A wild screech! Two wild screeches. Phoebe had put her hands on the startled women, and given vent to a dismal groan. _She_ laughed: but the others went into a desperate pa.s.sion. First at having been frightened, next at having been followed. When matters came to be investigated later, it turned out that Phoebe had overheard a conversation between Molly and Hannah, which betrayed what they were about to do, and had come on purpose to startle them.
A row ensued. Bitter words on both sides; mutual abusings. The elder servants ordered Phoebe home; she refused to go, and gave them some sauce. She intended to stay and see what there was to be seen, she said; for all she could tell, _their_ shadows might pa.s.s, and a good thing if they did; let alone that she"d not dare to go back by herself at that hour and meet the ghosts. Hannah and Molly cut the matter short by leaving the stile to her; they went round, and took up their places by the churchyard gate.
It seems very stupid to be writing of this, I dare say; it must read like an old ghost-story out of a fable-book; but every word is true, as the people that lived round us then could tell you.
There we waited; Hannah and Molly gathered close against the hedge by the churchyard gate; Phoebe, wrapped in her shawl, leaning on the top of the stile; I on the old tree stump, feeling inclined to go to sleep.
It seemed a long time, and the night grew cold. Evidently there were no watchers for St. Mark"s shadows abroad that night, except ourselves.
Without warning, the old clock boomed out the strokes of the hour. Ten.
Did you ever have the opportunity of noticing how long it takes for a sound like this to die quite away on the calm night-air? I seemed to hear it still, floating off in the distance, when I became aware that some figure was advancing up the lane towards us with a rather swift step. It"s Tod this time, I thought, and naturally looked out; and I don"t mind telling that I caught hold of the bars of the stile for companionship, in my shock of terror.
I had never seen the dead walking; but I do believe I thought I saw it then. It looked like a corpse in its winding-sheet; whether man or woman, none could tell. An ashey-white, still, ghastly face, enveloped around with bands of white linen, was turned full to the moonlight, that played upon the rigid features. The whole person, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, was enshrouded in a white garment. All thoughts of Tod went out of me; and I"m not sure but my hair rose up on end as the thing came on. You may laugh at me, all of you, but just you go and try it.
My fear went for nothing, however; it didn"t damage me. Of all the awful cries ever heard, shrill at first, changing to something like the barking of a dog afterwards, those were the worst that arose opposite.
They came from Phoebe. The girl had stood petrified, with straining eyes and laboured breath, like one who has not the power to fly, while the thing advanced. Only when it stopped close and looked at her did the pent-up cries come forth. Then she turned to fly, and the white figure leaped the stile, and went after her into the copse. What immediately followed I cannot remember--never could remember it; but it seemed that not more than a minute had elapsed when I and Molly and Hannah were standing over Phoebe, lying in convulsions on the ground, and the creature nowhere to be seen. The cries had been heard in the road, and some people pa.s.sing came running up. They lifted the girl in their arms, and bore her homewards.
My senses were coming to me, showing plainly enough that it was no "shadow," but some ill-starred individual dressed up to personate one.
Poor Phoebe! I could hear her cries still, though the group was already out of the copse and crossing the open field beyond. Somebody touched me on the shoulder.
"Tod! Did you do it?"
"Do what?" asked Tod, who was out of breath with running. "What was all that row?"
I told him. Somebody had made himself into a ghost, with a tied-up whitened face, just as the dead have, and came up the Green Lane in a sheet; and Phoebe was being carried home in convulsions.
"You are a fool, Johnny," was his wrathful answer. "I am not one to risk a thing of that sort, not even for those two old women we came out to frighten. Look here."
He went to the edge of the copse near the road, and showed me some things--the old pistol from the stable, and gunpowder lights that went off with a crash yards high. It"s not of much use going into it now. Tod had meant, standing at a safe distance, to set a light to the explosive articles, and fire off his pistol at the same time.
"It would have been so good to see the women scutter off in their fright, Johnny; and it couldn"t have hurt them. They might have looked upon it as the blue-light from below."
"What made you so late?"
