CHAPTER XXX.
"Nay, do not drag me so; I will go right willingly, my masters!" criedpoor Diggory Falgate. "I was there with them upon compulsion. It ishard to be made prisoner by one's friends as well as by one'senemies."
"Hold thy prating tongue, liar!" replied one of the troopers, who werebearing off the painter across the country towards Hull, which lay atabout ten miles' distance, the course that the earl and his party hadpursued having been rendered very circuitous by the various accidentsof the journey. "Hold thy prating tongue, liar, or I will strike theeover the pate! Did we not see thee at their heels, galloping with thebest?"
"But no man can say that he saw me draw a sword in their behalf,"answered Falgate.
"Because thou hadst no sword to draw," rejoined the man. "And thoumayst be sure that to-morrow morning thou wilt be swinging by the neckin the good town of Hull, for the death of Captain Batten and therest."
"I killed them not," said Falgate, in a deprecatory tone.
"What! wilt thou prate?" rejoined the trooper, striking him in theribs with the hilt of his sword. But at that moment one who seemed incommand rode back from the front, and bade the man forbear.
"Come hither beside me," he said, addressing Falgate, who in thedarkness could not see his face, to judge whether it was stern or not."You are a malignant--deny it not, for it will not avail you. You area malignant, and the blood of Christian men has been shed by those whowere with you. Your life is forfeit, and there is but one way by whichto save it."
"What is that?" asked Falgate. "Life is not like a bad groat, only fitto be cast into the kennel; and I will save mine if I can."
"That is wise," answered the soldier. "You can save it if you will.You have but to tell truly and honestly who they are who were withyou, and what was their errand in these parts. You know it right well;therefore deny it not."
"Nay, I do not know, right worshipful sir," replied the painter.
"I am not worshipful," answered the man; "but if thou dost not know, Iam sorry, for thou hast lost a chance of life."
"But only hear how I came to be with them," cried poor Falgate. "I metthe long-nosed man by chance in Hull; and finding him in godlycompany, and some of the governor's people with him, I thought therecould be no harm in going with him to York, whither business calledme."
"But he in the buff coat?" asked the soldier; "who is he?"
"Of him I know less than the other," rejoined the painter; "for hecame up with us on the road, as we stopped at a little inn to bait ourhorses. There was with him then a Colonel Warren, who, after leavingus returned to Hull with a pious man, one Stumpborough, who had withhim a troop of horse----"
"We know all that," replied the soldier gravely. "But, as it is so,you must prepare to die to-morrow. I say not that you lie unto us. Itmay be that you speak truth; but it is needful in these times that oneshould die for an example; and as you are a malignant, for your speechproves it, 'tis well you should be the man." Thus saying, he rode onagain without giving time for Falgate to answer, and leaving him inthe hands of the troopers as before.
The party, however, had suffered such loss that the number was now butsmall; and the poor painter, who by no means loved the idea of hispromised suspension in the morning air of Hull, could hear the buzz ofan eager but low-toned conversation going on in front, without beingable to distinguish the words. He thought, indeed, that he caught theterm "church" frequently repeated; but of that he was not sure. Andthough with a stout heart he resolved to say nothing, either of whathe knew or suspected, it must be confessed he shook a little as herode along.
At length, after an hour and a half's farther ride, they began toapproach the Humber, and the moon shining out showed Falgate sceneswhich he had often passed through in former days, upon journeys ofbusiness or of pleasure. Now they came to a village in which wasswinging, before a fast-closed house, a sign of his own painting; andnow a hamlet in which he had enjoyed many a merry dance; till atlength, passing over a long, bare, desolate piece of land, withouttree, or hedgerow, or house, or break, running along the water's edge,they perceived upon a slight elevation, an old time-worn church, theresort of parishioners from a wide and thinly-populated tract, the oldstone monuments and gloomy aisles of which had often filled thesomewhat imaginative head of the painter with strange and awfulvisions, when he visited it on the Sunday evening in the decline ofthe year. At about five hundred yards farther on was a solitary housewhere the sexton lived; and stopping suddenly before the gate of thechurch-yard, the commander of the party bade one of his men ride onand get the key.
