by Ellen Wood
“Carry the match afore me, Davvy. These blankets must go upstairs.”
By some oversight no candles had been taken to the house; only the box of matches. David lighted one match after the other, while Hill arranged the blankets on the mattress for sleeping. This room — the one with the skylight — was to be David’s.
“There,” said Hill, taking the box of matches from him, “you’ll be comfortable here till morning. If you find it cold, you might keep on your trousers.”
David Garth stood speechless, a look of horror struggling to his face. In that first moment he dared not remonstrate; his awe of Hill was too great.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Hill, striking another match. “What ails you?”
“You’ll not leave me here, all by myself?” whispered the unhappy boy, in desperate courage.
“Not leave you here by yourself! Why, what d’ye think is to harm you? Don’t you try on your nonsense and your games with me, Master Davvy. I’m not soft, like your mother. Say your prayers and get to sleep, and I’ll come and let you out in the morning.”
By a dexterous movement, Hill got outside, and closed the door softly, slipping the bolt. The match in his fingers was nearly burnt out; nevertheless, it had shown a last faint vision of a boy kneeling in supplication, his hands held up, his face one of piteous agony. As Hill struck another match to light the staircase, a wailing cry mingled with the sound: entreaties to be let out; prayers not to be left alone; low moans, telling of awful terror.
“Drat the boy! This comes of his mother’s coddling. Hold your row, Davvy,” he roared out, wrathfully: “you’d not like me to come back and give you a basting.”
And Mr. James Hill, picking his way over the bundles, locked the outer door, and betook himself home. That was our respectable bailiff. What do you think of him?
“Did you leave Davy comfortable?” asked Mrs. Hill, when he got back.
“He’ll be comfortable enough when he’s asleep,” shortly answered Hill. “Of all hardened, ungrateful boys, that of yourn’s the worst.”
“Had Luke come when you got there?” she resumed, passing over the aspersion on Davy.
“He was waiting: he came right out upon us like an apparition,” was Hill’s evasive answer. And he did not tell the rest.
But now, a singular thing happened that night. Mrs. Hill was in a sound sleep, when a loud, agonized cry of “Mother” aroused her from it. She started up, wide awake instantly, and in terror so great that the perspiration began to pour off her face. In that moment the call was repeated. The voice was David’s voice; it had appeared to be in the room, close to her, and she peered into every corner in vain. Then she supposed it must have come through the window; that David, from some cause or other, had come home from Willow Brook, and was waiting to be let in. A dread crossed her of Hill’s anger, and she felt inclined to order the boy to go back again.
Opening the casement window, she called to him by name; softly at first, then louder. There was no answer. Mrs. Hill stretched out her head as far as the narrow casement allowed, but neither David nor anyone else could she see; nothing but the shadows cast by the moonlight. Just then the old church clock struck out. She counted the strokes and found it twelve. Midnight. It was bitterly cold: she closed the window at last, concluding David had gone off from fear of being punished. All she could hope was that he would have the sense, that dangerously keen night, to run off to the brick kilns, and get warm there.
But the terror lay upon her yet; she was unable to tell why or wherefore; unless from the strangely appealing agony of the cry; still less could she shake it off. It seemed odd. Hill awoke with the commotion, and found her trembling.
“What have ye got to be affrighted on?” he asked roughly, when she had told her tale. And Mrs. Hill was puzzled to say what.
“You had been a-dreaming of him, that’s what it was. You’ve got nothing else in your mind, day nor night, but that there boy.”
“It was not a dream; I am quite positive it was himself; I could not mistake his voice,” persisted Mrs. Hill. “He has come away from the cottage, for sure. Perhaps that Luke Macintosh might have got teasing him.”
Knowing what Hill knew, that the boy was locked in, he might safely have stood out that he could not have come away from it; but he said no more. Rolling himself round, he prepared to go to sleep again, resentful at having been awakened.
