‘Mr Wolstenholme, sir, is the Lord of the Manor,’ said a soft, obsequious voice.
I turned, and found the speaker at my elbow, a square-built, sallow man, all in black, with a bundle of copy-books under his arm.
‘You are the—the schoolmaster? I said; unable to remember his name, and puzzled by a vague recollection of his face.
‘Just so, sir. I conclude I have the honour of addressing Mr Frazer?’
It was a singular face, very pallid and anxious-looking. The eyes, too, had a watchful, almost startled, look in them, which struck me as peculiarly unpleasant.
‘Yes,’ I replied, still wondering where and when I had seen him. ‘My name is Frazer. Yours, I believe, is—is——’ and I put my hand into my pocket for my examination papers.
‘Skelton—Ebenezer Skelton. Will you please to take the boys first, sir?’
The words were commonplace enough, but the man’s manner was studiously, disagreeably deferential; his very name being given, as it were, under protest, as if too insignificant to be mentioned.
I said I would begin with the boys; and so moved on. Then, for we had stood still till now, I saw that the schoolmaster was lame. In that moment I remembered him. He was the man I met in the fog.
‘I met you yesterday afternoon, Mr Skelton,’ I said, as we went into the school-room.
‘Yesterday afternoon, sir?’ he repeated.
‘You did not seem to observe me,’ I said, carelessly. ‘I spoke to you, in fact; but you did not reply to me.’
‘But—indeed, I beg your pardon, sir—it must have been someone else,’ said the schoolmaster. ‘I did not go out yesterday afternoon.’
How could this be anything but a falsehood? I might have been mistaken as to the man’s face; though it was such a singular face, and I had seen it quite plainly. But how could I be mistaken as to his lameness? Besides, that curious trailing of the right foot, as if the ankle was broken, was not an ordinary lameness.
I suppose I looked incredulous, for he added, hastily:
‘Even if I had not been preparing the boys for inspection, sir, I should not have gone out yesterday afternoon. It was too damp and foggy. I am obliged to be careful—I have a very delicate chest.’
My dislike to the man increased with every word he uttered. I did not ask myself with what motive he went on heaping lie upon lie; it was enough that, to serve his own ends, whatever those ends might be, he did lie with unparalleled audacity.
‘We will proceed to the examination, Mr Skelton,’ I said, contemptuously.
He turned, if possible, a shade paler than before, bent his head silently, and called up the scholars in their order.
I soon found that, whatever his shortcomings as to veracity, Mr Ebenezer Skelton was a capital schoolmaster. His boys were uncommonly well taught, and as regarded attendance, good conduct, and the like, left nothing to be desired. When, therefore, at the end of the examination, he said he hoped I would recommend the Pit End Boys’ School for the Government grant, I at once assented. And now I thought I had done with Mr Skelton for, at all events, the space of one year. Not so, however. When I came out from the Girls’ School, I found him waiting at the door.
Profusely apologising, he begged leave to occupy five minutes of my valuable time. He wished, under correction, to suggest a little improvement. The boys, he said, were allowed to play in the quadrangle, which was too small, and in various ways inconvenient; but round at the back there was a piece of waste land, half an acre of which, if enclosed, would admirably answer the purpose. So saying, he led the way to the back of the building, and I followed him.
‘To whom does this ground belong?’ I asked.
‘To Mr Wolstenholme, sir.’
‘Then why not apply to Mr Wolstenholme? He gave the schools, and I dare say he would be equally willing to give the ground.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir. Mr Wolstenholme has not been over here since his return, and it is quite possible that he may leave Pit End without honouring us with a visit. I could not take the liberty of writing to him, sir.’
‘Neither could I in my report suggest that the Government should offer to purchase a portion of Mr Wolstenholme’s land for a playground to schools of Mr Wolstenholme’s own building,’ I replied. ‘Under other circumstances . . .’
I stopped and looked round.
The schoolmaster repeated my last words.
