Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXVII

It was a dark, cold, cheerless night, though the season was summer, and the preceding week had been very warm--one of those nights when a cold cutting north-east wind has suddenly broken through the sweet dream of bright days, and checked the blood in the trees and plants, withering them with the presage of winter. From noon till eventide that wind had blown; and although it had died away towards night, it had left the sky dark and the air chilly. Not a star was to be seen in the expanse above; and, though the moon was up, yet the light she gave only served to show that heavy clouds were floating over the heavens, the rounded edges of the vapours becoming every now and then of a dim white, without the face of the bright orb ever being visible for a moment. A dull, damp moist hung about the ground, and there was a faint smell, not altogether unpleasant, but sickly and oppressive, rose up, resembling that which is given forth by some kinds of water-plants, and burdened the cold air.

In the little churchyard, at the back of Stephen Gimlet's cottage, there was a light burning, though ten o'clock had struck some quarter of an hour before; and an elderly man, dressed, notwithstanding the chilliness of the night, merely in a waistcoat with striped sleeves, might have been seen by that light, which was nested in a horse-lantern, and perched upon a fresh-turned heap of earth. His head and shoulders were above the ground, and part of his rounded back, with ever and anon the rise and fall of a heavy pickaxe, appeared amongst the nettles and long hemlocks which overrun the churchyard. His legs and feet were buried in a pit which he was digging, and busily the sexton laboured away to hollow out the grave, muttering to himself from time to time, and sometimes even singing at his gloomy work. He was an old man, but he had no one to help him, and in truth he needed it not, for he was hale and hearty, and he put such a good will to his task, that it went on rapidly. The digging of a grave was to him a sort of festival. He held brotherhood with the worm, and gladly prepared the board for his kindred's banquet.

The grave-digger had gone on for some time when, about the hour I have mentioned, some one paused at the side of the low mossy wall, about a hundred yards from the cottage of the new gamekeeper, and looked over towards the lantern. Whoever the visitor was, he seemed either to hesitate or to consider, for he remained with his arms leaning on the coping for full five minutes before he opened the little wooden-gate close by, and walking in, went up to the side of the grave. The sexton heard him well enough, but I never saw a sexton who was not a humorist, and he took not the least notice, working away as before.

"Why, what are you about, old gentleman?" said a man's voice, at length.

"Don't you see?" rejoined the sexton, looking up, "practising the oldest trade in the world but one--digging to be sure--aye, and grave-digging, too, which is a very ancient profession likewise, though when first it began men lived so long, the sextons must have been but poor craftsmen for want of practice."

"And whose grave is it you are digging?" asked the visitor. "I have been here some days, and have not heard of any deaths."

"One would think you were a doctor," answered the sexton, "for you seem to fancy that you must have a hand in every death in the parish--but you want to know whose grave it is--well, I can't tell you, for I don't know myself."

"But who ordered you to dig it then?" demanded the stranger.

"No one," said the sexton; "it will fit somebody, I warrant, and I shall get paid for it; and why should not I keep a ready made grave as a town cobbler keeps ready-made shoes? I am digging it out of my own fancy. There will be death somewhere before the week is out, I am sure; for I dreamed last night that I saw a wedding come to this church, and the bride and the bridegroom stepped on each of the grave hillocks as they walked--so there will be a death, that's certain, and may be two."

"And so you are digging the grave on speculation, old fellow?" exclaimed the other, "but I dare say you have a shrewd guess whom it is for. There is some poor fellow ill in the neighbourhood--or some woman in a bad way, ha?"

"It may be for the young man lying wounded up at Buxton's inn," answered the sexton; "they say he is better; but I should not wonder if it served his turn after all. But I don't know, there is never any telling who may go next. I've seen funny things in my day. Those who thought they had a long lease, find it was a short one: those who were wishing for other people's death, that they might get their money, die first themselves."

The sexton paused, and the stranger did not make any answer, looking gloomily down into the pit as if he did not much like the last reflections that rose up from the bottom of the grave.

"Aye, funny things enough I have seen," continued the sexton, after giving a stroke or two with his pickaxe; "but the funniest of all is, to see how folks take on at first for those who are gone, and how soon they get over it. Lord, what a lot of tears I have seen shed on this little bit of ground! and how soon they were dried up, like a shower in the sunshine. I recollect now there was a young lady sent down here for change of air by the London doctors, after they had poisoned her with their stuff, I dare say. A pretty creature she was as ever I set eyes on, and did not seem ill, only a bit of a cough. Her mother came with her, and then her lover, who was to be married to her when she got well. But at six months' end she died--there she lies, close on your left--and her lover, wasn't he terrible downcast? and he said to me when we had put her comfortably in the ground, 'I shan't be long after her, sexton; keep me that place beside her--there's a guinea for you.' He did not come back, however, for five years, and then I saw him one day go along the road in a chaise and four, with a fine lady by his side, as gay as a lark."

"Well, you would not have the man go on whimpering all his life?" said the other; "how old are you, sexton?"