"What are they going to do?" thought Falgate. "The profane villainsare not going to stable their horses in a church surely. Well, I shallbe glad enough of rest anywhere, for Hull is three miles off; and I donot think my skin would hold out."
While he had been thus reasoning with himself, one of the troopers hadgot off his horse, and advancing through the little wicket of thechurch-yard, tried the door of the church.
"It is open," he cried; "they have left their steeple-house open."
The other man was instantly called back, and Falgate was then orderedto dismount. He observed, however, that the soldiers in general kepttheir saddles, and he advanced with some trepidation, accompanied bythe commander, to the door where the other trooper still stood. Therehe halted suddenly, however, asking in a lamentable tone--
"You are not going to leave me here alone all night, surely?"
"Not alone!" answered the man; "we will put a guard in the porch towatch you; and you will have full time to prepare your mind forto-morrow morning, and to turn in your head whether you will tell uswho your companions were, before the rope is round your neck. You mayspeak now, if you will."
But Falgate was faithful to the last; and though he by no meansapproved of being shut up in the church all night, he repeated that hecould not tell, for he did not know.
"Well, then," rejoined his captor, "here you must rest; but think wellof the condition of your soul, young man, for nothing will save you ifyou remain obstinate."
Thus saying, he thrust him into the building, and closed the door. Thepoor painter now heard some conversation without in regard to the key,which, it appeared, was not in the lock; and a consultation was heldas to whether it should be sent for; but the voice of the commanderwas heard at length, saying--
"Never mind. We have not time to stay. Keep good watch; that is allthat is needed."
"But if he try to escape?" asked the trooper.
"Shoot him through the head with your pistol," answered the othervoice. "As well die so as by a cord."
The conversation then ceased, and Falgate heard the sound of horses'feet the next minute marching down the hill. The situation of DiggoryFalgate was to himself by no means pleasant, and, indeed, few are themen who would find themselves particularly at their ease, shut up fora whole night within an old church, and with even the probability ofdeath before them for the next morning. Silence, and midnightsolitude, and the proximity of graves, and shrouds, and moulderingclay, are things well calculated to excite the imagination even of thecold and calculating, to damp the warm energies of hope, and open allthe sources of terror and superstitious awe within us. How often, inthe warm daylight, and in the midst of the gay and busy world, doesman, roused for a moment by some accidental circumstance to aconviction of the frail tenure by which life is held, think of deathand all that may follow it with no other sensation than a calmmelancholy. It is because every object around him, everything that hesees, everything that he hears, and everything that he feels, are sofull of life, that he cannot think death near. He sees it but in thedim and misty perspective of future years, with all its grim featuressoftened and indistinct. But when he hears no sound of any livingthing, when his eye rests upon nothing moving with the warm energiesof animation, when all is as dark as the vault, as silent as thegrave--it is then, that, if the thought of death presents itself, itcomes near--horribly near. Clearer from the obscurity around, m
oredistinct and tangible from the stillness of all things, death becomesa living being to our fancy, with his icy hand upon our brow, hisbarbed dart close at our heart. We see him, feel him, hear the dreadsummons of his charnel voice; and prepare for the extinction of thelight within the coffin's narrow bed, the mould and corruption of thetomb.
Poor Falgate had hitherto tried to fancy that the announcement of hisfate for the morrow had been merely a threat: but now, when he wasleft alone in the old church, with no one near him to speak to, withnot a sound but the sighing of the night wind through some brokenpanes in the high casement, his convictions became very different. Hefelt his way with his hands from pillar to pillar, towards a spotwhere a thin streak of moonlight crossed the nave, and seated himselfsadly upon a bench that he found near. He there sat and torturedhimself for half an hour, thinking over all the bold and infamousthings the parliament party had done, and clearly deducing thence whatthey might probably do in his own case. He loved not the thought ofdeath at all as it now presented itself to his mind; the hero'senthusiasm was gone; he had no desire to be a martyr; but of all sortsof death that of the cord seemed the worst. And yet, what was to bedone? Could he betray the confidence of others, could he flinch fromwhat he conceived to be a duty? No; though he felt a little weakness,he was not the man to do that; and he said again to himself that hewould rather die. But still he turned with repugnance from that closegrappling with the thought of dying which the scene and the hourforced upon him: he tried to think of something else; he strove torecal the early days when he had last stood in that aisle, and many aboyish prank he had played in years long gone; but the image of deathwould present itself amidst all, like a skull in a flower-garden, andthe very sweet ideas that he summoned up to banish it but made it lookmore terrible.
