Among clumps of trees at the northern boundary of the demesne we lighted upon the little antique parish church. I was looking down upon it, from an eminence, and the park-wall interposed; but a little way down was a stile affording access to the road, and by this we approached the iron gate of the churchyard. I saw the church door open; the sexton was replacing his pick, shovel, and spade, with which he had just been digging a grave in the churchyard, in their little repository under the stone stair of the tower. He was a polite, shrewd little hunchback, who was very happy to show me over the church. Among the monuments was one that interested me; it was erected to commemorate the very Squire Bowes from whom my two old maids had inherited the house and estate of Barwyke. It spoke of him in terms of grandiloquent eulogy, and informed the Christian reader that he had died, in the bosom of the Church of England, at the age of seventy-one.
I read this inscription by the parting beams of the setting sun, which disappeared behind the horizon just as we passed out from under the porch.
“Twenty years since the Squire died,” said I, reflecting as I loitered still in the churchyard.
“Ay, sir; ‘twill be twenty year the ninth o’ last month.”
“And a very good old gentleman?”
“Goodnatured enough, and an easy gentleman he was, sir; I don’t think while he lived he ever hurt a fly,” acquiesced Tom Wyndsour. “It ain’t always easy sayin’ what’s in ‘em though, and what they may take or turn to afterwards; and some o’ them sort, I think, goes mad.”
“You don’t think he was out of his mind?” I asked.
“He? La! no; not he, sir; a bit lazy, mayhap, like other old fellows; but a knew devilish well what he was about.”
Tom Wyndsour’s account was a little enigmatical; but, like old Squire Bowes, I was “a bit lazy” that evening, and asked no more questions about him.
We got over the stile upon the narrow road that skirts the churchyard. It is overhung by elms more than a hundred years old, and in the twilight, which now prevailed, was growing very dark. As side-by-side we walked along this road, hemmed in by two loose stone-like walls, something running towards us in a zig-zag line passed us at a wild pace, with a sound like a frightened laugh or a shudder, and I saw, as it passed, that it was a human figure. I may confess now, that I was a little startled. The dress of this figure was, in part, white: I know I mistook it at first for a white horse coming down the road at a gallop. Tom Wyndsour turned about and looked after the retreating figure.
“He’ll be on his travels tonight,” he said, in a low tone. “Easy served with a bed, that lad be; six foot o’ dry peat or heath, or a nook in a dry ditch. That lad hasn’t slept once in a house this twenty year, and never will while grass grows.”
“Is he mad?” I asked.
“Something that way, sir; he’s an idiot, an awpy; we call him ‘Dickon the devil,’ because the devil’s almost the only word that’s ever in his mouth.”
It struck me that this idiot was in some way connected with the story of old Squire Bowes.
“Queer things are told of him, I dare say?” I suggested.
“More or less, sir; more or less. Queer stories, some.”
“Twenty years since he slept in a house? That’s about the time the Squire died,” I continued.
“So it will be, sir; and not very long after.”
“You must tell me all about that, Tom, tonight, when I can hear it comfortably, after supper.”
Tom did not seem to like my invitation; and looking straight before him as we trudged on, he said,
“You see, sir, the house has been quiet, and nout’s been troubling folk inside the walls or out, all round the woods of Barwyke, this ten year, or more; and my old woman, down there, is clear against talking about such matters, and thinks it best — and so do I — to let sleepin’ dogs be.”
He dropped his voice towards the close of the sentence, and nodded significantly.
We soon reached a point where he unlocked a wicket in the park wall, by which we entered the grounds of Barwyke once more.
The twilight deepening over the landscape, the huge and solemn trees, and the distant outline of the haunted house, exercised a sombre influence on me, which, together with the fatigue of a day of travel, and the brisk walk we had had, disinclined me to interrupt the silence in which my companion now indulged.
A certain air of comparative comfort, on our arrival, in great measure dissipated the gloom that was stealing over me. Although it was by no means a cold night, I was very glad to see some wood blazing in the grate; and a pair of candles aiding the light of the fire, made the room look cheerful. A small table, with a very white cloth, and preparations for supper, was also a very agreeable object.
I should have liked very well, under these influences, to have listened to Tom Wyndsour’s story; but after supper I grew too sleepy to attempt to lead him to the subject; and after yawning for a time, I found there was no use in contending against my drowsiness, so I betook myself to my bedroom, and by ten o’clock was fast asleep.
What interruption I experienced that night I shall tell you presently. It was not much, but it was very odd.
By next night I had completed my work at Barwyke. From early morning till then I was so incessantly occupied and hard-worked, that I had not time to think over the singular occurrence to which I have just referred. Behold me, however, at length once more seated at my little supper-table, having ended a comfortable meal. It had been a sultry day, and I had thrown one of the large windows up as high as it would go. I was sitting near it, with my brandy and water at my elbow, looking out into the dark. There was no moon, and the trees that are grouped about the house make the darkness round it supernaturally profound on such nights.
“Tom,” said I, so soon as the jug of hot punch I had supplied him with began to exercise its genial and communicative influence; “you must tell me who beside your wife and you and myself slept in the house last night.”
