Wessex Tales 1896

The Distracted Preacher

CHAPTER I--HOW HIS COLD WAS CURED

Something delayed the arrival of the Wesleyan minister, and a young

man came temporarily in his stead.  It was on the thirteenth of

January 183- that Mr. Stockdale, the young man in question, made his

humble entry into the village, unknown, and almost unseen.  But when

those of the inhabitants who styled themselves of his connection

became acquainted with him, they were rather pleased with the

substitute than otherwise, though he had scarcely as yet acquired

ballast of character sufficient to steady the consciences of the

hundred-and-forty Methodists of pure blood who, at this time, lived

in Nether-Moynton, and to give in addition supplementary support to

the mixed race which went to church in the morning and chapel in the

evening, or when there was a tea--as many as a hundred-and-ten

people more, all told, and including the parish-clerk in the winter-

time, when it was too dark for the vicar to observe who passed up

the street at seven o'clock--which, to be just to him, he was never

anxious to do.

It was owing to this overlapping of creeds that the celebrated

population-puzzle arose among the denser gentry of the district

around Nether-Moynton:  how could it be that a parish containing

fifteen score of strong full-grown Episcopalians, and nearly

thirteen score of well-matured Dissenters, numbered barely two-and-

twenty score adults in all?

The young man being personally interesting, those with whom he came

in contact were content to waive for a while the graver question of

his sufficiency.  It is said that at this time of his life his eyes

were affectionate, though without a ray of levity; that his hair was

curly, and his figure tall; that he was, in short, a very lovable

youth, who won upon his female hearers as soon as they saw and heard

him, and caused them to say, 'Why didn't we know of this before he

came, that we might have gied him a warmer welcome!'

The fact was that, knowing him to be only provisionally selected,

and expecting nothing remarkable in his person or doctrine, they and

the rest of his flock in Nether-Moynton had felt almost as

indifferent about his advent as if they had been the soundest

church-going parishioners in the country, and he their true and

appointed parson.  Thus when Stockdale set foot in the place nobody

had secured a lodging for him, and though his journey had given him

a bad cold in the head, he was forced to attend to that business

himself.  On inquiry he learnt that the only possible accommodation

in the village would be found at the house of one Mrs. Lizzy

Newberry, at the upper end of the street.

It was a youth who gave this information, and Stockdale asked him

who Mrs. Newberry might be.

The boy said that she was a widow-woman, who had got no husband,

because he was dead.  Mr. Newberry, he added, had been a well-to-do

man enough, as the saying was, and a farmer; but he had gone off in

a decline.  As regarded Mrs. Newberry's serious side, Stockdale

gathered that she was one of the trimmers who went to church and

chapel both.

'I'll go there,' said Stockdale, feeling that, in the absence of

purely sectarian lodgings, he could do no better.

'She's a little particular, and won't hae gover'ment folks, or

curates, or the pa'son's friends, or such like,' said the lad

dubiously.

'Ah, that may be a promising sign:  I'll call.  Or no; just you go

up and ask first if she can find room for me.  I have to see one or

two persons on another matter.  You will find me down at the

carrier's.'

In a quarter of an hour the lad came back, and said that Mrs.

Newberry would have no objection to accommodate him, whereupon

Stockdale called at the house.

It stood within a garden-hedge, and seemed to be roomy and

comfortable.  He saw an elderly woman, with whom he made

arrangements to come the same night, since there was no inn in the

place, and he wished to house himself as soon as possible; the

village being a local centre from which he was to radiate at once to

the different small chapels in the neighbourhood.  He forthwith sent

his luggage to Mrs. Newberry's from the carrier's, where he had

taken shelter, and in the evening walked up to his temporary home.

As he now lived there, Stockdale felt it unnecessary to knock at the

door; and entering quietly he had the pleasure of hearing footsteps

scudding away like mice into the back quarters.  He advanced to the

parlour, as the front room was called, though its stone floor was

scarcely disguised by the carpet, which only over-laid the trodden

areas, leaving sandy deserts under the bulging mouldings of the

table-legs, playing with brass furniture.  But the room looked snug

and cheerful.  The firelight shone out brightly, trembling on the

knobs and handles, and lurking in great strength on the under

surface of the chimney-piece.  A deep arm-chair, covered with

horsehair, and studded with a countless throng of brass nails, was

pulled up on one side of the fireplace.  The tea-things were on the

table, the teapot cover was open, and a little hand-bell had been

laid at that precise point towards which a person seated in the

great chair might be expected instinctively to stretch his hand.

Stockdale sat down, not objecting to his experience of the room thus

far, and began his residence by tinkling the bell.  A little girl

crept in at the summons, and made tea for him.  Her name, she said,

was Marther Sarer, and she lived out there, nodding towards the road

and village generally.  Before Stockdale had got far with his meal,

a tap sounded on the door behind him, and on his telling the

inquirer to come in, a rustle of garments caused him to turn his

head.  He saw before him a fine and extremely well-made young woman,

with dark hair, a wide, sensible, beautiful forehead, eyes that

warmed him before he knew it, and a mouth that was in itself a

picture to all appreciative souls.

'Can I get you anything else for tea?' she said, coming forward a

step or two, an expression of liveliness on her features, and her

hand waving the door by its edge.

'Nothing, thank you,' said Stockdale, thinking less of what he

replied than of what might be her relation to the household.

