Johnny Ludlow Fifth Series Part 31

"You must not work to-day, Monk. Squire Todhetley never allows it on Good Friday."

He laughed pleasantly; as much as to say, what Squire Todhetley allowed, or did not allow, was no concern of his; and went briskly away across the lawn. And not once, during the short interview, had his eyes met mine.

Wasn't it dull that afternoon! I took old Duffham's physic, and drank the tea Hannah brought me, and was hot, and restless, and sick. Never a soul to talk to; never a book to read--my eyes and head ached too much for that; never a voice to be heard. Most of the servants were out; all of them, for what I knew, except Hannah; and I was fit to die of weariness. At dusk I went up to the nursery. Hannah was not there.

The fire was raked--if you understand what that means, though it is generally applied only to kitchen fires in our county--which proved that she was off somewhere on a prolonged expedition. Even old Hannah's absence was a disappointment. I threw myself down on the faded sofa at the far end of the room, and, I suppose, went to sleep.

For when I became alive again to outward things, Hannah was seated in one chair at the fire, cracking up the coal; Molly, the cook with the sharp tongue and red-brown eyes, in another. It was dark and late; my head ached awfully, and I wished them and their clatter somewhere. They were talking of St. Mark's Eve, and its popular superst.i.tion. Molly was telling a tale of the past, the beginning of which I had not heard.

"I can't believe it," exclaimed Hannah; "I can't believe that the shadows come."

"Did ye ever watch for 'em, woman?" asked Molly, who had been born in the North.

"No," acknowledged Hannah.

"Then how can ye speak of what ye don't know? It is as true as that you and me be a-sitting here. Two foolish, sickly girls they was, both of 'em sweet upon the same young man. Leastways, he was sweet upon both of them, the deceiver, which comes to the same thing. My sister Becky was five-and-twenty that same year; she had a constant pain and a cough, which some said was windpipe and some said was liver. The other was Mary Clarkson, who was subject to swimmings in the head and frightful dartings. Any way, they'd got no health to brag on, either of 'em, and they were just eat up with jealousy, the one of the other. Tom Town, he knew this; and he played 'em off again' each other nicely, little thinking what his own punishment was to be."

Hannah gently put the poker inside the bars to raise the coal, and some more light came out. Molly went on.

"Now, Hannah, you mustn't think bad of them two young women. They did not wish one another dead--far from it; but each thought the other couldn't live. In natural course, if the one went off, poor thing, Tom Town, he would be left undivided for the other."

"Was Tom Town handsome?" interrupted Hannah.

"Well, middling for that. He was under-sized, not up to their shoulders, with big bushy red whiskers; but he had a taking way with him. He was in a shop for himself, and doing well, so that more young women nor the two I am telling of would have said Yes to his asking. Becky, she thought Mary Clarkson couldn't live the year out; Mary, she told a friend that she was sure Becky wouldn't. And what should they do but go to watch the graveyard on St. Mark's Eve, to see the other's shadow pa.s.s!"

"Together?"

"No; but they met there. Awk'ard, wasn't it? Calling up their wits, each of 'em, they pretended to have come out promiskous, just on the spree, not expecting to see n.o.body's shadow in particular. As they _had_ come, they stopped; standing back again' the hedge near the graveyard, holding on to each other's arms for company, and making belief not to be scared.

Hannah, woman, I don't care to tell this. I've never told it many times."

Molly's face had a hard, solemn look, in the fire's blaze, and Hannah suddenly drew her chair close to her. I could have laughed out loud.

"Just as the clock struck--ten, I think it was," went on Molly, in a half-whisper, "there was a faint rustle heard, like a flutter in the air, and somebody came along the road. At first the women's eyes were dazed, and they didn't see distinct, but as the gate opened to let him in, he turned his face, and they saw it was Tom Town. Both the girls thought it was _himself_, Hannah; and they held their breath and kept quite still, hoping he'd not notice them, for they'd have felt ashamed to be caught watching there."

"And it was not himself?" asked Hannah, catching up her breath.

Molly gave her head a shake. "No more than it was you or me: it was his shadow. He walked on up the path, looking neither to the right nor left, and they lost sight of him. I was with mother when they came home. Mary Clarkson, she came in with Beck, and they said they had seen Tom Town, and supposed he had gone out watching, too. Mother advised them to hold their tongues: it didn't look well, she said, for them two, only sickly young girls, to have run out to the graveyard alone. A short while after, Tom Town, in talking of that night, mother having artfully led to it, said he had gone up to bed at nine with a splitting headache, and forgot all about its being St. Mark's Eve. When mother heard that, she turned the colour o' chalk, and looked round at me."

"And Tom Town died?"

"He died that blessed year; the very day that folks was eating their Michaelmas gooses. A rapid decline took him off."

"It's very strange," said Hannah, musingly. "People believe here that the shadows appear, and folks used to go watching, as it's said. I don't think many go now. Did the two young women die?"

"Not they. Becky's married, and got half-a-dozen children; and Mary Clarkson, she went off to America. Shouldn't you like to watch?"

"Well, I should," acknowledged Hannah; "I would, too, if I thought I should see anything. I've said more than once in my life that I should just like to go out on St. Mark's Eve, and see whether there is anything in it or not. My mother went, I know."

"If you'll go, I'll go."

Hannah made no answer to this at first. She sat looking at the fire with a cross face. It had always a cross look when she was deep in thought.

"The mistress would think me such a fool, Molly, if she came to know of it."

"If! How could she come to know of it? Next Monday will be the Easter holidays, and we mayn't never have the opportunity again. I shouldn't wonder but the lane's full o' watchers. St. Mark's Eve don't often come on a Easter Monday."

