Greene Ferne Farm Part 16

"What be thuck?"

"'Let us rejoice.'"

"Sartinly."

"My friends," said Felix solemnly, "this is a fragment from an ancient Roman trumpet--a trumpet sounding to us from the tomb. Let us rejoice in the certainty of the life to come."

"I be main dry," said the blacksmith.

"Mebbe you'll stand us a quart, paason?" said Jim, touching his forelock.

"Will you sell me this little piece of bra.s.s?" said Felix.

"Aw, you med take un; he bean't no vallee to we."

Felix gave them half-a-crown for the relic, and rode on slowly, while the group adjourned to the inn to drink it, leaving the donkey, their tools, and the bucket by the roadside among the thistles.

"I knaws it bean't nothing but the trigger-guard of one of them ould hoss-pistols," the patriarch persisted, "them vlint-locks with bra.s.s-barrels--I minds um."

Felix, as he rode away saddened, thought to himself: "That we should come to this--made in the Divine image, and thrown at last into a stable-bucket! The limbs that bounded over the sward, the nostrils that scented the clover, and the eyes that watched and pondered, perhaps as mine did but now, over the sunset! Ah, the tinker's a.s.s, browsing on the thistles, is thrusting his nose into the bucket, I see, to sniff contemptuously at it! 'Let us rejoice'--what a satire--"

"Hi, there! Hoi, you, measter!"

He looked back, saw the landlord panting after him, and drew rein and waited till he came up. What he wanted was to know whether Felix could tell him any further particulars respecting the sudden death of Valentine's dark horse that had taken place very early that morning, during a private trial upon the downs. One of the men at the inn had recognised Felix as a friend of Valentine, and the landlord said everybody about there was so mixed up and interested in the horse that he had made bold to ask. Felix was quite taken by surprise. The news had not reached Greene Ferne when he called; probably Valentine, after the accident, had been too occupied to come down from the training-stables some miles up among the hills.

"What was the cause?" he asked, after explaining that he knew nothing of it.

"A' believe a' broke a blood-vessel. A' wur auver trained, bless ee, and auver rode. Zum thenks it wur done a purpose by thuck black chap, the trainer."

"Why should you suspect him?"

"Aw, a' be a bad un; a' can't look 'ee straight in the face; a' sort of slyers [looks askance] at ee. Thur be a main lot of money gone auver thuck job."

"Well, this is news," said Felix. "Good evening."

The landlord touched his hat, and went back, much delighted to have been the first to tell the "paason" the story. Felix was much concerned at the event, because he knew that Valentine's disappointment, apart from pecuniary loss, would be extreme; besides which almost all their circle had more or less backed the horse--Geoffrey, Squire Thorpe, and all. He had done his best to persuade them not to bet; but now they had lost he was deeply disturbed. He felt half inclined to turn back, thinking the event would very likely put the irascible old man Fisher into a furious state, as he was believed to have "invested" largely. These delays, too, had brought on the twilight, and already the new moon was gleaming in the west; but, unwilling to return, he finally resolved to go through with his journey.

When he rode into the outskirts of the little scattered hamlet at the Warren, it was dark, and lights were s.h.i.+ning in the cottage-windows. He looked for a boy to hold his horse, but, seeing none, dismounted at the bridge over the mill-pool, and threw the reins across the palings. As he crossed the bridge, which vibrated beneath him, he saw the stars and crescent-moon reflected in the pool, and heard the rush of the falling water. A dog howled mournfully as he approached the porch, and knocked with the b.u.t.t of his riding-whip on the door, which stood ajar. There was no answer. He knocked again, and the dog chained in the courtyard set up his woeful howl.

"Be quiet, Jip," he said. He had heard the name of the dog from May, and love remembers trifles. Hearing his voice, the dog howled again, and another at a distance caught up and prolonged the cry.

