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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44581 ***
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  LONDON:
+  SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND CO., LTD.
+
+
+
+
+  THE STONEGROUND
+  GHOST TALES
+
+  COMPILED FROM THE RECOLLECTIONS OF
+  THE REVEREND ROLAND BATCHEL,
+  VICAR OF THE PARISH.
+
+  BY
+
+  E. G. SWAIN
+
+  CAMBRIDGE:
+  W. HEFFER & SONS LTD.
+  1912
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+
+  MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES
+
+  (LITT.D., HON. LITT.D. DUBLIN,
+  HON. LL.D. ST. ANDR., F.B.A., F.S.A., ETC.)
+  PROVOST OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
+  FOR TWENTY PLEASANT YEARS MR. BATCHEL'S FRIEND,
+  AND THE INDULGENT PARENT OF SUCH TASTES
+  AS THESE PAGES INDICATE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                              PAGE
+  I.--THE MAN WITH THE ROLLER    1
+
+  II.--BONE TO HIS BONE         19
+
+  III.--THE RICHPINS            35
+
+  IV.--THE EASTERN WINDOW       63
+
+  V.--LUBRIETTA                 83
+
+  VI.--THE ROCKERY             103
+
+  VII.--THE INDIAN LAMP SHADE  123
+
+  VIII.--THE PLACE OF SAFETY   147
+
+  IX.--THE KIRK SPOOK          175
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+THE MAN WITH THE ROLLER.
+
+
+On the edge of that vast tract of East Anglia, which retains its
+ancient name of the Fens, there may be found, by those who know where
+to seek it, a certain village called Stoneground. It was once a
+picturesque village. To-day it is not to be called either a village,
+or picturesque. Man dwells not in one "house of clay," but in two, and
+the material of the second is drawn from the earth upon which this and
+the neighbouring villages stood. The unlovely signs of the industry
+have changed the place alike in aspect and in population. Many who have
+seen the fossil skeletons of great saurians brought out of the clay
+in which they have lain from pre-historic times, have thought that
+the inhabitants of the place have not since changed for the better.
+The chief habitations, however, have their foundations not upon clay,
+but upon a bed of gravel which anciently gave to the place its name,
+and upon the highest part of this gravel stands, and has stood for
+many centuries, the Parish Church, dominating the landscape for miles
+around.
+
+Stoneground, however, is no longer the inaccessible village, which in
+the middle ages stood out above a waste of waters. Occasional floods
+serve to indicate what was once its ordinary outlook, but in more
+recent times the construction of roads and railways, and the drainage
+of the Fens, have given it freedom of communication with the world from
+which it was formerly isolated.
+
+The Vicarage of Stoneground stands hard by the Church, and is renowned
+for its spacious garden, part of which, and that (as might be expected)
+the part nearest the house, is of ancient date. To the original plot
+successive Vicars have added adjacent lands, so that the garden has
+gradually acquired the state in which it now appears.
+
+The Vicars have been many in number. Since Henry de Greville was
+instituted in the year 1140 there have been 30, all of whom have lived,
+and most of whom have died, in successive vicarage houses upon the
+present site.
+
+The present incumbent, Mr. Batchel, is a solitary man of somewhat
+studious habits, but is not too much enamoured of his solitude to
+receive visits, from time to time, from schoolboys and such. In the
+summer of the year 1906 he entertained two, who are the occasion of
+this narrative, though still unconscious of their part in it, for
+one of the two, celebrating his 15th birthday during his visit to
+Stoneground, was presented by Mr. Batchel with a new camera, with which
+he proceeded to photograph, with considerable skill, the surroundings
+of the house.
+
+One of these photographs Mr. Batchel thought particularly pleasing. It
+was a view of the house with the lawn in the foreground. A few small
+copies, such as the boy's camera was capable of producing, were sent
+to him by his young friend, some weeks after the visit, and again Mr.
+Batchel was so much pleased with the picture, that he begged for the
+negative, with the intention of having the view enlarged.
+
+The boy met the request with what seemed a needlessly modest plea.
+There were two negatives, he replied, but each of them had, in the same
+part of the picture, a small blur for which there was no accounting
+otherwise than by carelessness. His desire, therefore, was to discard
+these films, and to produce something more worthy of enlargement, upon
+a subsequent visit.
+
+Mr. Batchel, however, persisted in his request, and upon receipt of the
+negative, examined it with a lens. He was just able to detect the blur
+alluded to; an examination under a powerful glass, in fact revealed
+something more than he had at first detected. The blur was like the
+nucleus of a comet as one sees it represented in pictures, and seemed
+to be connected with a faint streak which extended across the negative.
+It was, however, so inconsiderable a defect that Mr. Batchel resolved
+to disregard it. He had a neighbour whose favourite pastime was
+photography, one who was notably skilled in everything that pertained
+to the art, and to him he sent the negative, with the request for an
+enlargement, reminding him of a long-standing promise to do any such
+service, when as had now happened, his friend might see fit to ask it.
+
+This neighbour who had acquired such skill in photography was one Mr.
+Groves, a young clergyman, residing in the Precincts of the Minster
+near at hand, which was visible from Mr. Batchel's garden. He lodged
+with a Mrs. Rumney, a superannuated servant of the Palace, and a
+strong-minded vigorous woman still, exactly such a one as Mr. Groves
+needed to have about him. For he was a constant trial to Mrs. Rumney,
+and but for the wholesome fear she begot in him, would have converted
+his rooms into a mere den. Her carpets and tablecloths were continually
+bespattered with chemicals; her chimney-piece ornaments had been
+unceremoniously stowed away and replaced by labelled bottles; even the
+bed of Mr. Groves was, by day, strewn with drying films and mounts, and
+her old and favourite cat had a bald patch on his flank, the result of
+a mishap with the pyrogallic acid.
+
+Mrs. Rumney's lodger, however, was a great favourite with her, as
+such helpless men are apt to be with motherly women, and she took no
+small pride in his work. A life-size portrait of herself, originally a
+peace-offering, hung in her parlour, and had long excited the envy of
+every friend who took tea with her.
+
+"Mr. Groves," she was wont to say, "is a nice gentleman, AND a
+gentleman; and chemical though he may be, I'd rather wait on him for
+nothing than what I would on anyone else for twice the money."
+
+Every new piece of photographic work was of interest to Mrs. Rumney,
+and she expected to be allowed both to admire and to criticise. The
+view of Stoneground Vicarage, therefore, was shown to her upon its
+arrival. "Well may it want enlarging," she remarked, "and it no
+bigger than a postage stamp; it looks more like a doll's house than a
+vicarage," and with this she went about her work, whilst Mr. Groves
+retired to his dark room with the film, to see what he could make of
+the task assigned to him.
+
+Two days later, after repeated visits to his dark room, he had made
+something considerable; and when Mrs. Rumney brought him his chop for
+luncheon, she was lost in admiration. A large but unfinished print
+stood upon his easel, and such a picture of Stoneground Vicarage was in
+the making as was calculated to delight both the young photographer and
+the Vicar.
+
+Mr. Groves spent only his mornings, as a rule, in photography. His
+afternoons he gave to pastoral work, and the work upon this enlargement
+was over for the day. It required little more than "touching up,"
+but it was this "touching up" which made the difference between
+the enlargements of Mr. Groves and those of other men. The print,
+therefore, was to be left upon the easel until the morrow, when it
+was to be finished. Mrs. Rumney and he, together, gave it an admiring
+inspection as she was carrying away the tray, and what they agreed in
+admiring most particularly was the smooth and open stretch of lawn,
+which made so excellent a foreground for the picture. "It looks," said
+Mrs. Rumney, who had once been young, "as if it was waiting for someone
+to come and dance on it."
+
+Mr. Groves left his lodgings--we must now be particular about the
+hours--at half-past two, with the intention of returning, as usual,
+at five. "As reg'lar as a clock," Mrs. Rumney was wont to say, "and a
+sight more reg'lar than some clocks I knows of."
+
+Upon this day he was, nevertheless, somewhat late, some visit had
+detained him unexpectedly, and it was a quarter-past five when he
+inserted his latch-key in Mrs. Rumney's door.
+
+Hardly had he entered, when his landlady, obviously awaiting him,
+appeared in the passage: her face, usually florid, was of the colour
+of parchment, and, breathing hurriedly and shortly, she pointed at the
+door of Mr. Groves' room.
+
+In some alarm at her condition, Mr. Groves hastily questioned her; all
+she could say was: "The photograph! the photograph!" Mr. Groves could
+only suppose that his enlargement had met with some mishap for which
+Mrs. Rumney was responsible. Perhaps she had allowed it to flutter into
+the fire. He turned towards his room in order to discover the worst,
+but at this Mrs. Rumney laid a trembling hand upon his arm, and held
+him back. "Don't go in," she said, "have your tea in the parlour."
+
+"Nonsense," said Mr. Groves, "if that is gone we can easily do another."
+
+"Gone," said his landlady, "I wish to Heaven it was."
+
+The ensuing conversation shall not detain us. It will suffice to say
+that after a considerable time Mr. Groves succeeded in quieting his
+landlady, so much so that she consented, still trembling violently, to
+enter the room with him. To speak truth, she was as much concerned for
+him as for herself, and she was not by nature a timid woman.
+
+The room, so far from disclosing to Mr. Groves any cause for
+excitement, appeared wholly unchanged. In its usual place stood every
+article of his stained and ill-used furniture, on the easel stood the
+photograph, precisely where he had left it; and except that his tea was
+not upon the table, everything was in its usual state and place.
+
+But Mrs. Rumney again became excited and tremulous, "It's there," she
+cried. "Look at the lawn."
+
+Mr. Groves stepped quickly forward and looked at the photograph. Then
+he turned as pale as Mrs. Rumney herself.
+
+There was a man, a man with an indescribably horrible suffering face,
+rolling the lawn with a large roller.
+
+Mr. Groves retreated in amazement to where Mrs. Rumney had remained
+standing. "Has anyone been in here?" he asked.
+
+"Not a soul," was the reply, "I came in to make up the fire, and
+turned to have another look at the picture, when I saw that dead-alive
+face at the edge. It gave me the creeps," she said, "particularly from
+not having noticed it before. If that's anyone in Stoneground, I said
+to myself, I wonder the Vicar has him in the garden with that awful
+face. It took that hold of me I thought I must come and look at it
+again, and at five o'clock I brought your tea in. And then I saw him
+moved along right in front, with a roller dragging behind him, like you
+see."
+
+Mr. Groves was greatly puzzled. Mrs. Rumney's story, of course, was
+incredible, but this strange evil-faced man had appeared in the
+photograph somehow. That he had not been there when the print was made
+was quite certain.
+
+The problem soon ceased to alarm Mr. Groves; in his mind it was
+investing itself with a scientific interest. He began to think of
+suspended chemical action, and other possible avenues of investigation.
+At Mrs. Rumney's urgent entreaty, however, he turned the photograph
+upon the easel, and with only its white back presented to the room, he
+sat down and ordered tea to be brought in.
+
+He did not look again at the picture. The face of the man had about it
+something unnaturally painful: he could remember, and still see, as
+it were, the drawn features, and the look of the man had unaccountably
+distressed him.
+
+He finished his slight meal, and having lit a pipe, began to brood over
+the scientific possibilities of the problem. Had any other photograph
+upon the original film become involved in the one he had enlarged? Had
+the image of any other face, distorted by the enlarging lens, become
+a part of this picture? For the space of two hours he debated this
+possibility, and that, only to reject them all. His optical knowledge
+told him that no conceivable accident could have brought into his
+picture a man with a roller. No negative of his had ever contained such
+a man; if it had, no natural causes would suffice to leave him, as it
+were, hovering about the apparatus.
+
+His repugnance to the actual thing had by this time lost its freshness,
+and he determined to end his scientific musings with another inspection
+of the object. So he approached the easel and turned the photograph
+round again. His horror returned, and with good cause. The man with
+the roller had now advanced to the middle of the lawn. The face was
+stricken still with the same indescribable look of suffering. The man
+seemed to be appealing to the spectator for some kind of help. Almost,
+he spoke.
+
+Mr. Groves was naturally reduced to a condition of extreme nervous
+excitement. Although not by nature what is called a nervous man, he
+trembled from head to foot. With a sudden effort, he turned away
+his head, took hold of the picture with his outstretched hand, and
+opening a drawer in his sideboard thrust the thing underneath a folded
+tablecloth which was lying there. Then he closed the drawer and took up
+an entertaining book to distract his thoughts from the whole matter.
+
+In this he succeeded very ill. Yet somehow the rest of the evening
+passed, and as it wore away, he lost something of his alarm. At ten
+o'clock, Mrs. Rumney, knocking and receiving answer twice, lest by any
+chance she should find herself alone in the room, brought in the cocoa
+usually taken by her lodger at that hour. A hasty glance at the easel
+showed her that it stood empty, and her face betrayed her relief. She
+made no comment, and Mr. Groves invited none.
+
+The latter, however, could not make up his mind to go to bed. The face
+he had seen was taking firm hold upon his imagination, and seemed to
+fascinate him and repel him at the same time. Before long, he found
+himself wholly unable to resist the impulse to look at it once more.
+He took it again, with some indecision, from the drawer and laid it
+under the lamp.
+
+The man with the roller had now passed completely over the lawn, and
+was near the left of the picture.
+
+The shock to Mr. Groves was again considerable. He stood facing the
+fire, trembling with excitement which refused to be suppressed. In
+this state his eye lighted upon the calendar hanging before him, and
+it furnished him with some distraction. The next day was his mother's
+birthday. Never did he omit to write a letter which should lie upon
+her breakfast-table, and the pre-occupation of this evening had
+made him wholly forgetful of the matter. There was a collection of
+letters, however, from the pillar-box near at hand, at a quarter before
+midnight, so he turned to his desk, wrote a letter which would at least
+serve to convey his affectionate greetings, and having written it, went
+out into the night and posted it.
+
+The clocks were striking midnight as he returned to his room. We may be
+sure that he did not resist the desire to glance at the photograph he
+had left on his table. But the results of that glance, he, at any rate,
+had not anticipated. The man with the roller had disappeared. The lawn
+lay as smooth and clear as at first, "looking," as Mrs. Rumney had
+said, "as if it was waiting for someone to come and dance on it."
+
+The photograph, after this, remained a photograph and nothing more. Mr.
+Groves would have liked to persuade himself that it had never undergone
+these changes which he had witnessed, and which we have endeavoured to
+describe, but his sense of their reality was too insistent. He kept
+the print lying for a week upon his easel. Mrs. Rumney, although she
+had ceased to dread it, was obviously relieved at its disappearance,
+when it was carried to Stoneground to be delivered to Mr. Batchel.
+Mr. Groves said nothing of the man with the roller, but gave the
+enlargement, without comment, into his friend's hands. The work of
+enlargement had been skilfully done, and was deservedly praised.
+
+Mr. Groves, making some modest disclaimer, observed that the view, with
+its spacious foreground of lawn, was such as could not have failed to
+enlarge well. And this lawn, he added, as they sat looking out of the
+Vicar's study, looks as well from within your house as from without.
+It must give you a sense of responsibility, he added, reflectively, to
+be sitting where your predecessors have sat for so many centuries and
+to be continuing their peaceful work. The mere presence before your
+window, of the turf upon which good men have walked, is an inspiration.
+
+The Vicar made no reply to these somewhat sententious remarks. For
+a moment he seemed as if he would speak some words of conventional
+assent. Then he abruptly left the room, to return in a few minutes with
+a parchment book.
+
+"Your remark, Groves," he said as he seated himself again, "recalled to
+me a curious bit of history: I went up to the old library to get the
+book. This is the journal of William Longue who was Vicar here up to
+the year 1602. What you said about the lawn will give you an interest
+in a certain portion of the journal. I will read it."
+
+  Aug. 1, 1600.--I am now returned in haste from a journey to
+      Brightelmstone whither I had gone with full intention to
+      remain about the space of two months. Master Josiah Wilburton,
+      of my dear College of Emmanuel, having consented to assume
+      the charge of my parish of Stoneground in the meantime. But
+      I had intelligence, after 12 days' absence, by a messenger
+      from the Churchwardens, that Master Wilburton had disappeared
+      last Monday sennight, and had been no more seen. So here I am
+      again in my study to the entire frustration of my plans, and
+      can do nothing in my perplexity but sit and look out from my
+      window, before which Andrew Birch rolleth the grass with much
+      persistence. Andrew passeth so many times over the same place
+      with his roller that I have just now stepped without to demand
+      why he so wasteth his labour, and upon this he hath pointed out
+      a place which is not levelled, and hath continued his rolling.
+
+
+  Aug. 2.--There is a change in Andrew Birch since my absence, who
+      hath indeed the aspect of one in great depression, which is
+      noteworthy of so chearful a man. He haply shares our common
+      trouble in respect of Master Wilburton, of whom we remain
+      without tidings. Having made part of a sermon upon the seventh
+      Chapter of the former Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians
+      and the 27th verse, I found Andrew again at his task, and bade
+      him desist and saddle my horse, being minded to ride forth and
+      take counsel with my good friend John Palmer at the Deanery,
+      who bore Master Wilburton great affection.
+
+
+  Aug. 2 continued.--Dire news awaiteth me upon my return. The
+      Sheriff's men have disinterred the body of poor Master W. from
+      beneath the grass Andrew was rolling, and have arrested him on
+      the charge of being his cause of death.
+
+
+  Aug. 10--Alas! Andrew Birch hath been hanged, the Justice having
+      mercifully ordered that he should hang by the neck until he
+      should be dead, and not sooner molested. May the Lord have
+      mercy on his soul. He made full confession before me, that he
+      had slain Master Wilburton in heat upon his threatening to
+      make me privy to certain peculation of which I should not have
+      suspected so old a servant. The poor man bemoaned his evil
+      temper in great contrition, and beat his breast, saying that
+      he knew himself doomed for ever to roll the grass in the place
+      where he had tried to conceal his wicked fact.
+
+"Thank you," said Mr. Groves. "Has that little negative got the date
+upon it?" "Yes," replied Mr. Batchel, as he examined it with his glass.
+The boy has marked it August 10. The Vicar seemed not to remark the
+coincidence with the date of Birch's execution. Needless to say that it
+did not escape Mr. Groves. But he kept silence about the man with the
+roller, who has been no more seen to this day.
+
+Doubtless there is more in our photography than we yet know of. The
+camera sees more than the eye, and chemicals in a freshly prepared and
+active state, have a power which they afterwards lose. Our units of
+time, adopted for the convenience of persons dealing with the ordinary
+movements of material objects, are of course conventional. Those who
+turn the instruments of science upon nature will always be in danger of
+seeing more than they looked for. There is such a disaster as that of
+knowing too much, and at some time or another it may overtake each of
+us. May we then be as wise as Mr. Groves in our reticence, if our turn
+should come.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+BONE TO HIS BONE.
+
+
+William Whitehead, Fellow of Emmanuel College, in the University of
+Cambridge, became Vicar of Stoneground in the year 1731. The annals
+of his incumbency were doubtless short and simple: they have not
+survived. In his day were no newspapers to collect gossip, no Parish
+Magazines to record the simple events of parochial life. One event,
+however, of greater moment then than now, is recorded in two places.
+Vicar Whitehead failed in health after 23 years of work, and journeyed
+to Bath in what his monument calls "the vain hope of being restored."
+The duration of his visit is unknown; it is reasonable to suppose that
+he made his journey in the summer, it is certain that by the month of
+November his physician told him to lay aside all hope of recovery.
+
+Then it was that the thoughts of the patient turned to the comfortable
+straggling vicarage he had left at Stoneground, in which he had hoped
+to end his days. He prayed that his successor might be as happy there
+as he had been himself. Setting his affairs in order, as became one
+who had but a short time to live, he executed a will, bequeathing
+to the Vicars of Stoneground, for ever, the close of ground he had
+recently purchased because it lay next the vicarage garden. And by a
+codicil, he added to the bequest his library of books. Within a few
+days, William Whitehead was gathered to his fathers.
+
+A mural tablet in the north aisle of the church, records, in Latin, his
+services and his bequests, his two marriages, and his fruitless journey
+to Bath. The house he loved, but never again saw, was taken down 40
+years later, and re-built by Vicar James Devie. The garden, with Vicar
+Whitehead's "close of ground" and other adjacent lands, was opened out
+and planted, somewhat before 1850, by Vicar Robert Towerson. The aspect
+of everything has changed. But in a convenient chamber on the first
+floor of the present vicarage the library of Vicar Whitehead stands
+very much as he used it and loved it, and as he bequeathed it to his
+successors "for ever."
+
+The books there are arranged as he arranged and ticketed them. Little
+slips of paper, sometimes bearing interesting fragments of writing,
+still mark his places. His marginal comments still give life to pages
+from which all other interest has faded, and he would have but a dull
+imagination who could sit in the chamber amidst these books without
+ever being carried back 180 years into the past, to the time when the
+newest of them left the printer's hands.
+
+Of those into whose possession the books have come, some have doubtless
+loved them more, and some less; some, perhaps, have left them severely
+alone. But neither those who loved them, nor those who loved them not,
+have lost them, and they passed, some century and a half after William
+Whitehead's death, into the hands of Mr. Batchel, who loved them as a
+father loves his children. He lived alone, and had few domestic cares
+to distract his mind. He was able, therefore, to enjoy to the full what
+Vicar Whitehead had enjoyed so long before him. During many a long
+summer evening would he sit poring over long-forgotten books; and since
+the chamber, otherwise called the library, faced the south, he could
+also spend sunny winter mornings there without discomfort. Writing at
+a small table, or reading as he stood at a tall desk, he would browse
+amongst the books like an ox in a pleasant pasture.
+
+There were other times also, at which Mr. Batchel would use the books.
+Not being a sound sleeper (for book-loving men seldom are), he elected
+to use as a bedroom one of the two chambers which opened at either
+side into the library. The arrangement enabled him to beguile many a
+sleepless hour amongst the books, and in view of these nocturnal visits
+he kept a candle standing in a sconce above the desk, and matches
+always ready to his hand.
+
+There was one disadvantage in this close proximity of his bed to the
+library. Owing, apparently, to some defect in the fittings of the room,
+which, having no mechanical tastes, Mr. Batchel had never investigated,
+there could be heard, in the stillness of the night, exactly such
+sounds as might arise from a person moving about amongst the books.
+Visitors using the other adjacent room would often remark at breakfast,
+that they had heard their host in the library at one or two o'clock in
+the morning, when, in fact, he had not left his bed. Invariably Mr.
+Batchel allowed them to suppose that he had been where they thought
+him. He disliked idle controversy, and was unwilling to afford an
+opening for supernatural talk. Knowing well enough the sounds by which
+his guests had been deceived, he wanted no other explanation of them
+than his own, though it was of too vague a character to count as an
+explanation. He conjectured that the window-sashes, or the doors, or
+"something," were defective, and was too phlegmatic and too unpractical
+to make any investigation. The matter gave him no concern.
+
+Persons whose sleep is uncertain are apt to have their worst nights
+when they would like their best. The consciousness of a special need
+for rest seems to bring enough mental disturbance to forbid it. So on
+Christmas Eve, in the year 1907, Mr. Batchel, who would have liked to
+sleep well, in view of the labours of Christmas Day, lay hopelessly
+wide awake. He exhausted all the known devices for courting sleep,
+and, at the end, found himself wider awake than ever. A brilliant moon
+shone into his room, for he hated window-blinds. There was a light
+wind blowing, and the sounds in the library were more than usually
+suggestive of a person moving about. He almost determined to have the
+sashes "seen to," although he could seldom be induced to have anything
+"seen to." He disliked changes, even for the better, and would submit
+to great inconvenience rather than have things altered with which he
+had become familiar.