In the mean while, the moon gradually got round, till she poured afuller flood of light into the building, showing the tombs and oldmonumental effigies upon the walls and in the aisle; and many a wildlegend and village tale came back to Falgate's memory, of ghostshaving been seen issuing from the vaults beneath the church, andwandering down even to the gates of Hull. The painter was a firmbeliever in apparitions of all kinds, and he had often wished, with asort of foolish bravado, to see a ghost; but now, when, if ever, hewas likely to be gratified, he did not quite so much like therealization of his desires. He thought, nevertheless, that he couldface one, if one did come; but then arose the sad idea, that he mightvery soon be one of their shadowy companions himself; wandering forthe allotted term beneath "the pale glimpses of the moon."
Suddenly a thought struck him. Might he not, perchance, employ thesemblance of that state to facilitate his own escape? Doubtless, theman placed to keep guard would not long remain upon his dull watchwithout closing an eye, after a long day's march and a hard fight; thedoor was not locked; he could open it and go out and, could he but sodisguise himself as to appear like the inhabitant of another world, ifthe sentinel did wake, he would most likely be so stupified andalarmed, that he would let him pass, or miss his aim if he fired.Falgate remembered the words of the officer as he had retired: "Aswell die so as by a cord;" and he resolved he would at least make theattempt. A daring and enterprising spirit seized him; he felt he couldbe a hero in ghostly attire, and the only difficulty was to procurethe proper habiliments. At first he thought of making a shift with hisown shirt; but then he remembered that the length thereof was somewhatscanty, and he had never heard of ghosts with drapery above theirknees.
However, as, when one schoolboy opens a door into forbidden piece ofground, and puts his head out, a dozen more are sure to follow andhurry him on before them, so the thought of becoming a ghost seemed tobring a thousand other cunning devices with it; and at length goodDiggory Falgate asked himself if the vestry might not be open, and ifa surplice might not be found therein. He determined to ascertain; andcreeping up to the door which he had often seen the parson of theparish pass through, he lifted the latch, and to his joy found that itwas not locked. All, however, was dark within, and the poor painter,entering cautiously, groped about, not knowing well where to seek forthat which he wanted. Suddenly his hand struck against something,hanging apparently from a peg in the wall; but he soon ascertainedthat the texture was not that of linen, and went on, still feelingalong the sides of the little room. In a moment after, he came tosomething softer and more pliant, with the cold, glassy feel of linenupon it, and taking it down he mentally said, "This must be thesurplice." He crept back with it into the moonlight in the church,treading like a ghost, not only in anticipation of the character hewas about to assume, but also in palpable terror lest he should callthe attention of the guard at the church door, by tripping over a mator stumbling against a bench. The white and snowy garment, however,the emblem of innocence, was there in his hand, and he gazed all overit, inquiring in his own mind how he was to put it on. He knew not theback from the front; he scarcely knew the head from the tail; andseldom has a poor schoolboy gazed at the "ass's bridge," in the drybut reason-giving pages of Euclid, with more utter bewilderment andwant of comprehension than Diggory Falgate now stared at the surplice.As he thus stood, addressing mock inquiries to the folds of whitelinen, he suddenly started, thinking he heard a noise; but afterlistening a moment without catching any further sound, he quietlycrept up to the great door of the church, and bent both eye and ear tothe keyhole, to ascertain whether the sentinel was awake and watchingor not.
The only noise that met his ear, when he first applied the latterorgan to the task of discovery, was a loud and sonorous snore; andlooking through the aperture, he found, by the light of the moon,which was shining into the porch, that the guard had seated himself onone of the benches at the side of the door, and, with his legsstretched out across the only means of egress, had given way toweariness, and was indulging in a very refreshing sleep, while hishorse was seen cropping the grass within the wall of the churchyard.
