Volume Two—Chapter Eight.
The St Runwald’s Mystery.
Gentlemanly or ungentlemanly, to blame in making a friend of the churchwarden, a tea-dealer, or not, the vicar was thoroughly conscientious, and this constant plundering of a little store intended for the poor of the parish was a sore and festering thorn in his side. It may be questioned, though, whether the poor really were sufferers by the thefts. More probably they were gainers; for, ignorant of the amount pilfered, and feeling that to a certain extent the little fund was in his charge, the vicar would often drop a sovereign or two into the little heap when the boxes were emptied, in order to make up the deficiency, which might, perhaps, in fact, be not more than a few shillings.
But it was in vain that the good vicar fidgeted and fretted, rubbing his hair into all sorts of shapes, and especially that of a silver flame issuing from the top of his head. The pilfering went on, now ceasing for a while, now re-commencing, while the simple expedient of emptying the boxes after each service was never thought of by any one.
Mr Purkis grew warm, and perspired as he sand-papered the steel bindings, making the boxes glisten to an extent that would never have been reached, had there not existed the little jealousy between Mrs Ruggles and himself.
Not that Mr Purkis loved work, for his was the kind of constitution that would bear a large amount of ease, and he always felt himself to flourish most when clothed in his robes of office, and basking in beauty’s eye as he ornamented the church porch, striking with awe the boys from Gunniss’s, his duties appearing to consist of an occasional wag of the head to the pew-opener, when some stranger required a sitting, and a majestic roll as far as the iron gates and back.
He would wag his head mysteriously at his wife when she was brushing him down on a Sunday morning, and removing every speck of dust from his blue robe, to which she used a hard brush, while the broad scarlet velvet cape, with its deep gold-lace trimming, was daintily smoothed and dusted with a brush of the softest. Then Mrs Purkis would hand her lord his cocked hat and white Berlin gloves, gazing up in his face and looking him over with the greatest veneration. For some ladies are fond of seeing their lords and masters in uniform, and Mrs Purkis was one of these, and she would stand at the door to see her husband go down the street, exclaiming too, angrily, to herself, “Drat them boys!” when some evil-disposed irreverent young scamp would shout after the portly officer, “Beadle, beadle, threadle my needle;” though she consoled herself with the recollection that, “Boys allus was full of their sarse,” ready to laugh at any of our noble British institutions. Especially if relating to law and order, beginning with the majestic policeman, and ending with the Lord Chief Baron in his swaddling clothes.
But if Mr Purkis looked sagacious, it seemed probable that, like other people, he only had his suspicions; such too as he could not confirm, though a slight frown and a shake of the head, particularly if accompanied by nipped-together lips, imply a great deal; and your heavy-cheeked solid-headed judge will carry a weight with the public that his keen-witted and sharp-featured subordinate will lack.
Mr Purkis obtained the credit of knowing a great deal, but if he did, he kept the knowledge to himself; and Time, the inexorable, slipped on, Jared discoursing with his organ, and the great congregation at St Runwald’s listening patiently to the vicar’s quiet practical little sermons.
Mr Gray kept his promise to the churchwarden, and there were no more texts for some time touching upon the subject of money; but Mr Timson scratched his head violently one day as he sat in his pew and heard the vicar dwell upon the rich men dropping their gifts into the treasury, and the poor widow’s mite; adroitly introducing his opinion that it was as great a sin to steal the widow’s mite as the more imposing gifts of the wealthy.
“But I wouldn’t really, you know,” said Timson, the next time they met; “as I’ve told you before, it’s only putting the thieves on their guard, and can do no good.”
“Might work on their consciences, Timson, eh? Startle them into better ways and feelings.” But the churchwarden shook his head. “Think not, eh?” said the vicar; “conscience makes cowards of us all, as Milton says.”
“Shakespeare, Shakespeare, sir,” said Timson.
“My memory’s failing fast, Timson,” said the old man, sadly; “but I thought it was Milton. You don’t read the poets?”
“Never, by any chance,” said Timson; “but I know I heard those words at old Drury, and I know they don’t put Milton on the stage.”
“I believe you’re right—I believe you’re right, Timson,” said the vicar. “And so you really would not say any more about it publicly?”
