CHAPTER XXVI
The Legend Of Penny Grim
“O dearest Marjorie, stay at hame,
For dark’s the gate ye have to go,
For there’s a maike down yonder glen
Hath frightened me and many me.”
HOGG.
“Nana,” said little Philip in a meditative voice, as he looked into the glowing embers of the hall fire, “when do fairies leave off stealing little boys?”
“I do not believe they ever steal them, Phil.”
“Oh, yes they do;” and he came and stood by her with his great limpid blue eyes wide open. “Goody Dearlove says they stole a little boy, and his name was Penny Grim.”
“Goody Dearlove is a silly old body to tell my boy such stories,” said Anne, disguising how much she was startled.
“Oh, but Ralph Huntsman says ’tis true, and he knew him.”
“How could he know him when he was stolen?”
“They put another instead,” said the boy, a little puzzled, but too young to make his story consistent. “And he was an elf—a cross spiteful elf, that was always vexing folk. And they stole him again every seven years. Yes—that was it—they stole him every seven years.”
“Whom, Phil; I don’t understand—the boy or the elf?” she said, half-diverted, even while shocked at the old story coming up in such a form.
“The elf, I think,” he said, bending his brows; “he comes back, and then they steal him again. Yes; and at last they stole him quite—quite away—but it is seven years, and Goody Dearlove says he is to be seen again!”
“No!” exclaimed Anne, with an irrepressible start of dismay. “Has any one seen him, or fancied so?” she added, though feeling that her chance of maintaining her rational incredulity was gone.
“Goody Dearlove’s Jenny did,” was the answer. “She saw him stand out on the beach at night by moonlight, and when she screamed out, he was gone like the snuff of a candle.”
“Saw him? What was he like?” said Anne, struggling for the dispassionate tone of the governess, and recollecting that Jenny Dearlove was a maid at Portchester Rectory.
“A little bit of a man, all twisty on one side, and a feather sticking out. Ralph said they always were like that;” and Phil’s imitation, with his lithe, graceful little figure, of Ralph’s clumsy mimicry was sufficient to show that there was some foundation for this story, and she did not answer at once, so that he added, “I am seven, Nana; do you think they will get me?”
“Oh no, no, Phil, there’s no fear at all of that. I don’t believe fairies steal anybody, but even old women like Goody Dearlove only say they steal little tiny babies if they are left alone before they are christened.”
The boy drew a long breath, but still asked, “Was Penny Grim a little baby?”
“So they said,” returned Anne, by no means interfering with the name, and with a quailing heart as she thought of the child’s ever knowing what concern his father had in that disappearance. She was by no means sorry to have the conversation broken off by Sir Philip’s appearance, booted and buskined, prepared for an expedition to visit a flock of sheep and their lambs under the shelter of Portsdown Hill, and in a moment his little namesake was frisking round eager to go with grandpapa.
“Well, ’tis a brisk frost. Is it too far for him, think you, Mistress Anne?”
“Oh no, sir; he is a strong little man and a walk will only be good for him, if he does not stand still too long and get chilled. Run, Phil, and ask nurse for your thick coat and stout shoes and leggings.”
“His grandmother only half trusts me with him,” said Sir Philip, laughing. “I tell her she was not nearly so careful of his father. I remember him coming in crusted all over with ice, so that he could hardly get his clothes off, but she fancies the boy may have some of his poor mother’s weakliness about him.”
“I see no tokens of it, sir.”
“Grand-dames will be anxious, specially over one chick. Heigho! Winter travelling must be hard in Germany, and posts do not come. How now, my man! Are you rolled up like a very Russian bear? The poor ewes will think you are come to eat up their lambs.”
“I’ll growl at them,” said Master Philip, uttering a sound sufficient to disturb the nerves of any sheep if he were permitted to make it, and off went grandfather and grandson together, Sir Philip only pausing at the door to say—
“My lady wants you, Anne; she is fretting over the delay. I fear, though I tell her it bodes well.”
Anne watched for a moment the hale old gentleman briskly walking on, the merry child frolicking hither and thither round him, and the sturdy body-servant Ralph, without whom he never stirred, plodding after, while Keeper, the only dog allowed to follow to the sheepfolds, marched decorously along, proud of the distinction. Then she went up to Lady Archfield, who could not be perfectly easy as to the precious grandchild being left to his own devices in the cold, while Sir Philip was sure to run into a discussion with the shepherd over the turnips, which were too much of a novelty to be approved by the Hampshire mind. It was quite true that she could not watch that little adventurous spirit with the same absence of anxiety as she had felt for her own son in her younger days, and Anne had to devote herself to soothing and diverting her mind, till Dr. Woodford knocked at the door to read and converse with her.
