"Nay, do not drag me so; I will go right willingly, my masters!" cried
poor Diggory Falgate. "I was there with them upon compulsion. It is
hard to be made prisoner by one's friends as well as by one's
enemies."
"Hold thy prating tongue, liar!" replied one of the troopers, who were
bearing off the painter across the country towards Hull, which lay at
about ten miles' distance, the course that the earl and his party had
pursued having been rendered very circuitous by the various accidents
of the journey. "Hold thy prating tongue, liar, or I will strike thee
over the pate! Did we not see thee at their heels, galloping with the
best?"
"But no man can say that he saw me draw a sword in their behalf,"
answered Falgate.
"Because thou hadst no sword to draw," rejoined the man. "And thou
mayst be sure that to-morrow morning thou wilt be swinging by the neck
in the good town of Hull, for the death of Captain Batten and the
rest."
"I killed them not," said Falgate, in a deprecatory tone.
"What! wilt thou prate?" rejoined the trooper, striking him in the
ribs with the hilt of his sword. But at that moment one who seemed in
command rode back from the front, and bade the man forbear.
"Come hither beside me," he said, addressing Falgate, who in the
darkness could not see his face, to judge whether it was stern or not.
"You are a malignant--deny it not, for it will not avail you. You are
a malignant, and the blood of Christian men has been shed by those who
were with you. Your life is forfeit, and there is but one way by which
to save it."
"What is that?" asked Falgate. "Life is not like a bad groat, only fit
to be cast into the kennel; and I will save mine if I can."
"That is wise," answered the soldier. "You can save it if you will.
You have but to tell truly and honestly who they are who were with
you, and what was their errand in these parts. You know it right well;
therefore deny it not."
"Nay, I do not know, right worshipful sir," replied the painter.
"I am not worshipful," answered the man; "but if thou dost not know, I
am sorry, for thou hast lost a chance of life."
"But only hear how I came to be with them," cried poor Falgate. "I met
the long-nosed man by chance in Hull; and finding him in godly
company, and some of the governor's people with him, I thought there
could be no harm in going with him to York, whither business called
me."
"But he in the buff coat?" asked the soldier; "who is he?"
"Of him I know less than the other," rejoined the painter; "for he
came up with us on the road, as we stopped at a little inn to bait our
horses. There was with him then a Colonel Warren, who, after leaving
us returned to Hull with a pious man, one Stumpborough, who had with
him a troop of horse----"
"We know all that," replied the soldier gravely. "But, as it is so,
you must prepare to die to-morrow. I say not that you lie unto us. It
may be that you speak truth; but it is needful in these times that one
should die for an example; and as you are a malignant, for your speech
proves it, 'tis well you should be the man." Thus saying, he rode on
again without giving time for Falgate to answer, and leaving him in
the hands of the troopers as before.
The party, however, had suffered such loss that the number was now but
small; and the poor painter, who by no means loved the idea of his
promised suspension in the morning air of Hull, could hear the buzz of
an eager but low-toned conversation going on in front, without being
able to distinguish the words. He thought, indeed, that he caught the
term "church" frequently repeated; but of that he was not sure. And
though with a stout heart he resolved to say nothing, either of what
he knew or suspected, it must be confessed he shook a little as he
rode along.
At length, after an hour and a half's farther ride, they began to
approach the Humber, and the moon shining out showed Falgate scenes
which he had often passed through in former days, upon journeys of
business or of pleasure. Now they came to a village in which was
swinging, before a fast-closed house, a sign of his own painting; and
now a hamlet in which he had enjoyed many a merry dance; till at
length, passing over a long, bare, desolate piece of land, without
tree, or hedgerow, or house, or break, running along the water's edge,
they perceived upon a slight elevation, an old time-worn church, the
resort of parishioners from a wide and thinly-populated tract, the old
stone monuments and gloomy aisles of which had often filled the
somewhat imaginative head of the painter with strange and awful
visions, when he visited it on the Sunday evening in the decline of
the year. At about five hundred yards farther on was a solitary house
where the sexton lived; and stopping suddenly before the gate of the
church-yard, the commander of the party bade one of his men ride on
and get the key.