+
+As he revolved these matters in his mind, he heard the clocks strike
+the hour of midnight, and having now lost all hope of falling asleep,
+he rose from his bed, got into a large dressing gown which hung in
+readiness for such occasions, and passed into the library, with the
+intention of reading himself sleepy, if he could.
+
+The moon, by this time, had passed out of the south, and the library
+seemed all the darker by contrast with the moonlit chamber he had
+left. He could see nothing but two blue-grey rectangles formed by the
+windows against the sky, the furniture of the room being altogether
+invisible. Groping along to where the table stood, Mr. Batchel felt
+over its surface for the matches which usually lay there; he found,
+however, that the table was cleared of everything. He raised his right
+hand, therefore, in order to feel his way to a shelf where the matches
+were sometimes mislaid, and at that moment, whilst his hand was in
+mid-air, the matchbox was gently put into it!
+
+Such an incident could hardly fail to disturb even a phlegmatic person,
+and Mr. Batchel cried "Who's this?" somewhat nervously. There was no
+answer. He struck a match, looked hastily round the room, and found
+it empty, as usual. There was everything, that is to say, that he was
+accustomed to see, but no other person than himself.
+
+It is not quite accurate, however, to say that everything was in
+its usual state. Upon the tall desk lay a quarto volume that he had
+certainly not placed there. It was his quite invariable practice to
+replace his books upon the shelves after using them, and what we may
+call his library habits were precise and methodical. A book out of
+place like this, was not only an offence against good order, but a
+sign that his privacy had been intruded upon. With some surprise,
+therefore, he lit the candle standing ready in the sconce, and
+proceeded to examine the book, not sorry, in the disturbed condition in
+which he was, to have an occupation found for him.
+
+The book proved to be one with which he was unfamiliar, and this made
+it certain that some other hand than his had removed it from its place.
+Its title was "The Compleat Gard'ner" of M. de la Quintinye made
+English by John Evelyn Esquire. It was not a work in which Mr. Batchel
+felt any great interest. It consisted of divers reflections on various
+parts of husbandry, doubtless entertaining enough, but too deliberate
+and discursive for practical purposes. He had certainly never used the
+book, and growing restless now in mind, said to himself that some boy
+having the freedom of the house, had taken it down from its place in
+the hope of finding pictures.
+
+But even whilst he made this explanation he felt its weakness. To begin
+with, the desk was too high for a boy. The improbability that any boy
+would place a book there was equalled by the improbability that he
+would leave it there. To discover its uninviting character would be
+the work only of a moment, and no boy would have brought it so far from
+its shelf.
+
+Mr. Batchel had, however, come to read, and habit was too strong
+with him to be wholly set aside. Leaving "The Compleat Gard'ner" on
+the desk, he turned round to the shelves to find some more congenial
+reading.
+
+Hardly had he done this when he was startled by a sharp rap upon the
+desk behind him, followed by a rustling of paper. He turned quickly
+about and saw the quarto lying open. In obedience to the instinct of
+the moment, he at once sought a natural cause for what he saw. Only a
+wind, and that of the strongest, could have opened the book, and laid
+back its heavy cover; and though he accepted, for a brief moment, that
+explanation, he was too candid to retain it longer. The wind out of
+doors was very light. The window sash was closed and latched, and, to
+decide the matter finally, the book had its back, and not its edges,
+turned towards the only quarter from which a wind could strike.
+
+Mr. Batchel approached the desk again and stood over the book. With
+increasing perturbation of mind (for he still thought of the matchbox)
+he looked upon the open page. Without much reason beyond that he felt
+constrained to do something, he read the words of the half completed
+sentence at the turn of the page--
+
+      "at dead of night he left the house and passed into the
+      solitude of the garden."
+
+But he read no more, nor did he give himself the trouble of discovering
+whose midnight wandering was being described, although the habit was
+singularly like one of his own. He was in no condition for reading,
+and turning his back upon the volume he slowly paced the length of the
+chamber, "wondering at that which had come to pass."
+
+He reached the opposite end of the chamber and was in the act of
+turning, when again he heard the rustling of paper, and by the time he
+had faced round, saw the leaves of the book again turning over. In a
+moment the volume lay at rest, open in another place, and there was no
+further movement as he approached it. To make sure that he had not been
+deceived, he read again the words as they entered the page. The author
+was following a not uncommon practise of the time, and throwing common
+speech into forms suggested by Holy Writ: "So dig," it said, "that ye
+may obtain."
+
+This passage, which to Mr. Batchel seemed reprehensible in its levity,
+excited at once his interest and his disapproval. He was prepared to
+read more, but this time was not allowed. Before his eye could pass
+beyond the passage already cited, the leaves of the book slowly turned
+again, and presented but a termination of five words and a colophon.
+
+The words were, "to the North, an Ilex." These three passages, in which
+he saw no meaning and no connection, began to entangle themselves
+together in Mr. Batchel's mind. He found himself repeating them in
+different orders, now beginning with one, and now with another. Any
+further attempt at reading he felt to be impossible, and he was in
+no mind for any more experiences of the unaccountable. Sleep was, of
+course, further from him than ever, if that were conceivable. What he
+did, therefore, was to blow out the candle, to return to his moonlit
+bedroom, and put on more clothing, and then to pass downstairs with the
+object of going out of doors.
+
+It was not unusual with Mr. Batchel to walk about his garden at
+night-time. This form of exercise had often, after a wakeful hour,
+sent him back to his bed refreshed and ready for sleep. The convenient
+access to the garden at such times lay through his study, whose French
+windows opened on to a short flight of steps, and upon these he now
+paused for a moment to admire the snow-like appearance of the lawns,
+bathed as they were in the moonlight. As he paused, he heard the city
+clocks strike the half-hour after midnight, and he could not forbear
+repeating aloud
+
+      "At dead of night he left the house, and passed into the
+      solitude of the garden."
+
+It was solitary enough. At intervals the screech of an owl, and now and
+then the noise of a train, seemed to emphasise the solitude by drawing
+attention to it and then leaving it in possession of the night. Mr.
+Batchel found himself wondering and conjecturing what Vicar Whitehead,
+who had acquired the close of land to secure quiet and privacy for
+garden, would have thought of the railways to the west and north. He
+turned his face northwards, whence a whistle had just sounded, and saw
+a tree beautifully outlined against the sky. His breath caught at the
+sight. Not because the tree was unfamiliar. Mr. Batchel knew all his
+trees. But what he had seen was "to the north, an Ilex."
+
+Mr. Batchel knew not what to make of it all. He had walked into the
+garden hundreds of times and as often seen the Ilex, but the words out
+of the "Compleat Gard'ner" seemed to be pursuing him in a way that made
+him almost afraid. His temperament, however, as has been said already,
+was phlegmatic. It was commonly said, and Mr. Batchel approved the
+verdict, whilst he condemned its inexactness, that "his nerves were
+made of fiddle-string," so he braced himself afresh and set upon his
+walk round the silent garden, which he was accustomed to begin in a
+northerly direction, and was now too proud to change. He usually passed
+the Ilex at the beginning of his perambulation, and so would pass it
+now.
+
+He did not pass it. A small discovery, as he reached it, annoyed and
+disturbed him. His gardener, as careful and punctilious as himself,
+never failed to house all his tools at the end of a day's work. Yet
+there, under the Ilex, standing upright in moonlight brilliant enough
+to cast a shadow of it, was a spade.
+
+Mr. Batchel's second thought was one of relief. After his extraordinary
+experiences in the library (he hardly knew now whether they had been
+real or not) something quite commonplace would act sedatively, and he
+determined to carry the spade to the tool-house.
+
+The soil was quite dry, and the surface even a little frozen, so Mr.
+Batchel left the path, walked up to the spade, and would have drawn it
+towards him. But it was as if he had made the attempt upon the trunk
+of the Ilex itself. The spade would not be moved. Then, first with one
+hand, and then with both, he tried to raise it, and still it stood
+firm. Mr. Batchel, of course, attributed this to the frost, slight
+as it was. Wondering at the spade's being there, and annoyed at its
+being frozen, he was about to leave it and continue his walk, when
+the remaining words of the "Compleat Gard'ner" seemed rather to utter
+themselves, than to await his will--
+
+      "So dig, that ye may obtain."
+
+Mr. Batchel's power of independent action now deserted him. He took the
+spade, which no longer resisted, and began to dig. "Five spadefuls and
+no more," he said aloud. "This is all foolishness."
+
+Four spadefuls of earth he then raised and spread out before him in the
+moonlight. There was nothing unusual to be seen. Nor did Mr. Batchel
+decide what he would look for, whether coins, jewels, documents in
+canisters, or weapons. In point of fact, he dug against what he deemed
+his better judgment, and expected nothing. He spread before him the
+fifth and last spadeful of earth, not quite without result, but with
+no result that was at all sensational. The earth contained a bone. Mr.
+Batchel's knowledge of anatomy was sufficient to show him that it was
+a human bone. He identified it, even by moonlight, as the _radius_, a
+bone of the forearm, as he removed the earth from it, with his thumb.
+
+Such a discovery might be thought worthy of more than the very
+ordinary interest Mr. Batchel showed. As a matter of fact, the presence
+of a human bone was easily to be accounted for. Recent excavations
+within the church had caused the upturning of numberless bones, which
+had been collected and reverently buried. But an earth-stained bone is
+also easily overlooked, and this _radius_ had obviously found its way
+into the garden with some of the earth brought out of the church.
+
+Mr. Batchel was glad, rather than regretful at this termination to
+his adventure. He was once more provided with something to do. The
+re-interment of such bones as this had been his constant care, and he
+decided at once to restore the bone to consecrated earth. The time
+seemed opportune. The eyes of the curious were closed in sleep, he
+himself was still alert and wakeful. The spade remained by his side
+and the bone in his hand. So he betook himself, there and then, to the
+churchyard. By the still generous light of the moon, he found a place
+where the earth yielded to his spade, and within a few minutes the bone
+was laid decently to earth, some 18 inches deep.
+
+The city clocks struck one as he finished. The whole world seemed
+asleep, and Mr. Batchel slowly returned to the garden with his spade.
+As he hung it in its accustomed place he felt stealing over him the
+welcome desire to sleep. He walked quietly on to the house and ascended
+to his room. It was now dark: the moon had passed on and left the room
+in shadow. He lit a candle, and before undressing passed into the
+library. He had an irresistible curiosity to see the passages in John
+Evelyn's book which had so strangely adapted themselves to the events
+of the past hour.
+
+In the library a last surprise awaited him. The desk upon which the
+book had lain was empty. "The Compleat Gard'ner" stood in its place
+on the shelf. And then Mr. Batchel knew that he had handled a bone of
+William Whitehead, and that in response to his own entreaty.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+THE RICHPINS.
+
+
+Something of the general character of Stoneground and its people has
+been indicated by stray allusions in the preceding narratives. We must
+here add that of its present population only a small part is native,
+the remainder having been attracted during the recent prosperous days
+of brickmaking, from the nearer parts of East Anglia and the Midlands.
+The visitor to Stoneground now finds little more than the signs of
+an unlovely industry, and of the hasty and inadequate housing of the
+people it has drawn together. Nothing in the place pleases him more
+than the excellent train-service which makes it easy to get away. He
+seldom desires a long acquaintance either with Stoneground or its
+people.
+
+The impression so made upon the average visitor is, however, unjust, as
+first impressions often are. The few who have made further acquaintance
+with Stoneground have soon learned to distinguish between the permanent
+and the accidental features of the place, and have been astonished by
+nothing so much as by the unexpected evidence of French influence.
+Amongst the household treasures of the old inhabitants are invariably
+found French knick-knacks: there are pieces of French furniture in what
+is called "the room" of many houses. A certain ten-acre field is called
+the "Frenchman's meadow." Upon the voters' lists hanging at the church
+door are to be found French names, often corrupted; and boys who run
+about the streets can be heard shrieking to each other such names as
+Bunnum, Dangibow, Planchey, and so on.
+
+Mr. Batchel himself is possessed of many curious little articles of
+French handiwork--boxes deftly covered with split straws, arranged
+ingeniously in patterns; models of the guillotine, built of carved
+meat-bones, and various other pieces of handiwork, amongst them an
+accurate road-map of the country between Stoneground and Yarmouth,
+drawn upon a fly-leaf torn from some book, and bearing upon the other
+side the name of Jules Richepin. The latter had been picked up,
+according to a pencilled-note written across one corner, by a shepherd,
+in the year 1811.
+
+The explanation of this French influence is simple enough. Within five
+miles of Stoneground a large barracks had been erected for the custody
+of French prisoners during the war with Bonaparte. Many thousands were
+confined there during the years 1808-14. The prisoners were allowed
+to sell what articles they could make in the barracks; and many of
+them, upon their release, settled in the neighbourhood, where their
+descendants remain. There is little curiosity amongst these descendants
+about their origin. The events of a century ago seem to them as remote
+as the Deluge, and as immaterial. To Thomas Richpin, a weakly man who
+blew the organ in church, Mr. Batchel shewed the map. Richpin, with a
+broad, black-haired skull and a narrow chin which grew a little pointed
+beard, had always a foreign look about him: Mr. Batchel thought it more
+than possible that he might be descended from the owner of the book,
+and told him as much upon shewing him the fly-leaf. Thomas, however,
+was content to observe that "his name hadn't got no E," and shewed no
+further interest in the matter. His interest in it, before we have done
+with him, will have become very large.
+
+For the growing boys of Stoneground, with whom he was on generally
+friendly terms, Mr. Batchel formed certain clubs to provide them with
+occupation on winter evenings; and in these clubs, in the interests
+of peace and good-order, he spent a great deal of time. Sitting one
+December evening, in a large circle of boys who preferred the warmth
+of the fire to the more temperate atmosphere of the tables, he found
+Thomas Richpin the sole topic of conversation.
+
+"We seen Mr. Richpin in Frenchman's Meadow last night," said one.
+
+"What time?" said Mr. Batchel, whose function it was to act as a sort
+of fly-wheel, and to carry the conversation over dead points. He had
+received the information with some little surprise, because Frenchman's
+Meadow was an unusual place for Richpin to have been in, but his
+question had no further object than to encourage talk.
+
+"Half-past nine," was the reply.
+
+This made the question much more interesting. Mr. Batchel, on the
+preceding evening, had taken advantage of a warmed church to practise
+upon the organ. He had played it from nine o'clock until ten, and
+Richpin had been all that time at the bellows.
+
+"Are you sure it was half-past nine?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," (we reproduce the answer exactly), "we come out o' night-school
+at quarter-past, and we was all goin' to the Wash to look if it was
+friz."
+
+"And you saw Mr. Richpin in Frenchman's Meadow?" said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Yes. He was looking for something on the ground," added another boy.
+
+"And his trousers was tore," said a third.
+
+The story was clearly destined to stand in no need of corroboration.
+
+"Did Mr. Richpin speak to you?" enquired Mr. Batchel.
+
+"No, we run away afore he come to us," was the answer.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because we was frit."
+
+"What frightened you?"
+
+"Jim Lallement hauled a flint at him and hit him in the face, and he
+didn't take no notice, so we run away."
+
+"Why?" repeated Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Because he never hollered nor looked at us, and it made us feel so
+funny."
+
+"Did you go straight down to the Wash?"
+
+They had all done so.
+
+"What time was it when you reached home?"
+
+They had all been at home by ten, before Richpin had left the church.
+
+"Why do they call it Frenchman's Meadow?" asked another boy, evidently
+anxious to change the subject.
+
+Mr. Batchel replied that the meadow had probably belonged to a
+Frenchman whose name was not easy to say, and the conversation after
+this was soon in another channel. But, furnished as he was with an
+unmistakeable _alibi_, the story about Richpin and the torn trousers,
+and the flint, greatly puzzled him.
+
+"Go straight home," he said, as the boys at last bade him good-night,
+"and let us have no more stone-throwing." They were reckless boys, and
+Richpin, who used little discretion in reporting their misdemeanours
+about the church, seemed to Mr. Batchel to stand in real danger.
+
+Frenchman's Meadow provided ten acres of excellent pasture, and the
+owners of two or three hard-worked horses were glad to pay three
+shillings a week for the privilege of turning them into it. One of
+these men came to Mr. Batchel on the morning which followed the
+conversation at the club.
+
+"I'm in a bit of a quandary about Tom Richpin," he began.
+
+This was an opening that did not fail to command Mr. Batchel's
+attention. "What is it?" he said.
+
+"I had my mare in Frenchman's Meadow," replied the man, "and Sam Bower
+come and told me last night as he heard her gallopin' about when he was
+walking this side the hedge."
+
+"But what about Richpin?" said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Let me come to it," said the other. "My mare hasn't got no wind to
+gallop, so I up and went to see to her, and there she was sure enough,
+like a wild thing, and Tom Richpin walking across the meadow."
+
+"Was he chasing her?" asked Mr. Batchel, who felt the absurdity of the
+question as he put it.
+
+"He was not," said the man, "but what he could have been doin' to put
+the mare into that state, I can't think."
+
+"What was he doing when you saw him?" asked Mr. Batchel.
+
+"He was walking along looking for something he'd dropped, with his
+trousers all tore to ribbons, and while I was catchin' the mare, he
+made off."
+
+"He was easy enough to find, I suppose?" said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"That's the quandary I was put in," said the man. "I took the mare home
+and gave her to my lad, and straight I went to Richpin's, and found Tom
+havin' his supper, with his trousers as good as new."
+
+"You'd made a mistake," said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"But how come the mare to make it too?" said the other.
+
+"What did you say to Richpin?" asked Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Tom," I says, "when did you come in? 'Six o'clock,' he says, 'I bin
+mendin' my boots'; and there, sure enough, was the hobbin' iron by his
+chair, and him in his stockin'-feet. I don't know what to do."
+
+"Give the mare a rest," said Mr. Batchel, "and say no more about it."
+
+"I don't want to harm a pore creature like Richpin," said the man,
+"but a mare's a mare, especially where there's a family to bring
+up." The man consented, however, to abide by Mr. Batchel's advice,
+and the interview ended. The evenings just then were light, and both
+the man and his mare had seen something for which Mr. Batchel could
+not, at present, account. The worst way, however, of arriving at an
+explanation is to guess it. He was far too wise to let himself wander
+into the pleasant fields of conjecture, and had determined, even before
+the story of the mare had finished, upon the more prosaic path of
+investigation.
+
+Mr. Batchel, either from strength or indolence of mind, as the reader
+may be pleased to determine, did not allow matters even of this
+exciting kind, to disturb his daily round of duty. He was beginning
+to fear, after what he had heard of the Frenchman's Meadow, that he
+might find it necessary to preach a plain sermon upon the Witch of
+Endor, for he foresaw that there would soon be some ghostly talk in
+circulation. In small communities, like that of Stoneground, such talk
+arises upon very slight provocation, and here was nothing at all to
+check it. Richpin was a weak and timid man, whom no one would suspect,
+whilst an alternative remained open, of wandering about in the dark;
+and Mr. Batchel knew that the alternative of an apparition, if once
+suggested, would meet with general acceptance, and this he wished, at
+all costs, to avoid. His own view of the matter he held in reserve, for
+the reasons already stated, but he could not help suspecting that there
+might be a better explanation of the name "Frenchman's Meadow" than he
+had given to the boys at their club.
+
+Afternoons, with Mr. Batchel, were always spent in making pastoral
+visits, and upon the day our story has reached he determined to include
+amongst them a call upon Richpin, and to submit him to a cautious
+cross-examination. It was evident that at least four persons, all
+perfectly familiar with his appearance, were under the impression that
+they had seen him in the meadow, and his own statement upon the matter
+would be at least worth hearing.
+
+Richpin's home, however, was not the first one visited by Mr. Batchel
+on that afternoon. His friendly relations with the boys has already
+been mentioned, and it may now be added that this friendship was but
+part of a generally keen sympathy with young people of all ages, and of
+both sexes. Parents knew much less than he did of the love affairs of
+their young people; and if he was not actually guilty of match-making,
+he was at least a very sympathetic observer of the process. When lovers
+had their little differences, or even their greater ones, it was Mr.
+Batchel, in most cases, who adjusted them, and who suffered, if he
+failed, hardly less than the lovers themselves.
+
+It was a negotiation of this kind which, on this particular day, had
+given precedence to another visit, and left Richpin until the later
+part of the afternoon. But the matter of the Frenchman's Meadow had,
+after all, not to wait for Richpin. Mr. Batchel was calculating how
+long he should be in reaching it, when he found himself unexpectedly
+there. Selina Broughton had been a favourite of his from her childhood;
+she had been sufficiently good to please him, and naughty enough to
+attract and challenge him; and when at length she began to walk out
+with Bob Rockfort, who was another favourite, Mr. Batchel rubbed his
+hands in satisfaction. Their present difference, which now brought
+him to the Broughtons' cottage, gave him but little anxiety. He had
+brought Bob half-way towards reconciliation, and had no doubt of
+his ability to lead Selina to the same place. They would finish the
+journey, happily enough, together.
+
+But what has this to do with the Frenchman's Meadow? Much every way.
+The meadow was apt to be the rendezvous of such young people as desired
+a higher degree of privacy than that afforded by the public paths; and
+these two had gone there separately the night before, each to nurse
+a grievance against the other. They had been at opposite ends, as it
+chanced, of the field; and Bob, who believed himself to be alone there,
+had been awakened from his reverie by a sudden scream. He had at once
+run across the field, and found Selina sorely in need of him. Mr.
+Batchel's work of reconciliation had been there and then anticipated,
+and Bob had taken the girl home in a condition of great excitement to
+her mother. All this was explained, in breathless sentences, by Mrs.
+Broughton, by way of accounting for the fact that Selina was then lying
+down in "the room."
+
+There was no reason why Mr. Batchel should not see her, of course, and
+he went in. His original errand had lapsed, but it was now replaced by
+one of greater interest. Evidently there was Selina's testimony to add
+to that of the other four; she was not a girl who would scream without
+good cause, and Mr. Batchel felt that he knew how his question about
+the cause would be answered, when he came to the point of asking it.
+
+He was not quite prepared for the form of her answer, which she gave
+without any hesitation. She had seen Mr. Richpin "looking for his
+eyes." Mr. Batchel saved for another occasion the amusement to be
+derived from the curiously illogical answer. He saw at once what had
+suggested it. Richpin had until recently had an atrocious squint, which
+an operation in London had completely cured. This operation, of which,
+of course, he knew nothing, he had described, in his own way, to anyone
+who would listen, and it was commonly believed that his eyes had ceased
+to be fixtures. It was plain, however, that Selina had seen very much
+what had been seen by the other four. Her information was precise, and
+her story perfectly coherent. She preserved a maidenly reticence about
+his trousers, if she had noticed them; but added a new fact, and a
+terrible one, in her description of the eyeless sockets. No wonder she
+had screamed. It will be observed that Mr. Richpin was still searching,
+if not looking, for something upon the ground.
+
+Mr. Batchel now proceeded to make his remaining visit. Richpin lived
+in a little cottage by the church, of which cottage the Vicar was the
+indulgent landlord. Richpin's creditors were obliged to shew some
+indulgence, because his income was never regular and seldom sufficient.
+He got on in life by what is called "rubbing along," and appeared to
+do it with surprisingly little friction. The small duties about the
+church, assigned to him out of charity, were overpaid. He succeeded in
+attracting to himself all the available gifts of masculine clothing,
+of which he probably received enough and to sell, and he had somehow
+wooed and won a capable, if not very comely, wife, who supplemented
+his income by her own labour, and managed her house and husband to
+admiration.