'You are quite sure?' said the young woman, apparently aware that he

had not considered his answer.

He conscientiously examined the tea-things, and found them all

there.  'Quite sure, Miss Newberry,' he said.

'It is Mrs. Newberry,' she said.  'Lizzy Newberry, I used to be

Lizzy Simpkins.'

'O, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Newberry.'  And before he had occasion

to say more she left the room.

Stockdale remained in some doubt till Martha Sarah came to clear the

table.  'Whose house is this, my little woman,' said he.

'Mrs. Lizzy Newberry's, sir.'

'Then Mrs. Newberry is not the old lady I saw this afternoon?'

'No.  That's Mrs. Newberry's mother.  It was Mrs. Newberry who comed

in to you just by now, because she wanted to see if you was good-

looking.'

Later in the evening, when Stockdale was about to begin supper, she

came again.  'I have come myself, Mr. Stockdale,' she said.  The

minister stood up in acknowledgment of the honour.  'I am afraid

little Marther might not make you understand.  What will you have

for supper?--there's cold rabbit, and there's a ham uncut.'

Stockdale said he could get on nicely with those viands, and supper

was laid.  He had no more than cut a slice when tap-tap came to the

door again.  The minister had already learnt that this particular

rhythm in taps denoted the fingers of his enkindling landlady, and

the doomed young fellow buried his first mouthful under a look of

receptive blandness.

'We have a chicken in the house, Mr. Stockdale--I quite forgot to

mention it just now.  Perhaps you would like Marther Sarer to bring

it up?'

Stockdale had advanced far enough in the art of being a young man to

say that he did not want the chicken, unless she brought it up

herself; but when it was uttered he blushed at the daring gallantry

of the speech, perhaps a shade too strong for a serious man and a

minister.  In three minutes the chicken appeared, but, to his great

surprise, only in the hands of Martha Sarah.  Stockdale was

disappointed, which perhaps it was intended that he should be.

He had finished supper, and was not in the least anticipating Mrs.

Newberry again that night, when she tapped and entered as before.

Stockdale's gratified look told that she had lost nothing by not

appearing when expected.  It happened that the cold in the head from

which the young man suffered had increased with the approach of

night, and before she had spoken he was seized with a violent fit of

sneezing which he could not anyhow repress.

Mrs. Newberry looked full of pity.  'Your cold is very bad to-night,

Mr. Stockdale.'

Stockdale replied that it was rather troublesome.

'And I've a good mind'--she added archly, looking at the cheerless

glass of water on the table, which the abstemious minister was going

to drink.

'Yes, Mrs. Newberry?'

'I've a good mind that you should have something more likely to cure

it than that cold stuff.'

'Well,' said Stockdale, looking down at the glass, 'as there is no

inn here, and nothing better to be got in the village, of course it

will do.'

To this she replied, 'There is something better, not far off, though

not in the house.  I really think you must try it, or you may be

ill.  Yes, Mr. Stockdale, you shall.'  She held up her finger,

seeing that he was about to speak.  'Don't ask what it is; wait, and

you shall see.'

Lizzy went away, and Stockdale waited in a pleasant mood.  Presently

she returned with her bonnet and cloak on, saying, 'I am so sorry,

but you must help me to get it.  Mother has gone to bed.  Will you

wrap yourself up, and come this way, and please bring that cup with

you?'

Stockdale, a lonely young fellow, who had for weeks felt a great

craving for somebody on whom to throw away superfluous interest, and

even tenderness, was not sorry to join her; and followed his guide

through the back door, across the garden, to the bottom, where the

boundary was a wall.  This wall was low, and beyond it Stockdale

discerned in the night shades several grey headstones, and the

outlines of the church roof and tower.

'It is easy to get up this way,' she said, stepping upon a bank

which abutted on the wall; then putting her foot on the top of the

stonework, and descending a spring inside, where the ground was much

higher, as is the manner of graveyards to be.  Stockdale did the

same, and followed her in the dusk across the irregular ground till

they came to the tower door, which, when they had entered, she

softly closed behind them.

'You can keep a secret?' she said, in a musical voice.

'Like an iron chest!' said he fervently.

Then from under her cloak she produced a small lighted lantern,

which the minister had not noticed that she carried at all.  The

light showed them to be close to the singing-gallery stairs, under

which lay a heap of lumber of all sorts, but consisting mostly of

decayed framework, pews, panels, and pieces of flooring, that from

time to time had been removed from their original fixings in the

body of the edifice and replaced by new.

'Perhaps you will drag some of those boards aside?' she said,

holding the lantern over her head to light him better.  'Or will you

take the lantern while I move them?'

'I can manage it,' said the young man, and acting as she ordered, he

uncovered, to his surprise, a row of little barrels bound with wood

hoops, each barrel being about as large as the nave of a heavy

waggon-wheel.

When they were laid open Lizzy fixed her eyes on him, as if she

wondered what he would say.

'You know what they are?' she asked, finding that he did not speak.

'Yes, barrels,' said Stockdale simply.  He was an inland man, the

son of highly respectable parents, and brought up with a single eye

to the ministry; and the sight suggested nothing beyond the fact

that such articles were there.

'You are quite right, they are barrels,' she said, in an emphatic

tone of candour that was not without a touch of irony.