"What are they going to do?" thought Falgate. "The profane villains
are not going to stable their horses in a church surely. Well, I shall
be glad enough of rest anywhere, for Hull is three miles off; and I do
not think my skin would hold out."
While he had been thus reasoning with himself, one of the troopers had
got off his horse, and advancing through the little wicket of the
church-yard, tried the door of the church.
"It is open," he cried; "they have left their steeple-house open."
The other man was instantly called back, and Falgate was then ordered
to dismount. He observed, however, that the soldiers in general kept
their saddles, and he advanced with some trepidation, accompanied by
the commander, to the door where the other trooper still stood. There
he halted suddenly, however, asking in a lamentable tone--
"You are not going to leave me here alone all night, surely?"
"Not alone!" answered the man; "we will put a guard in the porch to
watch you; and you will have full time to prepare your mind for
to-morrow morning, and to turn in your head whether you will tell us
who your companions were, before the rope is round your neck. You may
speak now, if you will."
But Falgate was faithful to the last; and though he by no means
approved of being shut up in the church all night, he repeated that he
could not tell, for he did not know.
"Well, then," rejoined his captor, "here you must rest; but think well
of the condition of your soul, young man, for nothing will save you if
you remain obstinate."
Thus saying, he thrust him into the building, and closed the door. The
poor painter now heard some conversation without in regard to the key,
which, it appeared, was not in the lock; and a consultation was held
as to whether it should be sent for; but the voice of the commander
was heard at length, saying--
"Never mind. We have not time to stay. Keep good watch; that is all
that is needed."
"But if he try to escape?" asked the trooper.
"Shoot him through the head with your pistol," answered the other
voice. "As well die so as by a cord."
The conversation then ceased, and Falgate heard the sound of horses'
feet the next minute marching down the hill. The situation of Diggory
Falgate was to himself by no means pleasant, and, indeed, few are the
men who would find themselves particularly at their ease, shut up for
a whole night within an old church, and with even the probability of
death before them for the next morning. Silence, and midnight
solitude, and the proximity of graves, and shrouds, and mouldering
clay, are things well calculated to excite the imagination even of the
cold and calculating, to damp the warm energies of hope, and open all
the sources of terror and superstitious awe within us. How often, in
the warm daylight, and in the midst of the gay and busy world, does
man, roused for a moment by some accidental circumstance to a
conviction of the frail tenure by which life is held, think of death
and all that may follow it with no other sensation than a calm
melancholy. It is because every object around him, everything that he
sees, everything that he hears, and everything that he feels, are so
full of life, that he cannot think death near. He sees it but in the
dim and misty perspective of future years, with all its grim features
softened and indistinct. But when he hears no sound of any living
thing, when his eye rests upon nothing moving with the warm energies
of animation, when all is as dark as the vault, as silent as the
grave--it is then, that, if the thought of death presents itself, it
comes near--horribly near. Clearer from the obscurity around, more
distinct and tangible from the stillness of all things, death becomes
a living being to our fancy, with his icy hand upon our brow, his
barbed dart close at our heart. We see him, feel him, hear the dread
summons of his charnel voice; and prepare for the extinction of the
light within the coffin's narrow bed, the mould and corruption of the
tomb.
Poor Falgate had hitherto tried to fancy that the announcement of his
fate for the morrow had been merely a threat: but now, when he was
left alone in the old church, with no one near him to speak to, with
not a sound but the sighing of the night wind through some broken
panes in the high casement, his convictions became very different. He
felt his way with his hands from pillar to pillar, towards a spot
where a thin streak of moonlight crossed the nave, and seated himself
sadly upon a bench that he found near. He there sat and tortured
himself for half an hour, thinking over all the bold and infamous
things the parliament party had done, and clearly deducing thence what
they might probably do in his own case. He loved not the thought of
death at all as it now presented itself to his mind; the hero's
enthusiasm was gone; he had no desire to be a martyr; but of all sorts
of death that of the cord seemed the worst. And yet, what was to be
done? Could he betray the confidence of others, could he flinch from
what he conceived to be a duty? No; though he felt a little weakness,
he was not the man to do that; and he said again to himself that he
would rather die. But still he turned with repugnance from that close
grappling with the thought of dying which the scene and the hour
forced upon him: he tried to think of something else; he strove to
recal the early days when he had last stood in that aisle, and many a
boyish prank he had played in years long gone; but the image of death
would present itself amidst all, like a skull in a flower-garden, and
the very sweet ideas that he summoned up to banish it but made it look
more terrible.