+
+Richpin, however, was not by any means a mere dependent upon charity.
+He was, in his way, a man of parts. All plants, for instance,
+were his friends, and he had inherited, or acquired, great skill
+with fruit-trees, which never failed to reward his treatment with
+abundant crops. The two or three vines, too, of the neighbourhood,
+he kept in fine order by methods of his own, whose merit was proved
+by their success. He had other skill, though of a less remunerative
+kind, in fashioning toys out of wood, cardboard, or paper; and every
+correctly-behaving child in the parish had some such product of his
+handiwork. And besides all this, Richpin had a remarkable aptitude for
+making music. He could do something upon every musical instrument that
+came in his way, and, but for his voice, which was like that of the
+peahen, would have been a singer. It was his voice that had secured him
+the situation of organ-blower, as one remote from all incitement to
+join in the singing in church.
+
+Like all men who have not wit enough to defend themselves by argument,
+Richpin had a plaintive manner. His way of resenting injury was to
+complain of it to the next person he met, and such complaints as he
+found no other means of discharging, he carried home to his wife, who
+treated his conversation just as she treated the singing of the canary,
+and other domestic sounds, being hardly conscious of it until it ceased.
+
+The entrance of Mr. Batchel, soon after his interview with Selina,
+found Richpin engaged in a loud and fluent oration. The fluency was
+achieved mainly by repetition, for the man had but small command of
+words, but it served none the less to shew the depth of his indignation.
+
+"I aren't bin in Frenchman's Meadow, am I?" he was saying in appeal to
+his wife--this is the Stoneground way with auxiliary verbs--"What am
+I got to go there for?" He acknowledged Mr. Batchel's entrance in no
+other way than by changing to the third person in his discourse, and he
+continued without pause--"if she'd let me out o' nights, I'm got better
+places to go to than Frenchman's Meadow. Let policeman stick to where I
+am bin, or else keep his mouth shut. What call is he got to say I'm bin
+where I aren't bin?"
+
+From this, and much more to the same effect, it was clear that the
+matter of the meadow was being noised abroad, and even receiving
+official attention. Mr. Batchel was well aware that no question he
+could put to Richpin, in his present state, would change the flow of
+his eloquence, and that he had already learned as much as he was likely
+to learn. He was content, therefore, to ascertain from Mrs. Richpin
+that her husband had indeed spent all his evenings at home, with the
+single exception of the one hour during which Mr. Batchel had employed
+him at the organ. Having ascertained this, he retired, and left Richpin
+to talk himself out.
+
+No further doubt about the story was now possible. It was not
+twenty-four hours since Mr. Batchel had heard it from the boys at the
+club, and it had already been confirmed by at least two unimpeachable
+witnesses. He thought the matter over, as he took his tea, and was
+chiefly concerned in Richpin's curious connexion with it. On his
+account, more than on any other, it had become necessary to make
+whatever investigation might be feasible, and Mr. Batchel determined,
+of course, to make the next stage of it in the meadow itself.
+
+The situation of "Frenchman's Meadow" made it more conspicuous than
+any other enclosure in the neighbourhood. It was upon the edge of
+what is locally known as "high land"; and though its elevation was
+not great, one could stand in the meadow and look sea-wards over many
+miles of flat country, once a waste of brackish water, now a great
+chess-board of fertile fields bounded by straight dykes of glistening
+water. The point of view derived another interest from looking down
+upon a long straight bank which disappeared into the horizon many
+miles away, and might have been taken for a great railway embankment
+of which no use had been made. It was, in fact, one of the great works
+of the Dutch Engineers in the time of Charles I., and it separated the
+river basin from a large drained area called the "Middle Level," some
+six feet below it. In this embankment, not two hundred yards below
+"Frenchman's Meadow," was one of the huge water gates which admitted
+traffic through a sluice, into the lower level, and the picturesque
+thatched cottage of the sluice-keeper formed a pleasing addition to
+the landscape. It was a view with which Mr. Batchel was naturally
+very familiar. Few of his surroundings were pleasant to the eye, and
+this was about the only place to which he could take a visitor whom
+he desired to impress favourably. The way to the meadow lay through a
+short lane, and he could reach it in five minutes: he was frequently
+there.
+
+It was, of course, his intention to be there again that evening: to
+spend the night there, if need be, rather than let anything escape
+him. He only hoped he should not find half the parish there also. His
+best hope of privacy lay in the inclemency of the weather; the day was
+growing colder, and there was a north-east wind, of which Frenchman's
+Meadow would receive the fine edge.
+
+Mr. Batchel spent the next three hours in dealing with some arrears
+of correspondence, and at nine o'clock put on his thickest coat and
+boots, and made his way to the meadow. It became evident, as he walked
+up the lane, that he was to have company. He heard many voices, and
+soon recognised the loudest amongst them. Jim Lallement was boasting of
+the accuracy of his aim: the others were not disputing it, but were
+asserting their own merits in discordant chorus. This was a nuisance,
+and to make matters worse, Mr. Batchel heard steps behind him.
+
+A voice soon bade him "Good evening." To Mr. Batchel's great relief it
+proved to be the policeman, who soon overtook him. The conversation
+began on his side.
+
+"Curious tricks, sir, these of Richpin's."
+
+"What tricks?" asked Mr. Batchel, with an air of innocence.
+
+"Why, he's been walking about Frenchman's Meadow these three nights,
+frightening folk and what all."
+
+"Richpin has been at home every night, and all night long," said Mr.
+Batchel.
+
+"I'm talking about where he was, not where he says he was," said the
+policeman. "You can't go behind the evidence."
+
+"But Richpin has evidence too. I asked his wife."
+
+"You know, sir, and none better, that wives have got to obey. Richpin
+wants to be took for a ghost, and we know that sort of ghost. Whenever
+we hear there's a ghost, we always know there's going to be turkeys
+missing."
+
+"But there are real ghosts sometimes, surely?" said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"No," said the policeman, "me and my wife have both looked, and there's
+no such thing."
+
+"Looked where?" enquired Mr. Batchel.
+
+"In the 'Police Duty' Catechism. There's lunatics, and deserters, and
+dead bodies, but no ghosts."
+
+Mr. Batchel accepted this as final. He had devised a way of ridding
+himself of all his company, and proceeded at once to carry it into
+effect. The two had by this time reached the group of boys.
+
+"These are all stone-throwers," said he, loudly.
+
+There was a clatter of stones as they dropped from the hands of the
+boys.
+
+"These boys ought all to be in the club instead of roaming about here
+damaging property. Will you take them there, and see them safely in? If
+Richpin comes here, I will bring him to the station."
+
+The policeman seemed well pleased with the suggestion. No doubt he had
+overstated his confidence in the definition of the "Police Duty." Mr.
+Batchel, on his part, knew the boys well enough to be assured that they
+would keep the policeman occupied for the next half-hour, and as the
+party moved slowly away, felt proud of his diplomacy.
+
+There was no sign of any other person about the field gate, which he
+climbed readily enough, and he was soon standing in the highest part of
+the meadow and peering into the darkness on every side.
+
+It was possible to see a distance of about thirty yards; beyond that
+it was too dark to distinguish anything. Mr. Batchel designed a
+zig-zag course about the meadow, which would allow of his examining
+it systematically and as rapidly as possible, and along this course
+he began to walk briskly, looking straight before him as he went, and
+pausing to look well about him when he came to a turn. There were no
+beasts in the meadow--their owners had taken the precaution of removing
+them; their absence was, of course, of great advantage to Mr. Batchel.
+
+In about ten minutes he had finished his zig-zag path and arrived at
+the other corner of the meadow; he had seen nothing resembling a man.
+He then retraced his steps, and examined the field again, but arrived
+at his starting point, knowing no more than when he had left it. He
+began to fear the return of the policeman as he faced the wind and set
+upon a third journey.
+
+The third journey, however, rewarded him. He had reached the end of his
+second traverse, and was looking about him at the angle between that
+and the next, when he distinctly saw what looked like Richpin crossing
+his circle of vision, and making straight for the sluice. There was
+no gate on that side of the field; the hedge, which seemed to present
+no obstacle to the other, delayed Mr. Batchel considerably, and still
+retains some of his clothing, but he was not long through before he
+had again marked his man. It had every appearance of being Richpin.
+It went down the slope, crossed the plank that bridged the lock, and
+disappeared round the corner of the cottage, where the entrance lay.
+
+Mr. Batchel had had no opportunity of confirming the gruesome
+observation of Selina Broughton, but had seen enough to prove that the
+others had not been romancing. He was not a half-minute behind the
+figure as it crossed the plank over the lock--it was slow going in the
+darkness--and he followed it immediately round the corner of the house.
+As he expected, it had then disappeared.
+
+Mr. Batchel knocked at the door, and admitted himself, as his custom
+was. The sluice-keeper was in his kitchen, charring a gate post. He was
+surprised to see Mr. Batchel at that hour, and his greeting took the
+form of a remark to that effect.
+
+"I have been taking an evening walk," said Mr. Batchel. "Have you seen
+Richpin lately?"
+
+"I see him last Saturday week," replied the sluice-keeper, "not since."
+
+"Do you feel lonely here at night?"
+
+"No," replied the sluice-keeper, "people drop in at times. There was a
+man in on Monday, and another yesterday."
+
+"Have you had no one to-day?" said Mr. Batchel, coming to the point.
+
+The answer showed that Mr. Batchel had been the first to enter the door
+that day, and after a little general conversation he brought his visit
+to an end.
+
+It was now ten o'clock. He looked in at Richpin's cottage, where he saw
+a light burning, as he passed. Richpin had tired himself early, and had
+been in bed since half-past eight. His wife was visibly annoyed at the
+rumours which had upset him, and Mr. Batchel said such soothing words
+as he could command, before he left for home.
+
+He congratulated himself, prematurely, as he sat before the fire in his
+study, that the day was at an end. It had been cold out of doors, and
+it was pleasant to think things over in the warmth of the cheerful fire
+his housekeeper never failed to leave for him. The reader will have no
+more difficulty than Mr. Batchel had in accounting for the resemblance
+between Richpin and the man in the meadow. It was a mere question of
+family likeness. That the ancestor had been seen in the meadow at some
+former time might perhaps be inferred from its traditional name. The
+reason for his return, then and now, was a matter of mere conjecture,
+and Mr. Batchel let it alone.
+
+The next incident has, to some, appeared incredible, which only means,
+after all, that it has made demands upon their powers of imagination
+and found them bankrupt.
+
+Critics of story-telling have used severe language about authors
+who avail themselves of the short-cut of coincidence. "That must
+be reserved, I suppose," said Mr. Batchel, when he came to tell of
+Richpin, "for what really happens; and that fiction is a game which
+must be played according to the rules."
+
+"I know," he went on to say, "that the chances were some millions to
+one against what happened that night, but if that makes it incredible,
+what is there left to believe?"
+
+It was thereupon remarked by someone in the company, that the credible
+material would not be exhausted.
+
+"I doubt whether anything happens," replied Mr. Batchel in his dogmatic
+way, "without the chances being a million to one against it. Why did
+they choose such a word? What does 'happen' mean?"
+
+There was no reply: it was clearly a rhetorical question.
+
+"Is it incredible," he went on, "that I put into the plate last Sunday
+the very half-crown my uncle tipped me with in 1881, and that I spent
+next day?"
+
+"Was that the one you put in?" was asked by several.
+
+"How do I know?" replied Mr. Batchel, "but if I knew the history of the
+half-crown I did put in, I know it would furnish still more remarkable
+coincidences."
+
+All this talk arose out of the fact that at midnight on the eventful
+day, whilst Mr. Batchel was still sitting by his study fire, he had
+news that the cottage at the sluice had been burnt down. The thatch had
+been dry; there was, as we know, a stiff east-wind, and an hour had
+sufficed to destroy all that was inflammable. The fire is still spoken
+of in Stoneground with great regret. There remains only one building in
+the place of sufficient merit to find its way on to a postcard.
+
+It was just at midnight that the sluice-keeper rung at Mr.
+Batchel's door. His errand required no apology. The man had found a
+night-fisherman to help him as soon as the fire began, and with two
+long sprits from a lighter they had made haste to tear down the thatch,
+and upon this had brought down, from under the ridge at the South end,
+the bones and some of the clothing of a man. Would Mr. Batchel come
+down and see?
+
+Mr. Batchel put on his coat and returned to the place. The people whom
+the fire had collected had been kept on the further side of the water,
+and the space about the cottage was vacant. Near to the smouldering
+heap of ruin were the remains found under the thatch. The fingers of
+the right hand still firmly clutched a sheep bone which had been gnawed
+as a dog would gnaw it.
+
+"Starved to death," said the sluice-keeper, "I see a tramp like that
+ten years ago."
+
+They laid the bones decently in an outhouse, and turned the key, Mr.
+Batchel carried home in his hand a metal cross, threaded upon a cord.
+He found an engraved figure of Our Lord on the face of it, and the name
+of Pierre Richepin upon the back. He went next day to make the matter
+known to the nearest Priest of the Roman Faith, with whom he left
+the cross. The remains, after a brief inquest, were interred in the
+cemetery, with the rites of the Church to which the man had evidently
+belonged.
+
+Mr. Batchel's deductions from the whole circumstances were curious, and
+left a great deal to be explained. It seemed as if Pierre Richepin had
+been disturbed by some premonition of the fire, but had not foreseen
+that his mortal remains would escape; that he could not return to his
+own people without the aid of his map, but had no perception of the
+interval that had elapsed since he had lost it. This map Mr. Batchel
+put into his pocket-book next day when he went to Thomas Richpin for
+certain other information about his surviving relatives.
+
+Richpin had a father, it appeared, living a few miles away in Jakesley
+Fen, and Mr. Batchel concluded that he was worth a visit. He mounted
+his bicycle, therefore, and made his way to Jakesley that same
+afternoon.
+
+Mr. Richpin was working not far from home, and was soon brought in. He
+and his wife shewed great courtesy to their visitor, whom they knew
+well by repute. They had a well-ordered house, and with a natural and
+dignified hospitality, asked him to take tea with them. It was evident
+to Mr. Batchel that there was a great gulf between the elder Richpin
+and his son; the former was the last of an old race, and the latter
+the first of a new. In spite of the Board of Education, the latter was
+vastly the worse.
+
+The cottage contained some French kickshaws which greatly facilitated
+the enquiries Mr. Batchel had come to make. They proved to be family
+relics.
+
+"My grandfather," said Mr. Richpin, as they sat at tea, "was a
+prisoner--he and his brother."
+
+"Your grandfather was Pierre Richepin?" asked Mr. Batchel.
+
+"No! Jules," was the reply. "Pierre got away."
+
+"Shew Mr. Batchel the book," said his wife.
+
+The book was produced. It was a Book of Meditations, with the name
+of Jules Richepin upon the title-page. The fly-leaf was missing. Mr.
+Batchel produced the map from his pocket-book. It fitted exactly. The
+slight indentures along the torn edge fell into their place, and Mr.
+Batchel left the leaf in the book, to the great delight of the old
+couple, to whom he told no more of the story than he thought fit.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+THE EASTERN WINDOW.
+
+
+It may well be that Vermuyden and the Dutchmen who drained the fens did
+good, and that it was interred with their bones. It is quite certain
+that they did evil and that it lives after them. The rivers, which
+these men robbed of their water, have at length silted up, and the
+drainage of one tract of country is proving to have been achieved by
+the undraining of another.
+
+Places like Stoneground, which lie on the banks of these defrauded
+rivers, are now become helpless victims of Dutch engineering. The water
+which has lost its natural outlet, invades their lands. The thrifty
+cottager who once had the river at the bottom of his garden, has his
+garden more often in these days, at the bottom of the river, and a
+summer flood not infrequently destroys the whole produce of his ground.
+
+Such a flood, during an early year in the 20th century, had been
+unusually disastrous to Stoneground, and Mr. Batchel, who, as
+a gardener, was well able to estimate the losses of his poorer
+neighbours, was taking some steps towards repairing them.
+
+Money, however, is never at rest in Stoneground, and it turned out
+upon this occasion that the funds placed at his command were wholly
+inadequate to the charitable purpose assigned to them. It seemed as if
+those who had lost a rood of potatoes could be compensated for no more
+than a yard.
+
+It was at this time, when he was oppressed in mind by the failure
+of his charitable enterprise, that Mr. Batchel met with the happy
+adventure in which the Eastern window of the Church played so singular
+a part.
+
+The narrative should be prefaced by a brief description of the window
+in question. It is a large painted window, of a somewhat unfortunate
+period of execution. The drawing and colouring leave everything to be
+desired. The scheme of the window, however, is based upon a wholesome
+tradition. The five large lights in the lower part are assigned to
+five scenes in the life of Our Lord, and the second of these, counting
+from the North, contains a bold erect figure of St. John Baptist, to
+whom the Church is dedicated. It is this figure alone, of all those
+contained in the window, that is concerned in what we have to relate.
+
+It has already been mentioned that Mr. Batchel had some knowledge of
+music. He took an interest in the choir, from whose practices he was
+seldom absent; and was quite competent, in the occasional absence of
+the choirmaster, to act as his deputy. It is customary at Stoneground
+for the choirmaster, in order to save the sexton a journey, to
+extinguish the lights after a choir-practice and to lock up the Church.
+These duties, accordingly, were performed by Mr. Batchel when the need
+arose.
+
+It will be of use to the reader to have the procedure in detail.
+The large gas-meter stood in an aisle of the Church, and it was Mr.
+Batchel's practice to go round and extinguish all the lights save one,
+before turning off the gas at the meter. The one remaining light, which
+was reached by standing upon a choir seat, was always that nearest the
+door of the chancel, and experience proved that there was ample time to
+walk from the meter to that light before it died out. It was therefore
+an easy matter to turn off the last light, to find the door without its
+aid, and thence to pass out, and close the Church for the night.
+
+Upon the evening of which we have to speak, the choir had hurried out
+as usual, as soon as the word had been given. Mr. Batchel had remained
+to gather together some of the books they had left in disorder, and
+then turned out the lights in the manner already described. But as soon
+as he had extinguished the last light, his eye fell, as he descended
+carefully from the seat, upon the figure of the Baptist. There was just
+enough light outside to make the figures visible in the Eastern Window,
+and Mr. Batchel saw the figure of St. John raise the right arm to its
+full extent, and point northward, turning its head, at the same time,
+so as to look him full in the face. These movements were three times
+repeated, and, after that, the figure came to rest in its normal and
+familiar position.
+
+The reader will not suppose, any more than Mr. Batchel supposed, that a
+figure painted upon glass had suddenly been endowed with the power of
+movement. But that there had been the appearance of movement admitted
+of no doubt, and Mr. Batchel was not so incurious as to let the matter
+pass without some attempt at investigation. It must be remembered,
+too, that an experience in the old library, which has been previously
+recorded, had pre-disposed him to give attention to signs which another
+man might have wished to explain away. He was not willing, therefore,
+to leave this matter where it stood. He was quite prepared to think
+that his eye had been deceived, but was none the less determined to
+find out what had deceived it. One thing he had no difficulty in
+deciding. If the movement had not been actually within the Baptist's
+figure, it had been immediately behind it. Without delay, therefore,
+he passed out of the church and locked the door after him, with the
+intention of examining the other side of the window.
+
+Every inhabitant of Stoneground knows, and laments, the ruin of the old
+Manor House. Its loss by fire some fifteen years ago was a calamity
+from which the parish has never recovered. The estate was acquired,
+soon after the destruction of the house, by speculators who have been
+unable to turn it to any account, and it has for a decade or longer
+been "let alone," except by the forces of Nature and the wantonness of
+trespassers. The charred remains of the house still project above the
+surrounding heaps of fallen masonry, which have long been overgrown by
+such vegetation as thrives on neglected ground; and what was once a
+stately house, with its garden and park in fine order, has given place
+to a scene of desolation and ruin.
+
+Stoneground Church was built, some 600 years ago, within the enclosure
+of the Manor House, or, as it was anciently termed, the Burystead,
+and an excellent stratum of gravel such as no builder would wisely
+disregard, brought the house and Church unusually near together. In
+more primitive days, the nearness probably caused no inconvenience;
+but when change and progress affected the popular idea of respectful
+distance, the Churchyard came to be separated by a substantial stone
+wall, of sufficient height to secure the privacy of the house.
+
+The change was made with necessary regard to economy of space. The
+Eastern wall of the Church already projected far into the garden of
+the Manor, and lay but fifty yards from the south front of the house.
+On that side of the Churchyard, therefore, the new wall was set back.
+Running from the north to the nearest corner of the Church, it was
+there built up to the Church itself, and then continued from the
+southern corner, leaving the Eastern wall and window within the garden
+of the Squire. It was his ivy that clung to the wall of the Church, and
+his trees that shaded the window from the morning sun.
+
+Whilst we have been recalling these facts, Mr. Batchel has made his
+way out of the Church and through the Churchyard, and has arrived at
+a small door in the boundary wall, close to the S.E. corner of the
+chancel. It was a door which some Squire of the previous century had
+made, to give convenient access to the Church for himself and his
+household. It has no present use, and Mr. Batchel had some difficulty
+in getting it open. It was not long, however, before he stood on the
+inner side, and was examining the second light of the window. There
+was a tolerably bright moon, and the dark surface of the glass could
+be distinctly seen, as well as the wirework placed there for its
+protection.
+
+A tall birch, one of the trees of the old Churchyard, had thrust its
+lower boughs across the window, and their silvery bark shone in the
+moonlight. The boughs were bare of leaves, and only very slightly
+interrupted Mr. Batchel's view of the Baptist's figure, the leaden
+outline of which was clearly traceable. There was nothing, however, to
+account for the movement which Mr. Batchel was curious to investigate.
+
+He was about to turn homewards in some disappointment, when a cloud
+obscured the moon again, and reduced the light to what it had been
+before he left the Church. Mr. Batchel watched the darkening of the
+window and the objects near it, and as the figure of the Baptist
+disappeared from view there came into sight a creamy vaporous figure of
+another person lightly poised upon the bough of the tree, and almost
+coincident in position with the picture of the Saint.
+
+It could hardly be described as the figure of a person. It had more the
+appearance of half a person, and fancifully suggested to Mr. Batchel,
+who was fond of whist, one of the diagonally bisected knaves in a pack
+of cards, as he appears when another card conceals a triangular half of
+the bust.
+
+There was no question, now, of going home. Mr. Batchel's eyes were
+riveted upon the apparition. It disappeared again for a moment, when
+an interval between two clouds restored the light of the moon; but no
+sooner had the second cloud replaced the first than the figure again
+became distinct. And upon this, its single arm was raised three times,
+pointing northwards towards the ruined house, just as the figure of the
+Baptist had seemed to point when Mr. Batchel had seen it from within
+the Church.
+
+It was natural that upon receipt of this sign Mr. Batchel should step
+nearer to the tree, from which he was still at some little distance,
+and as he moved, the figure floated obliquely downwards and came
+to rest in a direct line between him and the ruins of the house.
+It rested, not upon the ground, but in just such a position as it
+would have occupied if the lower parts had been there, and in this
+position it seemed to await Mr. Batchel's advance. He made such haste
+to approach it as was possible upon ground encumbered with ivy and
+brambles, and the figure responded to every advance of his by moving
+further in the direction of the ruin.
+
+As the ground improved, the progress became more rapid. Soon they were
+both upon an open stretch of grass, which in better days had been a
+lawn, and still the figure retreated towards the building, with Mr.
+Batchel in respectful pursuit. He saw it, at last, poised upon the
+summit of a heap of masonry, and it disappeared, at his near approach,
+into a crevice between two large stones.