‘You were saying, sir—under other circumstances?——’
I looked round again.
‘It seemed to me that there was someone here,’ I said; ‘some third person, not a moment ago.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir—a third person?’
‘I saw his shadow on the ground, between yours and mine.’
The schools faced due north, and we were standing immediately behind the buildings, with our backs to the sun. The place was bare, and open, and high; and our shadows, sharply defined, lay stretched before our feet.
‘A—a shadow?’ he faltered. ‘Impossible.’
There was not a bush or a tree within half a mile. There was not a cloud in the sky. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that could have cast a shadow.
I admitted that it was impossible, and that I must have fancied it; and so went back to the matter of the playground.
‘Should you see Mr Wolstenholme,’ I said, ‘you are at liberty to say that I thought it a desirable improvement.’
‘I am much obliged to you, sir. Thank you—thank you very much,’ he said, cringing at every word. ‘But—but I had hoped that you might perhaps use your influence——’
‘Look there!’ I interrupted. ‘Is that fancy?’
We were now close under the blank wall of the boys’ schoolroom. On this wall, lying to the full sunlight, our shadows—mine and the schoolmaster’s—were projected. And there, too—no longer between his and mine, but a little way apart, as if the intruder were standing back—there, as sharply defined as if cast by lime-light on a prepared background, I again distinctly saw, though but for a moment, that third shadow. As I spoke, as I looked round, it was gone!
‘Did you not see it?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘I—I saw nothing,’ he said, faintly. ‘What was it?’
His lips were white. He seemed scarcely able to stand.
‘But you must have seen it!’ I exclaimed. ‘It fell just there—where that bit of ivy grows. There must be some boy hiding—it was a boy’s shadow, I am confident.’
‘A boy’s shadow!’ he echoed, looking round in a wild, frightened way. ‘There is no place—for a boy—to hide.’
‘Place or no place,’ I said, angrily, ‘if I catch him, he shall feel the weight of my cane!’
I searched backwards and forwards in every direction, the schoolmaster, with his scared face, limping at my heels; but, rough and irregular as the ground was, there was not a hole in it big enough to shelter a rabbit.
‘But what was it?’ I said, impatiently.
‘An—an illusion. Begging your pardon, sir—an illusion.’
He looked so like a beaten hound, so frightened, so fawning, that I felt I could with lively satisfaction have transferred the threatened caning to his own shoulders.
‘But you saw it?’ I said again.
‘No, sir. Upon my honour, no, sir. I saw nothing—nothing whatever.’
His looks belied his words. I felt positive that he had not only seen the shadow, but that he knew more about it than he chose to tell. I was by this time really angry. To be made the object of a boyish trick, and to be hoodwinked by the connivance of the schoolmaster, was too much. It was an insult to myself and my office.
I scarcely knew what I said; something short and stern at all events. Then, having said it, I turned my back upon Mr Skelton and the schools, and walked rapidly back to the village.
As I neared the bottom of the hill, a dog cart drawn by a high-stepping chestnut dashed up to the door of The Greyhound, and the next moment I was shaking hands w
ith Wolstenholme, of Balliol. Wolstenholme, of Balliol, as handsome as ever, dressed with the same careless dandyism, looking not a day older than when I last saw him at Oxford! He gripped me by both hands, vowed that I was his guest for the next three days, and insisted on carrying me off at once to Blackwater Chase. In vain I urged that I had two schools to inspect tomorrow ten miles the other side of Drumley; that I had a horse and trap waiting; and that my room was ordered at The Feathers. Wolstenholme laughed away my objections.
‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘you will simply send your horse and trap back with a message to The Feathers, and a couple of telegrams to be dispatched to the two schools from Drumley station. Unforeseen circumstances compel you to defer those inspections till next week!’
And with this, in his masterful way, he shouted to the landlord to send my portmanteau up to the manor-house, pushed me up before him into the dog cart, gave the chestnut his head, and rattled me off to Blackwater Chase.
