“Besides,” said Walter, “there is no king’s ship near us now. All the king’s ships are at the wars.”
Tim had no more to say. The next thing that happened was an outcry on the skirts of the crowd. Everybody thought it was an accident, and rushed towards the spot, or, in order to inquire, stopped others who were doing so. It was only some thief or quarrelsome person, or other kind of vagabond, that the constables and their helpers had failed to catch. The fellow had got off. Who was he? what had he done? everybody asked. Nobody at a distance could tell, and nobody near would tell. It was hinted that, whatever the offence might be, it was of some popular kind; and that the offender had been helped by the people to escape. The incident took a firm hold of Tim’s imagination. He cared no more about what took place during the next hour than the many spectators present who belonged to the class that, having eyes, see not. When the parapet was left to him and Walter, when the tide had gone down, when the train of carriages had disappeared, he was still plying his brother-in-law with questions about his conjectures: and when at length advised to go to sleep in his unaccustomed lodging in a public-house, he went on to weary the sleepy Walter with—
“I should think he will lie in the fields to-night, while we are so snug and comfortable here? If he has murdered anybody, perhaps a ghost will come and scare him? I wonder whether his wife or his mother know where he is? Every foot that stirs, he will think it is the constable come to take him up. Do you know, I have been thinking whether that might not have been Cuddie’s ghost that I heard to-day. They say many seamen are shot in these wars, and if we should find that Cuddie was killed just at the very time——What o’clock do you think it was?”
Walter now replied in no sleepy tone. He was not a believer in ghosts, but his mind was interested, more than he could justify, in Tim’s persuasion that he had heard Cuddie speak, Tim was so seldom mistaken about these matters! Yet the war was still prolonged, and if poor Cuddie was not ere this at the bottom of the sea, he must be too far off on its surface for the fairy Fine-Ear to have caught the tones of his voice, if Fine-Ear had been this day among the crowd.
Chapter VI.
SLEEPING AND WAKING.
While Walter was settling this matter with his reason, Effie was sauntering in his garden,—his garden, of late as much improved in beauty and productiveness as the coal-trade was depressed. Sorry as Effie was that her mother was not able to get full work, she could not help rejoicing in the vigour and verdure of Walter’s favourites. Her half wish to go away had subsided into perfect contentment with remaining, though uncle Christopher still abode with them. His contempt for them, in a religious view, signified less as they gathered more years upon their shoulders. It became easier to act as if his censorious eye was not upon them, and to take whatever he might do and say as being his way. He enjoyed exceedingly all the creature comforts that Effie put before him, though he could not think of spoiling her by any appearance of acknowledgment of her care, till she should allow him to cater for her spiritual good. He ate his little fowl, or sipped his evening cordial, full of pitying amazement that Effie would not let him lead her devotions, or grant her a gracious permission to sing psalms with himself and his few chosen friends.
It was a prayer-meeting of this kind which kept Effie abroad late this evening. The common room was occupied, and it would have appeared ungracious to shut herself up in her chamber. She therefore carried her work into the arbour after tea, and sat sewing, and looking abroad, and plucking little sprigs of one fragrant thing or another, till every bird within hearing had dropped off from the choir, and left nothing to be heard but a stray grasshopper, and nothing to be done but to cease poring over her stitching and take a turn in the green alley. There she turned and turned again, looking for the young moon and her attendant star among the fleecy clouds that now parted opportunely, and now melted into a mass, just when she wanted to see what was behind them. Thinking that she could catch a reflection of the crescent in a bend of the river, she ran up the hedge, and leaned over as far as she could, without falling, head foremost, into the ditch on the other side. She was very near so falling when a rustle in the same ditch startled her. She jumped back, expecting to see something follow her. Nothing appeared, and she satisfied herself that it was only a dog or a stray pig, or a sheep about to leave a tribute of wool on the briars, in return for a bite of particularly delicate grass. She turned again along the alley, and amused herself with planting erect any props that might have declined from the perpendicular. While doing so, she perceived the faint, yellow light of a glow-worm on the bank, which her husband gave her for the indulgence of her own fancies about primroses and blue hyacinths. Eagerly she kneeled down to watch the creature, and played with it for some time, now with a gentle finger-tip, and now with a stout blade of grass. The psalm from within doors meanwhile came, softened by distance, into a not unpleasing music. Effie’s mind and heart joined in this music more than her uncle would readily have believed. She invariably laid aside amusements and light thoughts when it reached her; and sympathized all the better in the devotions of the company from their psalms being stripped by distance of all that appeared to her harsh and unduly familiar in their sentiments and language. She now instantly arose, leaving the worm to find its way back to its covert; but—straight before her—stood a man, peeping at her through the hedge. He ducked, the moment he saw that he was observed, and she could get no answer to her questions and remarks—“What do you want?—If you are looking for the ferry, it is just below, to your right hand.—If you want our people, you had better come round to the gate.” She retreated towards the house, to shelter herself under the sounds that issued thence. She had no fear for her safety while in such neighbourhood; but she pondered the probability of the garden being robbed. There was little in it at present worth removal; but she thought she should do what she had done before when left in the guardianship of her husband’s goods—sit up in the star-light, and look out upon the garden, till her uncle, who was an early riser, should be heard stirring in the morning. This measure she presently decided upon; and the decision brought in so many thoughts of chill, and drowsiness, and startings, and nervous fancies,—with all of which her watchings had made her well acquainted,—that when she went back to the arbour for her work and implements, she snatched them up as if a thief had been in hiding there, and fled home as if he were following at her heels.
Uncle Christopher had just left the house with his guests, in order to ferry them over to their own bank of the river. Before putting the circle of chairs in their places, and depositing the hymn-book on its shelf, Effie closed and locked both doors of the dwelling. She had not been seated at her work a minute before there was a tap, and then a push at the door which opened into the garden.
“Who is there?”
“Effie, Effie, let me in!” said a low voice which thrilled through her. For the first time since her childhood, a superstitious terror seized her; and she sat staring, and neither spoke nor moved.