+
+The timely re-appearance of the moon just enabled Mr. Batchel to
+perceive this crevice, and he took advantage of the interval of light
+to mark the place. Taking up a large twig that lay at his feet, he
+inserted it between the stones. He made a slit in the free end and drew
+into it one of some papers that he had carried out of the Church. After
+such a precaution it could hardly be possible to lose the place--for,
+of course, Mr. Batchel intended to return in daylight and continue his
+investigation. For the present, it seemed to be at an end. The light
+was soon obscured again, but there was no re-appearance of the singular
+figure he had followed, so after remaining about the spot for a few
+minutes, Mr. Batchel went home to his customary occupation.
+
+He was not a man to let these occupations be disturbed even by a
+somewhat exciting adventure, nor was he one of those who regard an
+unusual experience only as a sign of nervous disorder. Mr. Batchel had
+far too broad a mind to discredit his sensations because they were not
+like those of other people. Even had his adventure of the evening been
+shared by some companion who saw less than he did, Mr. Batchel would
+only have inferred that his own part in the matter was being regarded
+as more important.
+
+Next morning, therefore, he lost no time in returning to the scene
+of his adventure. He found his mark undisturbed, and was able to
+examine the crevice into which the apparition had seemed to enter.
+It was a crevice formed by the curved surfaces of two large stones
+which lay together on the top of a small heap of fallen rubbish, and
+these two stones Mr. Batchel proceeded to remove. His strength was
+just sufficient for the purpose. He laid the stones upon the ground on
+either side of the little mound, and then proceeded to remove, with his
+hands, the rubbish upon which they had rested, and amongst the rubbish
+he found, tarnished and blackened, two silver coins.
+
+It was not a discovery which seemed to afford any explanation of what
+had occurred the night before, but Mr. Batchel could not but suppose
+that there had been an attempt to direct his attention to the coins,
+and he carried them away with a view of submitting them to a careful
+examination. Taking them up to his bedroom he poured a little water
+into a hand basin, and soon succeeded, with the aid of soap and a nail
+brush, in making them tolerably clean. Ten minutes later, after adding
+ammonia to the water, he had made them bright, and after carefully
+drying them, was able to make his examination. They were two crowns
+of the time of Queen Anne, minted, as a small letter E indicated, at
+Edinburgh, and stamped with the roses and plumes which testified to the
+English and Welsh silver in their composition. The coins bore no date,
+but Mr. Batchel had no hesitation in assigning them to the year 1708
+or thereabouts. They were handsome coins, and in themselves a find of
+considerable interest, but there was nothing to show why he had been
+directed to their place of concealment. It was an enigma, and he could
+not solve it. He had other work to do, so he laid the two crowns upon
+his dressing table, and proceeded to do it.
+
+Mr. Batchel thought little more of the coins until bedtime, when
+he took them from the table and bestowed upon them another admiring
+examination by the light of his candle. But the examination told him
+nothing new: he laid them down again, and, before very long, had lain
+his own head upon the pillow.
+
+It was Mr. Batchel's custom to read himself to sleep. At this time he
+happened to be re-reading the Waverley novels, and "Woodstock" lay
+upon the reading-stand which was always placed at his bedside. As he
+read of the cleverly devised apparition at Woodstock, he naturally
+asked himself whether he might not have been the victim of some
+similar trickery, but was not long in coming to the conclusion that
+his experience admitted of no such explanation. He soon dismissed the
+matter from his mind and went on with his book.
+
+On this occasion, however, he was tired of reading before he was ready
+for sleep; it was long in coming, and then did not come to stay. His
+rest, in fact, was greatly disturbed. Again and again, perhaps every
+hour or so, he was awakened by an uneasy consciousness of some other
+presence in the room.
+
+Upon one of his later awakenings, he was distinctly sensible of a
+sound, or what he described to himself as the "ghost" of a sound. He
+compared it to the whining of a dog that had lost its voice. It was
+not a very intelligible comparison, but still it seemed to describe
+his sensation. The sound, if we may so call it caused him first to sit
+up in bed and look well about him, and then, when nothing had come of
+that, to light his candle. It was not to be expected that anything
+should come of that, but it had seemed a comfortable thing to do, and
+Mr. Batchel left the candle alight and read his book for half an hour
+or so, before blowing it out.
+
+After this, there was no further interruption, but Mr. Batchel
+distinctly felt, when it was time to leave his bed, that he had had
+a bad night. The coins, almost to his surprise, lay undisturbed. He
+went to ascertain this as soon as he was on his feet. He would almost
+have welcomed their removal, or at any rate, some change which might
+have helped him towards a theory of his adventure. There was, however,
+nothing. If he had, in fact, been visited during the night, the coins
+would seem to have had nothing to do with the matter.
+
+Mr. Batchel left the two crowns lying on his table on this next day,
+and went about his ordinary duties. They were such duties as afforded
+full occupation for his mind, and he gave no more than a passing
+thought to the coins, until he was again retiring to rest. He had
+certainly intended to return to the heap of rubbish from which he had
+taken them, but had not found leisure to do so. He did not handle the
+coins again. As he undressed, he made some attempt to estimate their
+value, but without having arrived at any conclusion, went on to think
+of other things, and in a little while had lain down to rest again,
+hoping for a better night.
+
+His hopes were disappointed. Within an hour of falling asleep he found
+himself awakened again by the voiceless whining he so well remembered.
+This sound, as for convenience we will call it, was now persistent and
+continuous. Mr. Batchel gave up even trying to sleep, and as he grew
+more restless and uneasy, decided to get up and dress.
+
+It was the entire cessation of the sound at this juncture which led
+him to a suspicion. His rising was evidently giving satisfaction. From
+that it was easy to infer that something had been desired of him, both
+on the present and the preceding night. Mr. Batchel was not one to
+hold himself aloof in such a case. If help was wanted, even in such
+unnatural circumstances, he was ready to offer it. He determined,
+accordingly, to return to the Manor House, and when he had finished
+dressing, descended the stairs, put on a warm overcoat and went out,
+closing his hall door behind him, without having heard any more of the
+sound, either whilst dressing, or whilst leaving the house.
+
+Once out of doors, the suspicion he had formed was strengthened into a
+conviction. There was no manner of doubt that he had been fetched from
+his bed; for about 30 yards in front of him he saw the strange creamy
+half-figure making straight for the ruins. He followed it as well as he
+could; as before, he was impeded by the ivy and weeds, and the figure
+awaited him; as before, it made straight for the heap of masonry and
+disappeared as soon as Mr. Batchel was at liberty to follow.
+
+There were no dungeons, or subterranean premises beneath the Manor
+House. It had never been more than a house of residence, and the
+building had been purely domestic in character. Mr. Batchel was
+convinced that his adventure would prove unromantic, and felt some
+impatience at losing again, what he had begun to call his triangular
+friend. If this friend wanted anything, it was not easy to say why he
+had so tamely disappeared. There seemed nothing to be done but to wait
+until he came out again.
+
+Mr. Batchel had a pipe in his pocket, and he seated himself upon the
+base of a sun-dial within full view of the spot. He filled and smoked
+his pipe, sitting in momentary expectation of some further sign, but
+nothing appeared. He heard the hedgehogs moving about him in the
+undergrowth, and now and then the sound of a restless bird overhead,
+otherwise all was still. He smoked a second pipe without any further
+discovery, and that finished, he knocked out the ashes against his
+boot, walked to the mound, near to which his labelled stick was lying,
+thrust the stick into the place where the figure had disappeared, and
+went back to bed, where he was rewarded with five hours of sound sleep.
+
+Mr. Batchel had made up his mind that the next day ought to be a day
+of disclosure. He was early at the Manor House, this time provided
+with the gardener's pick, and a spade. He thrust the pick into the
+place from which he had removed his mark, and loosened the rubbish
+thoroughly. With his hands, and with his spade, he was not long in
+reducing the size of the heap by about one-half, and there he found
+more coins.
+
+There were three more crowns, two half-crowns, and a dozen or so
+of smaller coins. All these Mr. Batchel wrapped carefully in his
+handkerchief, and after a few minutes rest went on with his task. As
+it proved, the task was nearly over. Some strips of oak about nine
+inches long, were next uncovered, and then, what Mr. Batchel had begun
+to expect, the lid of a box, with the hinges still attached. It lay,
+face downwards, upon a flat stone. It proved, when he had taken it up,
+to be almost unsoiled, and above a long and wide slit in the lid was
+the gilded legend, "for ye poore" in the graceful lettering and the
+redundant spelling of two centuries ago.
+
+The meaning of all this Mr. Batchel was not long in interpreting.
+That the box and its contents had fallen and been broken amongst
+the masonry, was evident enough. It was as evident that it had been
+concealed in one of the walls brought down by the fire, and Mr. Batchel
+had no doubt at all that he had been in the company of a thief, who
+had once stolen the poor-box from the Church. His task seemed to be at
+an end, a further rummage revealed nothing new. Mr. Batchel carefully
+collected the fragments of the box, and left the place.
+
+His next act cannot be defended. He must have been aware that these
+coins were "treasure trove," and therefore the property of the Crown.
+In spite of this, he determined to convert them into current coin, as
+he well knew how, and to apply the proceeds to the Inundation Fund
+about which he was so anxious. Treating them as his own property, he
+cleaned them all, as he had cleaned the two crowns, sent them to an
+antiquarian friend in London to sell for him, and awaited the result.
+The lid of the poor box he still preserves as a relic of the adventure.
+
+His antiquarian friend did not keep him long waiting. The coins had
+been eagerly bought, and the price surpassed any expectation that Mr.
+Batchel had allowed himself to entertain. He had sent the package
+to London on Saturday morning. Upon the following Tuesday, the last
+post in the evening brought a cheque for twenty guineas. The brief
+subscription list of the Inundation Fund lay upon his desk, and he
+at once entered the amount he had so strangely come by, but could
+not immediately decide upon its description. Leaving the line blank,
+therefore, he merely wrote down £21 in the cash column, to be assigned
+to its source in some suitable form of words when he should have found
+time to frame them.
+
+In this state he left the subscription list upon his desk, when he
+retired for the night. It occurred to him as he was undressing, that
+the twenty guineas might suitably be described as a "restitution," and
+so he determined to enter it upon the line he had left vacant. As he
+reconsidered the matter in the morning, he saw no reason to alter his
+decision, and he went straight from his bedroom to his desk to make the
+entry and have done with it.
+
+There was an incident in the adventure, however, upon which Mr. Batchel
+had not reckoned. As he approached the list, he saw, to his amazement,
+that the line had been filled in. In a crabbed, elongated hand was
+written, "At last, St. Matt. v. 26."
+
+What may seem more strange is that the handwriting was familiar to Mr.
+Batchel, he could not at first say why. His memory, however, in such
+matters, was singularly good, and before breakfast was over he felt
+sure of having identified the writer.
+
+His confidence was not misplaced. He went to the parish chest, whose
+contents he had thoroughly examined in past intervals of leisure, and
+took out the roll of parish constable's accounts. In a few minutes
+he discovered the handwriting of which he was in search. It was
+unmistakably that of Salathiel Thrapston, constable from 1705-1710, who
+met his death in the latter year, whilst in the execution of his duty.
+The reader will scarcely need to be reminded of the text of the Gospel
+at the place of reference--
+
+"Thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the
+uttermost farthing."
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+LUBRIETTA.
+
+
+For the better understanding of this narrative we shall furnish the
+reader with a few words of introduction. It amounts to no more than
+a brief statement of facts which Mr. Batchel obtained from the Lady
+Principal of the European College in Puna, but the facts nevertheless
+are important. The narrative itself was obtained from Mr. Batchel with
+difficulty: he was disposed to regard it as unsuitable for publication
+because of the delicate nature of the situations with which it deals.
+When, however, it was made clear to him that it would be recorded in
+such a manner as would interest only a very select body of readers,
+his scruples were overcome, and he was induced to communicate the
+experience now to be related. Those who read it will not fail to see
+that they are in a manner pledged to deal very discreetly with the
+knowledge they are privileged to share.
+
+Lubrietta Rodria is described by her Lady Principal as an attractive
+and high-spirited girl of seventeen, belonging to the Purple of Indian
+commerce. Her nationality was not precisely known; but drawing near,
+as she did, to a marriageable age, and being courted by more than one
+eligible suitor, she was naturally an object of great interest to her
+schoolfellows, with whom her personal beauty and amiable temper had
+always made her a favourite. She was not, the Lady Principal thought,
+a girl who would be regarded in Christian countries as of very high
+principle; but none the less, she was one whom it was impossible not to
+like.
+
+Her career at the college had ended sensationally. She had been
+immoderately anxious about her final examination, and its termination
+had found her in a state of collapse. They had at once removed her to
+her father's house in the country, where she received such nursing
+and assiduous attention as her case required. It was apparently of no
+avail. For three weeks she lay motionless, deprived of speech, and
+voluntarily, taking no food. Then for a further period of ten days she
+lay in a plight still more distressing. She lost all consciousness,
+and, despite the assurance of the doctors, her parents could hardly be
+persuaded that she lived.
+
+Her _fiancé_ who by this time had been declared, was in despair, not
+only from natural affection for Lubrietta, but from remorse. It
+was his intellectual ambition that had incited her to the eagerness
+in study which was threatening such dire results, and it was well
+understood that neither of the lovers would survive these anxious days
+of watching if they were not to be survived by both.
+
+After ten days, however, a change supervened. Lubrietta came back to
+life amid the frenzied rejoicing of the household and all her circle.
+She recovered her health and strength with incredible speed, and within
+three months was married--as the Lady Principal had cause to believe,
+with the happiest prospects.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Batchel had not, whilst residing at Stoneground, lost touch
+with the University which had given him his degree, and in which he
+had formerly held one or two minor offices. He had earned no great
+distinction as a scholar, but had taken a degree in honours, and was
+possessed of a useful amount of general knowledge, and in this he found
+not only constant pleasure, but also occasional profit.
+
+The University had made herself, for better or worse, an examiner of
+a hundred times as many students as she could teach; her system of
+examinations had extended to the very limits of the British Empire, and
+her certificates of proficiency were coveted in every quarter of the
+globe.
+
+In the examination of these students, Mr. Batchel, who had considerable
+experience in teaching, was annually employed. Papers from all parts
+of the world were to be found littered about his study, and the
+examination of these papers called for some weeks of strenuous labour
+at every year's end. As the weeks passed, he would anxiously watch
+the growth of a neat stack of papers in the corner of the room, which
+indicated the number to which marks had been assigned and reported to
+Cambridge. The day upon which the last of these was laid in its place
+was a day of satisfaction, second only to that which later on brought
+him a substantial cheque to remunerate him for his labours.
+
+During this period of special effort, Mr. Batchel's servants had their
+share of its discomforts. The chairs and tables they wanted to dust and
+to arrange, were loaded with papers which they were forbidden to touch;
+and although they were warned against showing visitors into any room
+where these papers were lying, Mr. Batchel would inconsiderately lay
+them in every room he had. The privacy of his study, however, where the
+work was chiefly done, was strictly guarded, and no one was admitted
+there unless by Mr. Batchel himself.
+
+Imagine his annoyance, therefore, when he returned from an evening
+engagement at the beginning of the month of January, and found a
+stranger seated in the study! Yet the annoyance was not long in
+subsiding. The visitor was a lady, and as she sat by the lamp, a glance
+was enough to shew that she was young, and very beautiful. The interest
+which this young lady excited in Mr. Batchel was altogether unusual,
+as unusual as was the visit of such a person at such a time. His
+conjecture was that she had called to give him notice of a marriage,
+but he was really charmed by her presence, and was quite content to
+find her in no haste to state her errand. The manner, however, of the
+lady was singular, for neither by word nor movement did she show that
+she was conscious of Mr. Batchel's entry into the room.
+
+He began at length with his customary formula "What can I have the
+pleasure of doing for you?" and when, at the sound of his voice, she
+turned her fine dark eyes upon him, he saw that they were wet with
+tears.
+
+Mr. Batchel was now really moved. As a tear fell upon the lady's cheek,
+she raised her hand as if to conceal it--a brilliant sapphire sparkling
+in the lamp-light as she did so. And then the lady's distress, and
+the exquisite grace of her presence, altogether overcame him. There
+stole upon him a strange feeling of tenderness which he supposed to
+be paternal, but knew nevertheless to be indiscreet. He was a prudent
+man, with strict notions of propriety, so that, ostensibly with a view
+to giving the lady a few minutes in which to recover her composure,
+he quietly left the study and went into another room, to pull himself
+together.
+
+Mr. Batchel, like most solitary men, had a habit of talking to himself.
+"It is of no use, R. B.," he said, "to pretend that you have retired on
+this damsel's account. If you don't take care, you'll make a fool of
+yourself." He took up from the table a volume of the encyclopedia in
+which, the day before, he had been looking up Pestalozzi, and turned
+over the pages in search of something to restore his equanimity. An
+article on Perspective proved to be the very thing. Wholly unromantic
+in character, its copious presentment of hard fact relieved his mind,
+and he was soon threading his way along paths of knowledge to which he
+was little accustomed. He applied his remedy with such persistence that
+when four or five minutes had passed, he felt sufficiently composed to
+return to the study. He framed, as he went, a suitable form of words
+with which to open the conversation, and took with him his register
+of Banns of Marriage, of which he thought he foresaw the need. As he
+opened the study-door, the book fell from his hands to the ground, so
+completely was he overcome by surprise, for he found the room empty.
+The lady had disappeared; her chair stood vacant before him.
+
+Mr. Batchel sat down for a moment, and then rang the bell. It was
+answered by the boy who always attended upon him.
+
+"When did the lady go?" asked Mr. Batchel.
+
+The boy looked bewildered.
+
+"The lady you showed into the study before I came."
+
+"Please, sir, I never shown anyone into the study; I never do when
+you're out."
+
+"There was a lady here," said Mr. Batchel, "when I returned."
+
+The boy now looked incredulous.
+
+"Did you not let someone out just now?"
+
+"No, sir," said the boy. "I put the chain on the front door as soon as
+you came in."
+
+This was conclusive. The chain upon the hall-door was an ancient and
+cumbrous thing, and could not be manipulated without considerable
+effort, and a great deal of noise. Mr. Batchel released the boy, and
+began to think furiously. He was not, as the reader is well aware,
+without some experience of the supranormal side of nature, and he knew
+of course that the visit of this enthralling lady had a purpose. He was
+beginning to know, however, that it had had an effect. He sat before
+his fire reproducing her image, and soon gave it up in disgust because
+his imagination refused to do her justice. He could recover the details
+of her appearance, but could combine them into nothing that would
+reproduce the impression she had first made upon him.
+
+He was unable now to concentrate his attention upon the examination
+papers lying on his table. His mind wandered so often to the other
+topic that he felt himself to be in danger of marking the answers
+unfairly. He turned away from his work, therefore, and moved to another
+chair, where he sat down to read. It was the chair in which she herself
+had sat, and he made no attempt to pretend that he had chosen it on any
+other account. He had, in fact, made some discoveries about himself
+during the last half-hour, and he gave himself another surprise when
+he came to select his book. In the ordinary course of what he had
+supposed to be his nature, he would certainly have returned to the
+article on Perspective; it was lying open in the next room, and he
+had read no more than a tenth part of it. But instead of that, his
+thoughts went back to a volume he had but once opened, and that for
+no more than two minutes. He had received the book, by way of birthday
+present, early in the preceding year, from a relative who had bestowed
+either no consideration at all, or else a great deal of cunning, upon
+its selection. It was a collection of 17th century lyrics, which Mr.
+Batchel's single glance had sufficed to condemn. Regarding the one
+lyric he had read as a sort of literary freak, he had banished the book
+to one of the spare bedrooms, and had never seen it since. And now,
+after this long interval, the absurd lines which his eye had but once
+lighted upon, were recurring to his mind:
+
+    "Fair, sweet, and young, receive a prize
+    Reserved for your victorious eyes";
+
+and so far from thinking them absurd, as he now recalled them, he went
+upstairs to fetch the book, in which he was soon absorbed. The lyrics
+no longer seemed unreasonable. He felt conscious, as he read one after
+another, of a side of nature that he had strangely neglected, and was
+obliged to admit that the men whose feelings were set forth in the
+various sonnets and poems had a fine gift of expression.
+
+    "Thus, whilst I look for her in vain,
+    Methinks I am a child again,
+      And of my shadow am a-chasing.
+    For all her graces are to me
+    Like apparitions that I see,
+      But never can come near th' embracing."
+
+No! these men were not, as he had formerly supposed, writing with
+air, and he felt ashamed at having used the term "freak" at their
+expense.
+
+Mr. Batchel read more of the lyrics, some of them twice, and one of
+them much oftener. That one he began to commit to memory, and since the
+household had retired to rest, to recite aloud. He had been unaware
+that literature contained anything so beautiful, and as he looked again
+at the book to recover an expression his memory had lost, a tear fell
+upon the page. It was a thing so extraordinary that Mr. Batchel first
+looked at the ceiling, but when he found that it was indeed a tear from
+his own eye he was immoderately pleased with himself. Had not she also
+shed a tear as she sat upon the same chair? The fact seemed to draw
+them together.
+
+Contemplation of this sort was, however, a luxury to be enjoyed in
+something like moderation. Mr. Batchel soon laid down his lyric and
+savagely began to add up columns of marks, by way of discipline; and
+when he had totalled several pages of these, respect for his normal
+self had returned with sufficient force to take him off to bed.
+
+The matter of his dreams, or whether he dreamed at all, has not been
+disclosed. He awoke, at any rate, in a calmer state of mind, and such
+romantic thoughts as remained were effectually dispelled by the sight
+of his own countenance when he began to shave. "Fancy you spouting
+lyrics," he said, as he dabbed the brush upon his mouth, and by the
+time he was ready for breakfast he pronounced himself cured.
+
+The prosaic labours awaiting him in the study were soon forced upon his
+notice, and for once he did not regret it. Amongst the letters lying
+upon the breakfast table was one from the secretary who controlled the
+system of examination. The form of the envelope was too familiar to
+leave him in doubt as to what it contained. It was a letter which, to a
+careful man like Mr. Batchel, seemed to have the nature of a reproof,
+inasmuch as it probably asked for information which it had already
+been his duty to furnish. The contents of the envelope, when he had
+impatiently torn it open, answered to his expectation--he was formally
+requested to supply the name and the marks of candidate No. 1004, and
+he wondered, as he ate his breakfast, how he had omitted to return
+them. He hunted out the paper of No. 1004 as soon as the meal was over.
+The candidate proved to be one Lubrietta Bodria, of whom, of course,
+he had never heard, and her answers had all been marked. He could not
+understand why they should have been made the subject of enquiry.
+
+He took her papers in his hand, and looked at them again as he stood
+with his back to the fire, having lit the pipe which invariably
+followed his breakfast, and then he discovered something much harder to
+understand. The marks were not his own. In place of the usual sketchy
+numerals, hardly decipherable to any but himself, he saw figures which
+were carefully formed; and the marks assigned to the first answer, as
+he saw it on the uppermost sheet, were higher than the maximum number
+obtainable for that question.
+
+Mr. Batchel laid down his pipe and seated himself at the table. He was
+greatly puzzled. As he turned over the sheets of No. 1004 he found
+all the other questions marked in like manner, and making a total of
+half as much again as the highest possible number. "Who the dickens,"
+he said, using a meaningless, but not uncommon expression, "has been
+playing with this; and how came I to pass it over?" The need of the
+moment, however, was to furnish the proper marks to the secretary at
+Cambridge, and Mr. Batchel proceeded to read No. 1004 right through.
