“So that man knows everything?” asked Vernon, in a low voice, glancing at the door of Ned Mitchell’s room.
“Pretty nigh all as Ah knaw.”
Vernon’s face was livid. He leaned against the window-sill and looked out fixedly into the Vicarage garden.
“He can’t do anything,” he muttered.
“He means to try,” said Abel. “Hast tha seen t’ dogs?”
“No, but I’ve heard about them; and they won’t help him much,” answered Vernon, quietly.
“Tarn’t easy to trick ’un,” said Abel, warningly. “He’s none so over sharp, but he’s sure.”
Vernon said nothing to this; after a short pause, he bade Abel good-day very shortly, and went downstairs. Old Sarah Wall was standing at the door, in colloquy with some one outside. She cried out when she felt a man’s hand on her shoulder; and Vernon, hastily telling her to be quiet, drew back the chain and let himself out. He started in his turn on finding himself face to face with Olivia Denison. Being overwhelmed with anxiety on his account, it was only a natural result of her girlish modesty that she should appear freezingly cold and distant in her manner towards him, even though her curt greeting caused him evident pain. After the exchange of a very few indifferent words, Vernon raised his cap stiffly and left her; while she, angry with him, still more angry with herself, walked slowly down the hill, more anxious, more miserable on his account than ever.
It was on the ninth day after the beginning of his illness that Ned Mitchell, whose impatience to be well materially retarded his recovery, could at last bear confinement no longer, and seized the opportunity of a short absence of Abel’s in the village to make his way once more down to St. Cuthbert’s churchyard. He wanted to take his hounds with him, but decided that it would be rash to do so until he was more sure of his own powers of reaching his destination. For he found, much to his own disgust, that he felt weak and giddy. However, he set out on his walk as quickly as he could, taking his way over the fields to escape observation. Evening was closing in—an evening in late June, warm and balmy. He chose to set down to the summer heat the dizziness which he felt creeping over him long before the ruined tower of St. Cuthbert’s came in sight.
When he reached the lane which divided the last field from the churchyard, his head swam and he staggered across the road and caught the gate for support. After a minute’s rest, he raised his head and looked over into the enclosure. Was he delirious again? Had the wild fancies of his illness come back to torment him? He saw before him, instead of broken, moss-grown headstones, rank weeds, and misshapen mounds of earth and rubbish, a churchyard as neat and trim as that of Rishton itself, with tombstones set straight in the ground, well gravelled paths, and borders of flowers. The churchyard wall was garnished along the top with broken glass, and two notice boards, respectively at the right- and left-hand of the gate, bore these words: “Visitors are requested not to pluck the flowers,” and “Dogs not admitted.”