CHAPTER LIII.
MASTER CHEESE'S FRIGHT—OTHER FRIGHTS
Strange rumours began to be rife in Deerham. The extraordinary news told by Dan Duff would have been ascribed to some peculiar hallucination of that gentleman's brain, and there's no knowing but that the furnace might have been tried as a cure, had not other testimony arisen to corroborate it. Four or five different people, in the course of as many days—or rather nights—saw, or professed to have seen, the apparition of Frederick Massingbird.
One of them was Master Cheese. He was one night coming home from paying a professional visit—in slight, straightforward cases Jan could trust him—when he saw by the roadside what appeared to be a man standing up under the hedge, as if he had taken his station there to look at the passers-by.
"He's up to no good," quoth Master Cheese to himself. "I'll go and dislodge the fellow."
Accordingly Master Cheese turned off the path where he was walking, and crossed the waste bit—only a yard or two in breadth—that ran by the side of the road. Master Cheese, it must be confessed, did not want for bravery; he had a great deal rather face danger of any kind than hard work; and the rumour about Fred Massingbird's ghost had been rare nuts for him to crack. Up he went, having no thought in his head at that moment of ghosts, but rather of poachers.
"I say, you fellow—" he was beginning, and there he stopped dead.
He stopped dead, both in step and tongue. The figure, never moving, never giving the faintest indication that it was alive, stood there like a statue. Master Cheese looked in its face, and saw the face of the late Frederick Massingbird.
It is not pleasant to come across a dead man at moonlight—a man whose body has been safely reposing in the ground ever so long ago. Master Cheese did not howl as Dan Duff had done. He set off down the road—he was too fat to propel himself over or through the hedge, though that was the nearest way—he took to his heels down the road, and arrived in an incredibly short space of time at home, bursting into the surgery and astonishing Jan and the surgery boy.
"I say, Jan, though, haven't I had a fright?"
Jan, at the moment, was searching in the prescription-book. He raised his eyes, and looked over the counter. Master Cheese's face had turned white, and drops of wet were pouring off it—in spite of his bravery.
"What have you been at?" asked Jan.
"I saw the thing they are talking about, Jan. It is Fred Massingbird's."
Jan grinned. That Master Cheese's fright was genuine, there could be no mistaking, and it amused Jan excessively.
"What had you been taking?" asked he, in his incredulity.
"I had taken nothing," retorted Master Cheese, who did not like the ridicule. "I had not had the opportunity of taking anything—unless it was your medicine. Catch me tapping that! Look here, Jan. I was coming by Crow Corner, when I saw a something standing back in the hedge. I thought it was some poaching fellow hiding there, and went up to dislodge him. Didn't I wish myself up in the skies? It was the face of Fred Massingbird."
"The face of your fancy," slightingly returned Jan.
"I swear it was, then! There! There's no mistaking him. The hedgehog on his cheek looked larger and blacker than ever."
Master Cheese did not fail to talk of this abroad; the surgery boy, Bob, who had listened with open ears, did not fail to talk of it, and it spread throughout Deerham; additional testimony to that already accumulated. In a few days' time, the commotion was at its height; nearly the only persons who remained in ignorance of the reported facts being the master and mistress of Verner's Pride, and those connected with them, relatives on either side.
That some great internal storm of superstition was shaking Deerham, Lionel knew. In his happy ignorance, he attributed it to the rumour which had first been circulated, touching Rachel's ghost. He was an ear-witness to an angry colloquy at home. Some indispensable trifle for his wife's toilette was required suddenly from Deerham one evening, and Mademoiselle Benoite ordered that it should be sent for. But not one of the maids would go. The Frenchwoman insisted, and there ensued a stormy war. The girls, one and all, declared they'd rather give up their service, than go abroad after nightfall.
When the fears and the superstitions came palpably in Lionel's way, he made fun of them—as Jan might have done. Once or twice he felt half provoked; and asked the people, in a tone between earnest and jest, whether they were not ashamed of themselves. Little reply made they; not one of them but seemed to shrink from mentioning to Lionel Verner the name that the ghost had borne in life.
On nearly the last evening that it would be light during this moon, Mr. Bourne started from home to pay a visit to Mrs. Hook, the labourer's wife. The woman had been ailing for some time; partly from natural illness, partly from chagrin—for her daughter Alice was the talk of the village—and she had now become seriously ill. On this day Mr. Bourne had accidentally met Jan; and, in conversing upon parish matters, he had inquired after Mrs. Hook.
"Very much worse," was Jan's answer. "Unless a change takes place, she'll not last many days."
The clergyman was shocked; he had not deemed her to be in danger. "I will go and see her to-day," said he. "You can tell her that I am coming."