The one o’clock dinner waited for the grandfather and grandson, and when they came at last, little Philip looked somewhat blue with cold and more subdued than usual, and his grandfather observed severely that he had been a naughty boy, running into dangerous places, sliding where he ought not, and then muttered under his breath that Sedley ought to have known better than to have let him go there.
Discipline did not permit even a darling like little Phil to speak at dinner-time; but he fidgeted, and the tears came into his eyes, and Anne hearing a little grunt behind Sir Philip’s chair, looked up, and was aware that old Ralph was mumbling what to her ears sounded like: ‘Knew too well.’ But his master, being slightly deaf, did not hear, and went on to talk of his lambs and of how Sedley had joined them on the road, but had not come back to dinner.
Phil was certainly quieter than usual that afternoon, and sat at Anne’s feet by the fire, filling little sacks with bran to be loaded on his toy cart to go to the mill, but not chattering as usual. She thought him tired, and hearing a sort of sigh took him on her knee, when he rested his fair little head on her shoulder, and presently said in a low voice—
“I’ve seen him.”
“Who? Not your father? Oh, my child!” cried Anne, in a sudden horror.
“Oh no—the Penny Grim thing.”
“What? Tell me, Phil dear, how or where?”
“By the end of the great big pond; and he threw up his arms, and made a horrid grin.” The boy trembled and hid his face against her.
“But go on, Phil. He can’t hurt you, you know. Do tell me. Where were you?”
“I was sliding on the ice. Grandpapa was ever so long talking to Bill Shepherd, and looking at the men cutting turnips, and I got cold and tired, and ran about with Cousin Sedley till we got to the big pond, and we began to slide, and the ice was so nice and hard—you can’t think. He showed me how to take a good long slide, and said I might go out to the other end of the pond by the copse, by the great old tree. And I set off, but before I got there, out it jumped, out of the copse, and waved its arms, and made that face.”
He cowered into her bosom again and almost cried. Anne knew the place, and was ready to start with dismay in her turn. It was such a pool as is frequent in chalk districts—shallow at one end, but deep and dangerous with springs at the other.
“But, Phil dear,” she said, “it was well you were stopped; the ice most likely would have broken at that end, and then where would Nana’s little man have been?”
“Cousin Sedley never told me not,” said the boy in self-defence; “he was whistling to me to go on. But when I tumbled down Ralph and grandpapa and all did scold me so—and Cousin Sedley was gone. Why did they scold me, Nana? I thought it was brave not to mind danger—like papa.”
“It is brave when one can do any good by it, but not to slide on bad ice, when one must be drowned,” said Anne. “Oh, my dear, dear little fellow, it was a blessed thing you saw that, whatever it was! But why do you call it Pere—Penny Grim?”
“It was, Nana! It was a little man—rather. And one-sided looking, with a bit of hair sticking out, just like the picture of Riquet-with-a-tuft in your French fairy-book.”
This last was convincing to Anne that the child must have seen the phantom of seven years ago, since he was not repeating the popular description he had given her in the morning, but one quite as individual. She asked if grandpapa had seen it.
“Oh no; he was in the shed, and only came out when he heard Ralph scolding me. Was it a wicked urchin come to steal me, Nana?”
“No, I think not,” she answered. “Whatever it was, I think it came because God was taking care of His child, and warning him from sliding into the deep pool. We will thank him, Phil. ‘He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.’” And to that verse she soothed the tired child till he fell asleep, and she could lay him on the settle, and cover him with a cloak, musing the while on the strange story, until presently she started up and repaired to the buttery in search of the old servant.
“Ralph, what is this Master Philip tells me?” she asked. “What has he seen?”
“Well, Mistress Anne, that is what I can’t tell—no, not I; but I knows this, that the child has had a narrow escape of his precious life, and I’d never trust him again with that there Sedley—no, not for hundreds of pounds.”
“You really think, Ralph—?”
“What can I think, ma’am? When I finds he’s been a-setting that there child to slide up to where he’d be drownded as sure as he’s alive, and you see, if we gets ill news of Master Archfield (which God forbid), there’s naught but the boy atween him and this here place—and he over head and ears in debt. Be it what it might that the child saw, it saved the life of him.”
