"Haw, haw, haw!" laughed Martin Cannister, who had heard the explanation of this striking story for the hundredth time.
"Huh, huh, huh!" laughed John Smith, who had heard it for the thousandth.
"Hee, hee, hee!" laughed William Worm, who had never heard it at all, but was afraid to say so.
"Thy grandfather, Robert, must have been a wide-awake chap to make that story," said Martin Cannister, subsiding to a placid aspect of delighted criticism.
"He had a head, by all account. And, you see, as the first-born of the Lickpans have all been Roberts, they"ve all been Bobs, so the story was handed down to the present day."
"Poor Joseph, your second boy, will never be able to bring it out in company, which is rather unfortunate," said Mrs. Worm thoughtfully.
""A won"t. Yes, grandfer was a clever chap, as ye say; but I knowed a cleverer. "Twas my uncle Levi. Uncle Levi made a snuff-box that should be a puzzle to his friends to open. He used to hand en round at wedding parties, christenings, funerals, and in other jolly company, and let "em try their skill. This extraordinary snuff-box had a spring behind that would push in and out--a hinge where seemed to be the cover; a slide at the end, a screw in front, and k.n.o.bs and queer notches everywhere. One man would try the spring, another would try the screw, another would try the slide; but try as they would, the box wouldn"t open. And they couldn"t open en, and they didn"t open en. Now what might you think was the secret of that box?"
All put on an expression that their united thoughts were inadequate to the occasion.
"Why the box wouldn"t open at all. "A were made not to open, and ye might have tried till the end of Revelations, "twould have been as naught, for the box were glued all round."
"A very deep man to have made such a box."
"Yes. "Twas like uncle Levi all over."
""Twas. I can mind the man very well. Tallest man ever I seed."
""A was so. He never slept upon a bedstead after he growed up a hard boy-chap--never could get one long enough. When "a lived in that little small house by the pond, he used to have to leave open his chamber door every night at going to his bed, and let his feet poke out upon the landing."
"He"s dead and gone now, nevertheless, poor man, as we all shall,"
observed Worm, to fill the pause which followed the conclusion of Robert Lickpan"s speech.
The weighing and cutting up was pursued amid an animated discourse on Stephen"s travels; and at the finish, the first-fruits of the day"s slaughter, fried in onions, were then turned from the pan into a dish on the table, each piece steaming and hissing till it reached their very mouths.
It must be owned that the gentlemanly son of the house looked rather out of place in the course of this operation. Nor was his mind quite philosophic enough to allow him to be comfortable with these old-established persons, his father"s friends. He had never lived long at home--scarcely at all since his childhood. The presence of William Worm was the most awkward feature of the case, for, though Worm had left the house of Mr. Swancourt, the being hand-in-glove with a ci-devant servitor reminded Stephen too forcibly of the vicar"s cla.s.sification of himself before he went from England. Mrs. Smith was conscious of the defect in her arrangements which had brought about the undesired conjunction. She spoke to Stephen privately.
"I am above having such people here, Stephen; but what could I do? And your father is so rough in his nature that he"s more mixed up with them than need be."
"Never mind, mother," said Stephen; "I"ll put up with it now."
"When we leave my lord"s service, and get further up the country--as I hope we shall soon--it will be different. We shall be among fresh people, and in a larger house, and shall keep ourselves up a bit, I hope."
"Is Miss Swancourt at home, do you know?" Stephen inquired
"Yes, your father saw her this morning."
"Do you often see her?"
"Scarcely ever. Mr. Glim, the curate, calls occasionally, but the Swancourts don"t come into the village now any more than to drive through it. They dine at my lord"s oftener than they used. Ah, here"s a note was brought this morning for you by a boy."
Stephen eagerly took the note and opened it, his mother watching him. He read what Elfride had written and sent before she started for the cliff that afternoon:
"Yes; I will meet you in the church at nine to-night.--E. S."
"I don"t know, Stephen," his mother said meaningly, "whe"r you still think about Miss Elfride, but if I were you I wouldn"t concern about her. They say that none of old Mrs. Swancourt"s money will come to her step-daughter."
