Volume Two—Chapter Sixteen.
The Doctor is Relieved.
The old clock wheezed, and rattled, and spun round, and its weights ran down as the doctor and old Moredock entered the belfry door. Then, as the portal was closed, the dark place seemed to be filled with sound as the chimes rang out the four quarters, and then the deep-toned strokes of hammer upon bell proclaimed that it was nearing day.
“Only three o’clock,” thought North, “and it seems as many days as hours.”
They passed into the church as soon as the old man had lit his lanthorn and covered it with the skirt of his coat, which he held so that the light fell only upon the matting, and here and there upon a brass or some half-worn letters cut in the stones.
The chancel door stuck and refused to open till the old man had held down his lanthorn to see what held it.
“What’s here?” he whispered, as something glittered. “Young miss’s bracelet,” he added, as he dragged out the shining gewgaw, which Leo had dropped in her flight, and which had fallen close to the bottom of the door, and acted as a wedge. “Take hold, doctor.”
“Pah!” ejaculated North, drawing back. “Throw it away.”
“Ay, I’ll throw it away,” muttered the old man, stuffing the heavy gold circle into his pocket: “I’ll throw it away. Hey, but lookye here.”
He held up the lanthorn, and revealed the state of the vestry—the chair overturned, the table driven into a corner, and the gown and surplice torn from the pegs on which they had hung, trampled and twisted, while in one place the tiles close to the wainscot were stained with blood, a few drops of which had splashed the panelled oak.
“Shut that window, man—quick! Hide your light.”
Moredock obeyed, screening his lanthorn, and then climbing on to the oak chest and drawing in and fastening the hasp.
“Shall I—” he began, as he got down.
“Hang it, man, no!”
“Hist! Don’t say that there word,” whispered Moredock excitedly.
“You can come up here to-morrow, and clean up, and arrange the place. Let’s get to the vault at once.”
The old sexton’s hands trembled as he opened the vestry door, but as he felt how calm and decisive his companion seemed to be, he took courage and followed North through the iron gate and down the steps to the mausoleum door.
“Keep that lanthorn well covered,” whispered North, as he unlocked the door; “and you have not locked the gates.”
The old man stepped back, feeling the wisdom of his companion’s proceedings as far as caution was concerned; and by the time he had stepped back, North was inside the great vault, holding the door for him to enter.
“There, let’s have the light now,” said the doctor bitterly. “Be firm. You are not afraid to face a dead man?”
“Nay, I’m not sheered now, doctor,” whispered Moredock; “but you’ll—you’ll—you’ll—”
“Pay you?”
“Ay, doctor. You see, it’s—it’s—”
“Don’t halt and stammer, man,” said the doctor sternly. “This is a terrible business, but I can trust you, and you can trust me. Stand by me firmly over this, and I will give you enough every year to make you comfortable to the end of your days.”
“Hi, doctor, that’s speaking out like a man,” said Moredock, smiling hideously as he opened the horn lanthorn to snuff the candle with his fingers, when the light shone full in his face. “And he warn’t no good, were he?”
“I dare say he valued his life as highly as I valued mine—yesterday,” added the doctor softly.
“And he tried to kill you, didn’t he?” whispered Moredock, closing the lanthorn again.
“As much as I tried to kill him, I suppose,” said North. “We were fighting like two brute beasts.”
“Ay, and it was for life, like,” said Moredock, in a satisfied tone. “It warn’t murder, doctor, were it?”
“By law, I suppose not,” said North quietly, as he stood in his former attitude with his hand over his eyes. “There, we must not waste time. My experiment is over now, and we must restore this place to its old state.”
“Not murder,” said Moredock, with a chuckle; “of course not. I feel easy now.”
He held the lanthorn over the extended form of Tom Candlish, which looked strangely ghastly by the feeble yellow light; and as he bent down, he could see that the young squire had received two terrible blows—one on his forehead, and the other on the right temple—both of which had bled and left a hideous stain upon the sawdust.
“Dally ’ll have to try again,” said the old man to himself. “Enough a year to make me comf’table, and the doctor to keep me alive. You wouldn’t ha’ done that, Tom Candlish, over the money; and you couldn’t ha’ kept me alive when I was badly. You’d ha’ been a brute to the gel too ’fore you’d had her long. There, it’s all a blessing in disguise, as Parson Salis says.”