“Did you see it?”
“No, Mistress Anne; I can’t say as I did. I only heard the little master cry out as he fell. I was in the shed, you see, taking a pipe to keep me warm. And when I took him up, he cried out like one dazed. ’Twas Penny Grim, Ralph! Keep me. He is come to steal me.” But Sir Philip wouldn’t hear nothing of it, only blamed Master Phil for being foolhardy, and for crying for the fall, and me for letting him out of sight.”
“And Mr. Sedley—did he see it?”
“Well, mayhap he did, for I saw him as white as a sheet and his eyes staring out of his head; but that might have been his evil conscience.”
“What became of him?”
“To say the truth, ma’am, I believe he be at the Brocas Arms, a-drowning of his fright—if fright it were, with Master Harling’s strong waters.”
“But this apparition, this shape—or whatever it is? What put it into Master Philip’s head? What has been heard of it?”
Ralph looked unwilling. “Bless you, Mistress Anne, there’s been some idle talk among the women folk, as how that there crooked slip of Major Oakshott’s, as they called Master Perry or Penny, and said was a changeling, has been seen once and again. Some says as the fairies have got him, and ’tis the seven year for him to come back again. And some says that he met with foul play, and ’tis the ghost of him, but I holds it all mere tales, and I be sure ’twere nothing bad as stopped little master on that there pond. So I be.”
Anne could not but be of the same mind, but her confusion, alarm, and perplexity were great. It seemed strange, granting that this were either spirit or elf connected with Peregrine Oakshott, that it should interfere on behalf of Charles Archfield’s child, and on the sweet hypothesis that a guardian angel had come to save the child, it was in a most unaccountable form.
And more pressing than any such mysterious idea was the tangible horror of Ralph’s suggestion, too well borne out by the boy’s own unconscious account of the adventure. It was too dreadful, too real a peril to be kept to herself, and she carried the story to her uncle on his return, but without speaking of the spectral warning. Not only did she know that he would not attend to it, but the hint, heard for the first time, that Peregrine was supposed to have met with foul play, sealed her lips, just when she still was hoping against hope that Charles might be on the way home. But that Ralph believed, and little Philip’s own account confirmed, that his cousin had incited the little heir to the slide that would have been fatal save for his fall, she told with detail, and entreated that the grandfather might be warned, and some means be found of ensuring the safety of her darling, the motherless child!
To her disappointment Dr. Woodford was not willing to take alarm. He did not think so ill of Sedley as to believe him capable of such a secret act of murder, and he had no great faith in Ralph’s sagacity, besides that he thought his niece’s nerves too much strained by the long suspense to be able to judge fairly. He thought it would be cruel to the grandparents, and unjust to Sedley, to make such a frightful suggestion without further grounds during their present state of anxiety, and as to the boy’s safety, which Anne pleaded with an uncontrollable passion of tears, he believed that it was provided for by watchfulness on the part of his two constant guardians, as well as himself, since, even supposing the shocking accusation to be true, Sedley would not involve himself in danger of suspicion, and it was already understood that he was not a fit companion for his little cousin to be trusted with. Philip had already brought home words and asked questions that distressed his grandmother, and nobody was willing to leave him alone with the ex-lieutenant. So again the poor maiden had to hold her peace under an added burthen of anxiety and many a prayer.
When the country was ringing with the tidings of Sir George Barclay’s conspiracy for the assassination of William III, it was impossible not to hope that Sedley’s boastful tongue might have brought him sufficiently under suspicion to be kept for a while under lock and key; but though he did not appear at Fareham, there was reason to suppose that he was as usual haunting the taverns and cockpits of Portsmouth.
No one went much abroad that winter. Sir Philip, perhaps from anxiety and fretting, had a fit of the gout, and Anne kept herself and her charge within the garden or the street of the town. In fact there was a good deal of danger on the roads. The neighbourhood of the seaport was always lawless, and had become more so since Sir Philip had ceased to act as Justice of the Peace, and there were reports of highway robberies of an audacious kind, said to be perpetrated by a band calling themselves the Black Gang, under a leader known as Piers Pigwiggin, who were alleged to be half smuggler, half Jacobite, and to have their headquarters somewhere in the back of the Isle of Wight, in spite of the Governor, the terrible Salamander, Lord Cutts, who was, indeed, generally absent with the army.