"This is a dismal place," he thought. "No wonder May prefers to be with Margaret. How gloomy the shadowy hill looks, and the black ma.s.s of the mill yonder, and the tall trees over the white ricks!" He knocked a third time, and his blow echoed in the hall. "They must be out," he thought, giving the heavy door, studded with broad-headed nails, a push.

It creaked like the gate of those dark regions which Dante explored, and swung slowly back. He listened on the threshold; there was no sound save the ponderous halting tick of the stair-clock. He called "Jane!"

recollecting the housekeeper's name; his voice wandered in hollow s.p.a.ces, and was lost. It occurred to him that perhaps she and the servants had taken advantage of the old man's helplessness and May's absence to go out for a gossip, and he became indignant. He stepped into the hall, and felt his way along a stone-paved pa.s.sage, which he knew led to the great parlour; then reflected that he was intruding, and called again.

"Mr Fisher!" The words came back to him, distorted by a broken echo from the hall. The dog without howled piteously. Felix, in the dark pa.s.sage, felt a strange creeping sensation come over him. He shook it off, and groped his way to the door of the parlour. The great apartment was full of shadows, gloomy, cavernous; but a dim light, from the faint glow still lingering in the west and the moon, came through the window enabling him to see the beehive chair, with the back towards him.

"Excuse me, sir; but I could not make any one hear," he said, advancing.

He looked into the hollow recess of the chair, and saw the old man sitting there with the glint of the crescent-moon upon his eyeball.

"I am afraid I have been rude," he began; but suddenly stopped, stretched forth his arm, and touched the old man's hands, which were folded upon his knee. Cold as a stone--he was dead!

Felix recoiled, awe-struck, shuddering. It was, indeed, a terrible moment in that empty gloomy house; the dog howling; the moonlight glittering on the gla.s.sy eye. He was a brave man; he had faced disease and danger in the exercise of his office, yet never before had the presence of death so awed him. The atmosphere of the room suddenly seemed stifling--his first instinct was to get out. He did get out, and the cool night air in the porch revived him. Then he unchained the dog, who whined and fawned upon him. His natural impulse was to run for a.s.sistance; but the thought came to him that perhaps Fisher was not really dead--quick attention might save him, and he possessed considerable medical and surgical skill. He went back to the parlour-- the dog sniffed at the threshold, but would not enter. He struck a match, and lit a large wax candle on the mantelpiece. With this he approached the beehive chair, felt the wrist, looked in the face, and knew that Andrew Fisher had gone to his account. On the carpet by his feet was a crumpled piece of pinkish paper. Felix picked it up, and found that the telegram referred to betting transactions. Then he understood that the shock of the loss he had sustained by the death of Valentine's horse had extinguished the flickering light of life in the old man.

Felix took off his hat reverently, went to the great window-- unconsciously drawn towards the light--knelt and prayed earnestly. Then he covered the face with a bandana handkerchief which was lying on the knee of the deceased, and asked himself why the countenances of the very aged are so repellent in death, as if they had outlived the hope of immortality. To send for a doctor was evidently useless, nor was there one within several miles, but it was necessary that some one should be called. He went out and walked to the nearest cottage; a shepherd, with a pipe in his mouth, answered the door.

It was some time before his slow intellect could grasp the idea.

"Dead! be _he_ dead? Missis [to his wife within], missis! The Ould Un have got measter at last."

"Hus.h.!.+" said Felix angrily. "Have you no respect?"

By the light of the candle his wife brought to the door, the man saw it was a clergyman, and asked pardon.

"But n.o.body won't miss _he_," he added, nevertheless; and thought Felix, as they walked back to the house, feeling the little piece of bra.s.s in his pocket, "'Let us rejoice'--they are actually glad that he is gone.

But how comes it that no one knew of this?"