He grinned in his ghoul-like way, and turned to touch North on the elbow.
“Doctor!” he whispered.
North’s hands fell from before his eyes, and he turned to gaze wildly at the old man, as one gazes when suddenly awakened from a too heavy sleep.
“Yes! What is it? I’d forgotten. My head, man.”
“Look here,” whispered the old sexton, leading him to the far right-hand corner of the vault, where a particularly florid old tarnished coffin handle dimly reflected the light in its ancient niche.
The old man gave the end of the coffin a rap with his knuckles.
“Empty,” he whispered, grinning; and he tapped it again, so that it emitted a hollow sound.
“Empty?”
“Ay; empty now, doctor. An old Squire Candlish lay in there two hundred years ago a’most; now a new Squire Candlish can lie in it, eh?”
“Conceal the body there?” said North, who looked dazed.
“Tchah! Only put him in there to sleep: that’s all, doctor; and nobody but us’ll know.”
“Quick, then,” said North; “I’m a good deal hurt, man, and my head feels confused.”
“Ay, to be sure, doctor, I’ll be quick, and then you can go home and put yourself to rights, and go on again here just as before. Take hold.”
North obeyed in a dreamy way, apparently not knowing what he did; and as Moredock dragged out the old coffin, with its tattered velvet and tarnished ornamentations, he took the handle at the far end, and it was lifted down into the sawdust.
The old man took the screw-driver from where it lay on the new coffin, where Sir Luke should have reposed, and rapidly turned the screws, leaving each standing up in its hole, and then lifted off the lid, to disclose some yellow lining and faded flowers, turning rapidly to so much dust—nothing more.
“It’ll fit him,” whispered Moredock. “All the men Candlishes are ’bout the same size.
“There, doctor,” he continued, as he set the lid down. “Now, then, to make all safe.”
The old man’s words seemed to rouse North from his dreamy state, and with a start he looked at the old wretch before him, then at the empty coffin, and his quick medical appreciation of the situation seemed for the first time to have fully returned.
“Here; hold the light,” he said.
“Better set it down there,” whispered Moredock. “We can see better, then.”
“Hold the light, I say,” cried the doctor sternly; and he went down on one knee by the young squire’s side.
Moredock looked on wonderingly, for it had not occurred to him to make any inquiry into the young man’s state. North had as good as told him that he was slain, and to have questioned the doctor’s verdict would have been unnatural. He stood there then in a bent position, holding the lanthorn, as North made a rapid examination of the young baronet, and then rose to his feet in a calm, practical manner, uttering a sigh of relief.
“Ready, doctor?” whispered Moredock, to whom all this seemed in the highest degree unnecessary.
“Ready, man? No. Put that ghastly thing away. Tom Candlish will go on working wickedness for years after you’ve been under ground.”
Moredock straightened himself up, and held the lanthorn above his head, so that its light could fall upon the doctor’s face. Then, apparently not satisfied, he lowered it, moved the wire slide, and opened the little door, before turning the light on the doctor’s face again.
“Well?” said North.
“What yer talking about, doctor? You don’t mean—mean as—as—”
“I mean that the man is only stunned,” said North, frowning, as he stood gazing down at his rival; “and we must alter all our plans, Moredock. Neither you nor I will be hung for murdering Tom Candlish,” he added, with a half-savage laugh, as resentment against the man began to take the place of the horror which had pervaded his soul.
“Why, doctor,” whispered Moredock, “you’re a bit off your head. Come, man, quick; and let’s get it done. No one will know.”
“Pshaw! I’m as sane as you are when this confused feeling is not here.”
“But Tom Candlish—the squire?”
“I tell you he’s alive, man! Do you not understand?”
And the party in question endorsed his rival’s statement by uttering a low moan.
At that moment, by natural magnetism, or influence, or occult action of mind upon mind, or whatever it may have been, two people who had lain wakeful and excited in their separate beds, now feverish, now perspiring profusely from horror and abject fear, turned their weary heads upon their pillows, and dropped off fast asleep.
The name of one of the sleepers was Leo Salis, and of the other Joe Chegg.
“But he’s nearly dead, doctor,” whispered Moredock, and he glanced round at the coffin.
“Don’t you think that—”
He made a significant sign towards the coffin, and there was a strange leer upon his ghoulish face.
Dr North turned swiftly round, and caught his tempter by the throat!