The poor painter was calculating the chances of being able to pass theoutstretched limbs of the sentinel without awakening him, and,screwing his courage to the sticking point--to use Lady Macbeth'spork-butcherish figure--when suddenly he was startled and cast into acold perspiration by hearing a sound at the farther end of the church.All was silent the moment after; but the noise had been so distantwhile it lasted, that there was no doubting the evidence of his ears;and the only question was, what it could proceed from--was it naturalor supernatural? was it accidental or intentional? Diggory Falgatecould not at all divine, till at length, encouraged by its cessation,he began to think that he might have left the door of the vestry open,and the wind might have blown down some book. Yet the sound had beensharp as well as heavy--more like the fall of a piece of old iron thanthat of a volume of homilies, the prayer-book, or the psalter. Hedetermined to see, however; and sitting down for a moment to gathercourage, and to ascertain that the trooper without had not been rousedby the noise that had alarmed himself, he listened till, mingled withthe beating of his own heart, he heard the comfortable snore of theguard once more. Then, thinking that at any time he could call thegood man to his aid if he encountered ghost or goblin too strong forhim, he shuffled himself into the surplice, and with the stealthy stepof a cat crept up the nave towards the vestry.
When he was about two-thirds up the church, and was just leaningagainst a bench to take breath, another sound met his ear. It was thatof a deep voice speaking low, and seemed to come almost from below hisfeet.
"They must be gone now," said the invisible tongue. "All is silent youhear."
"I do not know," said another, in tones somewhat shriller. "Hush! Ithought I heard a noise."
"Pooh! the rustling of the casements with the wind," rejoined theother; "I cannot stay all night: unshade the lantern and let us towork."
If a fragment of superstitious doubt as to the interlocutors of thisdialogue being of a ghostly character had lingered in the mind ofDiggory Falgate, the words about unshading the lantern removed itcompletely; and the next instant a faint and misty light was seen
issuing from a low narrow doorway, which had apparently been left openon the opposite side of the church, towards the eastern angle.
"Some vagabonds robbing the vaults," thought the painter to himself:"I will see what they are about, at all risks. Perchance I mayfrighten them, make them run over the sentinel, and escape in theconfusion. If he shoots one of them instead of me, it will be no greatmatter; and of course, if these men are as anxious to get away as Iam, we shall make common cause and be too strong for him. But I willwatch for a minute first; and let them be fairly at their work, asthey call it, before I show myself."
Thus thinking, with a noiseless step he advanced towards the doorleading from the main body of the building to the vaults below, guidedby the light, which continued to glimmer faintly up, casting a mistyray upon the communion-table. When he approached the arch, he lookedcarefully forward at every step; but nothing could he see till he cameto the top of the stone stairs, when he perceived a dark lantern, withthe shade drawn back, standing on the ground at the bottom. No humanbeings were visible, however, though he heard a rustling sound in thevault, as if some living creatures were at no great distance; and thenext moment there came a sort of gurgling noise, as if some fluid werepoured out of a narrow-necked bottle. An instant after, the firstvoice he had heard observed, in a pleasant and well-satisfied tone,"That's very good! genuine Nantz, I declare."
"Ay, that it is," answered the second voice: "the stomach requirescomfort in such a cold and dismal place as this."
"Oh, 'tis nothing when one is used to it," rejoined the first speaker;"but come, we had better do the business. There stands the coffin. Youbring the mallet, and I will take the chisel and bar."
Diggory Falgate did not like their proceedings at all, though he wouldby no means have objected to a glass of cordial waters himself. Butthey were evidently about to break open one of the coffins--every wordshowed it; to violate the sanctity of the grave--to disturb the ashesof the dead; and the poor painter had sufficient refinement of feelingto think that the drinking of intoxicating liquors, while so engaged,was an aggravation of their offence. The collocation of "genuineNantz, I declare," with "there stands the coffin," shocked andhorrified him; and he paused for a moment to consider, feeling as ifit would render him almost a partaker in the sacrilege if he were todescend into the vault. A moment's thought, however, settled this caseof conscience; and by the time that he had settled his plan he heard ahollow noise, as if some hard substance had struck against an emptychest.
"Now is the time," he thought; "they are busy at their hellish work."