Stockdale looked at her with an eye of sudden misgiving.  'Not

smugglers' liquor?' he said.

'Yes,' said she.  'They are tubs of spirit that have accidentally

come over in the dark from France.'

In Nether-Moynton and its vicinity at this date people always smiled

at the sort of sin called in the outside world illicit trading; and

these little kegs of gin and brandy were as well known to the

inhabitants as turnips.  So that Stockdale's innocent ignorance, and

his look of alarm when he guessed the sinister mystery, seemed to

strike Lizzy first as ludicrous, and then as very awkward for the

good impression that she wished to produce upon him.

'Smuggling is carried on here by some of the people,' she said in a

gentle, apologetic voice.  'It has been their practice for

generations, and they think it no harm.  Now, will you roll out one

of the tubs?'

'What to do with it?' said the minister.

'To draw a little from it to cure your cold,' she answered.  'It is

so 'nation strong that it drives away that sort of thing in a jiffy.

O, it is all right about our taking it.  I may have what I like; the

owner of the tubs says so.  I ought to have had some in the house,

and then I shouldn't ha' been put to this trouble; but I drink none

myself, and so I often forget to keep it indoors.'

'You are allowed to help yourself, I suppose, that you may not

inform where their hiding-place is?'

'Well, no; not that particularly; but I may take any if I want it.

So help yourself.'

'I will, to oblige you, since you have a right to it,' murmured the

minister; and though he was not quite satisfied with his part in the

performance, he rolled one of the 'tubs' out from the corner into

the middle of the tower floor.  'How do you wish me to get it out--

with a gimlet, I suppose?'

'No, I'll show you,' said his interesting companion; and she held up

with her other hand a shoemaker's awl and a hammer.  'You must never

do these things with a gimlet, because the wood-dust gets in; and

when the buyers pour out the brandy that would tell them that the

tub had been broached.  An awl makes no dust, and the hole nearly

closes up again.  Now tap one of the hoops forward.'

Stockdale took the hammer and did so.

'Now make the hole in the part that was covered by the hoop.'

He made the hole as directed.  'It won't run out,' he said.

'O yes it will,' said she.  'Take the tub between your knees, and

squeeze the heads; and I'll hold the cup.'

Stockdale obeyed; and the pressure taking effect upon the tub, which

seemed, to be thin, the spirit spirted out in a stream.  When the

cup was full he ceased pressing, and the flow immediately stopped.

'Now we must fill up the keg with water,' said Lizzy, 'or it will

cluck like forty hens when it is handled, and show that 'tis not

full.'

'But they tell you you may take it?'

'Yes, the SMUGGLERS:  but the BUYERS must not know that the

smugglers have been kind to me at their expense.'

'I see,' said Stockdale doubtfully.  'I much question the honesty of

this proceeding.'

By her direction he held the tub with the hole upwards, and while he

went through the process of alternately pressing and ceasing to

press, she produced a bottle of water, from which she took

mouthfuls, conveying each to the keg by putting her pretty lips to

the hole, where it was sucked in at each recovery of the cask from

pressure.  When it was again full he plugged the hole, knocked the

hoop down to its place, and buried the tub in the lumber as before.

'Aren't the smugglers afraid that you will tell?' he asked, as they

recrossed the churchyard.

'O no; they are not afraid of that.  I couldn't do such a thing.'

'They have put you into a very awkward corner,' said Stockdale

emphatically.  'You must, of course, as an honest person, sometimes

feel that it is your duty to inform--really you must.'

'Well, I have never particularly felt it as a duty; and, besides, my

first husband--'  She stopped, and there was some confusion in her

voice.  Stockdale was so honest and unsophisticated that he did not

at once discern why she paused:  but at last he did perceive that

the words were a slip, and that no woman would have uttered 'first

husband' by accident unless she had thought pretty frequently of a

second.  He felt for her confusion, and allowed her time to recover

and proceed.  'My husband,' she said, in a self-corrected tone,

'used to know of their doings, and so did my father, and kept the

secret.  I cannot inform, in fact, against anybody.'

'I see the hardness of it,' he continued, like a man who looked far

into the moral of things.  'And it is very cruel that you should be

tossed and tantalized between your memories and your conscience.  I

do hope, Mrs. Newberry, that you will soon see your way out of this

unpleasant position.'

'Well, I don't just now,' she murmured.

By this time they had passed over the wall and entered the house,

where she brought him a glass and hot water, and left him to his own

reflections.  He looked after her vanishing form, asking himself

whether he, as a respectable man, and a minister, and a shining

light, even though as yet only of the halfpenny-candle sort, were

quite justified in doing this thing.  A sneeze settled the question;

and he found that when the fiery liquor was lowered by the addition

of twice or thrice the quantity of water, it was one of the

prettiest cures for a cold in the head that he had ever known,

particularly at this chilly time of the year.

Stockdale sat in the deep chair about twenty minutes sipping and

meditating, till he at length took warmer views of things, and

longed for the morrow, when he would see Mrs. Newberry again.  He

then felt that, though chronologically at a short distance, it would

in an emotional sense be very long before to-morrow came, and walked

restlessly round the room.  His eye was attracted by a framed and

glazed sampler in which a running ornament of fir-trees and peacocks

surrounded the following pretty bit of sentiment:-

'Rose-leaves smell when roses thrive,

Here's my work while I'm alive;

Rose-leaves smell when shrunk and shed,

Here's my work when I am dead.

