"I am going in to play, Hunt. I have the key."
"Very well, sir."
"How's the missis?" he stopped to ask.
"She be bad in all her bones, sir, she be. I telled her to lie down for half an hour: it's that nasty ague she have got upon her again. This be a damp spot to live in, so many low trees about," he continued, with a shrug of his shoulders.
Henry could not remember when the "missis" was not "bad in all her bones;" her ague seemed to be chronic. He proceeded on his way, passed the iron gates, walked up the churchyard, and unlocked the church door. Once in, he took the key from the outer lock, and placing it upon the bench inside, pushed the door to, but did not shut it. The taking out the key in this manner was by Mr. Wilberforce's orders: if they left it in the lock outside, some mischievous person might come and remove it, he had told the boys. Then he ascended to the organ-loft and commenced his practising. No blower was required, as certain pedals, touched with the feet, acted instead, something after the manner of a modern harmonium. His heart was in his task, in spite of the heavy care at it, for he loved music; and when it grew too dusk to see, he continued playing from memory.
The shades of evening were gathering outside, as well as in; and under cover of them a boy might have been seen stealing through the churchyard. It was Henry's rival, Lewis, whose mind had just been hatching a nice little revengeful plot. To say that Lewis had been half mad since the preceding day, would not be saying too much: he could have borne anything better than taunts from Miss Beauclerc; and for those taunts he would be revenged, the fates permitting, upon Henry Arkell. He did not quite see how, yet; but, as a little prologue, he intended to lock him in the church for the night, the idea of that having flashed into his mind after Henry had thanked him for throwing the stone.
Lewis gently pulled open the church door, looked for the key, saw it, and snatched it, locked the church door upon the unconscious boy, who was playing, and stole back again, key in hand. Beyond the gates of the churchyard he stopped to laugh, as though he had accomplished a great feat.
"Won't his crowing be cooled by morning! He'll be seeing ghosts all night, and calling out blue murder; but nobody can hear him, and there he must stop with them. What a jolly sell!"
He hid the key in his jacket pocket until he reached old Hunt's house. Lewis knew it was kept there, but did not know there was a niche or a nail for it in the passage. He did not care to be seen, and therefore must get the key in, in the best way he could.