So it happened, one evening in the first week of August, when Mr. Penniloe was engaged in a distant part of the parish, somebody or other came and knocked – it was never known how many times or how long, – at the upper-folk door of the rectory.
There was not any deafness about Thyatira; and as for Susanna, she could hear too much; neither was little Fay to blame, although the rest were rather fond of leaving things to her. If the pupils had returned, it could not have happened so; for although they made quite enough noise of their own in the little back-parlour allotted to them, they never failed to hear any other person's noise, and to complain of it next morning, when they did not know their lessons.
But the present case was, that the whole live force of the rectory, now on the premises, was established quite happily in the kitchen yard; with a high wall between it and the village street, and a higher wall topped with shrubs between it and the garden. Master Harry, now at home for his holidays (a tiger by day, but a lion at night, for protection of the household), was away with his father, and sleeping soundly through a Bible-lecture. And so it came to pass that the tall dark man knocked, and knocked; and at last departed, muttering uncourteous expressions through his beard.
Even that might never have been known inside, without the good offices of Mrs. Channing, the wife of the baker, whose premises adjoined the rectory garden, and the drive from the front gate.
"'Twas nort but them Gelany fowls," she explained, before she had her breakfast, because her husband was the son of old Channing, the clerk, and sexton; "them Gelany birds of ours, as drew my notice to it. They kept up such a screeching in the big linhay just at dusk, instead of sticking their heads inside their wings, that I thought they must be worriting about a dog, or cat. And so out of house I runs; but I couldn't see nort, till I heers a girt knocking at Passon's front-door. Thinks I – 'What's up now?' For I knowed a' wurn't at home, but away to they Bible-readings. So I claps the little barn-steps again your big wall, and takes the liberty of peeping over, just between the lalac bush and old holly. You must understand, Mrs. Muggridge, that the light wurn't very clear; but I could make out a big tall man a-standing, with a long furrin cloak, atwixt the pillars of your porch.
"'Passon's not at home,' says I; 'can us give any message?'
"Then a' turns round sudden like, and stands just like a pictur', with the postesses to either side of him, and his beard falling down the same as Aaron's. But if a' said ort, 'twaz beyond my comprehension.
"'Did you please to be looking for the Doctor, sir?' I said – 'the Doctor as is biding now with Mr. Penniloe? I did hear that he was 'gone to Squire Waldron's house.' For I thought that he was more the sort to belong to that old Gowler.
"But he only shook his head, and turned away; and presently, off he walks most majestic, like the image of a man the same as I have seen to Exeter. I felt myself in that alarm, that go away I couldn't, until I heard your gate fall to behind him. Then I thought to come and tell you, but I hadn't got the nerves to face your black passage, after what had come across me. For to my mind it must have been the Evil One himself. May the Lord save us from his roarings and devourings!"
When Mrs. Muggridge heard this tale, she thought that it had better go no further, and she saw no occasion to repeat it to her master; because no message had been left, and he might imagine that she had not attended to her duty very well.
For it had chanced, that at the very moment when somebody wanted to disturb them, the housekeeper was giving a most pleasant tea-party to the two little dears, Master Michael, and Miss Fay.
And by accident, of course, Sergeant Jakes had just dropped in. No black passage could be anything but a joke to a man of his valour; and no rapping at the door could have passed unchallenged, if it reached such ears. But the hospitable Thyatira offered such a distraction of good things, far beyond the largest larder-dreams of a dry-tongued lonely bachelor, that the coarser, and seldom desirable, gift of the ears lay in deep abeyance. For the Sergeant had felt quite enough of hardship to know a good time, when he tasted it.
"Now, my precious little dears," Thyatira had whispered with a sigh, when the veteran would be helped no more; "there is light enough still for a game of hop-scotch, down at the bottom of the yard. Susanna will mark out the bed for you. You will find the chalk under the knife-board."
Away ran the children; and their merry voices rang sweetly to the dancing of their golden hair.
"Sergeant Schoolmaster," continued the lady, for she knew that he liked this combination of honours, "how pleasant it is, when the shadows are falling, to see the little innocents delighting in their games? It seems to be no more than yesterday, when I was as full of play as any of them."
"A good many yesterdays have passed since that," Mr. Jakes thought as he looked at her; but he was far too gallant and polite to say so. "In your case, ma'am, it is so," he replied: "yesterday, only yesterday! The last time I was here, I was saying to myself that you ladies have the command of time. You make it pass for us so quickly, while it is standing still with you!"
"What a fine thing it is to have been abroad! You do learn such things from the gift of tongues. But it do seem a pity you should have to say them so much to yourself, Mr. Sergeant."
"Ma'am," replied the veteran, in some fear of becoming too complimentary; "I take it that some of us are meant to live apart, and to work for the good of others. But have you heard how the Colonel is to-day? Ah, he is a man indeed!"
"There are doctors enough to kill him now. And they are going to do it, this very night." Mrs. Muggridge spoke rather sharply, for she was a little put out with her visitor.
"What?" cried the man of sword and ferule. "To operate, ma'am, and I not there – I, who know all about operations!"
"No, Mr. Sergeant; but to hold a council. And in this very house, I believe; the room is to be ready at ten o'clock. Dr. Fox, Dr. Gronow, and Dr. Gowler. It is more than I can understand. But not a word about it to any one. For Sir Thomas would be very angry. To frighten his people, and make such a fuss – they durst not propose it at his own house. And Gronow has never been called in, as you know. But Dr. Jemmy made a favour of it, for he thinks very highly of that man; and the gentleman from London did not object. Only he said that if it must be so, and everything was to be out of proper form, he would like my master to be present with them."
"Three doctors, and a parson to sit upon him! The Lord have mercy on the Colonel's soul! There is no hope left for his poor body. I will tell you, ma'am, what I saw once at Turry Vardoes – but no, it is not fit for you to hear. Well, my heart is like a lump of lead. I would sooner have lost my other arm, than heard such a thing of the Colonel. Good night, ma'am; and thanking you for all your kindness, I'm no fit company for any one, no longer."
He was gone in a moment. His many-angled form sank into the darkness of the flinty tunnel, as swiftly as ever a schoolboy vanished, when that form became too conspicuous. Thyatira heaved a deep sigh, and sat down in the many-railed beechen chair at the head of her cruelly vacant table. She began to count the empty dishes, and with less than her usual charity mused upon the voracity of man. But her heart was kind, and the tear she wiped away was not wholly of selfish tincture.
"The hand of the Lord is upon us now. My master will lose the best friend he has got," she was thinking, as the darkness gathered; "faithful as he is, it will try him hard again; for Satan has prevailed against us. And this will be a worse snare than any he has laid. To have in Parsonage house a man, as chooseth not to come to prayers; or at any rate standeth up at mantel-piece, with his back turned on the kneelers; till my master told him, like the Christian he