"You are too proud to lie with the poor, perhaps," returned I, who had still that idea in my mind with regard to Marmaduke himself.
"No," said he; "it is not that—it is because the Heaths will not be buried in consecrated ground."
"But you have a family vault underneath the chancel, have you not?"
"Yes; but it is not 'snug lying.' None of us have been put there since old Sir Hugh, in Queen Anne's time. When they opened the vault for him, they found his father's coffin with its plate to the ground. It had turned over. The witty parson would have it that it was only natural that it should have done so, since its tenant, during life, had fought alternately for Parliament and King, and was addicted to changing sides. Bat when Sir Hugh's successor demanded lodging in the place in his turn, they found Sir Hugh's coffin had turned over likewise. The circumstance so terrified the dead man's heir—who had not been on the best terms with him during life, and perhaps thought he owed him some amends—that he swore his father should not lie in such restless company; and as the late baronet had been at feud with the then rector, he determined to dispense with any assistance from the church at all, and buried him in an adjoining field, which was subsequently made the last resting-place of all our race, as you perceive. The burial service is dispensed with, of course. It would be mere mockery to address such words as Hope and Faith to the corpse of a Heath of Fairburn."
"My dear Marmaduke," said I, "you make my very blood run cold. But surely you exaggerate these things. Some of your people have been Catholics, and been buried in their own chapel at the Hall, have they not?"
"Only one of them," replied the boy with bitterness. "My great-grandfather, Sir Nicholas, abjured his infidelity, and became a papist, in order to secure his bride. He turned the chapel into a banqueting-hall, however, and used the sacramental plate in his unholy revels; but after death, the priests got hold of him at last, and 'Nick the Younger,' as he was called, now lies under the altar which he so often profaned. The beginning of his funeral ceremonies was not conducted so decently as the last rites. He had got outlawed, I believe, or, at all events, was driven abroad in his latter days, and died there. Nobody at Fairburn had heard of him for many months, when one October night, as Oliver Bradford, who is now the head-keeper, but was then a very young man, was watching in the home-preserves, he heard a terrible noise in the high-road, and making his way out, came upon this spectacle: two men in black, and upon black horses, rode by him at full speed, and close behind them came a hearse-and-four, likewise at the gallop. The plumes upon it waved backwards, he says, like corn, and all the black trappings of the thing fluttered and flapped as it went by. Another man on horseback, singing to himself a drunken song, closed this horrid procession. It moved up towards the village, and Oliver listened to it until the noise seemed to cease about opposite to the Park gates. The solitary witness, frightened enough before, was now doubly terrified, for he made sure that what he had seen was the news of Sir Nicholas's decease, brought over in this ghastly and characteristic fashion. He did not for a single moment imagine that it was a palpable vision; and yet he had seen a veritable funeral pass by. The old baronet had died in France, leaving directions, and the money to carry them out, that his corpse should be taken at night, and at full gallop, through every town that lay between Dover and Fairburn.—Alive or dead," added Marmaduke grimly, "the Heaths are a charming family."
"At all events, my dear fellow," said I, laying my hand upon his arm, "you will have nothing to fear from comparison with your forefathers. You may make a good reputation at a cheap price.[1] A very little virtue will go a great way with the next tenant of Fairburn Hall, if half the tales we hear be true."
"And what tales are those?" inquired a deep, low voice at my very elbow.
I believe I jumped a foot or two in the air myself, so great was my alarm. But as far my companion, if those grass-grown tombs which we were contemplating had given up their wicked skeletons before his eyes, he could not have exhibited a greater excess of terror.
Beside me stood a man of Herculean proportions, who by his dress might have been taken for an under-gamekeeper, but for a very massive gold chain which hung from the top button-hole of his waistcoat down to its deep-flapped pocket. What is now, I believe, called an "Albert guard," resembles it on a smaller scale; but at the time I speak of, such an ornament was altogether unique. His face, too, evidently belonged to one who was used to command. On the forehead was a curious indented curve like the letter U, while his lip curled contemptuously upwards also, in somewhat the same shape. The two together gave him a weird and indeed a demoniacal look, which his white beard, although long and flowing, had not enough of dignity to do away with. I had never heard Sir Massingberd's personal appearance described; but even if I had not had before me his shrinking nephew, I should have recognized at once the features of Giant Despair.