CHAPTER CXCIII.
[Chapter 210]
THE STRANGE VISITOR TO THE OLD CHURCH AT NIGHT.
The request of Will Stephens to be allowed to put some sawdust in the
vault of the Croftons, was one of those regular things that he always
propounded to any one who had a vault opened beneath the old church, and he
generally made a very good thing of it.
People were always too much taken up with thinking of the loss of the
relation who had just been placed in that dismal repository, to think much of
a guinea to Will for a shilling's worth of sawdust, and if they did ever
intimate that they thought it rather too much, he always had his answer ready
at the tip of his tongue.
"How should you like, sir, or madam, as the case may be, to go into a
vault among the dead, to lay the sawdust for 'em."
That argument was generally conclusive, and Will would get his guinea.
With Sir George Crofton he was quite sure and safe, so he had no scruples
upon the subject, and the little bit of sawdust he meant to carry in when he
had time, was more for the say of the thing, than for any utility it was at
all likely to be of, but then as he said, —
"Where's the odds, the dead 'uns can't see it, and living 'uns won't go
to see it, so it does very well, and I pockets my guinea, which does better
still, for after all a sexton's aint the most agreeable life in the world, and
he ought to be paid well; not that I care much about it, being used to it, but
there was a time when I had my qualms, and I've had to get over 'em the best
way I could, somehow, if I am now all right."
These were Will's arguments and reflections to himself before night, when
he meant to go and place the little bag of saw-dust in the Croftons' family
vault.
But, before we follow Will Stephens on his saw-dust expedition, as we
intend to do, we wish first to draw the attention of the reader to another
circumstance, the relation of which to Will Stephen's proceedings will very
shortly appear indeed.
As the night came on there was some appearance of stormy weather. The
wind blew in a strange, gusty and uncertain manner, shifting about from point
to point of the compass in an odd way, as though it had not made up its mind
from whence to blow. The most weather-wise personages of the neighbourhood
were puzzled, for just as they prognosticated one species of weather from the
particular direction whence the wind came, it shifted and came from some other
quarter very nearly directly opposite.
This was extremely provoking, but at all events it was generally agreed
that the moon would not on that night, shed its soft light upon the earth.
How far they were mistaken in this surmise we shall presently see.
Will Stephens had an opinion, from certain admonitory symptoms arising
from his corns, that it would rain; so he delayed going to the church until he
should see what sort of weather it was going to be, inwardly deciding that it
would be a capital excuse not to go at all that night if the rain should come
down pretty sharply.
This period of indecision he passed at a public house, known as the Blue
Lion, the charms of the excellent ale of that establishment materially
assisting him in coming to the conclusion that if it should rain ever so
little it would be better to put off his job until the morning.
Now it was not that Will was afraid that he hesitated. He was too used
to death to feel now any terrors of fear. It was nothing but the ale. Why
then was the hurry? Simply that the flat stone which was over the vault of
the Croftons was left unfastened until the aforesaid saw-dust was placed
within the receptacle of the dead, and the next day was Sunday, so that the
job must be finished before the service should commence.
At night, therefore, or very early the following morning, Will must seem
to earn his guinea by going to the vault. He did not like to venture saying
he had been and yet neglect going, for he knew there were too many gossips
about the village to make that safe.
While he is however regaling himself at the ale house, another person
totally, to all appearance, heedless of wind and threatening rain, is abroad
in the neighbourhood of the church.
A tall figure enveloped in a large murky looking cloak, is moving slowly
past the few cottages in the immediate vicinage of the church, and so
noiselessly that it looks like a spirit of the dead rather than a living
person.
It was unseen by any one, for it was a time of the night —half-past
eleven —now at which few persons in that little quiet place were abroad, and
as we have said, Will Stephens, perhaps the only inhabitant who had any real
business to be abroad at such an hour, was still solacing himself at the Blue
Lion with the ale that seemed to get better every glass he took.
The figure moved on at a slow and steady pace among the old tomb stones
that lay so think around in the circuit of the church-yard, until it
reached the church itself, and then it walked slowly around the sacred
edifice, looking with a curious eye at the windows that presented themselves
to observation, and apparently scanning the height from the ground.
Finally he paused at a rugged-looking part of the wall, and commenced,
with great muscular power and most wonderful agility, climing up to one
of the windows.
To look at that wall it would have seemed that nothing human could
possibly have succeeded in ascending it, and yet this stranger, catching at
asperities which scarcely seemed to be such, did, with a wonderful power and
strength, drag himself up until he grasped an iron bar, close to the window
immediately above him, and then he had a firm hold.
After this his progress was easy, assuming that his object was merely to
get up to the window of the old church, for he stood upon the narrow ledge
without in a few moments.
There was a slight noise, it was of the breaking of a pane of glass, and
then the stranger introduced his hand into the church, and succeeded in
removing a rude primitive looking fastening which held the window in its
place.
In another moment he disappeared from external observation within the
sacred building.
What could he want there at such an hour, and who was he? Did he
contemplate disturbing the repose of the dead with some unhallowed purpose?
Was robbery his aim?
Let us be patient, and probably we shall soon enough perceive that some
affairs are in progress that require the closest attention, and which in the
vaults are calculated to fill the reflecting mind with the most painful
images, and awake sensations of horror at the idea that such things can really
be, and are permitted tacitly by Heaven to take place on the beautiful earth
destined for the dwelling place of man.
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