“Sir William will take the right measures, you need not doubt, Mrs Howell. Sir William looks forward—Sir William is very cautious, though, from his intrepidity, some might doubt it. The safety of Deerbrook may very well be left to Sir William.”
“No doubt, your ladyship, no doubt! We should be really afraid to go to our beds, if we had not Sir William to rely on, as Miss Miskin said to me only this morning. But, dear heart! what can Sir William, or an angel from heaven do, in some sorts of dangers? If one might ask, for one’s confidential satisfaction, what does Sir William think of this affair of the church-door?”
Amidst shrugs and sighs, Miss Miskin drew quite near, to hear the fate of Deerbrook revealed by Lady Hunter. But Lady Hunter did not know the facts about the church-door, on which the inquiry was based. This only showed how secret some people could be in their designs. There was no saying what Lady Hunter might think of it; it really seemed as if Deerbrook, that had had such a good character hitherto, was going to be on a level with Popish places—a place of devastation and conflagration. Lady Hunter looked excessively grave when she heard this; and, if possible, graver than ever, when she was told that not only had a lantern been found in the churchyard with a bit of candle left in the socket, but that a piece of charred stick, full three inches long, had been picked up close by the church-door. After hearing this, Lady Hunter would not commit herself any further. She asked for some hair-pins, with a dignified and melancholy air. While she was selecting the article, she let Mrs Howell talk on about the lantern and the stick—that no one wondered about the lantern, knowing what practices went on in the churchyard when quiet people were asleep; but that the charred stick was too alarming: only that, to be sure, anybody might be aware that those who would go into churchyards for one bad purpose would be ready enough for another; and that Heaven only knew how long the churches of the land would be safe while Lowrys were sent to Parliament, and those that sent them there were all abroad. Lady Hunter sighed emphatically, whispered her desire that the hair-pins should be set down in her account, and went away, amidst deep and mournful curtseys from those whom she left behind.
Under certain circumstances, the mind becomes so rapidly possessed of an idea, is enabled to assimilate it so completely and speedily, that the possessor becomes unaware how very recently the notion was received, and deals with it as an old-established thought. This must be Lady Hunter’s excuse (for no other can be found) for speaking of the plot for burning Deerbrook church as one of the signs of the times which had alarmed Sir William and herself of late. She had so digested Mrs Howell’s fact by the time she had reached Mr Tucker’s shop, that she thus represented the case of the charred stick to Mr Tucker without any immediate sting of conscience for telling a lie. She felt rather uncomfortable when Mr Jones, the butcher, who had stepped in at Tucker’s to discuss the event of the morning, observed, with deference, but with much decision, that he was sorry to hear Sir William was made uneasy by the circumstance of the charred stick having been found, as it seemed to him a very simple matter to account for. Several of the boys of the village—his own son John for one—had lately taken to the old sport of whirling round a lighted stick at the end of a string, to make a circle of fire in the dark. Sometimes it happened that a spark caught the string; and then the stick was apt to fly off, nobody knew where. It was an unsafe sport, certainly; and as such he had forbidden it to his son John: but there was no doubt in his mind (without defending the sport), that the stick in question had jerked itself over the churchyard wall, and had not been put there by anybody;—to say nothing of its having lain so far from the door (and in the grass, too), that it was difficult to see what could be expected to catch fire from it. Jones took up his hat from the counter, saying, that as Sir William was close at hand, he would step and tell him what he thought would ease his mind about this affair. This movement laid open to Lady Hunter’s mind the enormity of her fib: and remembering that, as far as she knew, her husband had never heard of the charred stick, she vigorously interfered to keep Mr Jones where he was, averring that Sir William had rather hear the explanation from her than from any person actually resident in Deerbrook. He had his reasons, and she must insist. Mr Jones bowed; her alarm ceased, and her compunction gradually died away.
When Mr Tucker had received his orders about the fire-guard (which occasioned his whispering that there had never been so much need in Deerbrook of guards against fire as now), Lady Hunter’s footman came into the shop to say that his master was in the carriage. Sir William had sent his horse home, and would return in the chariot with his lady. She hastened away, to prevent any chat between Sir William and Mr Jones. But, once in the carriage, in all the glory of being surrounded and watched by a number of gaping clowns and shouting boys, she could not resolve to bury herself in the seclusion of the Hall, without enjoying the bustle a little longer. She therefore suddenly discovered that she wanted to order a morning cap at Miss Nares’; and the carriage drew up in state before the milliner’s door. Miss Flint, whose hair had come out of curl, from her having leaned out of an upper window to watch the commotion, now flew to the glass to pull off her curl-papers; Miss Nares herself hastily drew out of drawers and cupboards the smart things which had been huddled away under the alarm about the sacking of Deerbrook; and then threw a silk handkerchief over the tray, on which stood the elder wine and toast with which she and her assistant had been comforting themselves after the panic of the morning. All the caps were tried on with mysterious melancholy, but with some haste. Sir William must not be kept long waiting: in times like these, a magistrate’s moments were valuable. Sir William was reading the newspaper, in order to convey the impression that he considered the affair of this morning a trifling one; but—
“These are strange times, Miss Nares.”
“Very alarming, my lady. I am sure I don’t know when we shall recover from the fright. And no further back than six weeks, I had that person in, my lady, to attend Miss Flint in a sore throat. So little were we aware!”
“I am thankful enough it was not for a broken arm,” observed Miss Flint, in accents of devout gratitude.
“Yes, indeed, my dear,” observed Miss Nares, “it would have ruined all your prospects in life if he had done by you as he did by the Russell Taylors’ nursemaid. Have you never heard that, my lady? Well! I am astonished! I find the story is in everybody’s mouth. Mrs Russell Taylor’s nursemaid was crossing the court, with the baby in her arms, when she tripped over the string of Master Hampden Taylor’s kite. Well, my lady, she fell; and her first thought, you know, was to save the baby; so she let all her weight go on the other arm—the right—and, as you may suppose, broke it. It snapped below the elbow. The gentleman in the corner-house was sent for immediately, to set it. Now they say (you, my lady, know all about it, of course,) that there are two bones in that part of one’s arm, below the elbow.”
“There are so. Quite correct. There are two bones.”