Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps: Stories of a Yorkshire Farmer

by J. S. Fletcher

"You did," said I.

He put his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat—a favourite trick of his when he stood in the middle of his shop, looking about him—and spread himself out like a turkey-cock.

"And before noon I shall be, Poskitt!" he said. "The poor lad has become the great——"

He suddenly broke off there, and I saw his broad countenance, which was usually ruddy, turn as white as paste. He leaned forward, staring through the window with eyes that looked like to start out of his head. And following his glance I saw, standing on the opposite side of the market-place, and staring curiously at Kellet's house, the stranger whom I had seen a quarter of an hour before in the bar-parlour of the King George. He looked from window to window, up, down, and sauntered carelessly away.

Abraham Kellet pulled himself together and glanced suspiciously at me. There was a queer look on his face and he tried to smile—and at the same time he put his hand to his heart.

"Don't say anything, Poskitt," he said, looking round. "A slight spasm—it's nothing. The excitement, eh, Poskitt? And—it's time we were making a move."

He went back to the middle of the room and asked his company to join him in a final glass before setting out for the Town Hall, at the same time bidding his wife and daughters to be off to their places in the gallery set apart for ladies. And I noticed when he helped himself to a drink that he filled a champagne glass with brandy, and drank it off at a gulp, and that his hand trembled as he lifted the glass to his lips. Others, no doubt, noticed that too, and set it down to a very natural nervousness. He laughed, somewhat too boisterously, at an old-fashioned joke which the Vicar (who was as fond of his fun as he was of old port) made—that, too, might have been put down to nervousness. But I attributed neither the shaking hand nor the forced laughter to nervousness—it seemed to me that Abraham Kellet was frightened.

I told you that it was the custom in those days for the mayor-elect to be accompanied from his private residence to the Town Hall by a company of his friends—it was a further custom that each man walking in this little informal procession should carry what we then called a nosegay, and is now-a-days called a bouquet, of flowers. And so as we filed down the wide staircase of Abraham Kellet's house, each of us received at the hands of the man-servant a fine posy of such autumn blooms as were procurable. Thus decorated we went out into the market-place, passing between two groups of people who had gathered on either side the entrance to see the mayor-elect leave his house. They set up a hearty cheer as Abraham's burly figure came in sight, and that cheering continued all the way to the Town Hall, with an occasional blessing thrown in from old women who hoped, later in the day, to be sharers in the new mayor's bounty. Abraham walked through the market-place with erect head and smiling face, nodding and bowing right and left, but I, walking just behind and a little on one side of him, saw that he kept looking about him as if he were searching for a face.

The Town Hall was full when Abraham's party arrived—full, except for the seats which they had reserved for the favoured. Those for our party were in the front row of the right-hand gallery—when I had got into mine I took a leisurely survey of the scene. The Town Hall at Sicaster is a chamber of some size and pretensions—at one end is a wide and deep platform, behind which is a sculpture representing the surrender of Sicaster Castle at the time of the Civil War, and upon this platform, arranged in their due order of precedence, were already assembled the aldermen and councillors of the borough. They sat in semicircles round the platform—in the middle space stood a velvet-covered table on which were set out the ancient insignia of Sicaster, the mace, the cap of maintenance, the seal, the Bible. Behind this table were set three chairs, the one in the middle being placed on a sort of dais, a much more imposing one than those which flanked it. In front of the platform were seats for the grandees of the town, extending half-way down the hall, the remainder of which was open to the public, who had already packed it to its full extent. The right-hand gallery, in which I sat, was reserved for friends of members of the corporation; the opposite gallery for ladies, and in the front row there, immediately overlooking the platform, were Mrs. Kellet and her daughters, proud and beaming. The gallery at the rear of the hall was, like the lower half below, thrown open to the public. And glancing its packed rows over I saw, sitting immediately over the clock in the centre of the balustrade, the man whom I had seen in the King George and afterwards staring at Abraham Kellet's house.

He was sitting with his elbows fixed on the balustrade in front of him, and his chin propped in his hands, staring intently at the scene and the people. It seemed to me (and even twenty years ago, when I was only a matter of fifty odd years old, I flattered myself a bit on reading people's faces!) that he was recognizing, calling to mind, noting the differences which time makes. Without moving body or head, he let his eyes slowly search the galleries on either side of him just as they were searching the platform when I first saw him. And I began to wonder with a vague uneasiness who this man was and what he did there. Was he a mere stranger, actuated by curiosity to see an old English ceremony, or was he there of set purpose? And why had Abraham Kellet been moved at sight of him? For I was sure he had.