"Sixty and eight last January," answered the other, "and I have dug these graves forty years come St. John."

"Have you many old men in the parish?" asked the stranger.

"The oldest is eighty-two," replied the sexton, "and she is a woman."

"Six from eighty-two," said the stranger in a contemplative tone, "that leaves seventy-six. That will do very well."

"Will it?" said the sexton, "well, you know best; but I should like to see a bit more of your face," and as he spoke, the old man suddenly raised his lantern towards the stranger, and then burst out into a laugh, "ay, I thought I knew the voice!" he said, "and so you've come back again, captain? Well now, this is droll enough! That bone you've got your foot upon belongs to your old wet-nurse, Sally Loames, if I know this ground; and she had as great a hand in damaging you as any of the rest. She was a bad one! But what has brought you down now that all the money's gone and the property too?"

"Why, I'll tell you," answered Captain Moreton, "I'll tell you, my good old Grindley. I want to see into the vault where the coffins are, and just to have a look at the register. Can't you help me? you used always to have the keys."

"No, no, captain," rejoined the sexton, shaking his head, "no tricks! no tricks! I'm not going to put my head into a noose for nothing."

"Nobody wants you to put your head in a noose, Grindley," answered the other, "all I want is just to take a look at the coffins for a minute, and another at the register, for I have had a hint that I have been terribly cheated, and that people have put my great-grandfather's death six years too early, which makes all the difference to me; for if my mother was born while he was living she could not break the entail, do you see?"

"Well, then," said the sexton, "you can come to-morrow, captain; and I'll tell the doctor any hour you like."

"That won't do, Grindley," replied Moreton, "the parson is with the enemy; and, besides, I must not let any body know that I have seen the register and the coffins till I have every thing prepared to upset their roguery. You would not have me lose my own, would you, old boy? Then as to your doing it for nothing, if you will swear not to tell that I have seen the things at all, till I am ready and give you leave, you shall have a ten-pound note."

It is a strange and terrible thing, that the value of that which has no value except as it affects us in this world and this life, increases enormously in our eyes as we are leaving it. The sexton had always been more or less a covetous man, as Captain Moreton well knew; but the passion had increased upon him with years, and the bait of the ten-pound note was not to be resisted. He took up the lantern, he got out of the grave, and looked carefully round. It was late at night--all was quiet--nothing seemed stirring; and approaching close to Moreton's side, he said in a whisper,

"No one knows that you were coming here, eh, captain?"

"Nobody in the world," replied the other, "I called at your house an hour ago, and the girl told me you were down here, but I said I would call on you again to-morrow."

"And you only want to look at the coffins and the book?" continued the sexton.

"Nothing else in the world," said Moreton, in an easy tone; "perhaps I may take a memorandum in my pocket-book, that's all."

"Well, then, give us the note and come along," replied the sexton, "there can be no harm in that."

Moreton slipped something into his hand, and they moved towards a little door in the side of the church, opposite to that on which stood the cottage of Stephen Gimlet. Here the sexton drew a large bunch of keys out of his pocket and opened the door, holding up the lantern to let his companion see the way in.

Moreton whistled a bit of an opera air, but the old man put his hand on his arm, saying in a low tone, "Hush! hush! what's the use of such noise?" and leading the way to the opposite comer, he chose one of the smallest of the keys on his bunch, and stooped down, kneeling on one knee by the side of a large stone in the pavement, marked with a cross and a star, and having a keyhole in it covered with a brass plate made to play in the stone. The old man put in the key and turned it, but when he attempted to lift the slab it resisted.

"There, you must get it up for yourself," he said, rising, "I can't; take hold of the key, and with your young arm you'll soon get it up, I dare say."

Moreton did as the other directed, and raised the slab without difficulty. When he had done, he quietly put the keys in his pocket, saying, "Give me the lantern!"

But Mr. Grindley did not like the keys being in Captain Moreton's pocket, and though he did not think it worth while to make a piece of work about it, yet he kept the lantern and went down first. A damp, close smell met them on the flight of narrow stone steps, which the old lords of the manor had built down into their place of long repose; and the air was so dark that it seemed as if the blackness of all the many long nights which had passed since the vault was last opened had accumulated and thickened there.

For some moments, the faint light of the lantern had no effect upon the solid gloom; but, as soon as it began to melt, the old man walked on, saying, "This way, captain. I think it used to stand hereabouts, upon the tressles to the right. That is your father's to the left, and then there's your mother's; and next there's your little sister, who died when she was a baby, all lying snug together. The Moretons, that is the old Moretons, are over here. Here's your grandfather--a jolly old dog, I recollect him well, with his large stomach and his purple face--and then his lady--I did not know her--and then two or three youngsters. You see, young and old, they all come here one time or another. This should be your great grandfather," and he held up the lantern to the top of one of the coffins. "No," he said, after a brief examination, "that is the colonel who was killed in '45. Why they put him here I don't know, for he died long before your great grandfather. But here the old gentleman is. He lived to a great age, I know."