'Lizzy Simpkins.  Fear God.  Honour the King.

'Aged 11 years.

''Tis hers,' he said to himself.  'Heavens, how I like that name!'

Before he had done thinking that no other name from Abigail to

Zenobia would have suited his young landlady so well, tap-tap came

again upon the door; and the minister started as her face appeared

yet another time, looking so disinterested that the most ingenious

would have refrained from asserting that she had come to affect his

feelings by her seductive eyes.

'Would you like a fire in your room, Mr. Stockdale, on account of

your cold?'

The minister, being still a little pricked in the conscience for

countenancing her in watering the spirits, saw here a way to self-

chastisement.  'No, I thank you,' he said firmly; 'it is not

necessary.  I have never been used to one in my life, and it would

be giving way to luxury too far.'

'Then I won't insist,' she said, and disconcerted him by vanishing

instantly.

Wondering if she was vexed by his refusal, he wished that he had

chosen to have a fire, even though it should have scorched him out

of bed and endangered his self-discipline for a dozen days.

However, he consoled himself with what was in truth a rare

consolation for a budding lover, that he was under the same roof

with Lizzy; her guest, in fact, to take a poetical view of the term

lodger; and that he would certainly see her on the morrow.

The morrow came, and Stockdale rose early, his cold quite gone.  He

had never in his life so longed for the breakfast hour as he did

that day, and punctually at eight o'clock, after a short walk, to

reconnoitre the premises, he re-entered the door of his dwelling.

Breakfast passed, and Martha Sarah attended, but nobody came

voluntarily as on the night before to inquire if there were other

wants which he had not mentioned, and which she would attempt to

gratify.  He was disappointed, and went out, hoping to see her at

dinner.  Dinner time came; he sat down to the meal, finished it,

lingered on for a whole hour, although two new teachers were at that

moment waiting at the chapel-door to speak to him by appointment.

It was useless to wait longer, and he slowly went his way down the

lane, cheered by the thought that, after all, he would see her in

the evening, and perhaps engage again in the delightful tub-

broaching in the neighbouring church tower, which proceeding he

resolved to render more moral by steadfastly insisting that no water

should be introduced to fill up, though the tub should cluck like

all the hens in Christendom.  But nothing could disguise the fact

that it was a queer business; and his countenance fell when he

thought how much more his mind was interested in that matter than in

his serious duties.

However, compunction vanished with the decline of day.  Night came,

and his tea and supper; but no Lizzy Newberry, and no sweet

temptations.  At last the minister could bear it no longer, and said

to his quaint little attendant, 'Where is Mrs. Newberry to-day?'

judiciously handing a penny as he spoke.

'She's busy,' said Martha.

'Anything serious happened?' he asked, handing another penny, and

revealing yet additional pennies in the background.

'O no--nothing at all!' said she, with breathless confidence.

'Nothing ever happens to her.  She's only biding upstairs in bed

because 'tis her way sometimes.'

Being a young man of some honour, he would not question further, and

assuming that Lizzy must have a bad headache, or other slight

ailment, in spite of what the girl had said, he went to bed

dissatisfied, not even setting eyes on old Mrs. Simpkins.  'I said

last night that I should see her to-morrow,' he reflected; 'but that

was not to be!'

Next day he had better fortune, or worse, meeting her at the foot of

the stairs in the morning, and being favoured by a visit or two from

her during the day--once for the purpose of making kindly inquiries

about his comfort, as on the first evening, and at another time to

place a bunch of winter-violets on his table, with a promise to

renew them when they drooped.  On these occasions there was

something in her smile which showed how conscious she was of the

effect she produced, though it must be said that it was rather a

humorous than a designing consciousness, and savoured more of pride

than of vanity.

As for Stockdale, he clearly perceived that he possessed unlimited

capacity for backsliding, and wished that tutelary saints were not

denied to Dissenters.  He set a watch upon his tongue and eyes for

the space of one hour and a half, after which he found it was

useless to struggle further, and gave himself up to the situation.

'The other minister will be here in a month,' he said to himself

when sitting over the fire.  'Then I shall be off, and she will

distract my mind no more! . . . And then, shall I go on living by

myself for ever?  No; when my two years of probation are finished, I

shall have a furnished house to live in, with a varnished door and a

brass knocker; and I'll march straight back to her, and ask her

flat, as soon as the last plate is on the dresser!

Thus a titillating fortnight was passed by young Stockdale, during

which time things proceeded much as such matters have done ever

since the beginning of history.  He saw the object of attachment

several times one day, did not see her at all the next, met her when

he least expected to do so, missed her when hints and signs as to

where she should be at a given hour almost amounted to an

appointment.  This mild coquetry was perhaps fair enough under the

circumstances of their being so closely lodged, and Stockdale put up

with it as philosophically as he was able.  Being in her own house,

she could, after vexing him or disappointing him of her presence,

easily win him back by suddenly surrounding him with those little

attentions which her position as his landlady put it in her power to

bestow.  When he had waited indoors half the day to see her, and on

finding that she would not be seen, had gone off in a huff to the

dreariest and dampest walk he could discover, she would restore

equilibrium in the evening with 'Mr. Stockdale, I have fancied you

must feel draught o' nights from your bedroom window, and so I have

been putting up thicker curtains this afternoon while you were out;'

or, 'I noticed that you sneezed twice again this morning, Mr.