In the mean while, the moon gradually got round, till she poured a
fuller flood of light into the building, showing the tombs and old
monumental effigies upon the walls and in the aisle; and many a wild
legend and village tale came back to Falgate's memory, of ghosts
having been seen issuing from the vaults beneath the church, and
wandering down even to the gates of Hull. The painter was a firm
believer in apparitions of all kinds, and he had often wished, with a
sort of foolish bravado, to see a ghost; but now, when, if ever, he
was likely to be gratified, he did not quite so much like the
realization of his desires. He thought, nevertheless, that he could
face one, if one did come; but then arose the sad idea, that he might
very soon be one of their shadowy companions himself; wandering for
the allotted term beneath "the pale glimpses of the moon."
Suddenly a thought struck him. Might he not, perchance, employ the
semblance of that state to facilitate his own escape? Doubtless, the
man placed to keep guard would not long remain upon his dull watch
without closing an eye, after a long day's march and a hard fight; the
door was not locked; he could open it and go out and, could he but so
disguise himself as to appear like the inhabitant of another world, if
the sentinel did wake, he would most likely be so stupified and
alarmed, that he would let him pass, or miss his aim if he fired.
Falgate remembered the words of the officer as he had retired: "As
well die so as by a cord;" and he resolved he would at least make the
attempt. A daring and enterprising spirit seized him; he felt he could
be a hero in ghostly attire, and the only difficulty was to procure
the proper habiliments. At first he thought of making a shift with his
own shirt; but then he remembered that the length thereof was somewhat
scanty, and he had never heard of ghosts with drapery above their
knees.
However, as, when one schoolboy opens a door into forbidden piece of
ground, and puts his head out, a dozen more are sure to follow and
hurry him on before them, so the thought of becoming a ghost seemed to
bring a thousand other cunning devices with it; and at length good
Diggory Falgate asked himself if the vestry might not be open, and if
a surplice might not be found therein. He determined to ascertain; and
creeping up to the door which he had often seen the parson of the
parish pass through, he lifted the latch, and to his joy found that it
was not locked. All, however, was dark within, and the poor painter,
entering cautiously, groped about, not knowing well where to seek for
that which he wanted. Suddenly his hand struck against something,
hanging apparently from a peg in the wall; but he soon ascertained
that the texture was not that of linen, and went on, still feeling
along the sides of the little room. In a moment after, he came to
something softer and more pliant, with the cold, glassy feel of linen
upon it, and taking it down he mentally said, "This must be the
surplice." He crept back with it into the moonlight in the church,
treading like a ghost, not only in anticipation of the character he
was about to assume, but also in palpable terror lest he should call
the attention of the guard at the church door, by tripping over a mat
or stumbling against a bench. The white and snowy garment, however,
the emblem of innocence, was there in his hand, and he gazed all over
it, inquiring in his own mind how he was to put it on. He knew not the
back from the front; he scarcely knew the head from the tail; and
seldom has a poor schoolboy gazed at the "ass's bridge," in the dry
but reason-giving pages of Euclid, with more utter bewilderment and
want of comprehension than Diggory Falgate now stared at the surplice.
As he thus stood, addressing mock inquiries to the folds of white
linen, he suddenly started, thinking he heard a noise; but after
listening a moment without catching any further sound, he quietly
crept up to the great door of the church, and bent both eye and ear to
the keyhole, to ascertain whether the sentinel was awake and watching
or not.
The only noise that met his ear, when he first applied the latter
organ to the task of discovery, was a loud and sonorous snore; and
looking through the aperture, he found, by the light of the moon,
which was shining into the porch, that the guard had seated himself on
one of the benches at the side of the door, and, with his legs
stretched out across the only means of egress, had given way to
weariness, and was indulging in a very refreshing sleep, while his
horse was seen cropping the grass within the wall of the churchyard.