There's no time to go on with what they said. A good half-hour the two sat there, laying their plans: when once Hannah had decided to go in for the expedition, she made no more bones over it. The nursery-windows faced the front, and when the carriage was heard driving in, they both decamped downstairs--Hannah to the children, Molly to her kitchen. I found Tod, and told him the news: Hannah and Molly were going to watch in the churchyard for the shadows on St. Mark's Eve.

"We'll have some fun over this, Johnny," said he, when he had done laughing. "You and I will be on to them."

Monday came; and, upon my word, it seemed as if things turned out on purpose. Mr. Todhetley went off to Worcester with Dwarf Giles, on some business connected with the Quarter Sessions, and was not expected home until midnight, as he stayed to dine at Worcester. Mrs. Todhetley had one of her excruciating face-aches, and she went to bed when the children did--seven o'clock. Hannah had said in the morning that she and Molly were going to spend an hour or two with Goody Picker after the children were in bed; upon which Mrs. Todhetley told her to get them to bed early. It was something rare for Hannah to take any holiday; she generally said she did not want it. Goody Picker's husband used to be a gamekeeper--not ours. Since his death she lived how she could, on her vegetables, or by letting her odd room; Roger Monk had it now. Sometimes she had her grandchild with her; and the parents, well-to-do shopkeepers at Alcester, paid her well. Goody Picker was thought well of at our house, and came up occasionally to have tea in the nursery with Hannah.

I was well by Monday; nothing but a bit of a cough left; and Tod and I looked forward to the night's fun. Not a word had we heard since; but we had seen the two women-servants whispering together whenever they got the chance; and so we knew they were going. What Tod meant to do, he wouldn't tell me; I think he hardly knew himself. The big turnips were all gone, or he might have scooped one out for a death's head, and stuck it on the gate-post, with a candle in it.

The night came. A clear night, with a miserable moon. Miserable for our sport, because it was so bright.

"A pitch-dark night would have had some sense in it, you know, Johnny,"

Tod remarked to me, as we stood at the door, looking out. "The moon should hide her face on St. Mark's Eve."

Just as he spoke, the clock struck nine. Time to be going. There was n.o.body to let or hinder us. Mrs. Todhetley was in bed groaning with toothache; old Thomas and Phoebe, neither of whom had cared to take holiday, were at supper in the kitchen. She was a young girl lately had in to help the housemaid.

"You go on, Johnny; I'll follow presently. Take your time; they won't go on the watch for this half-hour yet."

"But, Tod, what is it that you are going to do?"

"Never you mind. If you hear a great noise, and see a light blaze up, don't you be scared."

"I scared, Tod! That's good."

"All right, Johnny. Take care not to be seen. It might spoil sport."

The church was about half-a-mile from our house, whether you crossed the fields to it or took the highway. It stood back from the road, in its big churchyard. A narrow lane, between two dwarf hedges, led up from the road to the gate; it was hardly wide enough for carriages; they wound round the open road further on. A cross-path, shut in by two stiles, led right across the lane near to the churchyard gate. Stories went that a poor fellow who had hung himself about twenty years ago was buried by torchlight under that very crossing, with never a parson to say a prayer over him.

We guessed where the women would stand--at one of these crossing stiles, with the gate and the churchyard in full view. As Tod said, it stood to reason that shadows and the watchers for them would not choose the broader road, where all was open, and not so much as a tree grew for shelter.

I stole along cautiously, taking the roadway and keeping under shade of the hedge, and got there all right. Not a creature was about. The old grey church, built of stone, the many-shaped graves in the churchyard, stood white and cold in the moonlight. I went behind the cross-stile at the side furthest from our house, and leaned over it, looking up and down the lane. That the women would be on the opposite side was certain, because the churchyard gate could not be seen so well from this.

The old clock did not tell the quarters, only struck the hour; time went on, and I began to wonder how long I was to wait. It must be turned half-past nine; getting nearer to a quarter to ten; and still n.o.body came. Where were the watchers? And where was Tod? The shadows of the trees, of the hedges, of the graves, fell in distinct lines on the gra.s.s; and I don't mind confessing that it felt uncommonly lonely.

"Hou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou!" burst forth over my head with a sudden and unearthly sound. I started back in a fright for one moment, and called myself an idiot the next, for it was only an owl. It had come flying forth from the old belfry, and went rushing on with its great wings, crying still, but changing its note. "Tu-whit; tu-whoo."

And while I watched the owl, other sounds, as of whispering, made themselves manifest, heralding the approach of the women from the opposite field, making for the stile in front of me, through the little copse. Drawing behind the low hedge, to sit down on the stump of a tree, I pushed my head forward, and took a look at them through the lower bars of the stile. They were standing at the other, in their light shawls and new Easter straw-bonnets; Molly's trimmed with green, Hannah's with primrose. The moonlight fell full on their faces--mine was in the shade.

But they might see me, and I drew back again.

Presently they began to gabble; in low tones at first, which increased, perhaps unconsciously to themselves, to higher ones. They said how lonely it was, especially with "them grave-marks" in view close by; and they speculated upon whether any shadows would appear to them. My sense of loneliness had vanished. To have two practical women, each of them a good five-and-thirty, for neighbours, took it off. But I wondered what had become of Tod.

Another owl! or perhaps the last one coming back again. It was not so startling a noise as before, and created no alarm. I thought it a good opportunity to steal another look, and propelled my head forward an inch at a time. Their two faces were turned upwards, watching the owl's flight towards the belfry.

But to my intense astonishment there was a _third_ face. A face behind them peeping out from the close folds of a mantle, and almost resting on their shoulders. At the first moment I thought of Tod; but soon the features became familiar to me in the bright light, and I knew them for Phoebe's. Phoebe, whom I had left in the kitchen, supping quietly!

That she had stolen up unseen and unheard while they talked, was apparent.