Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season

“Going to do what?” said the spirit.

“Going to – to – to – make an end of me?” said Asher.

“Oh!” said the spirit, “I shan’t have anything to do with it. Some of those to come will do that; I shall be gone. I suppose they’ll only put your head under the big hammer which strikes the hour, and it will do all that, so that people will say it was an accident. Only twenty-five minutes now.”

Asher turned as white as the parson’s surplice, and his teeth chattered as he groaned out: —

“Oh! what for? what for?”

“Why, you see, you are no good,” said the spirit, “and only in the way, so some one else may just as well be in your place. What do you know of love, or friendship, or affection, or anything genial? Why you’re cold enough to chill the whole parish. Only a quarter of an hour now.”

Ten minutes after the little spirit told the trembling man that he had but five minutes more, and four of these were wasted in unavailing struggles and prayers for release, when all at once Asher felt himself seized by hundreds of tiny hands. The cords were tightened till their pressure was agonising; and then he seemed to be floated up into the great open floor where the bells hung in the massive oaken framework, and though he could not see it, he knew well enough where the tenor bell was, and also how the great iron clock hammer was fixed, which would crush his skull like an egg-shell.

Asher struggled and tried to scream, but he felt himself impelled towards the bell, and directly after his cheek was resting upon the cold metal on one side, while the great hammer barely touched his temple on the other, and he knew when it was raised that it would come down with a fierce crash, and he shuddered as he thought of the splashed bell, and the blood, and brains, and hair clinging to the hammer.

“And they’ll say it was an accident,” muttered Asher to himself, quoting the spirit’s remark. “They’ll never give me credit for doing it myself. I’m the wrong sort.” And then the thoughts of a life seemed crowded into that last minute, and he shuddered to see what a little good he had done. Always money and self, and now what was it worth? He had pinched and punished all around him for the sake of heaping up riches, and now above all would come in those words —

“Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.”

Thoughts crowded through the wretched man’s brain thick and fast. He seemed living his life through in these few remaining seconds, while above all there was the reproaching face of the poor widow whom he would have cast out that night homeless and friendless upon the bitter world. He could not explain it to himself, but it seemed that this face kept him down where he was more than anything else. There was no anger upon it, nothing but bitter sorrowful reproach, and though he would have closed his eyes he could not hide from his gaze that sad countenance. But now came the horror of death, for he seemed to see the little spirits glide down the pendulum far beneath him, rest for a moment upon the bob, and then as one was beaten off, up rose the hammer, and he felt its cold touch leave his temple. Up – up – higher – higher – and now it was about to come down and would dash out his brains. It was coming, and all was over, and for that second the agony he suffered was intense. Then down it came, after seeming to be poised in the air for an awful space of time, and at last came the fearful stroke.

“Clang,” and his brain rocked and reeled as the blow fell upon the sonorous metal close by his forehead. The piercing tones rang through him, but before he could collect his thoughts – “Clang” went the hammer again again, and yet his heart did not revive, for he felt that it would be the last stroke which would crush him.

“Clang – clang – clang – clang” came the solemn tones of the great bell; solemn, although they seemed to split his head with the noise, and now he had counted eleven, and the last blow was about to fall. The hammer was rising – slowly rising – and in less than a moment he felt that the blow would come. He could not struggle, though he was being impelled nearer and nearer. He could not cry. He could not move; and at last, after an agonising suspense, during which the widow’s imploring, reproachful face was pressing closer and closer, down came the great hammer for the twelfth stroke —

“Crash!”

“The clock stopped; and the bells won’t ring,” said a cheery voice; “and on a Christmas-morning, too. Let me try.”

Asher Skurge heard the voice, and directly after he shrieked out with pain, for he felt something cutting into his leg, and this caused him to open his eyes, and to see that his lanthorn lay close beside him; that he was regularly wrapped, tied, and tangled with the bell-ropes, while the clock cupboard lay open before him – the clock at a standstill – probably from the cold; while, as for himself, he was quite at a lie-still, and there had been some one dragging at one of the ropes so as almost to cut his leg in two.