The poor painter was calculating the chances of being able to pass the
outstretched limbs of the sentinel without awakening him, and,
screwing his courage to the sticking point--to use Lady Macbeth's
pork-butcherish figure--when suddenly he was startled and cast into a
cold perspiration by hearing a sound at the farther end of the church.
All was silent the moment after; but the noise had been so distant
while it lasted, that there was no doubting the evidence of his ears;
and the only question was, what it could proceed from--was it natural
or supernatural? was it accidental or intentional? Diggory Falgate
could not at all divine, till at length, encouraged by its cessation,
he began to think that he might have left the door of the vestry open,
and the wind might have blown down some book. Yet the sound had been
sharp as well as heavy--more like the fall of a piece of old iron than
that of a volume of homilies, the prayer-book, or the psalter. He
determined to see, however; and sitting down for a moment to gather
courage, and to ascertain that the trooper without had not been roused
by the noise that had alarmed himself, he listened till, mingled with
the beating of his own heart, he heard the comfortable snore of the
guard once more. Then, thinking that at any time he could call the
good man to his aid if he encountered ghost or goblin too strong for
him, he shuffled himself into the surplice, and with the stealthy step
of a cat crept up the nave towards the vestry.
When he was about two-thirds up the church, and was just leaning
against a bench to take breath, another sound met his ear. It was that
of a deep voice speaking low, and seemed to come almost from below his
feet.
"They must be gone now," said the invisible tongue. "All is silent you
hear."
"I do not know," said another, in tones somewhat shriller. "Hush! I
thought I heard a noise."
"Pooh! the rustling of the casements with the wind," rejoined the
other; "I cannot stay all night: unshade the lantern and let us to
work."
If a fragment of superstitious doubt as to the interlocutors of this
dialogue being of a ghostly character had lingered in the mind of
Diggory Falgate, the words about unshading the lantern removed it
completely; and the next instant a faint and misty light was seen
issuing from a low narrow doorway, which had apparently been left open
on the opposite side of the church, towards the eastern angle.
"Some vagabonds robbing the vaults," thought the painter to himself:
"I will see what they are about, at all risks. Perchance I may
frighten them, make them run over the sentinel, and escape in the
confusion. If he shoots one of them instead of me, it will be no great
matter; and of course, if these men are as anxious to get away as I
am, we shall make common cause and be too strong for him. But I will
watch for a minute first; and let them be fairly at their work, as
they call it, before I show myself."
Thus thinking, with a noiseless step he advanced towards the door
leading from the main body of the building to the vaults below, guided
by the light, which continued to glimmer faintly up, casting a misty
ray upon the communion-table. When he approached the arch, he looked
carefully forward at every step; but nothing could he see till he came
to the top of the stone stairs, when he perceived a dark lantern, with
the shade drawn back, standing on the ground at the bottom. No human
beings were visible, however, though he heard a rustling sound in the
vault, as if some living creatures were at no great distance; and the
next moment there came a sort of gurgling noise, as if some fluid were
poured out of a narrow-necked bottle. An instant after, the first
voice he had heard observed, in a pleasant and well-satisfied tone,
"That's very good! genuine Nantz, I declare."
"Ay, that it is," answered the second voice: "the stomach requires
comfort in such a cold and dismal place as this."
"Oh, 'tis nothing when one is used to it," rejoined the first speaker;
"but come, we had better do the business. There stands the coffin. You
bring the mallet, and I will take the chisel and bar."
Diggory Falgate did not like their proceedings at all, though he would
by no means have objected to a glass of cordial waters himself. But
they were evidently about to break open one of the coffins--every word
showed it; to violate the sanctity of the grave--to disturb the ashes
of the dead; and the poor painter had sufficient refinement of feeling
to think that the drinking of intoxicating liquors, while so engaged,
was an aggravation of their offence. The collocation of "genuine
Nantz, I declare," with "there stands the coffin," shocked and
horrified him; and he paused for a moment to consider, feeling as if
it would render him almost a partaker in the sacrilege if he were to
descend into the vault. A moment's thought, however, settled this case
of conscience; and by the time that he had settled his plan he heard a
hollow noise, as if some hard substance had struck against an empty
chest.
"Now is the time," he thought; "they are busy at their hellish work."