+
+He soon found that he had read it all before, and the matter began to
+bristle with queries. It proved, in fact, to be a paper over which he
+had spent some time, and for a singularly interesting reason. He had
+learned from a friend in the Indian Civil Service that an exaggerated
+value was often placed by ambitious Indians and Cingalese upon a
+European education, and that many aspiring young men declined to
+take a wife who had not passed this very examination. It was to Mr.
+Batchel a disquieting reflection that his blue pencil was not only
+marking mistakes, but might at the same time be cancelling matrimonial
+engagements, and his friend's communication had made him scrupulously
+careful in examining the work of young ladies in Oriental Schools. The
+matter had occurred to him at once as he had examined the answers of
+Lubrietta Rodria. He perfectly remembered the question upon which her
+success depended. A problem in logic had been answered by a rambling
+and worthless argument, to which, somehow, the right conclusion was
+appended: the conclusion might be a happy guess, or it might have been
+secured by less honest means, but Mr. Batchel, following his usual
+practice, gave no marks for it. It was not here that he found any cause
+for hesitation, but when he came to the end of the paper and found that
+the candidate had only just failed, he had turned back to the critical
+question, imagined an eligible bachelor awaiting the result of the
+examination, and then, after a period of vacillation, had hastily put
+the symbol of failure upon the paper lest he should be tempted to bring
+his own charity to the rescue of the candidate's logic, and unfairly
+add the three marks which would suffice to pass her.
+
+As he now read the answer for the second time, the same pitiful thought
+troubled him, and this time more than before; for over the edge of
+the paper of No. 1004 there persistently arose the image of the young
+lady with the sapphire ring. It directed the current of his thoughts.
+Suppose that Lubrietta Rodria were anything like that! and what if the
+arguments of No. 1004 were worthless! Young ladies were notoriously
+weak in argument, and as strong in conclusions! and after all, the
+conclusion was correct, and ought not a correct conclusion to have its
+marks? There followed much more to the same purpose, and in the end Mr.
+Batchel stultified himself by adding the necessary three marks, and
+passing the candidate.
+
+"This comes precious near to being a job," he remarked, as he entered
+the marks upon the form and sealed it in the envelope, "but No. 1004
+must pass, this time." He enclosed in the envelope a request to know
+why the marks had been asked for, since they had certainly been
+returned in their proper place. A brief official reply informed him
+next day that the marks he had returned exceeded the maximum, and must,
+therefore, have been wrongly entered.
+
+"This," said Mr. Batchel, "is a curious coincidence."
+
+Curious as it certainly was, it was less curious than what immediately
+followed. It was Mr. Batchel's practice to avoid any delay in returning
+these official papers, and he went out, there and then, to post his
+envelope. The Post Office was no more than a hundred yards from his
+door, and in three minutes he was in his study again. The first object
+that met his eye there was a beautiful sapphire ring lying upon the
+papers of No. 1004, which had remained upon the table.
+
+Mr. Batchel at once recognised the ring. "I knew it was precious near a
+job," he said, "but I didn't know that it was as near as this."
+
+He took up the ring and examined it. It looked like a ring of great
+value; the stone was large and brilliant, and the setting was of fine
+workmanship. "Now what on earth," said Mr. Batchel, "am I to do with
+this?"
+
+The nearest jeweller to Stoneground was a competent and experienced
+tradesman of the old school. He was a member of the local Natural
+History Society, and in that capacity Mr. Batchel had made intimate
+acquaintance with him. To this jeweller, therefore, he carried the
+ring, and asked him what he thought of it.
+
+"I'll give you forty pounds for it," said the jeweller.
+
+Mr. Batchel replied that the ring was not his. "What about the make of
+it?" he asked. "Is it English?"
+
+The jeweller replied that it was unmistakably Indian.
+
+"You are sure?" said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Certain," said the jeweller. "Major Ackroyd brought home one like it,
+all but the stone, from Puna; I repaired it for him last year."
+
+The information was enough, if not more than enough, for Mr. Batchel.
+He begged a suitable case from his friend the jeweller, and within
+an hour had posted the ring to Miss Lubrietta Rodria at the European
+College in Puna. At the same time he wrote to the Principal the letter
+whose answer is embodied in the preface to this narrative.
+
+Having done this, Mr. Batchel felt more at ease. He had given Lubrietta
+Rodria what he amiably called the benefit of the doubt, but it should
+never be said that he had been bribed.
+
+The rest of his papers he marked with fierce justice. A great deal of
+the work, in his zeal, he did twice over, but his conscience amply
+requited him for the superfluous labour. The last paper was marked
+within a day of the allotted time, Mr. Batchel shortly afterwards
+received his cheque, and was glad to think that the whole matter was at
+an end.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That Lubrietta had been absent from India whilst her relatives and
+attendants were trying to restore her to consciousness, he had good
+reason to know. His friends, for the most part, took a very narrow view
+of human nature and its possibilities, so that he kept his experience,
+for a long time, to himself; there were personal reasons for not
+discussing the incident. The reader has been already told upon what
+understanding it is recorded here.
+
+There remains, however, an episode which Mr. Batchel all but managed
+to suppress. Upon the one occasion when he allowed himself to speak of
+this matter, he was being pressed for a description of the sapphire
+ring, and was not very successful in his attempt to describe it. There
+was no reason, of course, why this should lay his good faith under
+suspicion. Few of us could pass an examination upon objects with which
+we are supposed to be familiar, or say which of our tables have three
+legs, and which four.
+
+One of Mr. Batchel's auditors, however, took a captious view of the
+matter, and brusquely remarked, in imitation of a more famous sceptic,
+"I don't believe there's no sich a thing."
+
+Mr. Batchel, of course, recognised the phrase, and it was his eagerness
+to establish his credit that committed him at this point to a last
+disclosure about Lubrietta. He drew a sapphire ring from his pocket,
+handed it to the incredulous auditor, and addressed him in the manner
+of Mrs. Gamp.
+
+"What! you bage creetur, have I had this ring three year or more to be
+told there ain't no sech a thing. Go along with you."
+
+"But I thought the ring was sent back," said more than one.
+
+"How did you come by it?" said all the others.
+
+Mr. Batchel thereupon admitted that he had closed his story prematurely.
+About six weeks after the return of the ring to Puna he had found it
+once again upon his table, returned through the post. Enclosed in the
+package was a note which Mr. Batchel, being now committed to this part
+of the story, also passed round for inspection. It ran as follows:--
+
+      "Accept the ring, dear one, and wear it for my sake. Fail not
+      to think sometimes of her whom you have made happy.--L. R."
+
+"What on earth am I to do with this?" Mr. Batchel had asked himself
+again. And this time he had answered the question, after the briefest
+possible delay, by slipping the ring upon his fourth finger.
+
+The book of Lyrics remained downstairs amongst the books in constant
+use. Mr. Batchel can repeat at least half of the collection from memory.
+
+He knows well enough that such terms as "dear one" are addressed to
+bald gentlemen only in a Pickwickian sense, but even with that sense
+the letter gives him pleasure.
+
+He admits that he thinks very often of "her whom he has made happy,"
+but that he cannot exclude from his thoughts at these times an
+ungenerous regret. It is that he has also made happy a nameless
+Oriental gentleman whom he presumptuously calls "the other fellow."
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+THE ROCKERY.
+
+
+The Vicar's garden at Stoneground has certainly been enclosed for more
+than seven centuries, and during the whole of that time its almost
+sacred privacy has been regarded as permanent and unchangeable. It has
+remained for the innovators of later and more audacious days to hint
+that it might be given into other hands, and still carry with it no
+curse that should make a new possessor hasten to undo his irreverence.
+Whether there can be warrant for such confidence, time will show. The
+experiences already related will show that the privacy of the garden
+has been counted upon both by good men and worse. And here is a story,
+in its way, more strange than any.
+
+By way of beginning, it may be well to describe a part of the garden
+not hitherto brought into notice. That part lies on the western
+boundary, where the garden slopes down to a sluggish stream, hardly a
+stream at all, locally known as the Lode. The Lode bounds the garden
+on the west along its whole length, and there the moor-hen builds her
+nest, and the kingfisher is sometimes, but in these days too rarely,
+seen. But the centre of vision, as it were, of this western edge lies
+in a cluster of tall elms. Towards these all the garden paths converge,
+and about their base is raised a bank of earth, upon which is heaped a
+rockery of large stones lately overgrown with ferns.
+
+Mr. Batchel's somewhat prim taste in gardening had long resented
+this disorderly bank. In more than one place in his garden had wild
+confusion given place to a park-like trimness, and there were not a
+few who would say that the change was not for the better. Mr. Batchel,
+however, went his own way, and in due time determined to remove the
+rockery. He was puzzled by its presence; he could see no reason why a
+bank should have been raised about the feet of the elms, and surmounted
+with stones; not a ray of sunshine ever found its way there, and none
+but coarse and uninteresting plants had established themselves. Whoever
+had raised the bank had done it ignorantly, or with some purpose not
+easy for Mr. Batchel to conjecture.
+
+Upon a certain day, therefore, in the early part of December, when
+the garden had been made comfortable for its winter rest, he began,
+with the assistance of his gardener, to remove the stones into another
+place.
+
+We do but speak according to custom in this matter, and there are few
+readers who will not suspect the truth, which is that the gardener
+began to remove the stones, whilst Mr. Batchel stood by and delivered
+criticisms of very slight value. Such strength, in fact, as Mr. Batchel
+possessed had concentrated itself upon the mind, and somewhat neglected
+his body, and what he called help, during his presence in the garden,
+was called by another name when the gardener and his boy were left to
+themselves, with full freedom of speech.
+
+There were few of the stones rolled down by the gardener that Mr.
+Batchel could even have moved, but his astonishment at their size soon
+gave place to excitement at their appearance. His antiquarian tastes
+were strong, and were soon busily engaged. For, as the stones rolled
+down, his eyes were feasted, in a rapid succession, by capitals of
+columns, fragments of moulded arches and mullions, and other relics of
+ecclesiastical building.
+
+Repeatedly did he call the gardener down from his work to put these
+fragments together, and before long there were several complete lengths
+of arcading laid upon the path. Stones which, perhaps, had been
+separated for centuries, once more came together, and Mr. Batchel,
+rubbing his hands in excited satisfaction, declared that he might
+recover the best parts of a Church by the time the rockery had been
+demolished.
+
+The interest of the gardener in such matters was of a milder kind. "We
+must go careful," he merely observed, "when we come to the organ." They
+went on removing more and more stones, until at length the whole bank
+was laid bare, and Mr. Batchel's chief purpose achieved. How the stones
+were carefully arranged, and set up in other parts of the garden, is
+well known, and need not concern us now.
+
+One detail, however, must not be omitted. A large and stout stake of
+yew, evidently of considerable age, but nevertheless quite sound, stood
+exposed after the clearing of the bank. There was no obvious reason for
+its presence, but it had been well driven in, so well that the strength
+of the gardener, or, if it made any difference, of the gardener and Mr.
+Batchel together, failed even to shake it. It was not unsightly, and
+might have remained where it was, had not the gardener exclaimed, "This
+is the very thing we want for the pump." It was so obviously "the very
+thing" that its removal was then and there decided upon.
+
+The pump referred to was a small iron pump used to draw water from the
+Lode. It had been affixed to many posts in turn, and defied them all
+to hold it. Not that the pump was at fault. It was a trifling affair
+enough. But the pumpers were usually garden-boys, whose impatient
+energy had never failed, before many days, to wriggle the pump away
+from its supports. When the gardener had, upon one occasion, spent
+half a day in attaching it firmly to a post, they had at once shaken
+out the post itself. Since, therefore, the matter was causing daily
+inconvenience, and the gardener becoming daily more concerned for his
+reputation as a rough carpenter, it was natural for him to exclaim,
+"This is the very thing." It was a better stake than he had ever used,
+and as had just been made evident, a stake that the ground would hold.
+
+"Yes!" said Mr. Batchel, "it is the very thing; but can we get it up?"
+The gardener always accepted this kind of query as a challenge, and
+replied only by taking up a pick and setting to work, Mr. Batchel,
+as usual, looking on, and making, every now and then, a fruitless
+suggestion. After a few minutes, however, he made somewhat more than a
+suggestion. He darted forward and laid his hand upon the pick. "Don't
+you see some copper?" he asked quickly.
+
+Every man who digs knows what a hiding place there is in the earth.
+The monotony of spade work is always relieved by a hope of turning up
+something unexpected. Treasure lies dimly behind all these hopes, so
+that the gardener, having seen Mr. Batchel excited over so much that
+was precious from his own point of view, was quite ready to look for
+something of value to an ordinary reasonable man. Copper might lead to
+silver, and that, in turn, to gold. At Mr. Batchel's eager question,
+therefore, he peered into the hole he had made, and examined everything
+there that might suggest the rounded form of a coin.
+
+He soon saw what had arrested Mr. Batchel. There was a lustrous scratch
+on the side of the stake, evidently made by the pick, and though the
+metal was copper, plainly enough, the gardener felt that he had been
+deceived, and would have gone on with his work. Copper of that sort
+gave him no sort of excitement, and only a feeble interest.
+
+Mr. Batchel, however, was on his hands and knees. There was a small
+irregular plate of copper nailed to the stake; without any difficulty
+he tore it away from the nails, and soon scraped it clean with a
+shaving of wood; then, rising to his feet, he examined his find.
+
+There was an inscription upon it, so legible as to need no deciphering.
+It had been roughly and effectually made with a hammer and nail, the
+letters being formed by series of holes punched deeply into the metal,
+and what he read was:--
+
+         MOVE NOT THIS
+      STAKE, NOV. 1, 1702.
+
+But to move the stake was what Mr. Batchel had determined upon, and the
+metal plate he held in his hand interested him chiefly as showing how
+long the post had been there. He had happened, as he supposed, upon an
+ancient landmark. The discovery, recorded elsewhere, of a well, near to
+the edge of his present lawn, had shown him that his premises had once
+been differently arranged. One of the minor antiquarian tasks he had
+set himself was to discover and record the old arrangement, and he felt
+that the position of this stake would help him. He felt no doubt of
+its being a point upon the western limit of the garden; not improbably
+marked in this way to show where the garden began, and where ended the
+ancient hauling-way, which had been secured to the public for purposes
+of navigation.
+
+The gardener, meanwhile, was proceeding with his work. With no small
+difficulty he removed the rubble and clay which accounted for the
+firmness of the stake. It grew dark as the work went on, and a distant
+clock struck five before it was completed. Five was the hour at
+which the gardener usually went home; his day began early. He was
+not, however, a man to leave a small job unfinished, and he went on
+loosening the earth with his pick, and trying the effect, at intervals,
+upon the firmness of the stake. It naturally began to give, and could
+be moved from side to side through a space of some few inches. He
+lifted out the loosened stones, and loosened more. His pick struck
+iron, which, after loosening, proved to be links of a rusted chain.
+"They've buried a lot of rubbish in this hole," he remarked, as he went
+on loosening the chain, which, in the growing darkness, could hardly
+be seen. Mr. Batchel, meanwhile, occupied himself in a simpler task of
+working the stake to and fro, by way of loosening its hold. Ultimately
+it began to move with greater freedom. The gardener laid down his
+tool and grasped the stake, which his master was still holding; their
+combined efforts succeeded at once; the stake was lifted out.
+
+It turned out to be furnished with an unusually long and sharp point,
+which explained the firmness of its hold upon the ground. The gardener
+carried it to the neighbourhood of the pump, in readiness for its next
+purpose, and made ready to go home. He would drive the stake to-morrow,
+he said, in the new place, and make the pump so secure that not even
+the boys could shake it. He also spoke of some designs he had upon
+the chain, should it prove to be of any considerable length. He was an
+ingenious man, and his skill in converting discarded articles to new
+uses was embarrassing to his master. Mr. Batchel, as has been said, was
+a prim gardener, and he had no liking for makeshift devices. He had
+that day seen his runner beans trained upon a length of old gas-piping,
+and had no intention of leaving the gardener in possession of such a
+treasure as a rusty chain. What he said, however, and said with truth,
+was that he wanted the chain for himself. He had no practical use for
+it, and hardly expected it to yield him any interest. But a chain
+buried in 1702 must be examined--nothing ancient comes amiss to a man
+of antiquarian tastes.
+
+Mr. Batchel had noticed, whilst the gardener had been carrying away
+the stake, that the chain lay very loosely in the earth. The pick had
+worked well round it. He said, therefore, that the chain must be lifted
+out and brought to him upon the morrow, bade his gardener good night,
+and went in to his fireside.
+
+This will appear to the reader to be a record of the merest trifles,
+but all readers will accept the reminder that there is no such
+thing as a trifle, and that what appears to be trivial has that
+appearance only so long as it stands alone. Regarded in the light
+of their consequences, those matters which have seemed to be least
+in importance, turn out, often enough, to be the greatest. And these
+trifling occupations, as we may call them for the last time, of Mr.
+Batchel and the gardener, had consequences which shall now be set down
+as Mr. Batchel himself narrated them. But we must take events in their
+order. At present Mr. Batchel is at his fireside, and his gardener at
+home with his family. The stake is removed, and the hole, in which lies
+some sort of an iron chain, is exposed.
+
+Upon this particular evening Mr. Batchel was dining out. He was a
+good natured man, with certain mild powers of entertainment, and his
+presence as an occasional guest was not unacceptable at some of the
+more considerable houses of the neighbourhood. And let us hasten to
+observe that he was not a guest who made any great impression upon
+the larders or the cellars of his hosts. He liked port, but he liked
+it only of good quality, and in small quantity. When he returned
+from a dinner party, therefore, he was never either in a surfeited
+condition of body, or in any confusion of mind. Not uncommonly after
+his return upon such occasions did he perform accurate work. Unfinished
+contributions to sundry local journals were seldom absent from his
+desk. They were his means of recreation. There they awaited convenient
+intervals of leisure, and Mr. Batchel was accustomed to say that of
+these intervals he found none so productive as a late hour, or hour and
+a half, after a dinner party.
+
+Upon the evening in question he returned, about an hour before
+midnight, from dining at the house of a retired officer residing in the
+neighbourhood, and the evening had been somewhat less enjoyable than
+usual. He had taken in to dinner a young lady who had too persistently
+assailed him with antiquarian questions. Now Mr. Batchel did not like
+talking what he regarded as "shop," and was not much at home with young
+ladies, to whom he knew that, in the nature of things, he could be
+but imperfectly acceptable. With infinite good will towards them, and
+a genuine liking for their presence, he felt that he had but little
+to offer them in exchange. There was so little in common between his
+life and theirs. He felt distinctly at his worst when he found himself
+treated as a mere scrap-book of information. It made him seem, as he
+would express it, de-humanised.
+
+Upon this particular evening the young lady allotted to him, perhaps
+at her own request, had made a scrap-book of him, and he had returned
+home somewhat discontented, if also somewhat amused. His discontent
+arose from having been deprived of the general conversation he so
+greatly, but so rarely, enjoyed. His amusement was caused by the
+incongruity between a very light-hearted young lady and the subject
+upon which she had made him talk, for she had talked of nothing else
+but modes of burial.
+
+He began to recall the conversation as he lit his pipe and dropped into
+his armchair. She had either been reflecting deeply upon the matter,
+or, as seemed to Mr. Batchel, more probable, had read something and
+half forgotten it. He recalled her questions, and the answers by which
+he had vainly tried to lead her to a more attractive topic. For example:
+
+  She: Will you tell me why people were buried at cross roads?
+
+  He: Well, consecrated ground was so jealously guarded that a
+      criminal would be held to have forfeited the right to be buried
+      amongst Christian folk. His friends would therefore choose
+      cross roads where there was set a wayside cross, and make his
+      grave at the foot of it. In some of my journeys in Scotland I
+      have seen crosses....
+
+But the young lady had refused to be led into Scotland. She had stuck
+to her subject.
+
+  She: Why have coffins come back into use? There is nothing in our
+      Burial Service about a coffin.
+
+  He: True, and the use of the coffin is due, in part, to an ignorant
+      notion of confining the corpse, lest, like Hamlet's father, he
+      should walk the earth. You will have noticed that the corpse
+      is always carried out of the house feet foremost, to suggest a
+      final exit, and that the grave is often covered with a heavy
+      slab. Very curious epitaphs are to be found on these slabs....
+
+But she was not to be drawn into the subject of epitaphs. She had made
+him tell of other devices for confining spirits to their prison, and
+securing the peace of the living, especially of those adopted in the
+case of violent and mischievous men. Altogether an unusual sort of
+young lady.
+
+The conversation, however, had revived his memories of what was, after
+all, a matter of some interest, and he determined to look through his
+parish registers for records of exceptional burials. He was surprised
+at himself for never having done it. He dismissed the matter from his
+mind for the time being, and as it was a bright moonlight night he
+thought he would finish his pipe in the garden.
+
+Therefore, although midnight was close at hand, he strolled complacently
+round his garden, enjoying the light of the moon no less than in the
+daytime he would have enjoyed the sun; and thus it was that he arrived
+at the scene of his labours upon the old rockery. There was more light
+than there had been at the end of the afternoon, and when he had walked
+up the bank, and stood over the hole we have already described, he could
+distinctly see the few exposed links of the iron chain. Should he remove
+it at once to a place of safety, out of the way of the gardener? It was
+about time for bed. The city clocks were then striking midnight. He
+would let the chain decide. If it came out easily he would remove it;
+otherwise, it should remain until morning.
+
+The chain came out more than easily. It seemed to have a force within
+itself. He gave but a slight tug at the free end with a view of
+ascertaining what resistance he had to encounter, and immediately found
+himself lying upon his back with the chain in his hand. His back had
+fortunately turned towards an elm three feet away which broke his fall,
+but there had been violence enough to cause him no little surprise.
+
+The effort he had made was so slight that he could not account for
+having lost his feet; and being a careful man, he was a little anxious
+about his evening coat, which he was still wearing. The chain, however,
+was in his hand, and he made haste to coil it into a portable shape,
+and to return to the house.
+
+Some fifty yards from the spot was the northern boundary of the garden,
+a long wall with a narrow lane beyond. It was not unusual, even at
+this hour of the night, to hear footsteps there. The lane was used by
+railway men, who passed to and from their work at all hours, as also by
+some who returned late from entertainments in the neighbouring city.
+
+But Mr. Batchel, as he turned back to the house, with his chain over
+one arm, heard more than footsteps. He heard for a few moments the
+unmistakable sound of a scuffle, and then a piercing cry, loud and
+sharp, and a noise of running. It was such a cry as could only have
+come from one in urgent need of help.
+
+Mr. Batchel dropped his chain. The garden wall was some ten feet high
+and he had no means of scaling it. But he ran quickly into the house,
+passed out by the hall door into the street, and so towards the lane
+without a moment's loss of time.
+
+Before he has gone many yards he sees a man running from the lane with
+his clothing in great disorder, and this man, at the sight of Mr.
+Batchel, darts across the road, runs along in the shadow of an opposite
+wall and attempts to escape.
+
+The man is known well enough to Mr. Batchel. It is one Stephen Medd, a
+respectable and sensible man, by occupation a shunter, and Mr. Batchel
+at once calls out to ask what has happened. Stephen, however, makes no
+reply but continues to run along the shadow of the wall, whereupon Mr.
+Batchel crosses over and intercepts him, and again asks what is amiss.
+Stephen answers wildly and breathlessly, "I'm not going to stop here,
+let me go home."
+
+As Mr. Batchel lays his hand upon the man's arm and draws him into the
+light of the moon, it is seen that his face is streaming with blood
+from a wound near the eye.