Directly after the head of young Harry Thornton appeared above the trap-door, and then at his call came the sexton; but more help was needed before Asher Skurge could be got down the ladders and across the churchyard to his cottage, where, what with rheumatics and lumbago, the old man is not so fond of winter night walks as of old.

But though Asher would as soon of thought of turning himself out as Widow Bond, he did not have her long for a tenant, for her husband’s ship was not lost; and after three years’ absence, Frank Bond came back safe and sound, but so weatherbeaten as hardly to be recognised.

But Asher Skurge was ever after an altered man, for it seemed to him that he had taken out a new lease of his life, and in spite of neighbourly sneers, he set heartily to work to repair his soul’s tenement. You can see where it has been patched; and even now it is far from perfect, but there are much worse men in the world than Asher Skurge, even if he does believe in spirits, and you might have a worse man for a landlord than the obstinate old clerk, who so highly offended the new vicar because he would not go and wind up the clock after dark.

Chapter Eighteen

Munday’s Ghost

“Shoot the lot, Sir, if I had the chance. I would, O by Jove; that is, if I had dust shot in the gun – a set of rogues, rascals, scamps, tramps, vagabonds, and robbers. Don’t tell me about pheasants and partridges and hares being wild birds – there don’t laugh; of course, I know a hare isn’t a bird – why, they’re nothing of the sort, and if it wasn’t for preserving, there wouldn’t be one left in a few years. Try a little more of that bread sauce. Fine pair of tender young cocks, ain’t they? Well, sir, they cost me seven-and-sixpence a bird at the very least, and I suppose I could buy them at seven-and-sixpence a brace at the outside. Game preserving’s dear work, sir; but there, don’t think I want to spoil your dinner. I aint reckoning up the cost of your mouthfuls, but fighting upon principle. How should you like me to come into your yard, or field, or garden, and shoot or suffocate or wire your turkeys or peafowl?”

“But, my dear, sir,” I said, “I don’t keep turkeys or peafowl.”

“Or cocks or hens, or pigeons, or ducks,” continued my uncle, not noticing my remark.

“But we don’t keep anything of the kind in London, my dear sir; the tiles and leads are the unpreserved grounds of the sparrows.”

“Don’t be a fool, Dick,” said my uncle, pettishly. “You know well enough what I mean. And I maintain, sir,” he continued, growing very red-faced and protuberant, as to his eyes, “that every poacher is a down-right robber, and if I were a magistrate I – ”

“Wouldn’t shoot them; would you, sir?” said Jenny, roguishly.

“Hold your tongue, you puss,” said my uncle, shaking his fist playfully at the bright, saucy-eyed maiden; “you’re as bad as Dick.”

Oh, how ardently I wished she was in one particular point of view.

My uncle continued. “Ever since I’ve been in the place, the scoundrels have gone on thin – thin – thin – till it’s enough to make one give up in despair. But I won’t; hang me if I do! I won’t be beaten by the hypocritical canting dogs. Now, look here; one hound whines out that he did it for hunger, but it won’t do, that’s a tale; while ’fore George, sir, if a man really was driven to that pitch, I’d give him the worth of a dozen of my birds sooner than have them stolen.”

Well, really, one could not help condoling with the old gentleman, for he was generous and open-handed to an extent that made me wonder sometimes how my portion would fare, and whether the noble old fellow might not break faith through inability to perform his promises. Ever since he had settled in Hareby, and worked hard to get his estate into condition, the poaching fraternity seemed to have made a dead set at him, leading his two keepers a sad life, for one of them had passed two months in hospital through an encounter; while one fellow, who was always suspected of being at the head of the gang, generally contrived to elude capture, being “as cunning as Lucifer, sir,” as my uncle said.

