A Little World

by George Manville Fenn

Patchy and ill diffused was the light; as if tired and worn with its efforts to struggle through the wire-protected, stained-glass windows, it rested where it fell, to peer down grimly upon the darkness in the nave.

Four times over, eight times over, times uncounted, had the chimes rung out the quarters, and stroke by stroke the hours were told, vibrating heavily through the church, and still Jared sat in the organ-loft in his old position. He was alone, for no Ichabod had come to rattle the handle and kick the big oaken door. But Jared thought not of cold or gloom, for his soul was dead within him as he mourned, in the sadness of his heart, for the poverty and misery which clung to him, and his inability to ward them off. He could tell himself that he had struggled manfully, hiding his sorrows from those who were dear to him; but now he felt that he was beaten, conquered—that the hard fight had gone against him, and that he must give up.

But where had that money gone? Who had taken it? Had they still watched and tried to find the thief, or rested satisfied with their discovery? He knew not, though strenuous efforts had been made by more than one; but, excepting in a single case, the money marked and left in the boxes had not been taken—a fact which vicar and churchwarden interpreted to mean that the guilty party was found. They had now therefore ceased watching, believing that the treasure was no longer interfered with; though had they once more examined the money, they would have found that two marked half-crowns and a florin had been extracted, as if the thief had seized his last chance of appropriating a portion of the little store.

“What will become of me? Where are we to go?” muttered Jared; and then he wrung his hands, and pressed them to his aching head. “And if they prosecute, what then?”

Jared Pellet shivered as he asked himself the question, while in fancy he could see reflected in the mirror before him every horror with which for days past he had been torturing himself, beginning with the bar of a police court, and ending with masked convicts in prison yards, toiling at some bitter task, and, like him, dreaming—dreams within dreams—of wives and children shivering at a workhouse door. He knew that he was making the worst of it, but he excused himself upon the plea that it was the first time that he had done so, and that never until now had he given up, for he was very miserable, and he again wrung his hands until the bones cracked.

“What—what shall I do?” groaned the wretched man. “The cheque will not come now; and if they should have sent to arrest me now upon this last day!” And then again in that reflector he conjured up before him the summons at his own door, the eager step of Patty, expecting a messenger from the vicar, and then the poor girl’s horror to find the police were upon her father’s track. He could see it all plainly enough in that old mirror, and he covered his face with his hands, and groaned again—“What shall I do? What shall I do?” in a helpless, childish fashion.

“Curse God and die,” seemed hissed in his ears; and Jared started and roused himself. He had read and heard of men being tempted into rebellion against their Maker; he had known of those who, in their despair, had been seized by some horrible impulse which had led them to rush headlong into the presence of the Judge—men rich in this world’s goods, high in the opinion of their fellows—men to whom high honours had been awarded in the temple of fame,—and yet unaccountably attacked by that dread horror which so often tempts the wretched prisoner to shorten the term of his punishment. Might not this be akin? Was not this some temptation? Oh! that wandering imagination—that too faithful mirror! Jared shuddered as in it he pictured more than one fearful termination of his career, and saw his wretched wife upon her knees beside something—something against which he closed his eyes, and upon whose horrors he dared not gaze.

Yes, this was some such temptation; but he was a man who could defy it; and starting forward, he seized two or three stops on either side of the instrument, and dragged them out, before running his fingers rapidly along the keys; but the next instant he paused and shuddered, for in place of the organ’s swelling tones came the low dull rattling bone-like sound of the keys, to rise and fall and go floating through the silent nave of the old church in a strangely weird, dumb cadence.

He gazed before him into his mirror, but it was a black depth, which gave but one reflection—his own ghastly face. Again he leaned forward and swept his fingers over the keys, as if engaged in playing one of his favourite voluntaries; but he ran through only a few lines, for the low soft rattle again floated through the church, and then he shuddered as he drew back his hands, for the scrap of candle in the sconce fell through, darting up one sharp blue flame, by whose rays the keys of the instrument seemed to grin at him like the teeth of some huge monster. Then all was silence and gloom, suited to his morbid imaginings, and the visions seemed to float before him once more in the mirror—old dreams—new dreams—old dreams with fresh incidents—dreams of his brother, mocking and jeering at his poverty, and in his prosperity ever crushing him down—dreams of misery—dreams of happiness, wooing and wedding, and joy-bells clashing out jubilant and merry—dreams—dreams—dreams pictured in the depths of that old mirror, and then darkness—a blank.

Cold and shuddering, he started up, for it seemed that a cold breath of air passed across his brow; then he was listening to a noise as of a closing door; then there was the soft pat as of footsteps—a rustling—the creak of a pew-door turning upon its hinges; and slowly turning his head, Jared Pellet sat with dilated eyes, there in the darkness and silence of the old church—listening.