Stockdale.  Depend upon it that cold is hanging about you yet; I am

sure it is--I have thought of it continually; and you must let me

make a posset for you.'

Sometimes in coming home he found his sitting-room rearranged,

chairs placed where the table had stood, and the table ornamented

with the few fresh flowers and leaves that could be obtained at this

season, so as to add a novelty to the room.  At times she would be

standing on a chair outside the house, trying to nail up a branch of

the monthly rose which the winter wind had blown down; and of course

he stepped forward to assist her, when their hands got mixed in

passing the shreds and nails.  Thus they became friends again after

a disagreement.  She would utter on these occasions some pretty and

deprecatory remark on the necessity of her troubling him anew; and

he would straightway say that he would do a hundred times as much

for her if she should so require.

CHAPTER II--HOW HE SAW TWO OTHER MEN

Matters being in this advancing state, Stockdale was rather

surprised one cloudy evening, while sitting in his room, at hearing

her speak in low tones of expostulation to some one at the door.  It

was nearly dark, but the shutters were not yet closed, nor the

candles lighted; and Stockdale was tempted to stretch his head

towards the window.  He saw outside the door a young man in clothes

of a whitish colour, and upon reflection judged their wearer to be

the well-built and rather handsome miller who lived below.  The

miller's voice was alternately low and firm, and sometimes it

reached the level of positive entreaty; but what the words were

Stockdale could in no way hear.

Before the colloquy had ended, the minister's attention was

attracted by a second incident.  Opposite Lizzy's home grew a clump

of laurels, forming a thick and permanent shade.  One of the laurel

boughs now quivered against the light background of sky, and in a

moment the head of a man peered out, and remained still.  He seemed

to be also much interested in the conversation at the door, and was

plainly lingering there to watch and listen.  Had Stockdale stood in

any other relation to Lizzy than that of a lover, he might have gone

out and investigated the meaning of this:  but being as yet but an

unprivileged ally, he did nothing more than stand up and show

himself against the firelight, whereupon the listener disappeared,

and Lizzy and the miller spoke in lower tones.

Stockdale was made so uneasy by the circumstance, that as soon as

the miller was gone, he said, 'Mrs. Newberry, are you aware that you

were watched just now, and your conversation heard?'

'When?' she said.

'When you were talking to that miller.  A man was looking from the

laurel-tree as jealously as if he could have eaten you.'

She showed more concern than the trifling event seemed to demand,

and he added, 'Perhaps you were talking of things you did not wish

to be overheard?'

'I was talking only on business,' she said.

'Lizzy, be frank!' said the young man.  'If it was only on business,

why should anybody wish to listen to you?'

She looked curiously at him.  'What else do you think it could be,

then?'

'Well--the only talk between a young woman and man that is likely to

amuse an eavesdropper.'

'Ah yes,' she said, smiling in spite of her preoccupation.  'Well,

my cousin Owlett has spoken to me about matrimony, every now and

then, that's true; but he was not speaking of it then.  I wish he

had been speaking of it, with all my heart.  It would have been much

less serious for me.'

'O Mrs. Newberry!'

'It would.  Not that I should ha' chimed in with him, of course.  I

wish it for other reasons.  I am glad, Mr. Stockdale, that you have

told me of that listener.  It is a timely warning, and I must see my

cousin again.'

'But don't go away till I have spoken,' said the minister.  'I'll

out with it at once, and make no more ado.  Let it be Yes or No

between us, Lizzy; please do!'  And he held out his hand, in which

she freely allowed her own to rest, but without speaking.

'You mean Yes by that?' he asked, after waiting a while.

'You may be my sweetheart, if you will.'

'Why not say at once you will wait for me until I have a house and

can come back to marry you.'

'Because I am thinking--thinking of something else,' she said with

embarrassment.  'It all comes upon me at once, and I must settle one

thing at a time.'

'At any rate, dear Lizzy, you can assure me that the miller shall

not be allowed to speak to you except on business? You have never

directly encouraged him?'

She parried the question by saying, 'You see, he and his party have

been in the habit of leaving things on my premises sometimes, and as

I have not denied him, it makes him rather forward.'

'Things--what things?'

'Tubs--they are called Things here.'

'But why don't you deny him, my dear Lizzy?'

'I cannot well.'

'You are too timid.  It is unfair of him to impose so upon you, and

get your good name into danger by his smuggling tricks.  Promise me

that the next time he wants to leave his tubs here you will let me

roll them into the street?'

She shook her head.  'I would not venture to offend the neighbours

so much as that,' said she, 'or do anything that would be so likely

to put poor Owlett into the hands of the excisemen.'

Stockdale sighed, and said that he thought hers a mistaken

generosity when it extended to assisting those who cheated the king

of his dues.  'At any rate, you will let me make him keep his

distance as your lover, and tell him flatly that you are not for

him?'

'Please not, at present,' she said.  'I don't wish to offend my old

neighbours.  It is not only Owlett who is concerned.'

'This is too bad,' said Stockdale impatiently.

'On my honour, I won't encourage him as my lover,' Lizzy answered

earnestly.  'A reasonable man will be satisfied with that.'