"Late!" returned Tod, savagely; "I am late, and the fun"s spoilt. That confounded old Duff and his cane came in to see you, Johnny, just as I was starting; there was n.o.body else, and I couldn"t leave him. I said you were in bed and asleep, but it didn"t send him away. Down he sat, telling a tale of how hard-worked he"d been all day, and asking for brandy-and-water. The d.i.c.kens take him!"
"And, Tod, it was really not you?"
"If you repeat that again, Johnny, I"ll strike you. I swear it was not me. There! I never told you a lie yet."
He never had; and from that moment of strong denial I know that Tod had no more to do with the matter than I had.
"I wonder who it could have been?"
"I"ll find that out, as sure as my name"s Todhetley," he said, catching up his pistols and lights.
We ran all the way home, looking out in vain for the ghost on our way, and got in almost as soon as the rest. What a hullabaloo it was! They put a mattress on the kitchen floor, and laid Phoebe on it. Mr.
Duffham was upon the scene in no time; the Squire had returned earlier than was thought for, and Mrs. Todhetley came down with her face smothered in a woollen handkerchief.
As to any concealment now, it was useless to think of it. None was attempted, and Molly and Hannah had to confess that they went out to watch for the shadows. The Squire bl.u.s.tered at them a little, but Mrs.
Todhetley said the keenest thing, in her mild way:
"At your age, Hannah!"
"I have known a person rendered an idiot for life with a less fright than this," said old Duff, turning round to speak. "It was the following her that did the mischief."
Nothing could be done that night as to investigation; but with the morning the Squire entered upon it in hot anger. "Couldn"t the fool have been contented with what he"d already done, without going over the stile after her? If I spend a fifty-pound note, I"ll unearth him. It looks to me uncommonly like a trick you two boys would play," he added, turning sharply upon me and Tod.
And the suspicion made us all the more eager to find out the real fox.
But not a clue could we discover. n.o.body had known of the proposed expedition except Goody Picker; and she, as everybody testified, was true to the backbone. As the day went on, and nothing came of it, Tod had one of his stamping fits.
"If one could find out whether it was man or woman! If one could divine how they got at the knowledge!" stamped Tod. "The pater does not look sure about us yet."
"I wonder if it could have been Roger Monk?" I said, speaking out a thought that had been dimly creeping up in my mind by starts all day.
"Roger Monk!" repeated Tod, "why pitch upon him?"
"Only that it"s just possible he might have got it out of Goody Picker."
Away went Tod, in his straightforward fashion, to look for Roger Monk.
He was in the hot-house, doing something to his plants.
"Monk, did you play that trick last night?"
"What trick, sir?" asked Monk, twitching a good-for-nothing leaf off a budding geranium.
"What trick! As if there were more tricks than one played! I mean dressing yourself up like a dead man, and frightening Phoebe."
"I have too much to do with my work, Mr. Todhetley, to find time to play tricks. I took no holiday at all yesterday, day or night, but was about my business till I went to bed. They were saying out here this morning that the Squire thought _you_ had done it."
"Don"t you be insolent, Monk. That won"t answer with me."
"Well, sir, it is not pleasant to be accused point-blank of a crime, as you"ve just accused me. I know nothing at all about the matter. "Twasn"t me. I had no grudge against Phoebe, that I should harm her."
Tod was satisfied; I was not. He never once looked in either of our faces as he was speaking. We leaped the wire-fence and went across to Goody Picker"s, bursting into her kitchen without ceremony.
"I say, Mrs. Picker, we can"t find out anything about that business last night," began Tod.
"And you never will, gentlemen, as is my opinion," returned Mrs. Picker, getting up in a bustle and dusting two wooden chairs. "Whoever did that, have took himself off for a bit; never doubt it. "Twas some one o" them village lads."
"We have been wondering whether it was Roger Monk."
"Lawk-a-mercy!" cried she, dropping a basin on the brick floor. And if ever I saw a woman change colour, she did.
"What"s the matter now?"
"Why, you sent me into a tremble, gentlemen, saying that," she answered, stooping to pick up the broken crockery. "A young man lodging in my place, do such a villain"s trick! I"d not like to think it; I shouldn"t rest in my bed. The two servants having started right out from here for the churchyard have cowed-down my heart bad enough, without more ill news."
"What time did Monk come in last night?" questioned Tod. "Do you remember?"