Deep Moat Grange

by S. R. Crockett

We stood still—close together, but very still.

Then strangely, familiarly, out of the darkness there came to our ears the sound of the sweet singing of a hymn—a hymn, too, that every one knows. I am not going to set down here which one it was. I never could rightly bear to hear it again—much less can I join in singing it. It was spoiled for me, and I would not for the world spoil it for those who may read this history of true, though strange, happenings.

Then, quick as a flash, I thought of the barn where we had seen and heard such wonderful things, Elsie and I. But it was no time for reminiscence. I stepped quietly across the yard and lifted the thick, felted fold of matting. I pushed open the half of the inner door, which perhaps the chill of the night, perhaps the needs of the service, had caused those within to close. Behind me I could hear the people of the village breathe restrainedly, and I smelled the odour of burned horses' hoofs which clothed the blacksmith like a garment. Ebie McClintock was the one man there with a stiff upper lip, and it was a mightily comforting thing to feel him at my back, even though he carried no other weapon than an iron hammer snatched up from the smithy floor as he came away.

The barn was dark, lighted by a couple of tall candles on the altar, and one caught on to the side of a kind of reading desk. I could at first see no more than a huddle of figures clad in black with white kerchiefs bound about their foreheads. The draught from without, caused by the opening of the door and the lifting of the curtain, made the candles flicker, and, indeed, blew out the one at the little desk farthest from us.

It seemed to me, however, that I saw a figure, or, rather, a dim shadow, flit across the heavy hangings, and disappear in the darkness behind. I could not have sworn it, though such was my impression; for at that moment the villagers, bearing on my shoulder, crowding on tiptoe to look, broke like water over an overfull dam. The other half of the door fell back with a clang, and they entered confusedly, tearing down the curtain in their haste. A shot went off accidentally—the very thing I had been expecting all the time from men, who, though warned, would persist in carrying their guns at full cock. No harm, however, was done, save that a bevy of bats, disturbed in their winter's repose, dashed wildly for the door, striking their faces before swooping out into the night.

Then the kneeling women rose—the three mad sisters, and one who stepped in front of them, their elder and protector, Aphra Orrin.

It may seem strange, yet in a moment there came upon me a sense of shame. All was so decent and in order, as for some private Divine service in an oratory. A Bible was open at the lesson for the day, a "marker," with a gold cross hanging between the leaves. The altar nicely laid with a white cloth, and against the black pall, which hid the end of the barn, hung a great gilt crucifix.

"What seek ye here?" said Miss Orrin, standing up very tall, and speaking with a certain chill and surprising dignity which overawed many of my followers.

"I seek my father!" I answered, since nobody else could. "He has been lost, and it is here that we have come to look for him."

And though the villagers murmured, "Ay—ay, rightly said, Master Joseph!" I could not but feel at that moment that my reasoning was but weak. If I had had to speak with a man it would have been different.