Hill overslept himself in the morning, possibly through the interrupted rest. When he went out it was broad daylight. David Garth’s being locked up half-an-hour more or less went for nothing with Hill, and he stayed to load the truck with some of the remainder of his goods.
“Send Davy home at once, James,” called out the wife, as he began to wheel it away. “I’ll give him his breakfast, and let him start off to the train.”
For, with daylight, and the sight of the door-key, Mrs. Hill could only reverse her opinion, and conclude unwillingly that it might have been a dream. Hill showed her the key, telling her that he had locked the door “for safety.” Therefore it appeared to be impossible that David could have got out.
The first thing Hill saw when he and his truck approached the cottage, was young Jim Batley, mounted on the roof and hammering away at the skylight with his freezing hands. Jim, a regular sailor for climbing, had climbed a tree, and thence swung himself on to the tiles. Hill treated him to some hard words, and ordered him to come down and get a licking. Down came Jim, taking care to dodge out of Hill’s reach.
“I can’t make David hear,” said Jim. “I’ve got to go to Timberdale, and I want him to go along with me.”
“That’s no reason why you should get atop of my roof,” roared Hill. “You look out for a sweet hiding, young Jim. The first time I get hold on you, you shall have it kindly.”
“He sleeps uncommon hard,” said Jim. “One ‘ud think the cold had froze him. I’ve got to take a letter to my uncle’s at Timberdale: we shall find a jolly good hot breakfast when we get there.”
Hill condescended to abate his anger so far as to inform Jim Batley that David could not go to Timberdale; adding that he was going off by train to see his grandmother at Worcester. Ordering Jim to take himself away, he unlocked the door and entered the cottage.
Jim Batley chose to stay. He was a tall, thin, obstinate fellow, of eleven, and meant to wait and speak to David. Given to following his own way whenever he could, in spite of his father and mother, it occurred to him that perhaps David might be persuaded to take Timberdale first and the train after.
He amused himself with the dead leaves while he waited. But it seemed that David took a long time dressing. The truck stood at the door; Jim stamped and whistled, and shied a few stones at the topmost article, which was Mrs. Hill’s potato saucepan. Presently Hill came out and began to unload, beginning with the saucepan.
“Where’s Davy?” demanded Jim, from a safe distance. “Ain’t he ready yet?”
“Now if you don’t get off about your business I’ll make you go,” was Hill’s answer, keeping his back turned to the boy. “You haven’t got nothing to stop here for.”
“I’m stopping to speak to Davy.”
“Davy was away out o’ here afore daylight and took the first train to Worcester. He’s a’most there by now.”
Young boys are not clever reasoners; but certain contradictory odds and ends passed through Jim’s disappointed mind. For one thing, he had seen Hill unlock the door.
“I don’t think he’s gone out yet. I see his boots.”
“What boots?” asked Hill, putting a bandbox inside the door.
“Davy’s. I see ’em through the skylight; they stood near the mattress.”
“Them was a pair of my boots as I carried here last night. I tell ye Davvy’s gone: can’t ye believe? He won’t be home for some days neither, for his grandmother’s safe to keep him.”
Jim Batley went off slowly on his way to Timberdale: there was nothing to stay for, Davy being gone. Happening to turn round,
he caught Hill looking after him, and saw his face for the first time. It had turned white as death. The contrast was very remarkable, for it was usually of a deep red.
“Well, I never!” cried Jim, halting in surprise. “Mayhap the cold have took him! Serve him right.”
When Hill had got all the things inside he locked himself in, probably not to be disturbed while he arranged them. Mrs. Hill had been waiting breakfast ever so long when she heard the truck coming back.
“Whatever’s become of David?” she began. “I expected him home at once.”
“David has started for Worcester,” said Hill.
“Started for Worcester? Without his breakfast?”
“Now don’t you worry yourself about petty things,” returned Hill, crustily. “You wanted him to go, and he’s gone. He won’t starve; let him alone for that.”
The notion assumed by Mrs. Hill was, that her husband had started the boy off from the cottage direct to the train. She felt thoroughly vexed.
