“Oh! but I am. It’s all right, my dear. The girl’s ideas are quite changed now, and I am beginning to be hopeful that she thinks a little of North. Why, my dear Mary, how ghastly pale you do look to-day. Are you worse?”
“No, no, dear; indeed no. I – I fancy I am getting better.”
“That’s right; but I am trespassing on you by talking too much. How thoughtless man can be!”
“And how thoughtful,” said Mary, as she took his hand in hers, and held it to her cheek. “Don’t reproach yourself, Hartley; you give me pain.”
The curate bent down and kissed her, and she leaned back and closed her eyes, so that her brother should not see how they were suffused with tears.
“Patience,” she said softly; “give me patience to be unselfish, and bear my bitter lot.”
Chapter Eleven.
Jonadab Moredock Sees a Ghost
Moredock was better by the next Saturday, and he got up with the intention of having a good long day at the church.
“Must keep friends with the doctor,” he muttered. “Can’t afford to die yet. So much to do first.”
He looked up at his clock, and the clock’s sallow round face looked down at him, pointing out how time was getting on, and kept on its monotonous chick chack, as the old pendulum swung from side to side.
“Mornin’, old Moredock,” cried a cheery rustic voice, and a rough, fair, curly head was thrust in at the doorway, the owner of the body keeping it carefully outside, as he held in at arm’s length an old patched boot, which had evidently been soaked in water to allow for a series of great stitches to be put into the upper leather.
For the moment it seemed as if Moredock was some grim old idol, carved in yellowish-brown wood, as he sat in his chair in the middle of his sanctuary, and the new comer was an idolater, bringing him a peace offering; but the idea died away as the old man snarled out:
“Mornin’, young Chegg. So you’ve brought it at last.”
“At last! Well, I haven’t had it so very long. Sixpence.”
“Sixpence! What, for sewing up that crack?”
“Yes, and cheap, too. Why, I’d ha’ charged parson a shilling. How are you?”
“How am I? Ah! that’s it, is it? That’s what you’ve come for. Not dead yet, Joe Chegg, and they don’t want another clerk and saxton for the old church.”
“Nay – ”
“Hold your tongue when I’m speaking. Think I don’t know you. Want to step in my shoes, do you? Want to marry my grandchild Dally, do you? Well, you’re not going to while I’m alive, and I’m going to live another ten year.”
“That’s all right,” said the young man, rubbing his face with a hard hand, much tanned, and coated with wax. “I don’t want you to die.”
“Yes, you do,” cried the old man fiercely. “I see you looking me up and down, and taking my measure. Think you’re going to dig my grave, do you? Well, you’re not going to these ten years to come; and p’r’aps I shall dig yours first, Joe Chegg; p’r’aps I shall dig yours.”
It was a cool morning, in the hunting season, but the young man perspired, and shifted uneasily from foot to foot.
“Oh! I don’t know, Mr Moredock, sir,” he muttered awkwardly.
“Then I do,” cried the old sexton, dragging his hand out of his trousers’ pocket. “There’s a fourpenny piece. Quite enough for your job, and I tell you now as I mean to tell you ten year hence, you ain’t going to be saxton o’ Dook’s Hampton while Jonadab Moredock’s alive, so be off.”
“I don’t want nothing but what’s friendly like, Mr Moredock, sir. I thought as when you was out o’ sorts I might be a kind o’ depitty like, to ring the bells for you, and dig a grave for you.”
“Ah!” shouted the old man, “that’s it – that’s what Parson Salis calls showing the cloven hoof. You said it, and you can’t take it back. You’d like to dig a grave for me.”
“I meant to put some one else in,” said the young man, staring.
“No, you didn’t; you meant to put me in; but I’ll live to spite you. I’ll ring my own bells, and say my own amens and ’sponses, and dig my own graves; and if you marry Dally Watlock, not a penny does she have o’ my money, and I’ll burn the cottage down.”
The young man wiped his forehead and backed slowly towards the door, just inside which he had been standing during the latter part of the interview, and as soon as he was outside he hurried away.
“Not going to die yet,” muttered the old man. “I can’t and won’t die yet. I’ll let ’em see. Doctor said a man’s no business to die till he’s quite wore out, and I’m not wore out yet – nothing like. I’ll show ’em. Only wish somebody would die, and I’d show ’em. Give up, indeed!”
A sharp fit of coughing interrupted the old man, and left him so exhausted that he took his seat and leaned back, staring at the fire, and only moving at times to put on a lump of coal, till towards evening, when he rose and made himself some tea. Then, putting a piece of candle loose in his pocket, with happy indifference to the fact that it was not wax, he took a box of matches from the mantelpiece and thrust them in with the candle, as he believed, felt in another pocket for his key, and trudged off to the church to put things in order for the next day’s service.
Moredock reached the old lych gate in the dark autumnal evening, passed through, and ascended the path, which looked like a cutting in the churchyard, six hundred years of interments having raised the ground till it formed a bank, while the church itself seemed to have become sunken.
Half-way up he struck off along a narrower path which curved round to the old iron-studded door in the tower, a door whose hinges resembled Norse runes, so twisted and twined was the iron-work.
The heavy old key was inserted, turned, and taken out, and as the door yielded to pressure the key was inserted on the other side. The next minute the door was closed and locked, and Moredock stood in the old tower, fumbling in the darkness for the horn lantern which stood in a stone niche.
The lantern was found, opened, and the piece of candle inserted in the socket. The next thing was a search for the matches, which, however, were not found, for they were reposing on the rug in the sexton’s cottage.
And there he stood fumbling and muttering for some minutes in the total darkness, till, believing that the matches must have been left behind, he uttered a loud grunt, and prepared to do without.
It was no great difficulty; for, as he stood in the basement of the old square tower, with the five bells high above his head, and the ropes hanging therefrom, he knew that to his right ran the rickety old flight of stairs leading to the different floors and the leads of the tower; on his left his tools leaning against the stone wall, and the great cupboard in which, in company with planks and ropes, were sundry grisly-looking relics, dug up from time to time, but never seen by any one but himself; behind him was the door by which he had entered, and facing him the lancet-shaped little opening through the tower wall, leading into the west end of the church.
It was dark enough where he next stood, for he was beneath the loft where the school children and the singers sat on Sundays; but in front of him, dimly seen by the great east window being beyond it, and looking like an uncouth, dwarf, one-legged monster, was the massive stone font, round which he passed slowly, and then walked straight along the centre aisle towards the tomb-encumbered chancel, cut off by its antique oaken screen.
His steps were hushed by the matting, and the darkness, in spite of the windows on either side, was intense behind, though above the old deal unpainted pews there seemed to float a dim haze, as if from the great east window, as he made his way towards the door on the north side of the chancel.
Moredock could have walked swiftly along the church