separate candles were carried
in.
"Good lack, master!" exclaimed the butler, John Rimmer, who was a native
of Church Dykely, "what's amiss with the Parson?"
"Lift him up, and loosen his neck-cloth," said Captain Monk, his tone
less imperious than usual.
Mr. West lay on the hearthrug near his chair, his head resting close to
the fender. Rimmer raised his head, another servant took off his black
neck-tie; for it was only on high days that the poor Vicar indulged in a
white one. He gasped twice, struggled slightly, and then lay quietly in
the butler's arms.
"Oh, sir!" burst forth the man in a horror-stricken voice to his master,
"this is surely death!"
It surely was. George West, who had gone there but just before in the
height of health and strength, had breathed his last.
How did it happen? How could it have happened? Ay, how indeed? It was
a question which has never been entirely solved in Church Leet to this
day.
Captain Monk's account, both privately and at the inquest, was this: As
they talked further together, after Michael left the room, the Vicar
went on to browbeat him shamefully about the new chimes, vowing they
should never play, never be heard; at last, rising in an access of
passion, the Parson struck him (the Captain) in the face. He returned
the blow--who wouldn't return it?--and the Vicar fell. He believed his
head must have struck against the iron fender in falling: if not, if the
blow had been an unlucky one (it took effect just behind the left ear),
it was only given in self-defence. The jury, composed of Captain Monk's
tenants, expressed themselves satisfied, and returned a verdict of
Accidental Death.
"A false account," pronounced poor Mrs. West, in her dire tribulation.
"My husband never struck him--never; he was not one to be goaded
into unbecoming anger, even by Captain Monk. _George struck no blow
whatever_; I can answer for it. If ever a man was murdered, he has
been."
Curious rumours arose. It was said that Mrs. Carradyne, taking the air
on the terrace outside in the calmness of the autumn evening, heard the
fatal quarrel through the open window; that she heard Mr. West, after he
had received the death blow, wail forth a prophecy (or whatever it might
be called) that those chimes would surely be accursed; that whenever
their sound should be heard, so long as they were suffered to remain in
the tower, it should be the signal of woe to the Monk family.
Mrs. Carradyne utterly denied this; she had not been on the terrace at
all, she said. Upon which the onus was shifted to Michael: who, it was
suspected, had stolen out to listen to the end of the quarrel, and had
heard the ominous words. Michael, in his turn, also denied it; but he
was not believed. Anyway, the covert whisper had gone abroad and would
not be laid.