“He had all his old clothes on, Hill. I would not have had him go to Worcester in that plight for any money. You might have let the child come home for a bit of breakfast — and to dress himself. There was not so much as a brush and comb at the place, to make his hair tidy.”
“There’s no pleasing you,” growled Hill. “Last night you were a’most crying, cause Davvy couldn’t be let go over to see your mother; and, now that he is gone, that don’t please ye! Women be the very deuce for grumbling.”
Mrs. Hill dropped the subject — there could be no remedy — and gave her husband his breakfast in silence. Hill seemed to eat nothing, and looked very pale; at moments ghastly.
“Don’t you feel well?” she asked.
“Well? — I’m well enough. What should ail me — barring the cold? It’s as sharp a frost as ever I was out in.”
“Drink this,” she said, pouring him out another cup of hot tea. “It is cold; and I’m sorry we’ve got it so for our moving. What time shall we get in to-day, Hill?”
“Not at all.”
“Not at all!” repeated the wife in surprise.
“No, not at all,” was Hill’s surly confirmation. “What with you disabled, and Davvy o’ no use, things is not as forrard as they ought to be. I’ve got to be off to my work too, pretty quick, or the Squire’ll be about me. We shan’t get in till to-morrow.”
“But nearly all our things are in,” she remonstrated. “There’s as good as nothing left here.”
“I tell ye we don’t go in afore to-morrow,” said Hill, giving the table a thump. “Can’t ye be satisfied with that?”
He went off to his work. Mrs. Hill, accepting the change as inevitable, resigned herself, and borrowed a saucepan to cook the potatoes for dinner. She might have spared herself the trouble; her husband did not come in for any. He bought a penny loaf and some cheese, and made his dinner of it inside our home barn, Molly giving him some beer. He had done it before when very busy: but the work he was about that day was in no such hurry, and he might have left it if he would.
“Who is to sleep in the house to-night?” his wife asked him when he got home to tea.
“I shall,” said Hill. “I won’t be beholden to nobody.”
Mrs. Hill, remembering the experience of the past night, quaked a little at finding she should have to sleep in the old place alone, devoutly praying there might be no recurrence of the dream that had thrown her into such mortal terror. She and Davy were just alike — frightened at their own shadows in the dark. When Hill was safe off, she hurried into bed, and kept her head under the clothes.
Hill came back betimes in the morning; and they moved in at once; old Coney’s groom, who happened to be out with the dog-cart, offering to drive Mrs. Hill. Though her ankle was better and the distance short, she could hardly have walked. Instead of finding the house in order, as she expected, it was all sixes and sevens; the things lying about all over it.
Towards evening, Hannah got me to call at Willow Brook and say she’d go there in the morning for an hour or two, to help put things in order — the mistress had said she might do so. The fact was, Hannah was burning for a gossip, she and Hill’s wife being choice friends. It was almost dark; the front room looked tolerably straight, and Mrs. Hill sat by the fire, resting her foot and looking out at the window, the shutters not yet closed.
“I’d be very thankful for her to come, Master Johnny,” she said eagerly, hardly letting me finish. “There’s a great deal to do; and, besides that, it is so lonesome here. I never had such a feeling in all my life; and I have gone into strange homes before this.”
“It does seem lonesome, somehow. The fancy may go off in a day or two.”
“I don’t know, sir: it’s to be hoped it will. Master Johnny, as true as that we are sitting here, when I got out of Mr. Coney’s dog-cart and put my foot over the threshold to enter, a fit of trembling took me all over. There was no cause for it: I mean I was not thinking of anything to give it me. Not a minute before, I was laughing; for the man had been telling me a joking story of something that happened yesterday at his master’s. A strange fear seemed to come upon me all at once as I stepped over the threshold, and I began to shake from head to foot. Hill stared at me, and at last asked if it was the cold; I told him truly that I did not know what it was; except that it seemed like some unaccountable attack, for I was well wrapped up. He had some brandy in a bottle, and made me drink a drop. The fit went off; but I have had a queer lonesome feeling on me ever since, as if the house was not one to be alone in.”