"I see the evening has turned out fine; I am going out for a little while to look round the place," he said, evading the direct query.
"Probably by the time I return our visitors will be gone, and we"ll have a more confidential talk."
Chapter XXIV
"Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour."
The rain had ceased since the sunset, but it was a cloudy night; and the light of the moon, softened and dispersed by its misty veil, was distributed over the land in pale gray.
A dark figure stepped from the doorway of John Smith"s river-side cottage, and strode rapidly towards West Endelstow with a light footstep. Soon ascending from the lower levels he turned a corner, followed a cart-track, and saw the tower of the church he was in quest of distinctly shaped forth against the sky. In less than half an hour from the time of starting he swung himself over the churchyard stile.
The wild irregular enclosure was as much as ever an integral part of the old hill. The gra.s.s was still long, the graves were shaped precisely as pa.s.sing years chose to alter them from their orthodox form as laid down by Martin Cannister, and by Stephen"s own grandfather before him.
A sound sped into the air from the direction in which Castle Boterel lay. It was the striking of the church clock, distinct in the still atmosphere as if it had come from the tower hard by, which, wrapt in its solitary silentness, gave out no such sounds of life.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine." Stephen carefully counted the strokes, though he well knew their number beforehand. Nine o"clock. It was the hour Elfride had herself named as the most convenient for meeting him.
Stephen stood at the door of the porch and listened. He could have heard the softest breathing of any person within the porch; n.o.body was there.
He went inside the doorway, sat down upon the stone bench, and waited with a beating heart.
The faint sounds heard only accentuated the silence. The rising and falling of the sea, far away along the coast, was the most important.
A minor sound was the scurr of a distant night-hawk. Among the minutest where all were minute were the light settlement of gossamer fragments floating in the air, a toad humbly labouring along through the gra.s.s near the entrance, the crackle of a dead leaf which a worm was endeavouring to pull into the earth, a waft of air, getting nearer and nearer, and expiring at his feet under the burden of a winged seed.
Among all these soft sounds came not the only soft sound he cared to hear--the footfall of Elfride.
For a whole quarter of an hour Stephen sat thus intent, without moving a muscle. At the end of that time he walked to the west front of the church. Turning the corner of the tower, a white form stared him in the face. He started back, and recovered himself. It was the tomb of young farmer Jethway, looking still as fresh and as new as when it was first erected, the white stone in which it was hewn having a singular weirdness amid the dark blue slabs from local quarries, of which the whole remaining gravestones were formed.
He thought of the night when he had sat thereon with Elfride as his companion, and well remembered his regret that she had received, even unwillingly, earlier homage than his own. But his present tangible anxiety reduced such a feeling to sentimental nonsense in comparison; and he strolled on over the graves to the border of the churchyard, whence in the daytime could be clearly seen the vicarage and the present residence of the Swancourts. No footstep was discernible upon the path up the hill, but a light was shining from a window in the last-named house.
Stephen knew there could be no mistake about the time or place, and no difficulty about keeping the engagement. He waited yet longer, pa.s.sing from impatience into a mood which failed to take any account of the lapse of time. He was awakened from his reverie by Castle Boterel clock.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN.
One little fall of the hammer in addition to the number it had been sharp pleasure to hear, and what a difference to him!
He left the churchyard on the side opposite to his point of entrance, and went down the hill. Slowly he drew near the gate of her house. This he softly opened, and walked up the gravel drive to the door. Here he paused for several minutes.
At the expiration of that time the murmured speech of a manly voice came out to his ears through an open window behind the corner of the house.
This was responded to by a clear soft laugh. It was the laugh of Elfride.
Stephen was conscious of a gnawing pain at his heart. He retreated as he had come. There are disappointments which wring us, and there are those which inflict a wound whose mark we bear to our graves. Such are so keen that no future gratification of the same desire can ever obliterate them: they become registered as a permanent loss of happiness. Such a one was Stephen"s now: the crowning aureola of the dream had been the meeting here by stealth; and if Elfride had come to him only ten minutes after he had turned away, the disappointment would have been recognizable still.