+
+He is somewhat calmed by the familiar voice of Mr. Batchel, and is
+about to speak, when another scream is heard from the lane. The voice
+is that of a boy or woman, and no sooner does Stephen hear it than he
+frees himself violently from Mr. Batchel and makes away towards his
+home. With no less speed does Mr. Batchel make for the lane, and finds
+about half way down a boy lying on the ground wounded and terrified.
+
+At first the boy clings to the ground, but he, too, is soon reassured
+by Mr. Batchel's voice, and allows himself to be lifted on to his
+feet. His wound is also in the face, and Mr. Batchel takes the boy
+into his house, bathes and plasters his wound, and soon restores him
+to something like calm. He is what is termed a call-boy, employed by
+the Railway Company to awaken drivers at all hours, and give them their
+instructions.
+
+Mr. Batchel is naturally impatient for the moment he can question
+the boy about his assailant, who is presumably also the assailant
+of Stephen Medd. No one had been visible in the lane, though the
+moon shone upon it from end to end. At the first available moment,
+therefore, he asks the boy, "Who did this?"
+
+The answer came, without any hesitation, "Nobody." "There was nobody
+there," he said, "and all of a sudden somebody hit me with an iron
+thing."
+
+Then Mr. Batchel asked, "Did you see Stephen Medd?" He was becoming
+greatly puzzled.
+
+The boy replied that he had seen Mr. Medd "a good bit in front," with
+nobody near him, and that all of a sudden someone knocked him down.
+
+Further questioning seemed useless. Mr. Batchel saw the boy to his
+home, left him at the door, and returned to bed, but not to sleep.
+He could not cease from thinking, and he could think of nothing but
+assaults from invisible hands. Morning seemed long in coming, but came
+at last.
+
+Mr. Batchel was up betimes and made a very poor breakfast. Dallying
+with the morning paper, rather than reading it, his eye was arrested by
+a headline about "Mysterious assaults in Elmham." He felt that he had
+mysteries of his own to occupy him and was in no mood to be interested
+in more assaults. But he had some knowledge of Elmham, a small town ten
+miles distant from Stoneground, and he read the brief paragraph, which
+contained no more than the substance of a telegram. It said, however,
+that three persons had been victims of unaccountable assaults. Two of
+them had escaped with slight injuries, but the third, a young woman,
+was dangerously wounded, though still alive and conscious. She declared
+that she was quite alone in her house and had been suddenly struck
+with great violence by what felt like a piece of iron, and that she
+must have bled to death but for a neighbour who heard her cries. The
+neighbour had at once looked out and seen nobody, but had bravely gone
+to her friend's assistance.
+
+Mr. Batchel laid down his newspaper considerably impressed, as was
+natural, by the resemblance of these tragedies to what he had
+witnessed himself. He was in no condition, after his excitement and
+his sleepless night, to do his usual work. His mind reverted to the
+conversation at the dinner party and the trifle of antiquarian research
+it had suggested. Such occupation had often served him when he found
+himself suffering from a cold, or otherwise indisposed for more serious
+work. He would get the registers and collect what entries there might
+be of irregular burial.
+
+He found only one such entry, but that one was enough. There was a note
+dated All Hallows, 1702, to this effect:
+
+      "This day did a vagrant from Elmham beat cruelly to death two
+      poor men who had refused him alms, and upon a hue and cry being
+      raised, took his own life. He was buried in one Parson's Close
+      with a stake through his body and his arms confined in chains,
+      and stoutly covered in."
+
+No further news came from Elmham. Either the effort had been exhausted,
+or its purpose achieved. But what could have led the young lady, a
+stranger to Mr. Batchel and to his garden, to hit upon so appropriate
+a topic? Mr. Batchel could not answer the question as he put it to
+himself again and again during the day. He only knew that she had given
+him a warning, by which, to his shame and regret, he had been too
+obtuse to profit.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+THE INDIAN LAMP-SHADE.
+
+
+What has been already said of Mr. Batchel will have sufficed to inform
+the reader that he is a man of very settled habits. The conveniences
+of life, which have multiplied so fast of late, have never attracted
+him, even when he has heard of them. Inconveniences to which he is
+accustomed have always seemed to him preferable to conveniences with
+which he is unfamiliar. To this day, therefore, he writes with a quill,
+winds up his watch with a key, and will drink no soda-water but from a
+tumbling bottle with the cork wired to its neck.
+
+The reader accordingly will learn without surprise that Mr. Batchel
+continues to use the reading-lamp he acquired 30 years ago as a
+Freshman in College. He still carries it from room to room as
+occasion requires, and ignores all other means of illumination. It
+is an inexpensive lamp of very poor appearance, and dates from a
+time when labour-saving was not yet a fine art. It cannot be lighted
+without the removal of several of its parts, and it is extinguished
+by the primitive device of blowing down the chimney. What has always
+shocked the womenfolk of the Batchel family, however, is the lamp's
+unworthiness of its surroundings. Mr. Batchel's house is furnished in
+dignified and comfortable style, but the handsome lamp, surmounting
+a fluted brazen column, which his relatives bestowed upon him at his
+institution, is still unpacked.
+
+One of his younger and subtler relatives succeeded in damaging the old
+lamp, as she thought, irretrievably, by a well-planned accident, but
+found it still in use a year later, most atrociously repaired. The
+whole family, and some outsiders, had conspired to attack the offending
+lamp, and it had withstood them all.
+
+The single victory achieved over Mr. Batchel in this matter is quite
+recent, and was generally unexpected. A cousin who had gone out to
+India as a bride, and that of Mr. Batchel's making, had sent him
+an Indian lamp-shade. The association was pleasing. The shade was
+decorated with Buddhist figures which excited Mr. Batchel's curiosity,
+and to the surprise of all his friends he set it on the lamp and there
+allowed it to remain. It was not, however, the figures which had
+reconciled him to this novel and somewhat incongruous addition to the
+old lamp. The singular colour of the material had really attracted
+him. It was a bright orange-red, like no colour he had ever seen, and
+the remarks of visitors whose experience of such things was greater
+than his own soon justified him in regarding it as unique. No one had
+seen the colour elsewhere; and of all the tints which have acquired
+distinctive names, none of the names could be applied without some
+further qualification. Mr. Batchel himself did not trouble about
+a name, but was quite certain that it was a colour that he liked;
+and more than that, a colour which had about it some indescribable
+fascination. When the lamp had been brought in, and the curtains drawn,
+he used to regard with singular pleasure the interiors of rooms with
+whose appearance he was unaccustomed to concern himself. The books in
+his study, and the old-fashioned solid furniture of his dining room, as
+reflected in the new light, seemed to assume a more friendly aspect,
+as if they had previously been rigidly frozen, and had now thawed
+into life. The lamp-shade seemed to bestow upon the light some active
+property, and gave to the rooms, as Mr. Batchel said, the appearance of
+being wide-awake.
+
+These optical effects, as he called them, were especially noticeable in
+the dining room, where the convenience of a large table often induced
+him to spend the evening. Standing in a favourite attitude, with his
+elbow on the chimney-piece, Mr. Batchel found increasing pleasure in
+contemplating the interior of the room as he saw it reflected in a
+large old mirror above the fireplace. The great mahogany sideboard
+across the room, seemed, as he gazed upon it, to be penetrated by the
+light, and to acquire a softness of outline, and a sort of vivacity,
+which operated pleasantly upon its owner's imagination. He found
+himself playfully regretting, for example, that the mirror had no power
+of recording and reproducing the scenes enacted before it since the
+close of the 18th century, when it had become one of the fixtures of
+the house. The ruddy light of the lamp-shade had always a stimulating
+effect upon his fancy, and some of the verses which describe his
+visions before the mirror would delight the reader, but that the
+author's modesty forbids their reproduction. Had he been less firm in
+this matter we should have inserted here a poem in which Mr. Batchel
+audaciously ventured into the domain of Physics. He endowed his mirror
+with the power of retaining indefinitely the light which fell upon it,
+and of reflecting it only when excited by the appropriate stimulus. The
+passage beginning
+
+    The mirror, whilst men pass upon their way,
+    Treasures their image for a later day,
+
+might be derided by students of optics. Mr. Batchel has often read
+it in after days, with amazement, for, when his idle fancies came to be
+so gravely substantiated, he found that in writing the verses he had
+stumbled upon a new fact--a fact based as soundly, as will soon appear,
+upon experiment, as those which the text-books use in arriving at the
+better-known properties of reflection.
+
+He was seated in his dining room one frosty evening in January. His
+chair was drawn up to the fire, and the upper part of the space behind
+him was visible in the mirror. The brighter and clearer light thrown
+down by the shade was shining upon his book. It is the fate of most
+of us to receive visits when we should best like to be alone, and Mr.
+Batchel allowed an impatient exclamation to escape him, when, at nine
+o'clock on this evening, he heard the door-bell. A minute later, the
+boy announced "Mr. Mutcher," and Mr. Batchel, with such affability as
+he could hastily assume, rose to receive the caller. Mr. Mutcher was
+the Deputy Provincial Grand Master of the Ancient Order of Gleaners,
+and the formality of his manner accorded with the gravity of his title.
+Mr. Batchel soon became aware that the rest of the evening was doomed.
+The Deputy Provincial Grand Master had come to discuss the probable
+effect of the Insurance Act upon Friendly Societies, of which Mr.
+Batchel was an ardent supporter. He attended their meetings, in some
+cases kept their accounts, and was always apt to be consulted in their
+affairs. He seated Mr. Mutcher, therefore, in a chair on the opposite
+side of the fireplace, and gave him his somewhat reluctant attention.
+
+"This," said Mr. Mutcher, as he looked round the room, "is a cosy nook
+on a cold night. I cordially appreciate your kindness, Reverend Sir, in
+affording me this interview, and the comfort of your apartment leads me
+to wish that it might be more protracted."
+
+Mr. Batchel did his best not to dissent, and as he settled himself
+for a long half-hour, began to watch the rise and fall, between two
+lines upon the distant wall-paper of the shadow of Mr. Mutcher's
+side-whisker, as it seemed to beat time to his measured speech.
+
+The D.P.G.M. (for these functionaries are usually designated by
+initials) was not a man to be hurried into brevity. His style had been
+studiously acquired at Lodge meetings, and Mr. Batchel knew it well
+enough to be prepared for a lengthy preamble.
+
+"I have presumed," said Mr. Mutcher, as he looked straight before him
+into the mirror, "to trespass upon your Reverence's forbearance,
+because there are one or two points upon this new Insurance Act
+which seem calculated to damage our long-continued prosperity--I say
+long-continued prosperity," repeated Mr. Mutcher, as though Mr. Batchel
+had missed the phrase. "I had the favour of an interview yesterday,"
+he went on, "with the Sub-Superintendent of the Perseverance Accident
+and General (these were household words in circles which Mr. Batchel
+frequented, so that he was at no loss to understand them), and he
+was unanimous with me in agreeing that the matter called for careful
+consideration. There are one or two of our rules which we know to be
+essential to the welfare of our Order, and yet which will have to go by
+the board--I say by the board--as from July next. Now we are not Medes,
+nor yet Persians"--Mr. Mutcher was about to repeat "Persians" when he
+was observed to look hastily round the room and then to turn deadly
+pale. Mr. Batchel rose and hastened to his support; he was obviously
+unwell. The visitor, however, made a strong effort, rose from his chair
+at once, saying "Pray allow me to take leave," and hurried to the door
+even as he said the words. Mr. Batchel, with real concern, followed
+him with the offer of brandy, or whatever might afford relief. Mr.
+Mutcher did not so much as pause to reply. Before Mr. Batchel could
+reach him he had crossed the hall, and the door-knob was in his hand.
+He thereupon opened the door and passed into the street without another
+word. More unaccountably still, he went away at a run, such as ill
+became his somewhat majestic figure, and Mr. Batchel closed the door
+and returned to the dining-room in a state of bewilderment. He took
+up his book, and sat down again in his chair. He did not immediately
+begin to read, but set himself to review Mr. Mutcher's unaccountable
+behaviour, and as he raised his eyes to the mirror he saw an elderly
+man standing at the sideboard.
+
+Mr. Batchel quickly turned round, and as he did so, recalled the
+similar movement of his late visitor. The room was empty. He
+turned again to the mirror, and the man was still there--evidently
+a servant--one would say without much hesitation, the butler.
+The cut-away coat, and white stock, the clean-shaven chin, and
+close-trimmed side-whiskers, the deftness and decorum of his movements
+were all characteristic of a respectable family servant, and he stood
+at the sideboard like a man who was at home there.
+
+Another object, just visible above the frame of the mirror, caused
+Mr. Batchel to look round again, and again to see nothing unusual.
+But what he saw in the mirror was a square oaken box some few inches
+deep, which the butler was proceeding to unlock. And at this point Mr.
+Batchel had the presence of mind to make an experiment of extraordinary
+value. He removed, for a moment, the Indian shade from the lamp, and
+laid it upon the table, and thereupon the mirror showed nothing but
+empty space and the frigid lines of the furniture. The butler had
+disappeared, as also had the box, to re-appear the moment the shade was
+restored to its place.
+
+As soon as the box was opened, the butler produced a bundled
+handkerchief which his left hand had been concealing under the tails
+of his coat. With his right hand he removed the contents of the
+handkerchief, hurriedly placed them in the box, closed the lid, and
+having done this, left the room at once. His later movements had been
+those of a man in fear of being disturbed. He did not even wait to lock
+the box. He seemed to have heard someone coming.
+
+Mr. Batchel's interest in the box will subsequently be explained. As
+soon as the butler had left, he stood before the mirror and examined it
+carefully. More than once, as he felt the desire for a closer scrutiny,
+he turned to the sideboard itself, where of course no box was to be
+seen, and returned to the mirror unreasonably disappointed. At length,
+with the image of the box firmly impressed upon his memory, he sat down
+again in his chair, and reviewed the butler's conduct, or as he doubted
+he would have to call it, misconduct. Unfortunately for Mr. Batchel,
+the contents of the handkerchief had been indistinguishable. But for
+the butler's alarm, which caused him to be moving away from the box
+even whilst he was placing the thing within it, the mirror could not
+have shewn as much as it did. All that had been made evident was that
+the man had something to conceal, and that it was surreptitiously done.
+
+"Is this all?" said Mr. Batchel to himself as he sat looking into the
+mirror, "or is it only the end of the first Act?" The question was, in
+a measure, answered by the presence of the box. That, at all events
+would have to disappear before the room could resume its ordinary
+aspect; and whether it was to fade out of sight or to be removed by the
+butler, Mr. Batchel did not intend to be looking another way at the
+time. He had not seen, although perhaps Mr. Mutcher had, whether the
+butler had brought it in, but he was determined to see whether he took
+it out.
+
+He had not gazed into the mirror for many minutes before he learned
+that there was to be a second Act. Quite suddenly, a woman was at
+the sideboard. She had darted to it, and the time taken in passing
+over half the length of the mirror had been altogether too brief to
+show what she was like. She now stood with her face to the sideboard,
+entirely concealing the box from view, and all Mr. Batchel could
+determine was that she was tall of stature, and that her hair was
+raven-black, and not in very good order. In his anxiety to see her
+face, he called aloud, "Turn round." Of course, he understood, when he
+saw that his cry had been absolutely without effect, that it had been a
+ridiculous thing to do. He turned his head again for a moment to assure
+himself that the room was empty, and to remind himself that the curtain
+had fallen, perhaps a century before, upon the drama--he began to think
+of it as a tragedy--that he was witnessing. The opportunity, however,
+of seeing the woman's features was not denied him. She turned her face
+full upon the mirror--this is to speak as if we described the object
+rather than the image--so that Mr. Batchel saw it plainly before him;
+it was a handsome, cruel-looking face, of waxen paleness, with fine,
+distended, lustrous, eyes. The woman looked hurriedly round the room,
+looked twice towards the door, and then opened the box.
+
+"Our respectable friend was evidently observed," said Mr. Batchel.
+"If he has annexed anything belonging to this magnificent female,
+he is in for a bad quarter of an hour." He would have given a great
+deal, for once, to have had a sideboard backed by a looking glass, and
+lamented that the taste of the day had been too good to tolerate such
+a thing. He would have then been able to see what was going on at the
+oaken box. As it was, the operations were concealed by the figure of
+the woman. She was evidently busy with her fingers; her elbows, which
+shewed plainly enough, were vibrating with activity. In a few minutes
+there was a final movement of the elbows simultaneously away from her
+sides, and it shewed, as plainly as if the hands had been visible, that
+something had been plucked asunder. It was just such a movement as
+accompanies the removal, after a struggle, of the close-fitting lid of
+a canister.
+
+"What next?" said Mr. Batchel, as he observed the movement, and
+interpreted it as the end of the operation at the box. "Is this the end
+of the second Act?"
+
+He was soon to learn that it was not the end, and that the drama of the
+mirror was indeed assuming the nature of tragedy. The woman closed the
+box and looked towards the door, as she had done before; then she made
+as if she would dart out of the room, and found her movement suddenly
+arrested. She stopped dead, and, in a moment, fell loosely to the
+ground. Obviously she had swooned away.
+
+Mr. Batchel could then see nothing, except that the box remained in
+its place on the sideboard, so that he arose and stood close up to the
+mirror in order to obtain a view of the whole stage, as he called it.
+It showed him, in the wider view he now obtained, the woman lying in
+a heap upon the carpet, and a grey-wigged clergyman standing in the
+doorway of the room.
+
+"The Vicar of Stoneground, without a doubt," said Mr. Batchel. "The
+household of my reverend predecessor is not doing well by him; to judge
+from the effect of his appearance upon this female, there's something
+serious afoot. Poor old man," he added, as the clergyman walked into
+the room.
+
+This expression of pity was evoked by the Vicar's face. The marks of
+tears were upon his cheeks, and he looked weary and ill. He stood for
+a while looking down upon the woman who had swooned away, and then
+stooped down, and gently opened her hand.
+
+Mr. Batchel would have given a great deal to know what the Vicar found
+there. He took something from her, stood erect for a moment with an
+expression of consternation upon his face; then his chin dropped, his
+eyes showed that he had lost consciousness, and he fell to the ground,
+very much as the woman had fallen.
+
+The two lay, side by side, just visible in the space between the table
+and the sideboard. It was a curious and pathetic situation. As the
+clergyman was about to fall, Mr. Batchel had turned to save him, and
+felt a real distress of helplessness at being reminded again that it
+was but an image that he had looked upon. The two persons now lying
+upon the carpet had been for some hundred years beyond human aid. He
+could no more help them than he could help the wounded at Waterloo. He
+was tempted to relieve his distress by removing the shade of the lamp;
+he had even laid his hand upon it, but the feeling of curiosity was now
+become too strong, and he knew that he must see the matter to its end.
+
+The woman first began to revive. It was to be expected, as she had
+been the first to go. Had not Mr. Batchel seen her face in the mirror,
+her first act of consciousness would have astounded him. Now it only
+revolted him. Before she had sufficiently recovered to raise herself
+upon her feet, she forced open the lifeless hands beside her and
+snatched away the contents of that which was not empty; and as she did
+this, Mr. Batchel saw the glitter of precious stones. The woman was
+soon upon her feet and making feebly for the door, at which she paused
+to leer at the prostrate figure of the clergyman before she disappeared
+into the hall. She appeared no more, and Mr. Batchel felt glad to be
+rid of her presence.
+
+The old Vicar was long in coming to his senses; as he began to move,
+there stood in the doorway the welcome figure of the butler. With
+infinite gentleness he raised his master to his feet, and with a strong
+arm supported him out of the room, which at last, stood empty.
+
+"That, at least," said Mr. Batchel, "is the end of the second Act. I
+doubt whether I could have borne much more. If that awful woman comes
+back I shall remove the shade and have done with it all. Otherwise, I
+shall hope to learn what becomes of the box, and whether my respectable
+friend who has just taken out his master is, or is not, a rascal." He
+had been genuinely moved by what he had seen, and was conscious of
+feeling something like exhaustion. He dare not, however, sit down,
+lest he should lose anything important of what remained. Neither the
+door nor the lower part of the room was visible from his chair, so
+that he remained standing at the chimney-piece, and there awaited the
+disappearance of the oaken box.
+
+So intently were his eyes fixed upon the box, in which he was
+especially interested, that he all but missed the next incident. A
+velvet curtain which he could see through the half-closed door had
+suggested nothing of interest to him. He connected it indefinitely,
+as it was excusable to do, with the furniture of the house, and only
+by inadvertence looked at it a second time. When, however, it began
+to travel slowly along the hall, his curiosity was awakened in a new
+direction. The butler, helping his master out of the room ten minutes
+since, had left the door half open, but as the opening was not towards
+the mirror, only a strip of the hall beyond could be seen. Mr. Batchel
+went to open the door more widely, only to find, of course, that
+the vividness of the images had again betrayed him. The door of his
+dining-room was closed, as he had closed it after Mr. Mutcher, whose
+perturbation was now so much easier to understand.
+
+The curtain continued to move across the narrow opening, and explained
+itself in doing so. It was a pall. The remains it so amply covered
+were being carried out of the house to their resting-place, and were
+followed by a long procession of mourners in long cloaks. The hats
+they held in their black-gloved hands were heavily banded with crêpe
+whose ends descended to the ground, and foremost among them was the
+old clergyman, refusing the support which two of the chief mourners
+were in the act of proffering. Mr. Batchel, full of sympathy, watched
+the whole procession pass the door, and not until it was evident that
+the funeral had left the house did he turn once more to the box. He
+felt sure that the closing scene of the tragedy was at hand, and it
+proved to be very near. It was brief and uneventful. The butler very
+deliberately entered the room, threw aside the window-curtains and drew
+up the blinds, and then went away at once, taking the box with him. Mr.
+Batchel thereupon blew out his lamp and went to bed, with a purpose of
+his own to be fulfilled upon the next day.
+
+His purpose may be stated at once. He had recognised the oaken box,
+and knew that it was still in the house. Three large cupboards in
+the old library of Vicar Whitehead were filled with the papers of a
+great law-suit about tithe, dating from the close of the 18th century.
+Amongst these, in the last of the three cupboards, was the box of which
+so much has been said. It was filled, so far as Mr. Batchel remembered,
+with the assessments for poor's-rate of a large number of landholders
+concerned in the suit, and these Mr. Batchel had never thought it worth
+his while to disturb. He had gone to rest, however, on this night with
+the full intention of going carefully through the contents of the box.
+He scarcely hoped, after so long an interval, to discover any clue to
+the scenes he had witnessed, but he was determined at least to make the
+attempt. If he found nothing, he intended that the box should enshrine
+a faithful record of the transactions in the dining-room.
+
+It was inevitable that a man who had so much of the material of a story
+should spend a wakeful hour in trying to piece it together. Mr. Batchel
+spent considerably more than an hour in connecting, in this way and
+that, the butler and his master, the gypsy-looking woman, the funeral,
+but could arrive at no connexion that satisfied him. Once asleep, he
+found the problem easier, and dreamed a solution so obvious as to make
+him wonder that the matter had ever puzzled him. When he awoke in the
+morning, also, the defects of the solution were so obvious as to make
+him wonder that he had accepted it; so easily are we satisfied when
+reason is not there to criticise. But there was still the box, and this
+Mr. Batchel lifted down from the third cupboard, dusted with his towel,
+and when he was dressed, carried downstairs with him. His breakfast
+occupied but a small part of a large table, and upon the vacant area
+he was soon laying, as he examined them, one by one, the documents
+which the box contained. His recollection of them proved to be right.
+They were overseers' lists of parochial assessments, of which he soon
+had a score or more laid upon the table. They were of no interest in
+themselves, and did nothing to further the matter in hand. They would
+appear to have been thrust into the box by someone desiring to find a
+receptacle for them.
+
+In a little while, however, the character of the papers changed. Mr.
