“I make no graves,” answered Thomas, “and I have no time or patience for your riddles. I only ask you to begone.”
“Is the trade then so slack, friend Thomas, and is there none to give the sexton employment?—none of all that dig for death as for hid treasure, and some, perhaps, who dig for treasure and find death.”
Thomas was startled at the hint that his purpose was detected. He looked dubiously on the speaker, and the thought dawned on him that perhaps Germyn was offering himself as a confederate. “Treasure,” he said slowly; “yes, if you talk of treasure there is more sense in you than I thought. I don’t know but what we might find it together; and a poor man, such as you, might have his fair share, and none be the wiser.”
“You are wholly mistaken,” said Germyn, “if you think that I know anything of the treasure that you are looking for: and, if I knew, God forbid that I should rob the dead of their trust. No, let them keep it until the day of restitution, when their friends claim it of them. You are a bold man, Thomas, to think of the dead as if they had no sense of what happens to-day. For my part, though we talk as old friends, I have a dreadful awe of them: they can do so much, and I can’t hurt them, if I would. It is a marvel to me that you can walk and work at such an hour in a place that is so full of voices and presences. A holy man you should be! Do you know how Goodman Deane, the last man who held your office, died?”
“They tell me he died distracted. But I don’t trouble myself with fancies.”
“It was in August, two years since. What had he seen? What had he heard? They say that in his wanderings he often repeated ‘I should have rung, I should have rung.’ And I think I see his meaning. It is an old belief—God knows what of truth there is in it—that at the ringing of the church bell the congregations of the dead break up and give place to the living. Poor Deane! Mark could not speak for him: he has been dumb these twenty years, though one day, please God, he will speak again for his friends—of whom you are not one. And there is another old fancy that belongs to this church, and perhaps had something to do with Deane’s matter. It used to be told among the old society, that are scattered or dead now, that the festival of the Name of Jesus was a great day with the old dead folk. Each year at midnight on that day, which is the seventh of August, they assemble—men or women, I know not which—here in the church to observe the hour of Lauds. It was said that you could hear them trooping down from their chambers outside by a stair that does not exist, and they came through the church wall by a door that is unseen. Then, each in order, they rank themselves on the crosses that mark this pavement, and go round the church in darkness, for they need no lights. Their singing has been often heard, but I do not know that living eye has seen their procession, unless it were Deane’s, and, it seems, he did not live long after.”
“It is a curious fancy, truly,” said Thomas, “if one could credit it. But I don’t know why you tell it me, as I never visit the church after nightfall. And little as I believe your tale, I believe you less when you tell me that you know nothing of this treasure. But I spoke of it at a venture, and it is none of my business. So I leave you to your ghosts.”
Thankfull Thomas was not courageous, but his fears were not of a sentimental order. He was more than ever convinced that Germyn knew the secret of the hidden treasure, and that his story was a device to prevent him from continuing his search for it; and he had made up his mind that it lay under the stone where Germyn had interrupted him. At night he would be secure from his interference, and would have time to lift the stone and replace it in such a manner as to leave no trace of its disturbance. And as the date which Germyn had mentioned had passed out of his mind, it so happened that August 7 was the night which he chose for his enterprise.
