The Chapel on the Hill

by Alfred Pretor

Not sorry to be interrupted in their deliberations, for the question of the hymns had been practically settled, and discussion could only have tended to further embitterment, the Council sallied forth, and I followed in their wake. We found the old man still lingering by the churchyard porch, but, as soon as he saw we were following him, he turned and continued his walk in the direction of the village, travelling quietly, it is true, but still at a steady rate that surprised me in so old a man, quicker by far than I should have imagined he could walk, especially when encumbered with so heavy a load.

“Seems queer an’ strange,” said our Chairman, “why he don’t stop an’ talk wi’ us, when we’ve been old friends and neighbours time out o’ memory. An’ ’tis fast he travels for an aged man like he. I be out o’ breath, I be, wi’ follerin’ ’n, an’ seems as how we don’t get no nigher to ’n for all our hurry-in’. An’ where on earth be he bound for? One’d fancy he were makin’ for the shore, unless so be he intends to stop at Widder Russell’s, for there bain’t no other buildin’ along the road, ’cept the old church, an’ ’tain’t likely as how he be makin’ for that.”

But no; it wasn’t Widow Russell’s he was bound for. Past the house he went, still onwards to the shore, ever and again turning to see that we still followed him, until he had reached the gate of the old churchyard.

Of the old church nothing was left but the chancel. The main building had been swept away by the sea in the hurricane of 1824, and not a stone remained to show where it had formed a continuation of the chancel. Of all the eccentricities that accompany the action of water, none of a surety was ever more surprising than this. Sheared as by a knife from the rest of the building, the nave had vanished; the chancel still stood, wreathed from head to foot in a draping of ivy, but without the displacement of a single stone, and as solid, to all appearance, as on the day of its erection hundreds of years ago. Our parish services had long been transferred to the new church, safe out of harm’s way at the head of the valley. But the old churchyard was—and is to this day—still used for interments. And though the size of the parish has increased since then, there is no fear of its being overcrowded yet.

At the gate of the churchyard he paused, and then turned into it, with a final look behind him as if to satisfy himself that we had not abandoned the pursuit.

“Sakes alive,” said old Weyman, “if he bain’t standin’ nigh the very bit o’ ground as I’d mapped out in my mind’s eye for our next buryin’. I’m well nigh scared, I be, by the thought that what we’ve been a-follerin’ ain’t flesh an’ blood at all, but a sperrit. Else why don’t he say a word to I, when he sees I be spent an’ weary wi’ all this traipsin’ after ’n? ’Stead of which ’tis speerin’ an’ pointin’ he be to that plot o’ ground as if to show us ’tis there he be choosin’ a spot for his last restin’ place.”

But no; again he passed on and out of the churchyard through another gate, which opened into the same road, and steadily pursued his way along an old smuggling lane which led straight downwards to the sea. And when he had reached the water’s edge he paused—and vanished.

Yes; the mystery was solved at last—the quest on which he had led us was ended and explained. For there, in only two feet of water, lay his body, encumbered as we had seen it with its heavy load of timber, collected, it must have been, with infinite toil and, as we now realised, at the cost of his life.

In default of all certainty, the theory was accepted that he had lost his life a fortnight previously, but where and how there was no evidence to show. Probably he had over-balanced himself in reaching for a baulk of floating timber, and had been drifted by the ebb and flow of each recurring tide from the place of his death—no one knew where—to the home of his birth where he had chosen his grave.

A humble example of the Irony of Fate, which on the day that followed his death had strewn his path lavishly with the objects of his quest. Only he was not there to gather them.