Tom, sitting near the door, set down his tumbler, and looked at me askance, while you might count seven, without speaking a word.
“Who else slept in the house?” he repeated, very deliberately. “Not a living soul, sir”; and he looked hard at me, still evidently expecting something more.
“That is very odd,” I said returning his stare, and feeling really a little odd. “You are sure you were not in my room last night?”
“Not till I came to call you, sir, this morning; I can make oath of that.”
“Well,” said I, “there was some one there, I can make oath of that. I was so tired I could not make up my mind to get up; but I was waked by a sound that I thought was some one flinging down the two tin boxes in which my papers were locked up violently on the floor. I heard a slow step on the ground, and there was light in the room, although I remembered having put out my candle. I thought it must have been you, who had come in for my clothes, and upset the boxes by accident. Whoever it was, he went out and the light with him. I was about to settle again, when, the curtain being a little open at the foot of the bed, I saw a light on the wall opposite; such as a candle from outside would cast if the door were very cautiously opening. I started up in the bed, drew the side curtain, and saw that the door was opening, and admitting light from outside. It is close, you know, to the head of the bed. A hand was holding on the edge of the door and pushing it open; not a bit like yours; a very singular hand. Let me look at yours.”
He extended it for my inspection.
“Oh no; there’s nothing wrong with your hand. This was differently shaped; fatter; and the middle finger was stunted, and shorter than the rest, looking as if it had once been broken, and the nail was crooked like a claw. I called out ‘Who’s there?’ and the light and the hand were withdrawn, and I saw and heard no more of my visitor.”
“So sure as you’re a living man, that was him!” exclaimed Tom Wyndsour, his very nose growing pale, and his eyes almost starting out of his head.
“Who?” I asked.
/> “Old Squire Bowes; ’twas his hand you saw; the Lord a’ mercy on us!” answered Tom. “The broken finger, and the nail bent like a hoop. Well for you, sir, he didn’t come back when you called, that time. You came here about them Miss Dymock’s business, and he never meant they should have a foot o’ ground in Barwyke; and he was making a will to give it away quite different, when death took him short. He never was uncivil to no one; but he couldn’t abide them ladies. My mind misgave me when I heard ’twas about their business you were coming; and now you see how it is; he’ll be at his old tricks again!”
With some pressure and a little more punch, I induced Tom Wyndsour to explain his mysterious allusions by recounting the occurrences which followed the old Squire’s death.
“Squire Bowes of Barwyke died without making a will, as you know,” said Tom. “And all the folk round were sorry; that is to say, sir, as sorry as folk will be for an old man that has seen a long tale of years, and has no right to grumble that death has knocked an hour too soon at his door. The Squire was well liked; he was never in a passion, or said a hard word; and he would not hurt a fly; and that made what happened after his decease the more surprising.
“The first thing these ladies did, when they got the property, was to buy stock for the park.
“It was not wise, in any case, to graze the land on their own account. But they little knew all they had to contend with.
“Before long something went wrong with the cattle; first one, and then another, took sick and died, and so on, till the loss began to grow heavy. Then, queer stories, little by little, began to be told. It was said, first by one, then by another, that Squire Bowes was seen, about evening time, walking, just as he used to do when he was alive, among the old trees, leaning on his stick; and, sometimes when he came up with the cattle, he would stop and lay his hand kindly like on the back of one of them; and that one was sure to fall sick next day, and die soon after.
“No one ever met him in the park, or in the woods, or ever saw him, except a good distance off. But they knew his gait and his figure well, and the clothes he used to wear; and they could tell the beast he laid his hand on by its colour — white, dun, or black; and that beast was sure to sicken and die. The neighbours grew shy of taking the path over the park; and no one liked to walk in the woods, or come inside the bounds of Barwyke: and the cattle went on sickening and dying as before.
“At that time there was one Thomas Pyke; he had been a groom to the old Squire; and he was in care of the place, and was the only one that used to sleep in the house.
“Tom was vexed, hearing these stories; which he did not believe the half on ‘em; and more especial as he could not get man or boy to herd the cattle; all being afeared. So he wrote to Matlock in Derbyshire, for his brother, Richard Pyke, a clever lad, and one that knew nout o’ the story of the old Squire walking.
“Dick came; and the cattle was better; folk said they could still see the old Squire, sometimes, walking, as before, in openings of the wood, with his stick in his hand; but he was shy of coming nigh the cattle, whatever his reason might be, since Dickon Pyke came; and he used to stand a long bit off, looking at them, with no more stir in him than a trunk o’ one of the old trees, for an hour at a time, till the shape melted away, little by little, like the smoke of a fire that burns out.
“Tom Pyke and his brother Dickon, being the only living souls in the house, lay in the big bed in the servants’ room, the house being fast barred and locked, one night in November.
“Tom was lying next the wall, and he told me, as wide awake as ever he was at noonday. His brother Dickon lay outside, and was sound asleep.
“Well, as Tom lay thinking, with his eyes turned toward the door, it opens slowly, and who should come in but old Squire Bowes, his face lookin’ as dead as he was in his coffin.