There stood the lantern on the ground beneath; the men were evidentlyat some small distance. If he could get possession of the light andshade it, they were at his mercy; and the only difficulty was how todescend the stairs without calling their attention. Recollecting,however, that it was the invariable practice of ghosts, whateversounds they might produce with any other organs with which they may beendowed, to make no noise with their feet, the good painter stoopeddown, took off his shoes, and put them in his pockets. Then with aquiet and stealthy step he began the descent, totally unperceived bythose who were by this time busily engaged wrenching and tearing somewell-fastened woodwork.
Stooping down before he quite reached the bottom of the steps,Diggory Falgate looked into the vault, and immediately perceived twomen, both of them somewhat advanced in life--one a thin, tall,puritanical-looking person, dressed in black, raising with a chiseland mallet the lid of a coffin which stood upon the ground. Forty orfifty other coffins, some small and narrow, some large, were withinthe pale glimpse of the lantern, and the painter's imagination filledup the dark space which the rays did not reach with similar mementoesof mortality. On his left hand, near the foot of the stairs, were fourcoffins placed in a row, with three others laid crosswise upon them,and all raised two or three feet from the floor by trestles. There wasa narrow sort of lane behind, between them and the damp wall, andtaking another step down, he brought himself as far on that side aspossible.
Just at that moment one of the men turned a little, so as to bring hisprofile within the painter's view, and he instantly recognised a facethat he had seen at the "Swan" Inn in Hull, the day before hisexpedition with Captain Barecolt and Arrah Neil.
"I'll wager any money it is that old villain, Dry, of Longsoaken, whomI have heard them talk so much about," thought Falgate; but he was notsuffered to carry his meditations on that subject farther, for Mr.Dry, turning his head away again towards his companion, said--"I cannot see; get the lantern."
The painter had just time to slip behind the pile of coffins he hadobserved, and to crouch down, before the other man, after having givenanother vigorous wrench at the lid, laid down the bar he had in hishands and moved towards the foot of the stairs. The rustle of thesurplice seemed to catch his ear, for he stopped for a moment,apparently to listen; but the next instant he advanced again, took upthe lantern, looked round with a somewhat nervous stare, and thenreturned to Mr. Dry.
"Did you not hear a noise?" he asked in a low voice.
Mr. Dry stopped in his proceedings and evidently trembled. Theiragitation gave courage to the painter, and creeping on so as to bringhimself nearly on a line with them, he ventured to utter a low groan.Both the culprits started, and gazed around with hair standing on endand teeth chattering.
"Now's the time!" thought Falgate, and taking two steps farthertowards the end of the lane formed by the coffins and the wall, heuttered another groan, followed by a shrill unearthly shriek, and thenstarted up to his full height, as if he were rising from the midst ofthe pile of mortal dust upon his right. The rays fell straight uponthe white garments and the face of this unexpected apparition, paleand worn as he was by fatigue and fear. Struck with terror andconsternation, the limbs of the two men at first refused to move; butwhen they saw this awful figure advancing straight towards them withanother hollow groan, they both darted away, the one crying--
"Through the church! through the church! It will catch you before youcan reach the other door!" and Mr. Dry followed at full speed towardsthe steps by which Falgate had descended.
Not liking to be left in the vault in the dark, the painter sprangafter them with another wild shriek. Fortune favoured him more thanskill; for, just as the foremost of the fugitives was mounting thesteps, Mr. Dry seized hold of his cloak to stay his trembling limbs;the other, who was the sexton, in the agony of his terror fancied theghost had caught him, dropped the lantern and rushed on, his companionclinging close to him. Falgate instantly picked up the light before itwas extinguished, and drew the shade over it; and almost at the samemoment he heard the door above banged to by those he was pursuing, anda bolt drawn; for they did not stay to inquire whether spiritualbeings are to be stopped by material substances or not.
The painter paused and listened; he heard quick steps beating thepavement above, and then a door opening. The next instant came a loudshout, and then the report of a pistol; then a shout again, then amomentary silence, and lastly the quick galloping of a horse.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Diggory: "they have cleared the way for me, andleft me master of the field of battle;" and he drew back the blindfrom the lantern and looked about him.