CHAPTER XXVII
The Vault
“Heaven awards the vengeance due.”
COWPER.
The weary days had begun to lengthen before the door of the hall was flung open, and little Phil, forgetting his bow at the door, rushed in, “Here’s a big packet from foreign parts! Harry had to pay ever so much for it.”
“I have wellnigh left off hoping,” sighed the poor mother. “Tell me the worst at once.”
“No fear, my lady,” said her husband. “Thank God! ’Tis our son’s hand.”
There was the silence for a moment of intense relief, and then the little boy was called to cut the silk and break the seals.
Joy ineffable! There were three letters—for Master Philip Archfield, for Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford, and for Sir Philip himself. The old gentleman glanced over it, caught the words ‘better,’ and ‘coming home,’ then failed to read through tears of joy as before through tears of sorrow, and was fain to hand the sheet to his old friend to be read aloud, while little Philip, handling as a treasure the first letter he had ever received, though as yet he was unable to decipher it, stood between his grandfather’s knees listening as Dr. Woodford read—
DEAR AND HONOURED SIR—I must ask your pardon for leaving you without tidings so long, but while my recovery still hung in doubt I thought it would only distress you to hear of the fluctuations that I went through, and the pain to which the surgeons put me for a long time in vain. Indeed frequently I had no power either to think or speak, until at last with much difficulty, and little knowledge or volition of my own, my inestimable friend Graham brought me to Vienna, where I have at length been relieved from my troublesome companion, and am enjoying the utmost care and kindness from my friend’s mother, a near kinswoman, as indeed he is himself, of the brave and lamented Viscount Dundee. My wound is healing finally, as I hope, and though I have not yet left my bed, my friends assure me that I am on the way to full and complete recovery, for which I am more thankful to the Almighty than I could have been before I knew what suffering and illness meant. As soon as I can ride again, which they tell me will be in a fortnight or three weeks, I mean to set forth on my way home. I cannot describe to you how I am longing after the sight of you all, nor how home-sick I have become. I never had time for it before, but I have lain for hours bringing all your faces before me, my father’s, and mother’s, my sister’s, and that of her whom I hope to call my own; and figuring to myself that of the little one. I have thought much over my past life, and become sensible of much that was amiss, and while earnestly entreating your forgiveness, especially for having absented myself all these years, I hope to return so as to be more of a comfort than I was in the days of my rash and inconsiderate youth. I am of course at present invalided, but I want to consult you, honoured sir, before deciding whether it be expedient for me to resign my commission. How I thank and bless you for the permission you have given me, and the love you bear to my own heart’s joy, no words can tell. It shall be the study of my life to be worthy of her and of you.—And so no more from your loving and dutiful son, CHARLES ARCHFIELD.
Having drunk in these words with her ears, Anne left Phil to have his note interpreted by his grandparents, and fled away to enjoy her own in her chamber, yet it was as short as could be and as sweet.
Mine own, mine own sweet Anne, sweetheart of good old days, your letter gave me strength to go through with it. The doctors could not guess why I was so much better and smiled through all their torments. These are our first, I hope our last letters, for I shall soon follow them home, and mine own darling will be mine.—Thine own, C. A.
She had but short time to dwell on it and kiss it, for little Philip was upon her, waving his letter, which he already knew by heart; and galloping all over the house to proclaim the good news to the old servants, who came crowding into the hall, trembling with joy, to ask if there were indeed tidings of Mr. Archfield’s return, whereupon the glad father caused his grandson to carry each a full glass of wine to drink to the health of the young master.
Anne had at first felt only the surpassing rapture of the restoration of Charles, but there ensued another delight in the security his recovery gave to the life of his son. Sedley Archfield would not be likely to renew his attempt, and if only on that account the good news should be spread as widely as possible. She was the first to suggest the relief it would be to Mr. Fellowes, who had never divested himself of the feeling that he ought to have divined his pupil’s intention.
Dr. Woodford offered to ride to Portchester with the news, and Sir Philip, in the gladness of his heart, proposed that Anne should go with him and see her friend.