There stood the lantern on the ground beneath; the men were evidently
at some small distance. If he could get possession of the light and
shade it, they were at his mercy; and the only difficulty was how to
descend the stairs without calling their attention. Recollecting,
however, that it was the invariable practice of ghosts, whatever
sounds they might produce with any other organs with which they may be
endowed, to make no noise with their feet, the good painter stooped
down, took off his shoes, and put them in his pockets. Then with a
quiet and stealthy step he began the descent, totally unperceived by
those who were by this time busily engaged wrenching and tearing some
well-fastened woodwork.
Stooping down before he quite reached the bottom of the steps,
Diggory Falgate looked into the vault, and immediately perceived two
men, both of them somewhat advanced in life--one a thin, tall,
puritanical-looking person, dressed in black, raising with a chisel
and mallet the lid of a coffin which stood upon the ground. Forty or
fifty other coffins, some small and narrow, some large, were within
the pale glimpse of the lantern, and the painter's imagination filled
up the dark space which the rays did not reach with similar mementoes
of mortality. On his left hand, near the foot of the stairs, were four
coffins placed in a row, with three others laid crosswise upon them,
and all raised two or three feet from the floor by trestles. There was
a narrow sort of lane behind, between them and the damp wall, and
taking another step down, he brought himself as far on that side as
possible.
Just at that moment one of the men turned a little, so as to bring his
profile within the painter's view, and he instantly recognised a face
that he had seen at the "Swan" Inn in Hull, the day before his
expedition with Captain Barecolt and Arrah Neil.
"I'll wager any money it is that old villain, Dry, of Longsoaken, whom
I have heard them talk so much about," thought Falgate; but he was not
suffered to carry his meditations on that subject farther, for Mr.
Dry, turning his head away again towards his companion, said--
"I cannot see; get the lantern."
The painter had just time to slip behind the pile of coffins he had
observed, and to crouch down, before the other man, after having given
another vigorous wrench at the lid, laid down the bar he had in his
hands and moved towards the foot of the stairs. The rustle of the
surplice seemed to catch his ear, for he stopped for a moment,
apparently to listen; but the next instant he advanced again, took up
the lantern, looked round with a somewhat nervous stare, and then
returned to Mr. Dry.
"Did you not hear a noise?" he asked in a low voice.
Mr. Dry stopped in his proceedings and evidently trembled. Their
agitation gave courage to the painter, and creeping on so as to bring
himself nearly on a line with them, he ventured to utter a low groan.
Both the culprits started, and gazed around with hair standing on end
and teeth chattering.
"Now's the time!" thought Falgate, and taking two steps farther
towards the end of the lane formed by the coffins and the wall, he
uttered another groan, followed by a shrill unearthly shriek, and then
started up to his full height, as if he were rising from the midst of
the pile of mortal dust upon his right. The rays fell straight upon
the white garments and the face of this unexpected apparition, pale
and worn as he was by fatigue and fear. Struck with terror and
consternation, the limbs of the two men at first refused to move; but
when they saw this awful figure advancing straight towards them with
another hollow groan, they both darted away, the one crying--
"Through the church! through the church! It will catch you before you
can reach the other door!" and Mr. Dry followed at full speed towards
the steps by which Falgate had descended.
Not liking to be left in the vault in the dark, the painter sprang
after them with another wild shriek. Fortune favoured him more than
skill; for, just as the foremost of the fugitives was mounting the
steps, Mr. Dry seized hold of his cloak to stay his trembling limbs;
the other, who was the sexton, in the agony of his terror fancied the
ghost had caught him, dropped the lantern and rushed on, his companion
clinging close to him. Falgate instantly picked up the light before it
was extinguished, and drew the shade over it; and almost at the same
moment he heard the door above banged to by those he was pursuing, and
a bolt drawn; for they did not stay to inquire whether spiritual
beings are to be stopped by material substances or not.
The painter paused and listened; he heard quick steps beating the
pavement above, and then a door opening. The next instant came a loud
shout, and then the report of a pistol; then a shout again, then a
momentary silence, and lastly the quick galloping of a horse.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Diggory: "they have cleared the way for me, and
left me master of the field of battle;" and he drew back the blind
from the lantern and looked about him.