"Let me see," said Captain Moreton; and approaching the side of the coffin he made the old man hold the lantern close to the plate upon the top. The greater part of the light was shed upon the coffin lid, though some rays stole upwards and cast a sickly glare upon the two faces that hung over the last resting-place of the old baronet. Captain Moreton put his hand in his pocket, at the same time pointing with the other to a brass plate, gilt, which bore a short inscription upon it, somewhat obscure from dust and verdigris.

"There! it is quite plain," he said, "1766!"

The old sexton had been fumbling for a pair of spectacles, and now he mounted them on his nose and looked closer, saying, "No, captain, 1760."

"Nonsense!" said the other, sharply, "it is the dust covers the tail of the six. I'll show you in a minute;" and as quick as light he drew the other hand from his pocket, armed with a sharp steel instrument of a very peculiar shape. It was like a stamp for cutting pastry, only much smaller, with the sharp edge formed like a broken sickle. Before the old man could see what he was about to do, he pressed his hand, and the instrument it contained, tight upon the plate, gave it a slight turn and withdrew it.

"Lord 'a mercy! what have you done?" exclaimed the sexton.

"Nothing, but taken off the dust," answered Moreton with a laugh; "look at it now! Is it not 66 plain enough?"

"Ay, that it is," said Grindley. "But this won't do, captain, this won't do."

"By ---- it shall do," replied the other, fiercely; "and if you say one word, you will not only lose the money but get hanged into the bargain; for the moment I hear you've 'peached I'll make a full confession, and say you put me up to the trick. So now my old boy you are in for it, and had better go through with it like a man. If we both hold our tongues nothing can happen. We slip out together and no one knows a syllable; but, if we are fools, and chatter, and don't help each other, we shall both get into an infernal scrape. You will suffer most, however, I'll take care of that. Then, on the contrary, if I get back what they have cheated me and my father out of, you shall have 100l. for your pains."

At first the sexton was inclined to exclaim and protest, but Captain Moreton went on so long that he had time to reflect--and, being a man of quick perceptions, to make up his mind. At first, too, he looked angrily in his companion's face through his spectacles, holding up the lantern to see him well; but gradually be dropped the light and his eyes together to the coffin-lid, examined it thoughtfully, and in the end said, in alow, quiet, significant voice, "I think, captain, the tail of that six looks somewhat bright and sharp considering how old it is."

The compact was signed and sealed by those words; and Moreton replied, "I've thought of all that, old gentleman. It shall be as green as the rest by to-morrow morning."

Thus saying, he took out a small vial of a white liquid, dropped a few drops on the plate, and rubbed them into the deep mark he had made. Then, turning gaily to his companion, he exclaimed "Now for the register."

Grindley made no reply; and they walked up into the church again, put down the slab of stone, locked it, and advanced towards the vestry. There, however, the old man paused at the door, saying, in a low, shaking voice, "I can't, captain! I can't! It is forgery, nothing else. I'll stay here, you go and do what you like, you've the keys."

"Where are the books kept?" asked the other, speaking low.

"In the great chest," said the sexton, "it must be the second book from the top."

"Can I find pen and ink?" inquired Moreton.

"On the table, on the table," answered Grindley. "Mathew Lomax had a child christened two days ago. But it wont never look like the old ink."

"Never you fear," said the other worthy, "I am provided;" and taking the lantern, he opened the vestry-door and went in.

Captain Moreton set down the lantern on a little table covered with green cloth, and proceeded about his work quietly and deliberately. He was no new offender, though this was a new offence. He had none of the young timidity of incipient crime about him. He had done a great many unpleasant things on great inducements, pigeoned confiding friends, made friendships for the sake of pigeoning, robbed Begums, as was the custom in those days, shot two or three intimate acquaintances who did not like being wronged, and was, moreover, a man of a hardy constitution, so that his nerves were strong and unshaken. He tried two or three keys before he found the one which fitted the lock of the chest. He took out two volumes of registers, and examined the contents, soon found the passage he was looking for, and then searched for the pen and ink, which, after all, were not upon the table. Then he tried the pen upon his thumb-nail, and took out his little bottle again, for it would seem that within that vial was some fluid which had a double operation, namely, that of corroding brass and rendering ink pallid. The register was laid open before him, a stool drawn to the table, his hand pressed tight upon the important page, and the pen between his fingers and thumb to keep all steady in the process of converting 1760 into 1766, when an unfortunate fact struck him, namely, that there were a great many insertions between the two periods. He paused to consider how this was to be overcome, when suddenly he heard an exclamation from without, and the sound of running steps in the church, as if some one was scampering away in great haste. He had forgotten--it was the only thing he had forgotten--to turn his face to the door, and he was in the act of attempting to remedy this piece of neglect, by twisting his head over his shoulder, when he received a blow upon the cheek which knocked him off his stool, and stretched him on the pavement of the vestry. He started up instantly, but before he could see any thing or any body, the lantern was knocked over, and the door of the vestry shut and bolted, leaving him a prisoner in the dark.