Shall it be told how on the way Anne’s mind was assailed by feminine misgivings whether three and twenty could be as fair in her soldier’s eyes as seventeen had been? Old maidenhood came earlier then than in these days, and Anne knew that she was looked upon as an old waiting-gentlewoman or governess by the belles of Winchester. Her glass might tell her that her eyes were as softly brown, her hair as abundant, her cheek as clear and delicately moulded as ever, but there was no one to assure her that the early bloom had not passed away, and that she had not rather gained than lost in dignity of bearing and the stately poise of the head, which the jealous damsels called Court airs. “And should he be disappointed, I shall see it in his eyes,” she said to herself, “and then his promise shall not bind him, though it will break my heart, and oh! how hard to resign my Phil to a strange stepmother.” Still her heart was lighter than for many a long year, as she cantered along in the brisk March air, while the drops left by the departing frost glistened in the sunshine, and the sea lay stretched in a delicate gray haze. The old castle rose before her in its familiar home-like massiveness as they turned towards the Rectory, where in that sheltered spot the well-known clusters of crocuses were opening their golden hearts to the sunshine, and recalling the days when Anne was as sunny-hearted as they, and she felt as if she could be as bright again.
In Mrs. Fellowes’s parlour they found an unexpected guest, no other than Mrs. Oakshott.
‘Gadding about’ not being the fashion of the Archfield household, Anne had not seen the lady for several years, and was agreeably surprised by her appearance. Perhaps the marks of smallpox had faded, perhaps motherhood had given expression, and what had been gaunt ungainliness in the maiden had rounded into a certain importance in the matron, nor had her dress, though quiet, any of the Puritan rigid ugliness that had been complained of, and though certainly not beautiful, she was a person to inspire respect.
It was explained that she was waiting for her husband, who was gone with Mr. Fellowes to speak to the officer in command of the soldiers at the castle. “For,” said she, “I am quite convinced that there is something that ought to be brought to light, and it may be in that vault.”
Anne’s heart gave such a throb as almost choked her.
Dr. Woodford asked what the lady meant.
“Well, sir, when spirits and things ’tis not well to talk of are starting up and about here, there, and everywhere, ’tis plain there must be cause for it.”
“I do not quite take your meaning, madam.”
“Ah, well! you gentlemen, reverend ones especially, are the last to hear such things. There’s the poor old Major, he won’t believe a word of it, but you know, Mistress Woodford. I see it in your face. Have you seen anything?”
“Not here, not now,” faltered Anne. “You have, Mrs. Fellowes?”
“I have heard of some foolish fright of the maids,” said Naomi, “partly their own fancy, or perhaps caught from the sentry. There is no keeping those giddy girls from running after the soldiers.”
Perhaps Naomi hoped by throwing out this hint to conduct her visitors off into the safer topic of domestic delinquencies, but Mrs. Oakshott was far too earnest to be thus diverted, and she exclaimed, “Ah, they saw him, I’ll warrant!”
“Him?” the Doctor asked innocently.
“Him or his likeness,” said Mrs. Oakshott, “my poor brother-in-law, Peregrine Oakshott; you remember him, sir? He always said, poor lad, that you and Mrs. Woodford were kinder to him than his own flesh and blood, except his uncle, Sir Peregrine. For my part, I never did give in to all the nonsense folk talked about his being a changeling or at best a limb of Satan. He had more spirit and sense than the rest of them, and they led him the life of a dog, though they knew no better. If I had had him at Emsworth, I would have shown them what he was;” and she sighed heavily. “Well, I did not so much wonder when he disappeared, I made sure that he could bear it no longer and had run away. I waited as long as there was any reason, till there should be tidings of him, and only took his brother at last because I found they could not do without me at home.”
Remarkable frankness! but it struck both the Doctor and Anne that if Peregrine could have submitted, his life might have been freer and less unhappy than he had expected, though Mrs. Martha spoke the broadest Hampshire.
Naomi asked, “Then you no longer think that he ran away?”
“No, madam; I am certain there was worse than that. You remember the night of the bonfire for the Bishops’ acquittal, Miss Woodford?”
“Indeed I do.”
“Well, he was never seen again after that, as you know. The place was full of wild folk. There was brawling right and left.”
“Were you there?” asked Anne surprised.
“Yes; in my coach with my uncle and aunt that lived with me, though, except Robin, none of the young sparks would come near me, except some that I knew were after my pockets,” said Martha, with a good-humoured laugh. “Properly frightened we were too by the brawling sailors ere we got home! Now, what could be more likely than that some of them got hold of poor Perry? You know he always would go about with the rapier he brought from Germany, with amber set in the hilt, and the mosaic snuff-box he got in Italy, and what could be looked for but that the poor dear lad should be put out of the way for the sake of these gewgaws?” This supposition was gratifying to Anne, but her uncle must needs ask why Mrs. Oakshott thought so more than before.