“And you have been alone, I suppose?”
“Every bit of the time, save when Hill came in to his dinner. I don’t remember ever to have had such a feeling before in broad daylight. It’s just as if the house was haunted.”
Not believing in haunted houses, I laughed. Mrs. Hill got up to stir the fire. It blazed, and cast her shadow upon the opposite wall.
“When dusk came on, I could hardly bear it. But for your coming in, Master Johnny, I should have stood at the door in the cold, and watched for Hill: things don’t feel so lonely to one out of doors as in.”
So it seemed that I was in for a stay — any way, till Hill arrived. After this, it would not have been very kind to leave her alone; she looked so weak and little.
“I’ve never liked the thought of moving here from the first,” she went on; “and then there came the accident to my foot. Some people think nothing at all of omens, Master Johnny, but I do think of them. They come oftener than is thought for too; only, so few take notice of them. I wish Davy was back! I can’t bear to be in this house alone.”
“David is at Worcester, I heard Hill say.”
“He went yesterday morning, sir. I expected a letter from him to-day; and it is very curious that none have come. Davy knew how anxious I was about mother; and he never fails to write when he’s away from me. Somehow, all things are going crooked and cross just now. I had a fright the night before last. Master Johnny, and I am hardly quit of it yet.”
“What was that?” I asked her.
She stared into the fire for a minute or two before she answered me. There was no other light in the room; I sat back against the wall beside the window — the shutters were still open.
“You might not care to hear it, sir.”
“I should if it’s worth telling.”
Turning from the fire, she looked straight at me while she told it from beginning to end, exactly as I have written it above. The tale would have been just the thing for Mrs. Todhetley: who went in for marvels.
“Hill stood to it that it was a dream, Master Johnny; but the more I think of it, the less I believe it could have been one. If I had only heard the call in my sleep, or in the moment of waking, why of course it might have been a dream; but when I heard it the second time it was after I awoke. I heard it as plain as I hear my own voice now; and plainer, too.”
“But what else, except a dream, do you fancy it could have been?”
“Well, sir, that’s w
hat is puzzling me. But for Hill’s convincing me Davy could not have got out of here after he had locked him and Macintosh in for safety, I should have said it was the boy himself, calling me from outside. It sounded in the room, close to me: but the fright I was in might have deceived me. What’s that?”
A loud rapping at the window. I am not ashamed to say that coming so unexpectedly it startled me. Mrs. Hill, with a shrill scream, darted forward to catch hold of my arm.
“Let me go. Some one wants to be let in. I dare say it’s Hill.”
“Master Johnny, I beg your pardon,” she said, going back. “Hill ought to know better than to come frightening me at night like this.”
I opened the door, and Miss Timmens walked in: not Hill. The knocking had not been intended to frighten any one, but as a greeting to Mrs. Hill — Miss Timmens having seen her through the glass.
“You know you always were one of the quaking ones, Nanny,” she said, scoffing at the alarm. “I have just got back from Worcester, and thought you’d like to hear that mother’s better.”
“And it is well you are back, Miss Timmens,” I put in. “The school has been in rebellion. Strangers, going by, have taken it for a bear garden.”
“That Maria Lease is just good for nothing,” said Miss Timmens, wrathfully. “When she offered to take my place I knew she’d not be of much use. Yes, sir; it was the thought of the school that brought me back so soon.”
“And mother is really better!” cried Mrs. Hill. “I am so thankful. If she had died and I not able to get over to her, I should never have forgiven myself. How is David?”
“Are you getting straight, Nancy?” asked Miss Timmens, looking round the room, and not noticing the question about David.
“Straight! and only moved in this morning! and me with this ankle!”
Miss Timmens laughed. She was just as capable as her sister was the contrary.
“About David?” added Mrs. Hill, “I was so vexed that he went over in his old clothes! It was Hill’s fault. Have you brought me a letter from him?”