“Not a word,” said Timson, firmly.
“But it was neatly introduced, eh?”
“Yes, ye-e-e-s,” said Timson; “but it does no good, depend upon it, sir. The man who takes money from a church won’t be frightened because you tell him it’s wicked.”
“Think not?” said the vicar.
“Sure of it,” said Timson.
Timson was right, for the money still went, week after week—shillings and half-crowns, and sixpences and florins. Purkis groaned and grunted as he polished off the rust that would collect on the steel-work, as much at the labour as at the losses; but he could not see the money take to itself wings and fly away. Jared and Ichabod came and went, and the harmonies flooded the old church, but they saw nothing. Vicar and churchwarden gazed about as they came and went, and shook their heads at the boxes, but they went away as wise as they came. Neither did Mrs Ruggles unravel the mystery when she came on Saturdays to set open the doors, and swept and dusted, and punched pulpit pillows, and walloped (Ichabod’s own term) pew cushions, and banged hassocks in the porch, finishing her duties by perversely shifting people’s prayer-books and church-services from pew to pew, starting them upon voyages round the church—trips which some times occupied whole months—while, more than once she obtained rewards, when, by request, she hunted out and restored the missing volumes.
But though the officials saw not the thief, some of those fat-cheeked, half-dressed, trumpet-blowing angels must have beheld, and, herald-like, might have proclaimed the offender with the sound of the trump.
The marble effigy of the statesman who stood with scroll in outstretched hand, as if in debate, must have seen the culprit; while Edward Lawrence, citizen of London, and Dame Alys, his wife, intent though they were in prayer upon their marble cushions, might have stolen one stony glance upon the sacrilege committed.
Why! there were effigies poised and planted everywhere about the old edifice, which the good knight and architect, Sir Christopher Wren, had restored when it was crumbling and dilapidated inside—restored most fully, according to the sublime taste of his period; but none of these effigies told tales, not even David, who stood within three feet of one box, and busily harped away, so busily indeed, that he had lost his garments, probably in the heat of the work, for there was no Michal at hand to take him to task.
Time did not tell either, at least not at this period of the story, though he, too, commanded a good view of the church, as he stood upon a bracket on one side of the chancel-arch, mowing away with a broken scythe, like a ragged Irishman in the haymaking season, his hour-glass being slung at his side, after the fashion of Pat’s bottle.
Grim Death, in skeleton form, who stood as counterbalance to Time on the other side of the arch, pickaxe in one hand, dart in the other, also maintained a stubborn silence, perhaps because offended, for though most people considered that he held a pickaxe for grave-digging purposes, there were others who insisted upon its being a cross-bow with which he was armed.
As for the stained-glass cherubim and seraphim, playing guitar, bass viol, cornet, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, they seemed to be too busy with their heavenly harmonies to notice such mundane matters as pounds, shillings, and pence. Judas, the bag-bearer, was not visible, or—on the principle of “set a thief to catch a thief”—he might have told tales; but painted on the ceiling were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—well painted too, though the artist’s evangelical emblems of bull, eagle, and lamb were not quite up to nature.
But none of these pointed out the offender, and the old vicar walked disconsolately up and down his church, pausing here and there as if lost amidst the different surmises which flooded his brain; but there was no information to be gained. The mystery was not concealed amongst the carved oak window draperies, and cottage pattern wood-work, which hid the stone tracery of the old east window; it was not behind the spindle balustrade communion rails, nor the iron-barred workhouse-window-like rood-screen, nor in the brass-nailed, red-curtained, soft-cushioned, high-sided pews, where City folk loved to snooze on Sundays.
The mystery continued, but it was invisible, and though poor Mr Gray looked appealingly at the cross-legged Templar upon his back, and at the brasses rescued from trampling feet to be fixed in the wall, neither father nor mother, nor right or left, one of the steplike regular sons and daughters, brazen-faced as they were, whispered him a word more than did the black, fork-tongued, barb-tailed, huge-clawed, ancient stained-glass devil, so busy watching the Virgin and Child in the clerestory window.
So the Reverend John Gray sighed, and softly rubbed his hands, and the poor-boxes were still robbed.