He was a conscientious man; liking to do his duty, and especially kind to those that were in sickness or trouble. Neither did he willingly break a specific promise. He made no doubt that Jan delivered the message, and therefore he went; though it was late at night when he started, other duties having detained him throughout the day.
His most direct way from the vicarage to Hook's cottage, took him past the Willow Pond. He had no fear of ghosts, and therefore he chose it, in preference to going down Clay Lane, which was farther round. The Willow Pool looked lonely enough as he passed it, its waters gleaming in the moonlight, its willows bending. A little farther on, the clergyman's ears became alive to the sound of sobs, as from a person in distress. There was Alice Hook, seated on a bench underneath some elm-trees, sobbing enough to break her heart.
However the girl might have got herself under the censure of the neighbourhood, it is a clergyman's office to console, rather than to condemn. And he could not help liking pretty Alice; she had been one of the most tractable pupils in his Sunday-school. He addressed her as soothingly, as considerately, as though she were one of the first ladies in his parish; harshness would not mend the matter now. Her heart opened to the kindness.
"I've broke mother's heart, and killed her!" cried she, with a wild burst of sobs. "But for me, she might have got well."
"She may get well still, Alice," replied the vicar. "I am going on to see her now. What are you doing here?"
"I am on my way, sir, to get the fresh physic for her. Mr. Jan, he said this morning as somebody was to go for it; but the rest have been out all day. As I came along, I got thinking of the time, sir, when I could go about by daylight with my head up, like the best of 'em; and it overcame me."
She rose up, dried her eyes with her shawl, and Mr. Bourne proceeded onwards. He had not gone far, when something came rushing past him from the opposite direction. It seemed more like a thing than a man, with its swift pace—and he recognised the face of Frederick Massingbird.
Mr. Bourne's pulses stood still, and then gave a bound onwards. Clergyman though he was, he could not, for his life, have helped the queer feeling which came over him. He had sharply rebuked the superstition in his parishioners; had been inclined to ridicule Matthew Frost; had cherished a firm and unalterable belief that some foolish wight was playing pranks with the public; but all these suppositions and convictions faded in this moment; and the clergyman felt that that which had rustled past was the veritable dead-and-gone Frederick Massingbird, in the spirit or in the flesh.
He shook the feeling off—or strove to shake it. That it was Frederick Massingbird in the flesh he did not give a second supposition to; and that it could be Frederick Massingbird in the spirit, was opposed to every past belief of the clergyman's life. But he had never seen such a likeness; and though the similarity in the features might be accidental, what of the black star?
He strove to shake the feeling off; to say to himself that some one, bearing a similar face, must be in the village; and he went on to his destination. Mrs. Hook was better; but she was lying in the place unattended, all of them out somewhere or other. The clergyman talked to her and read to her; and then waited impatiently for the return of Alice. He did not care to leave the woman alone.
"Where are they all?" he asked, not having inquired before.
They were gone to the wake at Broxley, a small place some two miles distant. Of course! Had Mr. Bourne remembered the wake, he need not have put the question.
An arrival at last. It was Jan. Jan, attentive to poor patients as he was to rich ones, had come striding over, the last thing. They asked him if he had seen anything of Alice in his walk. But Jan had come across from Deerham Court, and that would not be the girl's road. Another minute, and the husband came in. The two gentlemen left together.
"She is considerably better, to-night," remarked Jan. "She'll get about now, if she does not fret too much over Alice."
"It is strange where Alice can have got to," remarked Mr. Bourne. Her prolonged absence, coupled with the low spirits the girl appeared to be in, rather weighed upon his mind. "I met her as I was coming here an hour ago," he continued. "She ought to have been home long before this."
"Perhaps she has encountered the ghost," said Jan, in a joke.
"I saw it to-night, Jan."
"Saw what?" asked Jan, looking at Mr. Bourne.
"The—the party that appears to be personating Frederick Massingbird."
"Nonsense!" uttered Jan.
"I did. And I never saw such a likeness in my life."
"Even to the porcupine," ridiculed Jan.
"Even to the porcupine," gravely replied Mr. Bourne. "Jan, I am not joking. Moreover, I do not consider it a subject for a joke. If any one is playing the trick, it is an infamous thing, most disrespectful to your brother and his wife. And if not—"
"If not—what?" asked Jan.
"In truth, I stopped because I can't continue. Frederick Massingbird's spirit it cannot be—unless all our previous belief in the non-appearance of spirits is to be upset—and it cannot be Frederick Massingbird in life. He died in Australia, and was buried there. I am puzzled, Jan."
Jan was not. Jan only laughed. He believed there must be something in the moonlight that deceived the people, and that Mr. Bourne had caught the infection from the rest.
"Should it prove to be a trick that any one is playing," resumed the clergyman, "I shall—"
"Hollo!" cried Jan. "What's this? Another ghost?"
They had nearly stumbled over something lying on the ground. A woman, dressed in some light material. Jan stooped.