I was down at Hareby to spend Christmas, as had been my custom for years, and on going out the day after my arrival —

“You see, sir,” said Browsem, the keeper; “there’s no knowing where to take him. I’ve tried all I knows, and ’pon my sivvy, sir, I don’t know where to hev him. It warn’t him as give me that dressing down, but it were some of his set, for he keeps in the back grun’, and finds the powder and shot, and gets rid o’ the birds. War-hawk to him if I do get hold on him, though – ”

“But do you watch well?” I said.

“Watch, sir? I’ve watched my hyes outer my head a’most, and then he’s dodged me. Hyes aint no good to him. Why, I don’t believe a chap fitted up with telescopes would get round him. The guv’nor swears and goes on at me and Bill, but what’s the good o’ that when you’re arter a fellow as would slip outer his skin, if you hed holt on him? Now, I’ll jest tell you how he served me last week. I gets a simple-looking chap, a stranger to these parts, but a regular deep one, to come over and keep his hye on this here Mr Ruddle. So he hangs about the public, and drinks with first one, and then with another, so that they thinks him a chap outer work, and lars of all he gets friendly with Ruddle, and from one thing to another, gets on talking about fezzans and ’ares.

“‘Ah,’ says my chap, ‘there’s some fine spinneys down our way. Go out of a night there, and get a sackful of birds when you likes.’

“‘Nothin’ to what there is here,’ says another.

“‘Why,’ says my chap, ‘we’ve one chap as is the best hand at a bit o’ night work as ever I did see. You should see him set a sneer or ingle, he’d captivate any mortial thing. Say he wants a few rabbuds, he’d a’most whistle ’em outer their holes. Fezzans ’ll run their heads into his ingles like winkin’. While, as fur ’ares, he never sets wires for them.’

“‘Why not,’ says one on ’em.

“‘Oh,’ says my chap, ‘he goes and picks ’em up outer the fields, just as he likes.’

“‘Ha, ha, ha!’ laughs lots on ’em there; all but Ruddle, and he didn’t.

“‘What d’yer think o’ that, ole man,’ says one.

“‘Nothin’ at all,’ says Ruddle. ‘Do it mysen,’ for you see he was a bit on, and ready to talk, while mostlings he was as close as a hegg.

“‘Bet you a gallon on it,’ says my chap.

“‘Done,’ says Ruddle, and they settles as my chap and Buddie should have a walk nex’ day, Sunday, and settle it.

“Nex’ day then these two goes out together, and just ketching sight on ’em, I knowed something was up, but in course I didn’t know my chap, and my chap didn’t know me, and I sits at home smoking a pipe, for I says to myself, I says: Browsem, I says, there’s suthin’ up, an’ if you can only put salt on that ’ere Ruddle’s tail, you’ll soon clear the village. You see, I on’y wanted to bring one home to him, and that would have done, for he’d on’y got off two or three times before by the skin of his teeth, and while three or four of his tools was kicking their heels in gaol, my gentleman was feathering his nest all right.

“So my chap and Ruddle goes along werry sociable, only every now and then my chap ketches him a cocking one of his old gimlet eyes round at him, while he looked as knowing and deep as an old dog-fox. By and by they gets to a field, and old Ruddle tells my chap to stop by the hedge, and he did, while Ruddle goes looking about a bit slowly and quietly, and last of all he mounts up on a gate and stands with his hand over his hyes. Last of all he walks quietly right out into the middle of the pasture and stoops down, picks up a hare, and holds it kicking and struggling by the ears, when he hugs it up on his arm strokin’ on it like you’d see a little girl with a kitten.

“My chap feels ready to burst himself with delight to see how old Ruddle had fallen into the trap. First-rate it was, you know – taking a hare in open daylight, and in sight of a witness. So he scuffles up to him, looking as innocent all the time as a babby, and he says to him, he says —

“‘My, what a fine un! I never thought as there was another one in England could ha’ done that ’ere. You air a deep ’un,’ he says, trying hard not to grin. ‘But aintcher going to kill it?’

“A nasty foxy warming, not he though, for when my chap says, says he, ‘Aintcher going to kill it?’