+Batchel found himself reading something of another kind, written upon
+paper of another form and colour.
+
+"Irish bacon to be had of Mr. Broadley, hop merchant in Southwark."
+
+"Rasin wine is kept at the Wine and Brandy vaults in Catherine Street."
+
+"The best hones at Mr. Forsters in Little Britain."
+
+There followed a recipe for a "rhumatic mixture," a way of making a
+polish for mahogany, and other such matters. They were evidently the
+papers of the butler.
+
+Mr. Batchel removed them one by one, as he had removed the others;
+household accounts followed, one or two private letters, and the
+advertisement of a lottery, and then he reached a closed compartment
+at the bottom of the box, occupying about half its area. The lid of
+the compartment was provided with a bone stud, and Mr. Batchel lifted
+it off and laid it upon the table amongst the papers. He saw at once
+what the butler had taken from his handkerchief. There was an open
+pocket-knife, with woeful-looking deposits upon its now rusty blade.
+There was a delicate human finger, now dry and yellow, and on the
+finger a gold ring.
+
+Mr. Batchel took up this latter pitiful object and removed the ring,
+even now, not quite easily. He allowed the finger to drop back into the
+box, which he carried away at once into another room. His appetite for
+breakfast had left him, and he rang the bell to have the things cleared
+away, whilst he set himself, with the aid of a lens, to examine the
+ring.
+
+There had been three large stones, all of which had been violently
+removed. The claws of their settings were, without exception, either
+bent outwards, or broken off. Within the ring was engraved, in graceful
+italic characters, the name AMEY LEE, and on the broader part, behind
+the place of the stones
+
+    She doth joy double,
+    And halveth trouble.
+
+This pathetic little love token Mr. Batchel continued to hold in his
+hand as he rehearsed the whole story to which it afforded the clue.
+He knew that the ring had been set with such stones as there was no
+mistaking: he remembered only too well how their discovery had affected
+the aged vicar. But never would he deny himself the satisfaction of
+hoping that the old man had been spared the distress of learning how
+the ring had been removed.
+
+The name of Amey Lee was as familiar to Mr. Batchel as his own. Twice
+at least every Sunday during the past seven years had he read it at
+his feet, as he sat in the chancel, as well as the name of Robert Lee
+upon an adjacent slab, and he had wondered during the leisurely course
+of many a meandering hymn whether there was good precedent for the
+spelling of the name. He made another use now of his knowledge of the
+pavement. There was a row of tiles along the head of the slabs, and Mr.
+Batchel hastened to fulfil without delay, what he conceived to be his
+duty. He replaced the ring upon Amey Lee's finger and carried it into
+the church, and there, having raised one of the tiles with a chisel,
+gave it decent burial.
+
+Whether the butler ever learned that he had been robbed in his turn,
+who shall say? His immediate dismissal, after the funeral, seemed
+inevitable, and his oaken box was evidently placed by him, or by
+another, where no man heeded it. It still occupies a place amongst
+the law papers and may lie undisturbed for another century; and when
+Mr. Batchel put it there, without the promised record of events, he
+returned to the dining room, removed the Indian shade from the lamp,
+and, having put a lighted match to the edge, watched it slowly burn
+away.
+
+Only one thing remained. Mr. Batchel felt that it would give him some
+satisfaction to visit Mr. Mutcher. His address, as obtained from the
+District Miscellany of the Order of Gleaners, was 13, Albert Villas,
+Williamson Street, not a mile away from Stoneground.
+
+Mr. Mutcher, fortunately, was at home when Mr. Batchel called, and
+indeed opened the door with a copious apology for being without his
+coat.
+
+"I hope," said Mr. Batchel, "that you have overcome your indisposition
+of last Tuesday evening."
+
+"Don't mention it, your Reverence," said Mr. Mutcher, "my wife gave
+me such a talking to when I came 'ome that I was quite ashamed of
+myself--I say ashamed of myself."
+
+"She observed that you were unwell," said Mr. Batchel, "I am sure; but
+she could hardly blame you for that."
+
+By this time the visitor had been shewn into the parlour, and Mrs.
+Mutcher had appeared to answer for herself.
+
+"I really was ashamed, Sir," she said, "to think of the way Mutcher was
+talking, and a clergyman's 'ouse too. Mutcher is not a man, Sir, that
+takes anything, not so much as a drop; but he is wonderful partial to
+cold pork, which never does agree with him, and never did, at night in
+partic'lar."
+
+"It was the cold pork, then, that made you unwell?" asked Mr. Batchel.
+
+"It was, your Reverence, and it was not," Mr. Mutcher replied,
+"for internal discomfort there was none--I say none. But a little
+light-'eaded it did make me, and I could 'ave swore, your Reverence,
+saving your presence, that I saw an elderly gentleman carry a box into
+your room and put it down on the sheffoneer."
+
+"There was no one there, of course," observed Mr. Batchel.
+
+"No!" replied the D.P.G.M., "there was not; and the discrepancy was too
+much for me. I hope you will pardon the abruptness of my departure."
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Batchel, "discrepancies are always embarrassing."
+
+"And you will allow me one day to resume our discourse upon the subject
+of National Insurance," he added, when he shewed his visitor to the
+door.
+
+"I shall not have much leisure," said Mr. Batchel, audaciously, taking
+all risks, "until the Greek Kalends."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind waiting till it does end," said Mr. Mutcher, "there
+is no immediate 'urry."
+
+"It's rather a long time," remarked Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Pray don't mention it," answered the Deputy Provincial Grand Master,
+in his best manner. "But when the time comes, perhaps you'll drop me a
+line."
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+THE PLACE OF SAFETY.
+
+
+"I thank my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters," said
+Wardle, as he lit a cigar after breakfast, "that I never acquired a
+taste for that sort of thing."
+
+Wardle was a pragmatical and candid friend who paid Mr. Batchel
+occasional visits at Stoneground. He regarded antiquarian tastes
+as a form of insanity, and it annoyed him to see his host poring
+over registers, churchwardens' accounts, and documents which he
+contemptuously alluded to as "dirty papers." "If you would throw those
+things away, Batchel," he used to say, "and read the _Daily Mail_,
+you'd be a better man for it."
+
+Mr. Batchel replied only with a tolerant smile, and, as his friend went
+out of doors with his cigar, continued to read the document before
+him, although it was one he had read twenty times before. It was an
+inventory of church goods, dated the 6th year of Edward VI.--to be
+exact, the 15th May, 1552. By a royal order of that year, all Church
+goods, saving only what sufficed for the barest necessities of
+Divine Service, were collected and deposited in safe hands, there to
+await further instructions. The instructions, which had not been long
+delayed, had consisted in a curt order for seizure. Everyone who cares
+for such matters, knows and laments the grievous spoliation of those
+times.
+
+Mr. Batchel's document, however, proved that the Churchwardens of the
+day were not incapable of self-defence. They were less dumb than sheep
+before the shearers. For, on the copy of the inventory of which he
+had become possessed, was written the Commissioners' Report that "at
+Stoneground did John Spayn and John Gounthropp, Churchwardens, declare
+upon their othes that two gilded senseres with candellstickes, old
+paynted clothes, and other implements, were contayned in a chest which
+was robbed on St. Peter's Eve before the first inventorye made."
+
+Mr. Batchel had a shrewd suspicion, which the reader will not
+improbably share, that John Spayne and his colleague knew more
+about the robbery than they chose to admit. He said to himself
+again and again, that the contents of the chest had been carefully
+concealed until times should mend. But from the point of view of
+the Churchwardens, times had not mended. There was evidence that
+Stoneground had been in no mood to tolerate censers in the reign of
+Mary, and it seemed unlikely that any later time could have re-admitted
+the ancient ritual. On this account, Mr. Batchel had never ceased to
+believe that the contents of the chest lay somewhere near at hand, nor
+to hope that it might be his lot to discover it.
+
+Whenever there was any work of the nature of excavation or demolition
+within a hundred yards of the Church, Mr. Batchel was sure to be
+there. His presence was very distasteful in most cases, to the workmen
+engaged, whom it deprived of many intervals of leisure to which they
+were accustomed when left alone. During a long course of operations
+connected with the restoration of the Church, Mr. Batchel's vigilance
+had been of great advantage to the work, both in raising the standard
+of industry and in securing attention to details which the builders
+were quite prepared to overlook. It had, however, brought him no nearer
+to the censers and other contents of the chest, and when the work was
+completed, his hopes of discovery had become pitifully slender.
+
+Mr. Wardle, notwithstanding his general contempt for antiquarian
+pursuits, was polite enough to give Mr. Batchel's hobbies an occasional
+place in their conversation, and in this way was informed of the
+"stolen" goods. The information, however, gave him no more than a very
+languid interest.
+
+"Why can't you let the things alone?" he said, "what's the use of them?"
+
+Mr. Batchel felt it all but impossible to answer a man who could say
+this; yet he made the attempt.
+
+"The historic interest," he said seriously, "of censers that were used
+down to the days of Edward VI. is in itself sufficient to justify----"
+
+"Etcetera," said his friend, interrupting the sentence which even Mr.
+Batchel was not sure of finishing to his satisfaction, "but it takes so
+little to justify you antiquarians, with your axes and hammers. What
+can you do with it when you get it, if you ever do get it?"
+
+"There are two censers," Mr. Batchel mildly observed in correction,
+"and other things."
+
+"All right," said Wardle; "tell me about one of them, and leave me to
+do the multiplication."
+
+With this permission, Mr. Batchel entered upon a general description of
+such ancient thuribles as he knew of, and Wardle heard him with growing
+impatience.
+
+"It seems to me," he burst in at length, "that what you are making all
+this pother about is a sort of silver cruet-stand, which was thin
+metal to begin with, and cleaned down to the thickness of egg-shell
+before the Commissioners heard of it. At this moment, if it exists,
+it is a handful of black scrap. If you found it, I wouldn't give a
+shilling for it; and if I would, it isn't yours to sell. Why can't you
+let the things alone?"
+
+"But the interest of it," said Mr. Batchel, "is what attracts me."
+
+"It's a pity you can't take an interest in something less
+uninteresting," said Wardle, petulantly; "but let me tell you what I
+think about your censers and all the rest of it. Your Churchwardens
+lied about them, but that's all right; I'd have done the same myself.
+If their things couldn't be used, they were not going to have them
+abused, so they put them safely out of the way, your's and everybody's
+else."
+
+"I was not proposing to abuse them," interrupted Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Were you proposing to use them?" rejoined Wardle. "It's one thing or
+the other, to my mind. There are people who dig out Bishops and steal
+their rings to put in glass cases, but I don't know how they square
+the police; and it's the same sort of thing you seem to be up to. Let
+the things alone. You're a Prayer Book man, and just the sort the
+Churchwardens couldn't stomach. You talk fast enough at the Dissenters
+because they want to collar your property now. Why can't you do as you
+would be done by?"
+
+Mr. Batchel thought it useless to say any more to a man in so
+unsympathetic an attitude, or to enter upon any defence of the
+antiquarian researches to which his friend had so crudely referred.
+He did not much like, however, to be anticipated in a theory of the
+"robbery" which he felt to be reasonable and probable. He had hoped to
+propound the same theory himself, and to receive a suitable compliment
+upon his penetration. He began, therefore, somewhat irritably, to make
+the most of conjectures which, at various times, had occurred to him.
+"Men of that sort," he said, "would have disposed of the censers to
+some one who could go on using them, and in that case they are not here
+at all."
+
+"Men of that sort," answered Wardle, "are as careful of their skins
+as men of any other sort, and besides that, your Stoneground men have
+a very good notion of sticking to what they have got. The things are
+here, I daresay, if they are anywhere; but they are not yours, and you
+have no business to meddle with them. If you would spend your time in
+something else than poking about after other people's things, you'd get
+better value for it."
+
+This brief conversation, in which Mr. Batchel had scarcely been allowed
+the part to which he felt entitled, was in one respect satisfactory.
+It supported his belief that the censers lay somewhere within reach.
+In other respects, however, the attitude of Wardle was intolerable. He
+was evidently out of all sympathy with the quest upon which Mr. Batchel
+was set, and, for their different reasons, each was glad to drop the
+subject.
+
+During the next two or three days, the matter of the censers was not
+referred to, if only for lack of opportunity. Wardle was a kind of
+visitor for whom there was always a welcome at Stoneground, and the
+welcome was in his case no less cordial on account of his brutal
+frankness of expression, which, on the whole, his host enjoyed. His
+pungent criticisms of other men were vastly entertaining to Mr.
+Batchel, who was not so unreasonable as to feel aggrieved at an
+occasional attack upon himself.
+
+A guest of this unceremonious sort makes but small demands upon his
+host. Mr. Wardle used to occupy himself contentedly and unobtrusively
+in the house or in the garden whilst his host followed his usual
+avocations. The two men met at meals, and liked each other none the
+less because they were apart at most other times. A great part of Mr.
+Wardle's day was passed in the company of the gardener, to whose
+talk his own master was but an indifferent listener. The visitor and
+the gardener were both lovers of the soil, and taught each other a
+great deal as they worked side by side. Mr. Wardle found that sort of
+exercise wholesome, and, as the gardener expressed it, "was not frit to
+take his coat off."
+
+The gardening operations at this time of year were such as Mr. Wardle
+liked. The over-crowded shrubberies were being thinned, and a score or
+so of young shrubs had to be moved into better quarters. Upon a certain
+morning, when Mr. Batchel was occupied in his study, some aucubas were
+being transplanted into a strip of ground in front of the house, and
+Wardle had undertaken the task of digging holes to receive them. It
+was this task that he suddenly interrupted in order to burst in upon
+his host in what seemed to the latter a repulsive state of dirt and
+perspiration.
+
+"Talk of discoveries," he cried, "come and see what I've found."
+
+"Not the censers, I suppose," said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Censers be hanged," said Wardle, "come and look."
+
+Mr. Batchel laid down his pen, with a sigh, and followed Wardle to the
+front of the house. His guest had made three large holes, each about
+two feet square, and drawing Mr. Batchel to the nearest of them, said
+"Look there."
+
+Mr. Batchel looked. He saw nothing, and said so.
+
+"Nothing?" exclaimed Wardle with impatience. "You see the bottom of the
+hole, I suppose?"
+
+This Mr. Batchel admitted.
+
+"Then," said Wardle, "kindly look and see whether you cannot see
+something else."
+
+"There is apparently a cylindrical object lying across the angle of
+your excavation," said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"That," replied his guest, "is what you are pleased to call nothing.
+Let me inform you that the cylindrical object is a piece of thick lead
+pipe, and that the pipe runs along the whole front of your house."
+
+"Gas-pipe, no doubt," said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Is there any gas within a mile of this place?" asked Wardle.
+
+Mr. Batchel admitted that there was not, and felt that he had made a
+needlessly foolish suggestion. He felt safer in the amended suggestion
+that the object was a water-pipe.
+
+An ironical cross-examination by Mr. Wardle disposed of the amended
+suggestion as completely as he had disposed of the other, and his host
+began to grow restive. "If this sort of discovery pleases you," he
+said testily, "I will not grudge you your pleasure, but, to quote your
+own words, why can't you let it alone?"
+
+"Have you any idea," said Mr. Wardle, "of the value of this length of
+piping, at the present price of lead?"
+
+Even Mr. Wardle could hardly have suspected his host of knowing
+anything so preposterous as the price of lead, but he felt himself
+ill-used when Mr. Batchel disclaimed any interest in the matter, and
+returned to his study.
+
+Wardle had a commercial mind, which elsewhere was the means of securing
+him a very satisfactory income, and on this account, his host, as
+he resumed his work indoors, excused what he regarded as a needless
+interruption.
+
+He little suspected that his friend's commercial mind was to do him the
+great service of putting him in possession of the censers, and then to
+do him a disservice even greater.
+
+Had any such connexion so much as suggested itself, Mr. Batchel would
+more willingly have answered to the summons which came an hour later,
+when the gardener appeared at the window of the study, evidently
+bursting with information. When he had succeeded in attracting his
+master's attention, and drawn him away from his desk, it was to say
+that the whole length of pipe had been uncovered, and found to issue
+from a well on the south side of the house.
+
+The discovery was at least unexpected, and Mr. Batchel went out, even
+if somewhat grudgingly, to look at the place. He came upon the well,
+close by the window of his dining-room. It had been covered by a stone
+slab, now partially removed. The narrow trench which Wardle and the
+gardener had made in order to expose the pipe, extended eastwards to
+the corner of the house, and thence along the whole length of the
+front, probably to serve a pump on the north side, where lay the yard
+and stables. The pipe itself, Mr. Wardle's prize, had been withdrawn,
+and there remained only a rusted chain which passed from some anchorage
+beneath the soil, over the lip of the well. Mr. Batchel inferred that
+it had carried, and perhaps carried still, the bucket of former times,
+and stooped down to see whether he could draw it up. He heard, far
+below, the light splash of the soil disturbed by his hands; but before
+he could grasp the chain, he felt himself seized by the waist and held
+back.
+
+The exaggerated attentions of his gardener had often annoyed Mr.
+Batchel. He was not allowed even to climb a short ladder without having
+to submit to absurd precautions for his safety, and he would have been
+much better pleased to have more respect paid to his intelligence, and
+less to his person. In the present instance, the precaution seemed so
+unnecessary that he turned about angrily to protest, both against the
+interference with his movements, and the unseemly force used.
+
+It was at this point that he made a disquieting discovery. He was
+standing quite alone. The gardener and Mr. Wardle were both on the
+north side of the house, dealing with the only thing they cared
+about--the lead pipe. Mr. Batchel made no further attempt to move the
+chain; he was, in fact, in some bodily fear, and he returned to his
+study by the way he had come, in a disordered condition of mind.
+
+Half an hour later, when the gong sounded for luncheon, he was slowly
+making his way into the dining-room, when he encountered his guest
+running downstairs from his room, in great spirits. "A trifle over two
+hundredweight!" he exclaimed, as he reached the foot of the staircase,
+and seemed disappointed that Mr. Batchel did not immediately shake
+hands with him upon so fine a result of the morning's work. Mr.
+Batchel, needless to say, was occupied with other recollections.
+
+"I suppose it is unnecessary to ask," said he to his guest as he
+proceeded to carve a chicken, "whether you believe in ghosts?"
+
+"I do not," said Wardle promptly, "why should I?"
+
+"Why not?" asked Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Because I've had the advantage of a commercial education," was the
+reply, "instead of learning dead languages and soaking my mind in
+heathen fables."
+
+Mr. Batchel winced at this disrespectful allusion to the University
+education of which he was justly proud. He wanted an opinion, however,
+and the conversation had to go on.
+
+"Your commercial education," he continued, "allows you, I daresay, to
+know what is meant by a hypothetical case."
+
+"Make it one," said Wardle.
+
+"Assuming a ghost, then, would it be capable of exerting force upon a
+material body?"
+
+"Whose?" asked Wardle.
+
+"If you insist upon making it a personal matter," replied Mr. Batchel,
+"let us say mine."
+
+"Let me have the particulars."
+
+In reply to this, Mr. Batchel related his experience at the well.
+
+Mr. Wardle merely said "Pass the salt, I need it."
+
+Undeterred by the scepticism of his friend, Mr. Batchel pressed the
+point, and upon that, Mr. Wardle closed the conversation by observing
+that since, by hypothesis, ghosts could clank chains, and ring bells,
+he was bound to suppose them capable of doing any silly thing they
+chose. "A month in the City, Batchel," he gravely added, "would do you
+a world of good."
+
+As soon as the meal was over, Mr. Wardle went back to his gardening,
+whilst his host betook himself to occupations more suited to his
+tranquil habits. The two did not meet again until dinner; and during
+that meal, and after it, the conversation turned wholly upon politics,
+Mr. Wardle being congenially occupied until bed-time in demonstrating
+that the politics of his host had been obsolete for three-quarters of
+a century. His outdoor exercise, followed by an excellent dinner, had
+disposed him to retire early; he rose from his chair soon after ten.
+"There is one thing," he pleasantly remarked to his host, "that I am
+bound to say in favour of a University education; it has given you a
+fine taste in victuals." With this compliment, he said "good-night,"
+and went up to bed.
+
+Mr. Batchel himself, as the reader knows, kept later hours. There were
+few nights upon which he omitted to take his walk round the garden when
+the world had grown quiet, even in unfavourable weather. It was far
+from favourable upon the present occasion; there was but little moon,
+and a light rain was falling. He determined, however, to take at least
+one turn round, and calling his terrier Punch from the kitchen, where
+he lay in his basket, Mr. Batchel went out, with the dog at his heel.
+He carried, as his custom was, a little electric lamp, by whose aid he
+liked to peep into birds' nests, and make raids upon slugs and other
+pests.
+
+They had hardly set out upon their walk when Punch began to show signs
+of uneasiness. Instead of running to and fro, with his nose to the
+ground, as he ordinarily did, the terrier remained whining in the rear.
+Shortly, they came upon a hedgehog lying coiled up in the path; it
+was a find which the dog was wont to regard as a rare piece of luck,
+and to assail with delirious enjoyment. Now, for some reason, Punch
+refused to notice it, and, when it was illuminated for his especial
+benefit, turned his back upon it and looked up, in a dejected attitude,
+at his master. The behaviour of the dog was altogether unnatural, and
+Mr. Batchel occupied himself, as they passed on, in trying to account
+for it, with the animal still whining at his heel. They soon reached
+the head of the little path which descended to the Lode, and there Mr.
+Batchel found a much harder problem awaiting him, for at the other end
+of the path he distinctly saw the outline of a boat.
+
+There had been no boat on the Lode for twenty years. Just so long ago
+the drainage of the district had required that the main sewer should
+cross the stream at a point some hundred yards below the Vicar's
+boundary fence. There, ever since, a great pipe three feet in diameter
+had obstructed the passage. It lay just at the level of the water, and
+effectually closed it to all traffic. Mr. Batchel knew that no boat
+could pass the place, and that none survived in the parts above it. Yet
+here was a boat drawn up at the edge of his garden. He looked at it
+intently for a minute or so, and had no difficulty in making out the
+form of such a boat as was in common use all over the Fen country--a
+wide flat-bottomed boat, lying low in the water. The "sprit" used for
+punting it along lay projecting over the stern. There was no accounting
+for such a boat being there: Mr. Batchel did not understand how it
+possibly could be there, and for a while was disposed to doubt whether
+it actually was. The great drain-pipe was so perfect a defence against
+intrusion of the kind that no boat had ever passed it. The Lode,
+when its water was low enough to let a boat go under the pipe, was
+not deep enough to float it, or wide enough to contain it. Upon this
+occasion the water was high, and the pipe half submerged, forming an
+insuperable obstacle. Yet there lay, unmistakeably, a boat, within ten
+yards of the place where Mr. Batchel stood trying to account for it.
+
+These ten yards, unfortunately, were impassable. The slope down to the
+water's edge had to be warily trodden even in dry weather. It was steep
+and treacherous. After rain it afforded no foothold whatever, and to
+attempt a descent in the darkness would have been to court disaster.
+After examining the boat again, therefore, by the light of his little
+lamp, Mr. Batchel proceeded upon his walk, leaving the matter to be
+investigated by daylight.
+
+The events of this memorable night, however, were but beginning. As
+he turned from the boat his eye was caught by a white streak upon
+the ground before him, which extended itself into the darkness and
+disappeared. It was Punch, in veritable panic, making for home, across
+flower-beds and other places he well knew to be out of bounds. The
+whistle he had been trained to obey had no effect upon his flight;
+he made a lightning dash for the house. Mr. Batchel could not help
+regretting that Wardle was not there to see. His friend held the
+coursing powers of Punch in great contempt, and was wont to criticise
+the dog in sporting jargon, whose terms lay beyond the limits of Mr.
