The Superstitious
Man's Story
'William, as you
may know, was a curious, silent man; you could feel when he came near 'ee; and if he was in the house or anywhere behind your back
without your seeing him, there seemed to be something clammy in the air, as if
a cellar door was opened close by your elbow. Well, one
Sunday, at a time that William was in very good health to all appearance, the
bell that was ringing for church went very heavy all of a sudden; the sexton,
who told me o't, said he'd not known the bell to go
so heavy in his hand for years and he feared it meant a death in the parish.
That was on the Sunday, as I say. During the week
after, it chanced that William's wife was staying up late one night to finish
her ironing, she doing the washing for Mr. and Mrs. Hardcome.
Her husband had finished his supper and gone to bed as usual some hour or two
before. While she ironed she heard him coming down stairs; he stopped to put on
his boots at the stair-foot, where he always left them, and then came on into
the living-room where she was ironing, passing through it towards the door,
this being the only way from the staircase to the outside of the house. No word
was said on either side, William not being a man given to
much speaking, and his wife being occupied with her work. He went out and
closed the door behind him. As her husband had now and then gone out in this
way at night before when unwell, or unable to sleep for want of a pipe, she
took no particular notice, and continued at her ironing. This she finished
shortly after, and as he had not come in she waited awhile for him putting away
the irons and things, and preparing the table for his breakfast in the morning.
Still he did not return, and supposing him not far off, and wanting to get to
bed herself, tired as she was, she left the door unbarred and went to the
stairs, after writing on the back of the door with chalk: Mind and do the door
(because he was a forgetful man).
'To her great
surprise, and I might say alarm, on reaching the foot of the stairs his boots
were standing there as they always stood when he had gone to rest; going up to
their chamber she found him in bed sleeping as sound as a rock. How he could
have got back again without her seeing or hearing him was beyond her
comprehension. It could only have been bypassing behind her very quietly while
she was bumping with the iron. But this notion did not
satisfy her: it was surely impossible that she should not have seen him come in
through a room so small. She could not unravel the mystery, and felt very queer
and uncomfortable about it. However, she would not disturb him to question him
then, and went to bed herself.
'He rose and left
for his work very early the next morning, before she was awake, and she waited
his return to breakfast with much anxiety for an explanation, for thinking over
the matter by daylight made it seem only the more startling. When he came in to
the meal he said, before she could put her question, "What's the meaning
of them words chalked on the door?"
'She told him, and
asked him about his going out the night before. William declared that he had
never left the bedroom after entering it, having in fact undressed, lain down,
and fallen asleep directly, never once waking till the clock struck five, and
he rose up to go to his labour.
'Betty Privett was as certain in her own mind that he did go out
as she was of her own existence, and was little less certain that he did not
return. She felt too disturbed to argue with him, and let the subject drop as
though she must have been mistaken. When she was walking down
'
"Yes, Mrs. Privett," says
'
"Did ye?" says Mrs. Privett. "Old Midsummer yesterday was it? Faith I didn't think whe'r 'twas Midsummer
or Michaelmas; I'd too much work to do. "
'
"Yes. And
we were frightened enough, I can tell 'ee, by what we
saw."
'
"What did ye see?"
'(You may not
remember, sir, having gone off to foreign parts so young, that on Midsummer
Night it is believed hereabout that the faint shapes of all the folk in the
parish who are going to be at death's door within the year can be seen entering
the church. Those who get over their illness come out
again after a while; those that are doomed to die do not return.)
'
"What did you see?" asked
William's wife.
'
"Well," says
'
"You saw my husband,"
says Betty Privett, in a quiet way.
'
"Well, since you put it
so," says
'
"
'
'Now on that very
day old Philip Hookhorn was down at Longpuddle Spring dipping up a pitcher of water; and as he
turned away, who should he see but William, looking very pale and odd. This surprised Philip Hookhorn very much,
for years before that time William's little son his only child had been
drowned in that spring while at play there, and this had so preyed upon
William's mind that he'd never been seen near the spring afterwards, and had
been known to go half a mile out of his way to avoid the place. On
inquiry, it was found that William in body could not have stood by the spring,
being in the mead two miles off ; and it also came out that the time at which
he was seen at the spring was the very time when he died.'
'A rather
melancholy story,' observed the emigrant, after a minute's silence.
'Yes, yes. Well,
we must take ups and downs together,' said the seedsman's
father.
'You
don't know, Mr. Lackland, I suppose, what a rum start
that was between Andrey Satchel and Jane Vallens and the pa'son and clerk
o' Scrimpton?' said the master-thatcher,
a man with a spark of subdued liveliness in his eye, who had hitherto kept his
attention mainly upon small objects a long way ahead, as he sat in front of the
van with his feet outside.
'Theirs was a queerer experience of a pa'son and
clerk than some folks get, and may cheer 'ee up a
little after this dampness thats been flung over yer soul.'
The returned one
replied that he knew nothing of the history, and should be happy to hear it,
quite recollecting the personality of the man Satchel.
'Ah no; this Andrey Satchel is the son of the Satchel that you knew;
this one has not been married more than two or three years, and 'twas at the
time o' the wedding that the accident happened that I could tell 'ee of, or anybody else here, for that matter.'
'No, no; you must
tell it, neighbour, if anybody,' said several; a
request in which Mr. Lackland joined, adding that the
Satchel family was one he had known well before leaving home.
'I'll just
mention, as you be a stranger,' whispered the carrier to Lackland,
'that Christopher's stories will bear pruning.'
The emigrant
nodded.
'Well, I can soon
tell it,' said the master-thatcher, schooling himself
to a tone of actuality. 'Though as it has more to do with the pa'son and clerk than with Andrey
himself, it ought to be told by a better churchman than I.'
Go to next story "Andrey Satchel and the Parson and the Clerk"