Arrah Neil; or, Times of Old

by G. P. R. James

The conversation then ceased, and Falgate heard the sound of horses' feet the next minute marching down the hill. The situation of Diggory Falgate was to himself by no means pleasant, and, indeed, few are the men who would find themselves particularly at their ease, shut up for a whole night within an old church, and with even the probability of death before them for the next morning. Silence, and midnight solitude, and the proximity of graves, and shrouds, and mouldering clay, are things well calculated to excite the imagination even of the cold and calculating, to damp the warm energies of hope, and open all the sources of terror and superstitious awe within us. How often, in the warm daylight, and in the midst of the gay and busy world, does man, roused for a moment by some accidental circumstance to a conviction of the frail tenure by which life is held, think of death and all that may follow it with no other sensation than a calm melancholy. It is because every object around him, everything that he sees, everything that he hears, and everything that he feels, are so full of life, that he cannot think death near. He sees it but in the dim and misty perspective of future years, with all its grim features softened and indistinct. But when he hears no sound of any living thing, when his eye rests upon nothing moving with the warm energies of animation, when all is as dark as the vault, as silent as the grave--it is then, that, if the thought of death presents itself, it comes near--horribly near. Clearer from the obscurity around, more distinct and tangible from the stillness of all things, death becomes a living being to our fancy, with his icy hand upon our brow, his barbed dart close at our heart. We see him, feel him, hear the dread summons of his charnel voice; and prepare for the extinction of the light within the coffin's narrow bed, the mould and corruption of the tomb.

Poor Falgate had hitherto tried to fancy that the announcement of his fate for the morrow had been merely a threat: but now, when he was left alone in the old church, with no one near him to speak to, with not a sound but the sighing of the night wind through some broken panes in the high casement, his convictions became very different. He felt his way with his hands from pillar to pillar, towards a spot where a thin streak of moonlight crossed the nave, and seated himself sadly upon a bench that he found near. He there sat and tortured himself for half an hour, thinking over all the bold and infamous things the parliament party had done, and clearly deducing thence what they might probably do in his own case. He loved not the thought of death at all as it now presented itself to his mind; the hero's enthusiasm was gone; he had no desire to be a martyr; but of all sorts of death that of the cord seemed the worst. And yet, what was to be done? Could he betray the confidence of others, could he flinch from what he conceived to be a duty? No; though he felt a little weakness, he was not the man to do that; and he said again to himself that he would rather die. But still he turned with repugnance from that close grappling with the thought of dying which the scene and the hour forced upon him: he tried to think of something else; he strove to recal the early days when he had last stood in that aisle, and many a boyish prank he had played in years long gone; but the image of death would present itself amidst all, like a skull in a flower-garden, and the very sweet ideas that he summoned up to banish it but made it look more terrible.

In the mean while, the moon gradually got round, till she poured a fuller flood of light into the building, showing the tombs and old monumental effigies upon the walls and in the aisle; and many a wild legend and village tale came back to Falgate's memory, of ghosts having been seen issuing from the vaults beneath the church, and wandering down even to the gates of Hull. The painter was a firm believer in apparitions of all kinds, and he had often wished, with a sort of foolish bravado, to see a ghost; but now, when, if ever, he was likely to be gratified, he did not quite so much like the realization of his desires. He thought, nevertheless, that he could face one, if one did come; but then arose the sad idea, that he might very soon be one of their shadowy companions himself; wandering for the allotted term beneath "the pale glimpses of the moon."

Suddenly a thought struck him. Might he not, perchance, employ the semblance of that state to facilitate his own escape? Doubtless, the man placed to keep guard would not long remain upon his dull watch without closing an eye, after a long day's march and a hard fight; the door was not locked; he could open it and go out and, could he but so disguise himself as to appear like the inhabitant of another world, if the sentinel did wake, he would most likely be so stupified and alarmed, that he would let him pass, or miss his aim if he fired. Falgate remembered the words of the officer as he had retired: "As well die so as by a cord;" and he resolved he would at least make the attempt. A daring and enterprising spirit seized him; he felt he could be a hero in ghostly attire, and the only difficulty was to procure the proper habiliments. At first he thought of making a shift with his own shirt; but then he remembered that the length thereof was somewhat scanty, and he had never heard of ghosts with drapery above their knees.