'Well, so I am,' said Stockdale, his countenance clearing.

CHAPTER III--THE MYSTERIOUS GREATCOAT

Stockdale now began to notice more particularly a feature in the

life of his fair landlady, which he had casually observed but

scarcely ever thought of before.  It was that she was markedly

irregular in her hours of rising.  For a week or two she would be

tolerably punctual, reaching the ground-floor within a few minutes

of half-past seven.  Then suddenly she would not be visible till

twelve at noon, perhaps for three or four days in succession; and

twice he had certain proof that she did not leave her room till

half-past three in the afternoon.  The second time that this extreme

lateness came under his notice was on a day when he had particularly

wished to consult with her about his future movements; and he

concluded, as he always had done, that she had a cold, headache, or

other ailment, unless she had kept herself invisible to avoid

meeting and talking to him, which he could hardly believe.  The

former supposition was disproved, however, by her innocently saying,

some days later, when they were speaking on a question of health,

that she had never had a moment's heaviness, headache, or illness of

any kind since the previous January twelvemonth.

'I am glad to hear it,' said he.  'I thought quite otherwise.'

'What, do I look sickly?' she asked, turning up her face to show the

impossibility of his gazing on it and holding such a belief for a

moment.

'Not at all; I merely thought so from your being sometimes obliged

to keep your room through the best part of the day.'

'O, as for that--it means nothing,' she murmured, with a look which

some might have called cold, and which was the worst look that he

liked to see upon her.  'It is pure sleepiness, Mr. Stockdale.'

'Never!'

'It is, I tell you.  When I stay in my room till half-past three in

the afternoon, you may always be sure that I slept soundly till

three, or I shouldn't have stayed there.'

'It is dreadful,' said Stockdale, thinking of the disastrous effects

of such indulgence upon the household of a minister, should it

become a habit of everyday occurrence.

'But then,' she said, divining his good and prescient thoughts, 'it

only happens when I stay awake all night.  I don't go to sleep till

five or six in the morning sometimes.'

'Ah, that's another matter,' said Stockdale.  'Sleeplessness to such

an alarming extent is real illness.  Have you spoken to a doctor?'

'O no--there is no need for doing that--it is all natural to me.'

And she went away without further remark.

Stockdale might have waited a long time to know the real cause of

her sleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was

sitting in his bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which

occupied him perfunctorily for a considerable time after the other

members of the household had retired.  He did not get to bed till

one o'clock.  Before he had fallen asleep he heard a knocking at the

front door, first rather timidly performed, and then louder.  Nobody

answered it, and the person knocked again.  As the house still

remained undisturbed, Stockdale got out of bed, went to his window,

which overlooked the door, and opening it, asked who was there.

A young woman's voice replied that Susan Wallis was there, and that

she had come to ask if Mrs. Newberry could give her some mustard to

make a plaster with, as her father was taken very ill on the chest.

The minister, having neither bell nor servant, was compelled to act

in person.  'I will call Mrs. Newberry,' he said.  Partly dressing

himself; he went along the passage and tapped at Lizzy's door.  She

did not answer, and, thinking of her erratic habits in the matter of

sleep, he thumped the door persistently, when he discovered, by its

moving ajar under his knocking, that it had only been gently pushed

to.  As there was now a sufficient entry for the voice, he knocked

no longer, but said in firm tones, 'Mrs. Newberry, you are wanted.'

The room was quite silent; not a breathing, not a rustle, came from

any part of it.  Stockdale now sent a positive shout through the

open space of the door:  'Mrs. Newberry!'--still no answer, or

movement of any kind within.  Then he heard sounds from the opposite

room, that of Lizzy's mother, as if she had been aroused by his

uproar though Lizzy had not, and was dressing herself hastily.

Stockdale softly closed the younger woman's door and went on to the

other, which was opened by Mrs. Simpkins before he could reach it.

She was in her ordinary clothes, and had a light in her hand.

'What's the person calling about?' she said in alarm.

Stockdale told the girl's errand, adding seriously, 'I cannot wake

Mrs. Newberry.'

'It is no matter,' said her mother.  'I can let the girl have what

she wants as well as my daughter.'  And she came out of the room and

went downstairs.

Stockdale retired towards his own apartment, saying, however, to

Mrs. Simpkins from the landing, as if on second thoughts, 'I suppose

there is nothing the matter with Mrs. Newberry, that I could not

wake her?'

'O no,' said the old lady hastily.  'Nothing at all.'

Still the minister was not satisfied.  'Will you go in and see?' he

said.  'I should be much more at ease.'

Mrs. Simpkins returned up the staircase, went to her daughter's

room, and came out again almost instantly.  'There is nothing at all

the matter with Lizzy,' she said; and descended again to attend to

the applicant, who, having seen the light, had remained quiet during

this interval.

Stockdale went into his room and lay down as before.  He heard

Lizzy's mother open the front door, admit the girl, and then the

murmured discourse of both as they went to the store-cupboard for

the medicament required.  The girl departed, the door was fastened,

Mrs. Simpkins came upstairs, and the house was again in silence.