"It's Alice Hook!" he cried.
The spot was that at which Mr. Bourne had seen her sitting. The empty bottle for medicine in her hand told him that she had not gone upon her errand. She was insensible and cold.
"She has fainted," remarked Jan. "Lend a hand, will you, sir?"
Between them they got her on the bench, and the stirring revived her. She sighed once or twice, and opened her eyes.
"Alice, girl, what is it? How were you taken ill?" asked the vicar.
She looked up at him; she looked at Jan. Then she turned her eyes in an opposite direction, glanced fearfully round, as if searching for some sight that she dreaded; shuddered, and relapsed into insensibility.
"We must get her home," observed Jan.
"There are no means of getting her home in her present state, unless she is carried," said Mr. Bourne.
"That's easy enough," returned Jan. And he caught her up in his long arms, apparently having to exert little strength in the action. "Put her petticoats right, will you?" cried he, in his unceremonious fashion.
The clergyman put her things as straight as he could, as they hung over Jan's arm. "You'll never be able to carry her, Jan," said he.
"Not carry her!" returned Jan. "I could carry you, if put to it."
And away he went, bearing his burden as tenderly and easily as though it had been a little child. Mr. Bourne could hardly keep pace with him.
"You go on, and have the door open," said Jan, as they neared the cottage. "We must get her in without the mother hearing, upstairs."
They had the kitchen to themselves. Hook, the father, a little the worse for what he had taken, had gone to bed, leaving the door open for his children. They got her in quietly, found a light, and placed her in a chair. Jan took off her bonnet and shawl—he was handy as a woman; and looked about for something to give her. He could find nothing except water. By and by she got better.
Her first movement, when she fully recovered her senses, was to clutch hold of Jan on the one side, of Mr. Bourne on the other.
"Is it gone?" she gasped, in a voice of the most intense terror.
"Is what gone, child?" asked Mr. Bourne.
"The ghost," she answered. "It came right up, sir, just after you left me. I'd rather die than see it again."
She was shaking from head to foot. There was no mistaking that her terror was intense. To attempt to meet it with confuting arguments would have been simply folly, and both gentlemen knew that it would. Mr Bourne concluded that the same sight, which had so astonished him, had been seen by the girl.
"I sat down again after you went, sir," she resumed, her teeth chattering. "I knew there was no mighty hurry for my being back, as you had gone on to mother, and I sat on ever so long, and it came right up again me, brushing my knees with its things as it passed. At the first moment I thought it might be you coming back, to say something to me, sir, and I looked up. It turned its face upon me, and I never remember nothing after that."
"Whose face?" questioned Jan.
"The ghost's, sir. Mr. Fred Massingbird's."
"Bah!" said Jan. "Faces look alike in the moonlight."
"Twas his face," answered the girl, from between her shaking lips. "I saw its every feature, sir."
"Porcupine and all?" retorted Jan, ironically.
"Porkypine and all, sir. I'm not sure that I should have knowed it at first, but for the porkypine."
What were they to do with the girl? Leave her there, and go? Jan, who was more skilled in ailments than Mr. Bourne, thought it possible that the fright had seriously injured her.
"You must go to bed at once," said he. "I'll just say a word to your father."
Jan was acquainted with the private arrangements of the Hooks' household. He knew that there was but one sleeping apartment for the whole family—the room above, where the sick mother was lying. Father, mother, sons, and daughters all slept there together. The "house" consisted of the kitchen below and the room above it. There were many such on the Verner estate.
Jan, carrying the candle to guide him, went softly up the creaky staircase. The wife was sleeping. Hook was sleeping, too, and snoring heavily. Jan had something to do to awake him; shaking seemed useless.
"Look here," said he in a whisper, when the man was aroused, "Alice has had a fright, and I think she may perhaps be ill through it; if so, mind you come for me without loss of time. Do you understand, Hook?"
Hook signified that he did.
"Very well," replied Jan. "Should—"
"What's that! what's that?"
The alarmed cry came from the mother. She had suddenly awoke.
"It's nothing," said Jan. "I only had a word to say to Hook. You go to sleep again, and sleep quietly."
Somehow Jan's presence carried reassurance with it to most people. Mrs. Hook was contented. "Is Ally not come in yet?" asked she.
"Come in, and downstairs," replied Jan. "Good-night. Now," said he to Alice, when he returned to the kitchen, "you go on to bed and get to sleep; and don't get dreaming of ghosts and goblins."
They were turning out at the door, the clergyman and Jan, when the girl flew to them in a fresh attack of terror.
"I daren't be left alone," she gasped. "Oh, stop a minute! Pray stop, till I be gone upstairs."
"Here," said Jan, making light of it. "I'll marshal you up."