+Batchel's vocabulary, but whose general drift was as obvious as it was
+irritating. The present performance, nevertheless, was so exceptional
+that it soon began to connect itself in Mr. Batchel's mind with the
+unnatural conduct to which we have already alluded. It was somehow
+proving to be an uncomfortable night, and as Mr. Batchel felt the rain
+increasing to a steady drizzle he decided to abandon his walk and to
+return to the house by the way he had come.
+
+He had already passed some little distance beyond the little path which
+descended to the Lode. The main path by which he had come was of course
+behind him, until he turned about to retrace his steps.
+
+It was at the moment of turning that he had ocular demonstration of the
+fact that the boat had brought passengers. Not twenty yards in front
+of him, making their way to the water, were two men carrying some kind
+of burden. They had reached an open space in the path, and their forms
+were quite distinct: they were unusually tall men; one of them was
+gigantic. Mr. Batchel had little doubt of their being garden thieves.
+Burglars, if there had been anything in the house to attract them,
+could have found much easier ways of removing it.
+
+No man, even if deficient in physical courage, can see his property
+carried away before his eyes and make no effort to detain it. Mr.
+Batchel was annoyed at the desertion of his terrier, who might at least
+have embarrassed the thieves' retreat; meanwhile he called loudly upon
+the men to stand, and turned upon them the feeble light of his lamp. In
+so doing he threw a new light not only upon the trespassers, but upon
+the whole transaction. No response was made to his challenge, but the
+men turned away their faces as if to avoid recognition, and Mr. Batchel
+saw that the nearest of them, a burly, square-headed man in a cassock,
+was wearing the tonsure. He described it as looking, in the dim, steely
+light of the lamp, like a crown-piece on a door-mat. Both the men, when
+they found themselves intercepted, hastened to deposit their burden
+upon the ground, and made for the boat. The burden fell upon the ground
+with a thud, but the bearers made no sound. They skimmed down to the
+Lode without seeming to tread, entered the boat in perfect silence, and
+shoved it off without sound or splash. It has already been explained
+that Mr. Batchel was unable to descend to the water's edge. He ran,
+however, to a point of the garden which the boat must inevitably pass,
+and reached it just in time. The boat was moving swiftly away, and
+still in perfect silence. The beams of the pocket-lamp just sufficed to
+reach it, and afforded a parting glimpse of the tonsured giant as he
+gave a long shove with the sprit, and carried the boat out of sight. It
+shot towards the drain-pipe, then not forty yards ahead, but the men
+were travelling as men who knew their way to be clear.
+
+It was by this time evident, of course, that these were no
+garden-thieves. The aspect of the men, and the manner of their
+disappearance, had given a new complexion to the adventure. Mr.
+Batchel's heart was in his mouth, but his mind was back in the 16th
+century; and having stood still for some minutes in order to regain his
+composure, he returned to the path, with a view of finding out what the
+men had left behind.
+
+The burden lay in the middle of the path, and the lamp was once more
+brought into requisition. It revealed a wooden box, covered in most
+parts with moss, and all glistening with moisture. The wood was so far
+decayed that Mr. Batchel had hopes of forcing open the box with his
+hands; so wet and slimy was it, however, that he could obtain no hold,
+and he hastened to the house to procure some kind of tool. Near to the
+cupboard in which such things were kept was the sleeping-basket of the
+dog, who was closely curled inside it, and shivering violently. His
+master made an attempt to take him back into the garden; it would be
+useful, he thought, to have warning in case the boat should return. The
+prospect of being surprised by these large, noiseless men was not one
+to be regarded with comfort. Punch, however, who was usually so eager
+for an excursion, was now in such distress at being summoned that his
+master felt it cruel to persist. Having found a chisel, therefore, he
+returned to the garden alone. The box lay undisturbed where he had left
+it, and in two minutes was standing open.
+
+The reader will hardly need to be told what it contained. At the bottom
+lay some heavy articles which Mr. Batchel did not disturb. He saw the
+bases of two candlesticks. He had tried to lift the box, as it lay,
+by means of a chain passing through two handles in the sides, but had
+found it too heavy. It was by this chain that the men had been carrying
+it. The heavier articles, therefore, he determined to leave where they
+were until morning. His interest in them was small compared with that
+which the other contents of the box had excited, for on the top of
+these articles was folded "a paynted cloth," and upon this lay the two
+gilded censers.
+
+It was the discovery Mr. Batchel had dreamed of for years. His
+excitement hardly allowed him to think of the strange manner in which
+it had been made. He glanced nervously around him to see whether there
+might be any sign of the occupants of the boat, and, seeing nothing, he
+placed his broad-brimmed hat upon the ground, carefully laid in it the
+two censers, closed the box again, and carried his treasure delicately
+into the house. The occurrences of the last hour have not occupied
+long in the telling; they occupied much longer in the happening. It
+was now past midnight, and Mr. Batchel, after making fast the house,
+went at once upstairs, carrying with him the hat and its precious
+contents, just as he had brought it from the garden. The censers were
+not exactly "black-scrap," as Mr. Wardle had anticipated, or pretended
+to anticipate, but they were much discoloured, and very fragile. He
+spread a clean handkerchief upon the chest of drawers in his bedroom,
+and, removing the vessels with the utmost care, laid them upon it. Then
+after spending some minutes in admiration of their singularly beautiful
+form and workmanship, he could not deny himself the pleasure of calling
+Wardle to look.
+
+The guest-room was close at hand. Mr. Wardle, having been already
+disturbed by the locking up of the house, was fully awakened by the
+entrance of his host into the room with a candle in his hand. The look
+of excitement on Mr. Batchel's face could not escape the observation
+even of a man still yawning, and Mr. Wardle at once exclaimed "What's
+up?"
+
+"I have got them," said Mr. Batchel, in a hushed voice.
+
+His guest, who had forgotten all about the censers, began by
+interpreting "them" to mean a nervous disorder that is plural by
+nature, and so was full of sympathy and counsel. When, however, his
+host had made him understand the facts, he became merely impatient.
+
+"Won't you come and look?" said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Not I," said Wardle, "I shall do where I am."
+
+"They are in excellent preservation," said Mr. Batchel.
+
+"Then they will keep till morning," was the answer.
+
+"But just come and tell me what you think of them," said Mr. Batchel,
+making a last attempt.
+
+"I could tell you what I think of them," answered Wardle, "without
+leaving my bed, which I have no intention of leaving; but I have to
+leave Stoneground to-morrow, and I don't want to hurt your feelings,
+so 'Good-night.'" Upon this, he turned over in bed and gave a loud
+snore, which Mr. Batchel accepted as a manifesto. He has never ceased
+to regret that he did not compel his guest to see the censers, but
+he did not then foresee the sore need he would have of a witness. He
+answered his friend's good-night, and returned to his own room. Once
+more he admired the two censers as their graceful outlines stood out,
+sharp and clear, against the white handkerchief, and having done this,
+he was soon in bed and asleep. To the men in the boat he had not given
+another thought, since he became possessed of the box they had left
+behind; of the other contents of the box he had thought as little,
+since he had secured the chief treasures of which he had been so long
+in search.
+
+Now, Mr. Wardle, when he arose in the morning, felt somewhat ashamed of
+his surliness of the preceding night. His repudiation of all interest
+in the censers had not been quite sincere, for beneath his affectation
+of unconcern there lay a genuine curiosity about his friend's
+discovery. Before he had finished dressing, therefore, he crossed over
+into Mr. Batchel's room. The censers, to his surprise, were nowhere
+to be seen. His host, less to his surprise, was still fast asleep.
+Mr. Wardle opened the drawers, one by one, in search of the censers,
+but the drawers proved to be all quite full of clothing. He looked
+with no more success into every other place where they might have been
+bestowed. His mind was always ready with a grotesque idea, "Blest if he
+hasn't taken them to bed with him," he said aloud, and at the sound of
+his voice Mr. Batchel awoke.
+
+His eyes, as soon as they were open, turned to the chest of drawers;
+and what he saw there, or rather, what he failed to see, caused him,
+without more ado, to leap out of bed.
+
+"What have you done with them?" he cried out.
+
+The serious alarm of Mr. Batchel was so evident as to check the
+facetious reply which Wardle was about to frame. He contented himself
+with saying that he had not touched or seen the things.
+
+"Where are they?" again cried Mr. Batchel, ignoring the disclaimer.
+"You ought not to have touched them, they will not bear handling. Where
+are they?"
+
+Mr. Wardle turned away in disgust. "I expect," he said, "they're where
+they've been this three hundred and fifty years." Upon that he returned
+to his room, and went on with his dressing.
+
+Mr. Batchel immediately followed him, and looked eagerly round the
+room. He proceeded to open drawers, and to search, in a frenzied
+manner, in every possible, and in many an impossible, place of
+concealment. His distress was so patent that his friend soon ceased to
+trifle with it. By a few minutes serious conversation he made it clear
+that there had been no practical joking, and Mr. Batchel returned to
+his room in tears. "Look here, Batchel," said Mr. Wardle as he left,
+"you want a holiday."
+
+Within a few minutes Mr. Batchel returned fully dressed. "You seem
+to think, Wardle," he said, "that I have been dreaming about these
+censers. Come out into the garden and let me shew you the box and the
+other things."
+
+Mr. Wardle was quite willing to assent to anything, if only out of
+pity, and the two went together into the garden, Mr. Batchel leading
+the way. Going at a great pace, they soon came to the path upon which
+the box had lain. The marks it had left upon the soft gravel were plain
+enough, and Mr. Batchel eagerly appealed to his friend to notice them.
+Of the box and its contents, however, there was no other trace. The
+whole adventure was described--the strange behaviour and subsequent
+flight of the terrier--the men with averted faces--the boat--and the
+opening of the box. Mr. Batchel tried to shake the obvious incredulity
+of his guest by pointing to the chisel which still lay beside the path.
+Mr. Wardle only replied, "You want a holiday, Batchel! Let's go in to
+breakfast."
+
+Breakfast on that morning was not the cheerful meal it was wont to
+be. During the few minutes of waiting for it Mr. Batchel stood at
+the window of his dining-room looking out upon the site of the well
+which the gardener had now covered in. He rehearsed the whole of the
+adventure from first to last, wondering whether the new place of safety
+would ever be discovered. But he said no more to his guest; his heart
+was too full.
+
+The two breakfasted almost in silence, and the meal was scarcely over
+when the cab arrived to take Mr. Wardle to his train. Mr. Batchel bade
+him farewell, and saw him depart with genuine regret; he was returning
+sadly into the house when he heard his name called. It was Wardle,
+leaning out of the window of his cab as it drove away, and waving his
+hand, "Batchel," he cried again, "mind you take a holiday."
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+THE KIRK SPOOK.
+
+
+Before many years have passed it will be hard to find a person who has
+ever seen a Parish Clerk. The Parish Clerk is all but extinct. Our
+grandfathers knew him well--an oldish, clean-shaven man, who looked as
+if he had never been young, who dressed in rusty black, bestowed upon
+him, as often as not, by the Rector, and who usually wore a white tie
+on Sundays, out of respect for the seriousness of his office. He it was
+who laid out the Rector's robes, and helped him to put them on; who
+found the places in the large Bible and Prayer Book, and indicated them
+by means of decorous silken bookmarkers; who lighted and snuffed the
+candles in the pulpit and desk, and attended to the little stove in the
+squire's pew; who ran busily about, in short, during the quarter-hour
+which preceded Divine Service, doing a hundred little things, with all
+the activity, and much of the appearance, of a beetle.
+
+Just such a one was Caleb Dean, who was Clerk of Stoneground in the
+days of William IV. Small in stature, he possessed a voice which
+Nature seemed to have meant for a giant, and in the discharge of his
+duties he had a dignity of manner disproportionate even to his voice.
+No one was afraid to sing when he led the Psalm, so certain was it that
+no other voice could be noticed, and the gracious condescension with
+which he received his meagre fees would have been ample acknowledgment
+of double their amount.
+
+Man, however, cannot live by dignity alone, and Caleb was glad enough
+to be sexton as well as clerk, and to undertake any other duties by
+which he might add to his modest income. He kept the Churchyard tidy,
+trimmed the lamps, chimed the bells, taught the choir their simple
+tunes, turned the barrel of the organ, and managed the stoves.
+
+It was this last duty in particular, which took him into Church "last
+thing," as he used to call it, on Saturday night. There were people
+in those days, and may be some in these, whom nothing would induce
+to enter a Church at midnight; Caleb, however, was so much at home
+there that all hours were alike to him. He was never an early man on
+Saturdays. His wife, who insisted upon sitting up for him, would often
+knit her way into Sunday before he appeared, and even then would find
+it hard to get him to bed. Caleb, in fact, when off duty, was a genial
+little fellow; he had many friends, and on Saturday evenings he knew
+where to find them.
+
+It was not, therefore, until the evening was spent that he went to
+make up his fires; and his voice, which served for other singing than
+that of Psalms, could usually be heard, within a little of midnight,
+beguiling the way to Church with snatches of convivial songs. Many a
+belated traveller, homeward bound, would envy him his spirits, but
+no one envied him his duties. Even such as walked with him to the
+neighbourhood of the Churchyard would bid him "Good night" whilst still
+a long way from the gate. They would see him disappear into the gloom
+amongst the graves, and shudder as they turned homewards.
+
+Caleb, meanwhile, was perfectly content. He knew every stone in the
+path; long practice enabled him, even on the darkest night, to thrust
+his huge key into the lock at the first attempt, and on the night we
+are about to describe--it had come to Mr. Batchel from an old man
+who heard it from Caleb's lips--he did it with a feeling of unusual
+cheerfulness and contentment.
+
+Caleb always locked himself in. A prank had once been played upon
+him, which had greatly wounded his dignity; and though it had been no
+midnight prank, he had taken care, ever since, to have the Church to
+himself. He locked the door, therefore, as usual, on the night we speak
+of, and made his way to the stove. He used no candle. He opened the
+little iron door of the stove, and obtained sufficient light to shew
+him the fuel he had laid in readiness; then, when he had made up his
+fire, he closed this door again, and left the Church in darkness. He
+never could say what induced him upon this occasion to remain there
+after his task was done. He knew that his wife was sitting up, as
+usual, and that, as usual, he would have to hear what she had to say.
+Yet, instead of making his way home, he sat down in the corner of the
+nearest seat. He supposed that he must have felt tired, but had no
+distinct recollection of it.
+
+The Church was not absolutely dark. Caleb remembered that he could make
+out the outlines of the windows, and that through the window nearest
+to him he saw a few stars. After his eyes had grown accustomed to the
+gloom he could see the lines of the seats taking shape in the darkness,
+and he had not long sat there before he could dimly see everything
+there was. At last he began to distinguish where books lay upon the
+shelf in front of him. And then he closed his eyes. He does not admit
+having fallen asleep, even for a moment. But the seat was restful, the
+neighbouring stove was growing warm, he had been through a long and
+joyous evening, and it was natural that he should at least close his
+eyes.
+
+He insisted that it was only for a moment. Something, he could not say
+what, caused him to open his eyes again immediately. The closing of
+them seemed to have improved what may be called his dark sight. He saw
+everything in the Church quite distinctly, in a sort of grey light. The
+pulpit stood out, large and bulky, in front. Beyond that, he passed his
+eyes along the four windows on the north side of the Church. He looked
+again at the stars, still visible through the nearest window on his
+left hand as he was sitting. From that, his eyes fell to the further
+end of the seat in front of him, where he could even see a faint gleam
+of polished wood. He traced this gleam to the middle of the seat, until
+it disappeared in black shadow, and upon that his eye passed on to the
+seat he was in, and there he saw a man sitting beside him.
+
+Caleb described the man very clearly. He was, he said, a pale,
+old-fashioned looking man, with something very churchy about him.
+Reasoning also with great clearness, he said that the stranger had not
+come into the Church either with him or after him, and that therefore
+he must have been there before him. And in that case, seeing that the
+Church had been locked since two in the afternoon, the stranger must
+have been there for a considerable time.
+
+Caleb was puzzled; turning therefore, to the stranger, he asked, "How
+long have you been here?"
+
+The stranger answered at once, "Six hundred years."
+
+"Oh! come!" said Caleb.
+
+"Come where?" said the stranger.
+
+"Well, if you come to that, come out," said Caleb.
+
+"I wish I could," said the stranger, and heaved a great sigh.
+
+"What's to prevent you?" said Caleb. "There's the door, and here's the
+key."
+
+"That's it," said the other.
+
+"Of course it is," said Caleb. "Come along."
+
+With that he proceeded to take the stranger by the sleeve, and then it
+was that he says you might have knocked him down with a feather. His
+hand went right into the place where the sleeve seemed to be, and Caleb
+distinctly saw two of the stranger's buttons on the top of his own
+knuckles.
+
+He hastily withdrew his hand, which began to feel icy cold, and sat
+still, not knowing what to say next. He found that the stranger was
+gently chuckling with laughter, and this annoyed him.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" he enquired peevishly.
+
+"It's not funny enough for two," answered the other.
+
+"Who are you, anyhow?" said Caleb.
+
+"I am the kirk spook," was the reply.
+
+Now Caleb had not the least notion what a "kirk spook" was. He was not
+willing to admit his ignorance, but his curiosity was too much for his
+pride, and he asked for information.
+
+"Every Church has a spook," said the stranger, "and I am the spook of
+this one."
+
+"Oh," said Caleb, "I've been about this Church a many years, but I've
+never seen you before."
+
+"That," said the spook, "is because you've always been moving about.
+I'm very flimsy--very flimsy indeed--and I can only keep myself
+together when everything is quite still."
+
+"Well," said Caleb, "you've got your chance now. What are you going to
+do with it?"
+
+"I want to go out," said the spook, "I'm tired of this Church, and I've
+been alone for six hundred years. It's a long time."
+
+"It does seem rather a long time," said Caleb, "but why don't you go if
+you want to? There's three doors."
+
+"That's just it," said the spook, "They keep me in."
+
+"What?" said Caleb, "when they're open."
+
+"Open or shut," said the spook, "it's all one."
+
+"Well, then," said Caleb, "what about the windows?"
+
+"Every bit as bad," said the spook, "They're all pointed."
+
+Caleb felt out of his depth. Open doors and windows that kept a person
+in--if it was a person--seemed to want a little understanding. And the
+flimsier the person, too, the easier it ought to be for him to go where
+he wanted. Also, what could it matter whether they were pointed or not?
+
+The latter question was the one which Caleb asked first.
+
+"Six hundred years ago," said the spook, "all arches were made round,
+and when these pointed things came in I cursed them. I hate new-fangled
+things."
+
+"That wouldn't hurt them much," said Caleb.
+
+"I said I would never go under one of them," said the spook.
+
+"That would matter more to you than to them," said Caleb.
+
+"It does," said the spook, with another great sigh.
+
+"But you could easily change your mind," said Caleb.
+
+"I was tied to it," said the spook, "I was told that I never more
+should go under one of them, whether I would or not."
+
+"Some people will tell you anything," answered Caleb.
+
+"It was a Bishop," explained the spook.
+
+"Ah!" said Caleb, "that's different, of course."
+
+The spook told Caleb how often he had tried to go under the pointed
+arches, sometimes of the doors, sometimes of the windows, and how
+a stream of wind always struck him from the point of the arch, and
+drifted him back into the Church. He had long given up trying.
+
+"You should have been outside," said Caleb, "before they built the last
+door."
+
+"It was my Church," said the spook, "and I was too proud to leave."
+
+Caleb began to sympathise with the spook. He had a pride in the Church
+himself, and disliked even to hear another person say Amen before him.
+He also began to be a little jealous of this stranger who had been six
+hundred years in possession of the Church in which Caleb had believed
+himself, under the Vicar, to be master. And he began to plot.
+
+"Why do you want to get out?" he asked.
+
+"I'm no use here," was the reply, "I don't get enough to do to keep
+myself warm. And I know there are scores of Churches now without any
+kirk-spooks at all. I can hear their cheap little bells dinging every
+Sunday."
+
+"There's very few bells hereabouts," said Caleb.
+
+"There's no hereabouts for spooks," said the other. "We can hear any
+distance you like."
+
+"But what good are you at all?" said Caleb.
+
+"Good!" said the spook. "Don't we secure proper respect for Churches,
+especially after dark? A Church would be like any other place if it
+wasn't for us. You must know that."
+
+"Well, then," said Caleb, "you're no good here. This Church is all
+right. What will you give me to let you out?"
+
+"Can you do it?" asked the spook.
+
+"What will you give me?" said Caleb.
+
+"I'll say a good word for you amongst the spooks," said the other.
+
+"What good will that do me?" said Caleb.
+
+"A good word never did anybody any harm yet," answered the spook.
+
+"Very well then, come along," said Caleb.
+
+"Gently then," said the spook; "don't make a draught."
+
+"Not yet," said Caleb, and he drew the spook very carefully (as one
+takes a vessel quite full of water) from the seat.
+
+"I can't go under pointed arches," cried the spook, as Caleb moved off.
+
+"Nobody wants you to," said Caleb. "Keep close to me."
+
+He led the spook down the aisle to the angle of the wall where a small
+iron shutter covered an opening into the flue. It was used by the
+chimney sweep alone, but Caleb had another use for it now. Calling to
+the spook to keep close, he suddenly removed the shutter.
+
+The fires were by this time burning briskly. There was a strong
+up-draught as the shutter was removed. Caleb felt something rush across
+his face, and heard a cheerful laugh away up in the chimney. Then he
+knew that he was alone. He replaced the shutter, gave another look at
+his stoves, took the keys, and made his way home.
+
+He found his wife asleep in her chair, sat down and took off his boots,
+and awakened her by throwing them across the kitchen.
+
+"I've been wondering when you'd wake," he said.
+
+"What?" she said, "Have you been in long?"
+
+"Look at the clock," said Caleb. "Half after twelve."
+
+"My gracious," said his wife. "Let's be off to bed."
+
+"Did you tell her about the spook?" he was naturally asked.
+
+"Not I," said Caleb. "You know what she'd say. Same as she always does
+of a Saturday night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This fable Mr. Batchel related with reluctance. His attitude towards
+it was wholly deprecatory. Psychic phenomena, he said, lay outside the
+province of the mere humourist, and the levity with which they had been
+treated was largely responsible for the presumptuous materialism of the
+age.
+
+He said more, as he warmed to the subject, than can here be repeated.
+The reader of the foregoing tales, however, will be interested to know
+that Mr. Batchel's own attitude was one of humble curiosity. He refused
+even to guess why the _revenant_ was sometimes invisible, and at other
+times partly or wholly visible; sometimes capable of using physical
+force, and at other times powerless. He knew that they had their
+periods, and that was all.
+
+There is room, he said, for the romancer in these matters; but for
+the humourist, none. Romance was the play of intelligence about the
+confines of truth. The invisible world, like the visible, must have its
+romancers, its explorers, and its interpreters; but the time of the
+last was not yet come.
+
+Criticism, he observed in conclusion, was wholesome and necessary.
+But of the idle and mischievous remarks which were wont to pose as
+criticism, he held none in so much contempt as the cheap and irrational
+POOH-POOH.
+
+
+
+
+  PRINTED BY
+  W. HEFFER AND SONS LTD.
+  104 HILLS ROAD, CAMBRIDGE.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+Text in italics has been surrounded with _underscores_, and small
+capitals changed to all capitals.
+
+A few punctuation errors were corrected and on page 106 "lode" was
+changed to "Lode". Otherwise the original has been preserved, including
+inconsistent hyphenation.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Stoneground Ghost Tales, by E. G. Swain
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44581 ***