Fisher had, indeed, been dead many hours. He had been ailing, as aged persons often are, in the fall of the year; but May had not suspected any danger, nor would there have been, in all probability, under ordinary circ.u.mstances. Jane, the snuff-taking old hag, whom May so detested, with low cunning kept the event secret from the household, excepting a crony who acted as nurse, and was glad enough to a.s.sist in plunder. Jenny, the dairy-maid, was despatched to visit her friends at Millbourne, and a kitchen-maid had a similar permission. They were easily prevented from entering the great parlour by Jane's report that "Measter be in a pa.s.sion, and n.o.body best go a-nigh un!" This was readily believed, as they knew his illness had made him exceptionally snappish. Something very much like this has been practised at the death of greater men than Andrew Fisher--monarchs, if history tell truth, have been robbed before the breath had hardly left their nostrils. So the two old crones ransacked the house undisturbed. They took the heavy seal-ring from his finger--it was of solid gold, weighing three times as much as modern work. From his fob--for to the last he wore breeches and gaiters--they removed his chain and watch, which last, being of ancient make, would have been worth a considerable sum.

"Thur be a chest under uz bed," said Jane; "a' be vull of parchmint stuff--I'll warn thur be zum guineas in un. This be the key on him."

The chest was of black oak, rudely carved, and strongly protected by bands of iron. It was completely filled with yellow deeds, leases, etc, going back as far as Elizabeth, but mainly of the eighteenth century.

These they scattered over the floor, and, as Jane had antic.i.p.ated, at the bottom, in one corner, was a large bag of guineas. Then they added the great silver ladle, four heavy silver candlesticks, and a number of teaspoons to their guilty bundle, and chopped the gold handle off a cane with the billhook. With this tool they hacked open an inlaid cabinet, of which they could not find the key; but there was nothing within, except old letters faded from age, and a miniature on enamel--a portrait of May's grandmother.

"Ay, poor theng," said Jane, "thuck ould varmint ground the life out of her. A'wuver the picter be zet in gould; we med as well have un."

"A' wish us could take zum on these yer veather beds," said the other.

"Couldn't you and I car um zumhow?"

"Us could shove one in a box," said Jane, "and tell the miller to zend un in his cart. He wouldn't knaw, doan't ee zee?" They actually carried this idea into execution, and sent the miller's cart off with the feather bed. Probably, in all their days, the two old hags had never so thoroughly enjoyed themselves as when thus turning everything upside-down, and rioting at their will. It was a curious fact that not for one moment did they reflect that detection must of necessity quickly follow. They had lived all their lives in the narrow boundary of the lonely hill-parish, and the force of habit made all beyond seem so distant that, if they could but once escape out of the hamlet, they did not doubt they would be safe. At last, seeing nothing else they could lay hands on, they came down into the great parlour just before sunset, and heard the tramp of the wearyful women approaching.

"We'd better go now," said the nurse. "What had us better do with _he_?" jerking her thumb towards the senseless clay in the beehive chair.

"Aw, thur bean't no call to move un," said Jane; "let un bide. n.o.body won't knaw as a' be dead vor a day or two. Come on, you,"--making for the back-door.

The wearyful women as they pa.s.sed the window had curtseyed to the dead.

The luminous sunset, filling the chamber with its magical glamour, had lit up the cold, drawn features with a rosy glow. But the dimmed eyeball had not seen the flames of that conflagration sweeping up from the west:--

Dies irae, dies illa.

The wrath, long withheld, must come at last.

"I fear there has been robbery here," said Felix, as, with the shepherd, he re-entered the gloomy house.

"It do seem zo; the things be drowed about mainly. A'wuver it sarves un right."

"Hus.h.!.+" said Felix, and thought to himself, "How terrible it is to be hated even when dead! We will go over the house," he added aloud, "and see if anything has been taken."

In the bedchamber they found ample evidence of looting. Felix, even in his indignation, could not resist his antiquarian tastes. He took up an ancient deed, and while he glanced over it, the shepherd pretended to tie his shoe-lace, and pocketed a spade-guinea which the crones had dropped on the floor.