Still the minister did not fall asleep.  He could not get rid of a

singular suspicion, which was all the more harassing in being, if

true, the most unaccountable thing within his experience.  That

Lizzy Newberry was in her bedroom when he made such a clamour at the

door he could not possibly convince himself; notwithstanding that he

had heard her come upstairs at the usual time, go into her chamber,

and shut herself up in the usual way.  Yet all reason was so much

against her being elsewhere, that he was constrained to go back

again to the unlikely theory of a heavy sleep, though he had heard

neither breath nor movement during a shouting and knocking loud

enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers.

Before coming to any positive conclusion he fell asleep himself, and

did not awake till day.  He saw nothing of Mrs. Newberry in the

morning, before he went out to meet the rising sun, as he liked to

do when the weather was fine; but as this was by no means unusual,

he took no notice of it.  At breakfast-time he knew that she was not

far off by hearing her in the kitchen, and though he saw nothing of

her person, that back apartment being rigorously closed against his

eyes, she seemed to be talking, ordering, and bustling about among

the pots and skimmers in so ordinary a manner, that there was no

reason for his wasting more time in fruitless surmise.

The minister suffered from these distractions, and his extemporized

sermons were not improved thereby.  Already he often said Romans for

Corinthians in the pulpit, and gave out hymns in strange cramped

metres, that hitherto had always been skipped, because the

congregation could not raise a tune to fit them.  He fully resolved

that as soon as his few weeks of stay approached their end he would

cut the matter short, and commit himself by proposing a definite

engagement, repenting at leisure if necessary.

With this end in view, he suggested to her on the evening after her

mysterious sleep that they should take a walk together just before

dark, the latter part of the proposition being introduced that they

might return home unseen.  She consented to go; and away they went

over a stile, to a shrouded footpath suited for the occasion.  But,

in spite of attempts on both sides, they were unable to infuse much

spirit into the ramble.  She looked rather paler than usual, and

sometimes turned her head away.

'Lizzy,' said Stockdale reproachfully, when they had walked in

silence a long distance.

'Yes,' said she.

'You yawned--much my company is to you!'  He put it in that way, but

he was really wondering whether her yawn could possibly have more to

do with physical weariness from the night before than mental

weariness of that present moment.  Lizzy apologized, and owned that

she was rather tired, which gave him an opening for a direct

question on the point; but his modesty would not allow him to put it

to her; and he uncomfortably resolved to wait.

The month of February passed with alternations of mud and frost,

rain and sleet, east winds and north-westerly gales.  The hollow

places in the ploughed fields showed themselves as pools of water,

which had settled there from the higher levels, and had not yet

found time to soak away.  The birds began to get lively, and a

single thrush came just before sunset each evening, and sang

hopefully on the large elm-tree which stood nearest to Mrs.

Newberry's house.  Cold blasts and brittle earth had given place to

an oozing dampness more unpleasant in itself than frost; but it

suggested coming spring, and its unpleasantness was of a bearable

kind.

Stockdale had been going to bring about a practical understanding

with Lizzy at least half-a-dozen times; but, what with the mystery

of her apparent absence on the night of the neighbour's call, and

her curious way of lying in bed at unaccountable times, he felt a

check within him whenever he wanted to speak out.  Thus they still

lived on as indefinitely affianced lovers, each of whom hardly

acknowledged the other's claim to the name of chosen one.  Stockdale

persuaded himself that his hesitation was owing to the postponement

of the ordained minister's arrival, and the consequent delay in his

own departure, which did away with all necessity for haste in his

courtship; but perhaps it was only that his discretion was

reasserting itself, and telling him that he had better get clearer

ideas of Lizzy before arranging for the grand contract of his life

with her.  She, on her part, always seemed ready to be urged further

on that question than he had hitherto attempted to go; but she was

none the less independent, and to a degree which would have kept

from flagging the passion of a far more mutable man.

On the evening of the first of March he went casually into his

bedroom about dusk, and noticed lying on a chair a greatcoat, hat,

and breeches.  Having no recollection of leaving any clothes of his

own in that spot, he went and examined them as well as he could in

the twilight, and found that they did not belong to him.  He paused

for a moment to consider how they might have got there.  He was the

only man living in the house; and yet these were not his garments,

unless he had made a mistake.  No, they were not his.  He called up

Martha Sarah.

'How did these things come in my room?' he said, flinging the

objectionable articles to the floor.

Martha said that Mrs. Newberry had given them to her to brush, and

that she had brought them up there thinking they must be Mr.

Stockdale's, as there was no other gentleman a-lodging there.

'Of course you did,' said Stockdale.  'Now take them down to your

mis'ess, and say they are some clothes I have found here and know

nothing about.'

As the door was left open he heard the conversation downstairs.

'How stupid!' said Mrs. Newberry, in a tone of confusion.  'Why,

Marther Sarer, I did not tell you to take 'em to Mr. Stockdale's

room?'

'I thought they must be his as they was so muddy,' said Martha

humbly.

'You should have left 'em on the clothes-horse,' said the young

mistress severely; and she came upstairs with the garments on her

arm, quickly passed Stockdale's room, and threw them forcibly into a

closet at the end of a passage.  With this the incident ended, and

the house was silent again.

There would have been nothing remarkable in finding such clothes in

a widow's house had they been clean; or moth-eaten, or creased, or

mouldy from long lying by; but that they should be splashed with

recent mud bothered Stockdale a good deal.  When a young pastor is

in the aspen stage of attachment, and open to agitation at the

merest trifles, a really substantial incongruity of this complexion

is a disturbing thing.  However, nothing further occurred at that

time; but he became watchful, and given to conjecture, and was

unable to forget the circumstance.

