Volume Three—Chapter Eleven.
“Was it Ghostly?”
“Was it ghostly—was it spiritual?” Jared Pellet asked himself, as he sat with strained nerves eager to catch the slightest sound. But now all was silent, and he listened in vain. Cold, almost numbed, he rubbed his hands together and left his place slowly, descending into the body of the church, confused as one just awakening from a state of torpor. Once he halted upon the stairs for a minute or two and listened; but he heard nothing, and continued his descent, telling himself that his imagination was wild and overstrained. Then pausing suddenly upon the matting which covered the nave, his heart’s pulsation seemed checked, for from the direction of the north door came all at once, loud and distinct in the empty church, a sharp metallic click; and then, at short intervals three more sounds each clear and sharp in the silence, as of money falling upon money.
At any other time Jared would have ridiculed as absurd the idea of being alarmed by supernatural visitations: the church at midnight was the same place to him, but for its darkness, as the church at midday; but now, broken, unnerved, and trembling in every limb, he stood by the south door as if fixed, listening eagerly.
For a while there was silence, so that he could hear his own heart beat, and he tried to make out what all this could mean. Was it—could it be—some strange influence of the mind caused by constantly dwelling upon the abstraction of the poor-box money? or had he really heard the chinking of falling coin? He was beginning to think, from the silence that reigned, that it was all a delusion. He strained his eyes in the direction, but they could not penetrate the thick darkness, and at last a bitter smile crossed his features, as he thought that his mind was becoming disturbed with trouble, and that while he was yet able, he had better seek home and try to rest. Should he walk across the church to the other door and see if there was anything? Pooh! it was but fancy—a rat, perhaps, under the flooring of the old pews.
Jared felt in his pocket for the key of the door, but it had slipped through into the lining. His hands were numbed with the cold, and he could not extricate it, for the wards were entangled with the rags.
But that was not fancy, that was no stretch of the imagination. There was a faint rustling noise, similar to that which he had heard at first, and now, apparently, coming towards him.
Jared Pellet was probably as bold as most men of his condition; but now, freshly awakened, as it were, from a strange stupor, in a dark church, at probably midnight, his blood seemed to freeze, and his teeth chattered with horror. What did it mean? What could it be—that invisible thing, that softly rustling noise, coming nearer and nearer? He could not even see the pew by his side. Should he go? The door was locked, and he could not get the key from his pocket; and besides, in the horror of that moment, he had stretched out his hands to keep off that something strange and rustling that came nearer and nearer, till he fancied that he could hear breathing, and then the rustling ceased, to be succeeded by a low dull beat, which he knew directly after to be that of his own heart.