It was a gloomy old barrack of a place, standing high in the midst of a sombre deer-park some six or seven miles in circumference. An avenue of oaks, now leafless, led up to the house; and a mournful heron-haunted tarn in the loneliest part of the park gave to the estate its name of Blackwater Chase. The place, in fact, was more like a border fastness than an English north-country mansion. Wolstenholme took me through the picture gallery and reception rooms after luncheon, and then for a canter round the park; and in the evening we dined at the upper end of a great oak hall hung with antlers, and armour, and antiquated weapons of warfare and sport.
‘Now, tomorrow,’ said my host, as we sat over our claret in front of a blazing log-fire; ‘tomorrow, if we have decent weather, you shall have a day’s shooting on the moors; and on Friday, if you will but be persuaded to stay a day longer, I will drive you over to Broomhead and give you a run with the Duke’s hounds. Not hunt? My dear fellow, what nonsense! All our parsons hunt in this part of the world. By the way, have you ever been down a coal pit? No? Then a new experience awaits you. I’ll take you down Carshalton shaft, and show you the home of the gnomes and trolls.’
‘Is Carshalton one of your own mines?’ I asked.
‘All these pits are mine,’ he replied. ‘I am king of Hades, and rule the under world as well as the upper. There is coal everywhere underlying these moors. The whole place is honeycombed with shafts and galleries. One of our richest seams runs under this house, and there are upwards of forty men at work in it a quarter of a mile below our feet here every day. Another leads right away under the park, heaven only knows how far! My father began working it five-and-twenty years ago, and we have gone on working it ever since; yet it shows no sign of failing.’
‘You must be as rich as a prince with a fairy godmother!’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Well,’ he said, lightly, ‘I am rich enough to commit what follies I please; and that is saying a good deal. But then, to be always squandering money—always rambling about the world—always gratifying the impulse of the moment—is that happiness? I have been trying the experiment for the last ten years; and with what result? Would you like to see?’
He snatched up a lamp and led the way through a long suite of unfurnished rooms, the floors of which were piled high with packing cases of all sizes and shapes, labelled with the names of various foreign ports and the addresses of foreign agents innumerable. What did they contain? Precious marbles from Italy and Greece and Asia Minor; priceless paintings by old and modern masters; antiquities from the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates; enamels from Persia, porcelain from China, bronzes from Japan, strange sculptures from Peru; arms, mosaics, ivories, wood-carvings, skins, tapestries, old Italian cabinets, painted bride-chests, Etruscan terracottas; treasures of all countries, of all ages, never even unpacked since they crossed that threshold which the master’s foot had crossed but twice during the ten years it had taken to buy them! Should he ever open them, ever arrange them, ever enjoy them? Perhaps—if he became weary of wandering—if he married—if he built a gallery to receive them. If not—well, he might found and endow a museum; or leave the things to the nation. What did it matter? Collecting was like fox-hunting; the pleasure was in the pursuit, and ended with it!
We sat up late that first night, I can hardly say conversing, for Wolstenholme did the talking, while I, willing to be amused, led him on to tell me something of his wanderings by land and sea. So the time passed in stories of adventure, of perilous peaks ascended, of deserts traversed, of unknown ruins explored, of ‘hairbreadth ’scapes’ from icebergs and earthquakes and storms; and when at last he flung the end of his cigar into the fire and discovered that it was time to go to bed, the clock on the mantel-shelf pointed far on among the small hours of the morning.
Next day, according to the programme made out for my entertainment, we did some seven hours’ partridge-shooting on the moors; and the day next following I was to go down Carshalton shaft before breakfast, and after breakfast ride over to a place some fifteen miles distant called Picts’ Camp, there to see a stone circle and the ruins of a prehistoric fort.
Unused to field sports, I slept heavily after those seven hours with the guns, and was slow to wake when Wolstenholme’s valet came next morning to my bedside with the waterproof suit in which I was to effect my descent into Hades.