One morning, on looking from his window, he saw Mrs. Newberry

herself brushing the tails of a long drab greatcoat, which, if he

mistook not, was the very same garment as the one that had adorned

the chair of his room.  It was densely splashed up to the hollow of

the back with neighbouring Nether-Moynton mud, to judge by its

colour, the spots being distinctly visible to him in the sunlight.

The previous day or two having been wet, the inference was

irresistible that the wearer had quite recently been walking some

considerable distance about the lanes and fields.  Stockdale opened

the window and looked out, and Mrs. Newberry turned her head.  Her

face became slowly red; she never had looked prettier, or more

incomprehensible, he waved his hand affectionately, and said good-

morning; she answered with embarrassment, having ceased her

occupation on the instant that she saw him, and rolled up the coat

half-cleaned.

Stockdale shut the window.  Some simple explanation of her

proceeding was doubtless within the bounds of possibility; but he

himself could not think of one; and he wished that she had placed

the matter beyond conjecture by voluntarily saying something about

it there and then.

But, though Lizzy had not offered an explanation at the moment, the

subject was brought forward by her at the next time of their

meeting.  She was chatting to him concerning some other event, and

remarked that it happened about the time when she was dusting some

old clothes that had belonged to her poor husband.

'You keep them clean out of respect to his memory?' said Stockdale

tentatively.

'I air and dust them sometimes,' she said, with the most charming

innocence in the world.

'Do dead men come out of their graves and walk in mud?' murmured the

minister, in a cold sweat at the deception that she was practising.

'What did you say?' asked Lizzy.

'Nothing, nothing,' said he mournfully.  'Mere words--a phrase that

will do for my sermon next Sunday.'  It was too plain that Lizzy was

unaware that he had seen actual pedestrian splashes upon the skirts

of the tell-tale overcoat, and that she imagined him to believe it

had come direct from some chest or drawer.

The aspect of the case was now considerably darker.  Stockdale was

so much depressed by it that he did not challenge her explanation,

or threaten to go off as a missionary to benighted islanders, or

reproach her in any way whatever.  He simply parted from her when

she had done talking, and lived on in perplexity, till by degrees

his natural manner became sad and constrained.

CHAPTER IV--AT THE TIME OF THE NEW MOON

The following Thursday was changeable, damp, and gloomy; and the

night threatened to be windy and unpleasant.  Stockdale had gone

away to Knollsea in the morning, to be present at some commemoration

service there, and on his return he was met by the attractive Lizzy

in the passage.  Whether influenced by the tide of cheerfulness

which had attended him that day, or by the drive through the open

air, or whether from a natural disposition to let bygones alone, he

allowed himself to be fascinated into forgetfulness of the greatcoat

incident, and upon the whole passed a pleasant evening; not so much

in her society as within sound of her voice, as she sat talking in

the back parlour to her mother, till the latter went to bed.

Shortly after this Mrs. Newberry retired, and then Stockdale

prepared to go upstairs himself.  But before he left the room he

remained standing by the dying embers awhile, thinking long of one

thing and another; and was only aroused by the flickering of his

candle in the socket as it suddenly declined and went out.  Knowing

that there were a tinder-box, matches, and another candle in his

bedroom, he felt his way upstairs without a light.  On reaching his

chamber he laid his hand on every possible ledge and corner for the

tinderbox, but for a long time in vain.  Discovering it at length,

Stockdale produced a spark, and was kindling the brimstone, when he

fancied that he heard a movement in the passage.  He blew harder at

the lint, the match flared up, and looking by aid of the blue light

through the door, which had been standing open all this time, he was

surprised to see a male figure vanishing round the top of the

staircase with the evident intention of escaping unobserved.  The

personage wore the clothes which Lizzy had been brushing, and

something in the outline and gait suggested to the minister that the

wearer was Lizzy herself.

But he was not sure of this; and, greatly excited, Stockdale

determined to investigate the mystery, and to adopt his own way for

doing it.  He blew out the match without lighting the candle, went

into the passage, and proceeded on tiptoe towards Lizzy's room.  A

faint grey square of light in the direction of the chamber-window as

he approached told him that the door was open, and at once suggested

that the occupant was gone.  He turned and brought down his fist

upon the handrail of the staircase:  'It was she; in her late

husband's coat and hat!'

Somewhat relieved to find that there was no intruder in the case,

yet none the less surprised, the minister crept down the stairs,

softly put on his boots, overcoat, and hat, and tried the front

door.  It was fastened as usual:  he went to the back door, found

this unlocked, and emerged into the garden.  The night was mild and

moonless, and rain had lately been falling, though for the present

it had ceased.  There was a sudden dropping from the trees and

bushes every now and then, as each passing wind shook their boughs.

Among these sounds Stockdale heard the faint fall of feet upon the

road outside, and he guessed from the step that it was Lizzy's.  He

followed the sound, and, helped by the circumstance of the wind

blowing from the direction in which the pedestrian moved, he got

nearly close to her, and kept there, without risk of being

overheard.  While he thus followed her up the street or lane, as it

might indifferently be called, there being more hedge than houses on

either side, a figure came forward to her from one of the cottage

doors.  Lizzy stopped; the minister stepped upon the grass and