He held the candle, and the girl flew up the stairs as fast as young Cheese had flown from the ghost. Her breath was panting, her bosom throbbing. Jan blew out the candle, and he and Mr. Bourne departed, merely shutting the door. Labourers' cottages have no fear of midnight robbers.
"What do you think now?" asked Mr. Bourne, as they moved along.
Jan looked at him. "You are not thinking, surely, that it is Fred Massingbird's ghost!"
"No. But I should advise Mr. Verner to place a watch, and have the thing cleared up—who it is, and what it is."
"Why, Mr. Verner?"
"Because it is on his land that the disturbance is occurring. This girl has been seriously frightened."
"You may have cause to know that, before many hours are over," answered Jan.
"Why! you don't fear that she will be seriously ill?"
"Time will show," was all the answer given by Jan. "As to the ghost, I'll either believe in him, or disbelieve him, when I come across him. If he were a respectable ghost, he'd confine himself to the churchyard, and not walk in unorthodox places, to frighten folks."
They looked somewhat curiously at the seat near which Alice had fallen; at the Willow Pond, farther on. There was no trace of a ghost about then—at least, that they could see—and they continued their way. In emerging upon the high road, whom should they meet but old Mr. Bitterworth and Lionel, arm in arm. They had been to an evening meeting of the magistrates at Deerham, and were walking home together.
To see the vicar and surgeon of a country village in company by night, imparts the idea that some one of its inhabitants may be in extremity. It did so now to Mr. Bitterworth—
"Where do you come from?" he asked.
"From Hook's," answered Jan. "The mother's better to-night; but I have had another patient there. The girl, Alice, has seen the ghost, or fancied that she saw it, and was terrified, literally, out of her senses."
"How is she going on?" asked Mr. Bitterworth.
"Physically, do you mean, sir?"
"No, I meant morally, Jan. If all accounts are true, the girl has been losing herself."
"Law!" said Jan. "Deerham has known that this many a month past. I'd try and stop it, if I were Lionel."
"Stop what?" asked Lionel.
"I'd build 'em better dwellings," composedly went on Jan. "They might be brought up to decency then."
"It's true that decency can't put its head into such dwellings as that of the Hooks'," observed the vicar. "People have accused me of showing leniency to Alice Hook, since the scandal has been known; but I cannot show harshness to her when I think of the home the girl was reared in."
The words pricked Lionel. None could think worse of the homes than he did. He spoke in a cross tone; we are all apt to do so, when vexed with ourselves. "What possesses Deerham to show itself so absurd just now? Ghosts! They only affect fear, it is my belief."
"Alice Hook did not affect it, for one," said Jan. "She may have been frightened to some purpose. We found her lying on the ground, insensible. They are stupid, though, all the lot of them."
"Stupid is not the name for it," remarked Lionel. "A little superstition, following on Rachel's peculiar death, may have been excusable, considering the ignorance of the people here, and the tendency to superstition inherent in human nature. But why it should have been revived now, I cannot imagine."
Mr. Bitterworth and Jan had walked on. The vicar touched Lionel on the arm, not immediately to follow them.
"Mr. Verner, I do not hold good with the policy which seems to prevail, of keeping this matter from you," he said, in a confidential tone. "I cannot see the expediency of it in any way. It is not Rachel's Frost's ghost that is said to be terrifying people."
"Whose then?" asked Lionel.
"Frederick Massingbird's."
Lionel paused, as if his ears deceived him.
"Whose?" he repeated.
"Frederick Massingbird's."
"How perfectly absurd!" he presently exclaimed.
"True," said Mr. Bourne. "So absurd that, were it not for a circumstance which has happened to-night, I scarcely think I should have brought myself to repeat it. My conviction is, that some person bearing an extraordinary resemblance to Frederick Massingbird is walking about to terrify the neighbourhood."
"I should think there's not another face living, that bears a resemblance to Fred Massingbird's," observed Lionel. "How have you heard this?"
"The first to tell me of it was old Matthew Frost. He saw him plainly, believing it to be Frederick Massingbird's spirit—although he had never believed in spirits before. Dan Duff holds to it that he saw it; and now Alice Hook; besides others. I turned a deaf ear to all, Mr. Verner; but to-night I met one so like Frederick Massingbird that, were Massingbird not dead, I could have sworn it was himself. It was wondrously like him, even to the mark on the cheek."
"I never heard such a tale!" uttered Lionel.
"That is precisely what I said—until to-night. I assure you the resemblance is so great, that if we have all female Deerham in fits, I shall not wonder. It strikes me—it is the only solution I can come to—that some one is personating Frederick Massingbird for the purpose of a mischievous joke—though how they get up the resemblance is another thing. Let me advise you to see into it, Mr. Verner."
Mr. Bitterworth and Jan were turning round in front, waiting; and the vicar hastened on, leaving Lionel glued to the spot where he stood.