However, as, when one schoolboy opens a door into forbidden piece of ground, and puts his head out, a dozen more are sure to follow and hurry him on before them, so the thought of becoming a ghost seemed to bring a thousand other cunning devices with it; and at length good Diggory Falgate asked himself if the vestry might not be open, and if a surplice might not be found therein. He determined to ascertain; and creeping up to the door which he had often seen the parson of the parish pass through, he lifted the latch, and to his joy found that it was not locked. All, however, was dark within, and the poor painter, entering cautiously, groped about, not knowing well where to seek for that which he wanted. Suddenly his hand struck against something, hanging apparently from a peg in the wall; but he soon ascertained that the texture was not that of linen, and went on, still feeling along the sides of the little room. In a moment after, he came to something softer and more pliant, with the cold, glassy feel of linen upon it, and taking it down he mentally said, "This must be the surplice." He crept back with it into the moonlight in the church, treading like a ghost, not only in anticipation of the character he was about to assume, but also in palpable terror lest he should call the attention of the guard at the church door, by tripping over a mat or stumbling against a bench. The white and snowy garment, however, the emblem of innocence, was there in his hand, and he gazed all over it, inquiring in his own mind how he was to put it on. He knew not the back from the front; he scarcely knew the head from the tail; and seldom has a poor schoolboy gazed at the "ass's bridge," in the dry but reason-giving pages of Euclid, with more utter bewilderment and want of comprehension than Diggory Falgate now stared at the surplice. As he thus stood, addressing mock inquiries to the folds of white linen, he suddenly started, thinking he heard a noise; but after listening a moment without catching any further sound, he quietly crept up to the great door of the church, and bent both eye and ear to the keyhole, to ascertain whether the sentinel was awake and watching or not.

The only noise that met his ear, when he first applied the latter organ to the task of discovery, was a loud and sonorous snore; and looking through the aperture, he found, by the light of the moon, which was shining into the porch, that the guard had seated himself on one of the benches at the side of the door, and, with his legs stretched out across the only means of egress, had given way to weariness, and was indulging in a very refreshing sleep, while his horse was seen cropping the grass within the wall of the churchyard.

The poor painter was calculating the chances of being able to pass the outstretched limbs of the sentinel without awakening him, and, screwing his courage to the sticking point--to use Lady Macbeth's pork-butcherish figure--when suddenly he was startled and cast into a cold perspiration by hearing a sound at the farther end of the church. All was silent the moment after; but the noise had been so distant while it lasted, that there was no doubting the evidence of his ears; and the only question was, what it could proceed from--was it natural or supernatural? was it accidental or intentional? Diggory Falgate could not at all divine, till at length, encouraged by its cessation, he began to think that he might have left the door of the vestry open, and the wind might have blown down some book. Yet the sound had been sharp as well as heavy--more like the fall of a piece of old iron than that of a volume of homilies, the prayer-book, or the psalter. He determined to see, however; and sitting down for a moment to gather courage, and to ascertain that the trooper without had not been roused by the noise that had alarmed himself, he listened till, mingled with the beating of his own heart, he heard the comfortable snore of the guard once more. Then, thinking that at any time he could call the good man to his aid if he encountered ghost or goblin too strong for him, he shuffled himself into the surplice, and with the stealthy step of a cat crept up the nave towards the vestry.

When he was about two-thirds up the church, and was just leaning against a bench to take breath, another sound met his ear. It was that of a deep voice speaking low, and seemed to come almost from below his feet.

"They must be gone now," said the invisible tongue. "All is silent you hear."

"I do not know," said another, in tones somewhat shriller. "Hush! I thought I heard a noise."