‘Mr Wolstenholme says, sir, that you had better not take your bath till you come back,’ said this gentlemanly vassal, disposing the ungainly garments across the back of a chair as artistically as if he were laying out my best evening suit. ‘And you will be pleased to dress warmly underneath the waterproofs, for it is very chilly in the mine.’
I surveyed the garments with reluctance. The morning was frosty, and the prospect of being lowered into the bowels of the earth, cold, fasting, and unwashed, was anything but attractive. Should I send word that I would rather not go? I hesitated; but while I was hesitating, the gentlemanly valet vanished, and my opportunity was lost. Grumbling and shivering, I got up, donned the cold and shiny suit, and went downstairs.
A murmur of voices met my ear as I drew near the breakfast-room. Going in, I found some ten or a dozen stalwart colliers grouped near the door, and Wolstenholme, looking somewhat serious, standing with his back to the fire.
‘Look here, Frazer,’ he said, with a short laugh, ‘here’s a pleasant piece of news. A fissure has opened in the bed of Blackwater tarn; the lake has disappeared in the night; and the mine is flooded! No Carshalton shaft for you today!’
‘Seven foot o’ wayter in Jukes’s seam, an’ eight in th’ owd north and south galleries,’ growled a huge red-headed fellow, who seemed to be the spokesman.
‘An’ it’s the Lord’s own mercy a’ happened o’ noight-time, or we’d be dead men all,’ added another.
‘That’s true, my man,’ said Wolstenholme, answering the last speaker. ‘It might have drowned you like rats in a trap; so we may thank our stars it’s no worse. And now, to work with the pumps! Lucky for us that we know what to do, and how to do it.’
So saying, he dismissed the men with a good-humoured nod, and an order for unlimited ale.
I listened in blank amazement. The tarn vanished! I could not believe it. Wolstenholme assured me, however, that it was by no means a solitary phenomenon. Rivers had been known to disappear before now, in mining districts; and sometimes, instead of merely cracking, the ground would cave in, burying not merely houses, but whole hamlets in one common ruin. The foundations of such houses were, however, generally known to be insecure long enough before the crash came; and these accidents were not therefore often followed by loss of life.
‘And now,’ he said, lightly, ‘you may doff your fancy costume; for I shall have time this morning for nothing but business. It is not every day that one loses a lake, and has to pump it up again!’
Breakfast over, we went round to the mouth of the pit, and saw the men fixing the pumps. Later on, when the work was fairly in train, we started off across the park to view the scene of
the catastrophe. Our way lay far from the house across a wooded upland, beyond which we followed a broad glade leading to the tarn. Just as we entered this glade—Wolstenholme rattling on and turning the whole affair into jest—a tall, slender lad, with a fishing-rod across his shoulder, came out from one of the side paths to the right, crossed the open at a long slant, and disappeared among the tree-trunks on the opposite side. I recognised him instantly. It was the boy whom I saw the other day, just after meeting the schoolmaster in the meadow.
‘If that boy thinks he is going to fish in your tarn,’ I said, ‘he will find out his mistake.’
‘What boy?’ asked Wolstenholme, looking back.
‘That boy who crossed over yonder, a minute ago.’
‘Yonder!—in front of us?’
‘Certainly. You must have seen him?’
‘Not I.’
‘You did not see him?—a tall, thin boy, in a grey suit, with a fishing-rod over his shoulder. He disappeared behind those Scotch firs.’
Wolstenholme looked at me with surprise.
‘You are dreaming!’ he said. ‘No living thing—not even a rabbit—has crossed our path since we entered the park gates.’
‘I am not in the habit of dreaming with my eyes open,’ I replied, quickly.
He laughed, and put his arm through mine.
‘Eyes or no eyes,’ he said, ‘you are under an illusion this time!’
THE PHANTOM COACH: Collected Ghost Stories Page 40