“Tom’s very breath left his body; he could not take his eyes off him; and he felt the hair rising up on his head.
“The Squire came to the side of the bed, and put his arms under Dickon, and lifted the boy — in a dead sleep all the time — and carried him out so, at the door.
“Such was the appearance, to Tom Pyke’s eyes, and he was ready to swear to it, anywhere.
“When this happened, the light, wherever it came from, all on a sudden went out, and Tom could not see his own hand before him.
“More dead than alive, he lay till daylight.
“Sure enough his brother Dickon was gone. No sign of him could he discover about the house; and with some trouble he got a couple of the neighbours to help him to search the woods and grounds. Not a sign of him anywhere.
“At last one of them thought of the island in the lake; the little boat was moored to the old post at the water’s edge. In they got, though with small hope of finding him there. Find him, nevertheless, they did, sitting under the big ash tree, quite out of his wits; and to all their questions he answered nothing but one cry— ‘Bowes, the devil! See him; see him; Bowes, the devil!’ An idiot they found him; and so he will be till God sets all things right. No one could ever get him to sleep under roof-tree more. He wanders from house to house while daylight lasts; and no one cares to lock the harmless creature in the workhouse. And folk would rather not meet him after nightfall, for they think where he is there may be worse things near.”
A silence followed Tom’s story. He and I were alone in that large room; I was sitting near the open window, looking into the dark night air. I fancied I saw something white move across it; and I heard a sound like low talking that swelled into a discordant shriek— “Hoo-oo-oo! Bowes, the devil! Over your shoulder. Hoo-oo-oo! ha! ha! ha!” I started up, and saw, by the light of the candle with which Tom strode to the window, the wild eyes and blighted face of the idiot, as, with a sudden change of mood, he drew off, whispering and tittering to himself, and holding up his long fingers, and looking at the tips like a “hand of glory.”
Tom pulled down the window. The story and its epilogue were over. I confess I was rather glad when I heard the sound of the horses’ hoofs on the courtyard, a few minutes later; and still gladder when, having bidden Tom a kind farewell, I had left the neglected house of Barwyke a mile behind me.
CHRONICLES OF GOLDEN FRIAR
S
Published in three volumes by Richard Bentley in 1871, this rare collection of stories is set in the imaginary English village of Golden Friars. Although the collection contains only three long tales, ‘A Strange Adventure in the Life of Miss Laura Mildmay’ incorporates a shorter tale, ‘Madam Crowl’s Ghost’, which was first published anonymously on its own in 1870 in the journal All the Year Round.
The original publishing agreement for the collection
CONTENTS
A STRANGE ADVENTURE IN THE LIFE OF MISS LAURA MILDMAY
THE HAUNTED BARONET
THE BIRD OF PASSAGE: A STORY OF A FIRST LOVE.
The rare first edition of the collection
A STRANGE ADVENTURE IN THE LIFE OF MISS LAURA MILDMAY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER I.
NEWS FROM HILERIA PULLEN.
OUTSIDE, the moon is shining over a solemn winter landscape. Towering mountains, with their bases so near the foreground that you can see the rude fences and solitary trees that mark them, rise wilder and bolder into snowy altitudes, above which, in the deep blue of night, the stars are tw
inkling frostily. Dropped here suddenly, you might think yourself in a Swiss valley. But the character of the little village that stands by the margin of the lake, though in some respects singular, and altogether quaint, is decidedly English.
This scene lies in the North of England. The village is called Golden Friars; and the grey stone house, with the piers, and the shadow of the sombre elms, that stands within a stone’s throw of the village churchyard, is the vicar’s ancient dwelling.
In wintry weather — in the long nights — every room looks cheery that glows with a mixture of firelight and candles. The curtains were drawn on the narrow windows; and the flicker of that warm light showed very pleasantly on walls varied with press and cupboard, and with some oldfashioned bookshelves, well stored with volumes, and visited the portrait of the vicar’s grandfather, who, having been a doctor of laws near a hundred years ago at Oxford, was taken in his red hood, which glowed grandly out from the shadow, and helped to light up the homely chamber.
The Vicar of Golden Friars was a natty man, and the soul of punctuality. His sermons were all written on Thursday afternoon for delivery from the pulpit on the Sunday following. He had just completed one. The last page was open on the table; the light of the candle was glittering from the still wet ink.
The vicar, as he leaned back in his chair with his fingers interlaced, and the tips of his thumbs together, looked down, sidelong, on his performance with an air of complacency-not quite a smile, but very near it. The Reverend Hugh Jenner was, I must confess, conceited of his sermons. As he looked, the horn of the mail-coach, driving through the High Street, sounded clear in the frosty air, as it were, a little flourish of triumph not inappropriate.
His good wife was working at her broderie anglaise, at the other side of the fire. She was absorbed apparently in it, really in a rumination; and, as people will under the circumstances, she gazed upon her work with dull and gloating eyes, and lips pursed, and forgot next Sunday’s sermon, the husband of her bosom, and the little dog that slept in a basket on a cushion at her feet.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 738