To which, as indeed to everything I proposed, Miss Pounden assented.
I walked for a minute or two about the chapel before I stole a glance backward at the place where I had seen the apparition. He was gone. The arch, and the void space behind, were all that remained; there was nothing but deep shadow where that face had loomed. I asked Miss Pounden if she had seen the old man looking in; she had not.
Well, we left the chapel, and retraced our steps through the long corridor, I watching through the successive loop-holes for the figure of the old man pacing the grass beneath; but I did not see him. Down the stairs we came, I peeping into every narrow doorway we passed, and so out upon the grassy level of the inner court. I looked in all directions there, but nowhere could I see him. Under the arched gateway, where the portcullis used to clang, we passed into the outer court, and there I peeped about, also in vain.
I dare say Miss Pounden, if she could wonder at anything, wondered what I could be in pursuit of; but that most convenient of women never troubled me with a question.
Through the outer gate, in turn, we passed, and to Richard Pritchard's lodge, at the side of the gate admitting visitors from Castle Street to the castle grounds. Tall Richard Pritchard, with his thin stoop, his wide-awake hat, brown face, lantern jaws, and perpetual smirk, listened to my questions, and answered that he had let in such a gentleman, about ten minutes before, as I described. This gentleman had given his horse to hold to a donkey-boy outside the gate, and Richard Pritchard went on to say, with his usual volubility, and his curious interpolation of phrases of politeness, without the slightest regard to their connection with the context, but simply to heighten the amiability and polish of his discourse:
"And he asked a deal, miss, about the family down at Malory, I beg your pardon; and when he heard you were there, miss, he asked if you ever came down to the town—yes, indeed. So when I told him you were in the castle now—very well, I thank you, miss—he asked whereabout in the castle you were likely to be—yes, indeed, miss, very true—and he gave me a shilling—he did, indeed—and I showed him the way to the chapel—I beg your pardon, miss—where you very often go—very true indeed, miss; and so I left him at the top of the stairs. Ah, ha! yes, indeed, miss; and he came back just two or three minutes, and took his horse and rode down towards the water gate—very well, I thank you, miss."
This was the substance of Richard Pritchard's information. So, then, he had ridden down Castle Street and out of the town. It was odd his caring to have that look at me. What could he mean by it? His was a countenance ominous of nothing good. After so long an interval, it was not pleasant to see it again, especially associated with inquiries about Malory and its owners, and the sinister attraction which had drawn him to the chapel to gaze upon me, and, as I plainly perceived, by no means with eyes of liking. The years that had immediately followed his last visit, I knew had proved years of great loss and peril to papa. May heaven avert the omen! I silently prayed. I knew that old Rebecca Torkill could not help to identify, him, for I had been curious on the point before. She could not bring to her recollection the particular scene that had so fixed itself upon my memory; for, as she said, in those evil years there was hardly a day that did not bring down some bawling creditor from London to Malory in search of papa.