“Because,” she said impressively, “there is no doubt but that he has been seen, and not in the flesh, once and again, and always about these ruins.”
“By whom, madam, may I ask?”
“Mrs. Fellowes’s maids, as she knows, saw him once on the beach at night, just there. The sentry, who is Tom Hart, from our parish, saw a shape at the opening of the old vault before the keep and challenged him, when he vanished out of sight ere there was time to present a musket. There was once more, when one moonlight night our sexton, looking out of his cottage window, saw what he declares was none other than Master Perry standing among the graves of our family, as if, poor youth, he were asking why he was not among them. When I heard that, I said to my husband, ‘Depend upon it,’ says I, ‘he met with his death that night, and was thrown into some hole, and that’s the reason he cannot rest. If I pay a hundred pounds for it, I’ll not give up till his poor corpse is found to have Christian burial, and I’ll begin with the old vault at Portchester!’ My good father, the Major, would not hear of it at first, nor my husband either, but ’tis my money, and I know how to tackle Robin.”
It was with strangely mingled feelings that Anne listened. That search in the vault, inaugurated by faithful Martha, was what she had always felt ought to be made, and she had even promised to attempt it if the apparitions recurred. The notion of the deed being attributed to lawless sailors and smugglers or highwaymen, who were known to swarm in the neighbourhood, seemed to remove all danger of suspicion. Yet she could not divest herself of a vague sense of alarm at this stirring up of what had slept for seven years. Neither she nor her uncle deemed it needful to mention the appearance seen by little Philip, but to her surprise Naomi slowly and hesitatingly said it was very remarkable, that her husband having occasion to be at the church at dusk one evening just after Midsummer, had certainly seen a figure close to Mrs. Woodford’s grave, and lost sight of it before he could speak of it. He thought nothing more of it till these reports began to be spread, but he had then recollected that it answered the descriptions given of the phantom.
Here the ladies were interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Fellowes and Robert Oakshott, now grown into a somewhat heavy but by no means foolish-looking young man.
“Well, madam,” said he, in Hampshire as broad as his wife’s, “you will have your will. Not that Captain Henslowe believes a word of your ghosts—not he; but he took fire when he heard of queer sights about the castle. He sent for the chap who stood sentry, and was downright sharp on him for not reporting what he had seen, and he is ordering out a sergeant’s party to open the vault, so you may come and see, if you have any stomach for it.”
“I could not but come!” said Madam Oakshott, who certainly did not look squeamish, but who was far more in earnest than her husband, and perhaps doubted whether without her presence the quest would be thorough. Anne was full of dread, and almost sick at the thought of what she might see, but she was far too anxious to stay away. Mrs. Fellowes made some excuse about the children for not accompanying them.
It always thrilled Anne to enter that old castle court, the familiar and beloved play-place of her childhood, full of memories of Charles and of Lucy, and containing in its wide precincts the churchyard where her mother lay. She moved along in a kind of dream, glad to be let alone, since Mr. Fellowes naturally attended Mrs. Oakshott, and Robert was fully occupied in explaining to the Doctor that he only gave in to this affair for the sake of pacifying madam, since women folk would have their little megrims. Assuredly that tall, solid, resolute figure stalking on in front, looked as little subject to megrims as any of her sex. Her determination had brought her husband thither, and her determination further carried the day, when the captain, after staring at the solid-looking turf, stamping on the one stone that was visible, and trampling down the bunch of nettles beside it, declared that the entrance had been so thoroughly stopped that it was of no use to dig farther. It was Madam Martha who demanded permission to offer the four soldiers a crown apiece if they opened the vault, a guinea each if they found anything. The captain could not choose but grant it, though with something of a sneer, and the work was begun. He walked up and down with Robert, joining in hopes that the lady would be satisfied before dinner-time. The two clergymen likewise walked together, arguing, as was their wont, on the credibility of apparitions. The two ladies stood in almost breathless watch, as the bricks that had covered in the opening were removed, and the dark hole brought to light. Contrary to expectation, when the opening had been enlarged, it was found that there were several steps of stone, and where they were broken away, there was a rude ladder.