The Argosy. Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891

I spend most of Friday and Saturday in this examination without making any sensible progress until supper on Saturday night, when I casually mention to Annie, who is laying the table, that I am bound to leave Down End on the following Monday, as term begins on the 15th.

"Must you really go? Well, we shall miss you, surely," says Annie. And I am not mistaken; there is a wistfulness in her blue eyes, a poignant regret in her voice that goes to my heart.

No, Annie! that decides me; I have suffered too much from blighted affection ever to inflict the same pangs on another. I am too well read myself in Love's sad, glad book to mistake the signs written in your innocent face. Without vanity I can see how different I must appear in your eyes to all the farm hands and country bumpkins you have hitherto met; without fatuity I can understand how unconsciously almost to yourself you have given me your young affections. Well, to-morrow you shall know you have won back mine in exchange.

If Catherine could but guess what is impending!

April 13 (Sunday).—Annie in the maroon and magenta gown, carrying a clean folded handkerchief and a Church Service in her hand, has gone up to church.

The bells are still ringing, and I am wandering through the little Copse on the right of the farm. This wood, or plantation rather flourishes down hill, fills up the narrow, interlying valley, and courageously climbs the eminence beyond. As I descend, it become more and more sheltered. The wind dies away and the church bells are heard no longer. I am following a cart-track used by the woodcutters. It is particularly bad walking. The last cart must have passed through in soft weather, the ruts are cut so deep, and these are filled with water from the last rains. The new buds are but just "exploding" into leaf; here and there the Dryades have laid down a carpet of white anemone flowers to dance on; trailing brambles lie across the track, with October's bronze and purple-green leaves, still hale and hearty, making an exquisite contrast with the young, brilliant, fan-folded shoots just springing at their base.

I will find an opportunity to speak to Annie this very afternoon. She is likely to be less busy to-day than at other times. I need not trouble much as to how I shall tell her. She is sure to listen to me in a sweet, bewildered silence. She will have no temptation to laugh at the most beautiful and sacred of earthly themes. There is, to my mind, something incurably frivolous about a woman who laughs when a man is in earnest. I have tried over and over again to impress this upon Catherine, but it never had any other effect but to increase her amusement. She is a young woman entirely without the bump of veneration, and this, I should say, far more than an elegant pronunciation, is the desideratum in a wife.

Sunday evening. I am in the mental condition of "Truthful James." I ask myself: "Do I wake? Do I dream?" I inquire at set intervals whether the Caucasian is played out? So far as I represent the race, I am compelled to reply in the affirmative. This is what has happened. I was smoking my post-prandial cigar in the terraced garden, lying back in a comfortable basket-chair fetched out from the sitting-room, when a shadow fell upon the grass, and Mrs. Anderson appeared in her walking things to know if there was anything I was likely to want, as she and "Faäther" and the little boys were just starting for H'Orton.

"Don't trouble about me," said I; "go and enjoy yourself. No one better deserves it than you, Mrs. Anderson." And I add diplomatically: "Doesn't Miss Annie also go with you?"

"Annie's over Fuller's Farm way," says the good woman smiling; and I smile too, for no particular reason. "She mostly walks up there of a Sunday afternoon."

I know Fuller's Farm. I have passed it in my rambles. You skirt the copse, cross the sunny upland field, drop over the stile to the right, and find yourself in Fuller's Lane. The farm is a little further on, a comfortable homestead, smaller than Down End, but built of the same grey, lichened stone, and with the same steep roof and dormer windows.

I gave the Andersons ten minutes start, then rose, unlatched the gate, and followed Annie. I reached the upland field. It was dotted with sheep: ewes and lambs; long shadows sloped across it; a girl stood at the further gate. This was Annie, but alas! someone was with her; a loutish figure that I at first took to be that of son Robert. But as I came nearer, I saw it was not Robert but his equally loutish friend, the young fellow I had seen working with him by the threshing machine. That day, in his working clothes, he had looked what he was, a strong and honest young farmer. To-day, in his Sunday broadcloth, with a brilliant blue neck scarf, a brass horseshoe pin, and a large bunch of primroses in his button-hole, he looked a blot, an excrescence, on the sunny earth. Personally, he might have been tall, but for a pronounced stoop; fair, but that he was burnt brick colour; smooth-faced, but for the multitude of lines and furrows, resulting from long exposure to the open air. His voice I couldn't help admitting was melodious and manly, yet the moment he caught sight of me he shuffled his feet like an idiot, and blushed like a girl. He whispered something to his companion, dropped over the stile like a stone from a catapult, and vanished from view.

Annie advanced to meet me, blushing sweetly. She had put a finishing touch to the magenta costume by a large pink moss rosebud. She looked at it with admiration.

"Me and my young man have changed nosegays," she remarked simply; "he asked me to give him my primroses, and he gave me this. They do grow beautiful roses up at Fuller's."

"Your what?" said I dismayed. "Who did you say?"

"My young man," repeated Annie; "Edward Fuller, from the next farm. He and me have been keeping company since Christmas only, but I've known him all my life. We always sat together in school; he used to do my sums for me, and I've got still a box full of slate pencil ends which he had touched."

So my card castle came to the cloth. Here was a genuine case of true idyllic boy and girl love, that had strengthened and ripened with mature years. Annie had no more given me a thought—what an ass, what an idiot I am! But really, I think Catherine's cruelty has turned my brain. I am become ready to plunge into any folly.

And it would have been folly. After the first second's surprise and mortification, I felt my spirits rise with a leap. I was suddenly dragged back from moral suicide. The fascinating temptation was placed for ever beyond my reach. And it was Edward Fuller who thus saved me! Good young man! I fall upon your neck in spirit, and kiss you like a brother.

I am still free! who knows what to-morrow may bring.

April 14.—To-morrow is here and has brought a letter from Catherine. I find it lying by my plate when I come down to breakfast. I take it up, look at the superscription, partly in Catherine's well-known writing, partly in my landlady's spider scrawl—for it had gone first to my London rooms. I turn it over, feel it, decide it contains one sheet of paper only, and put it resolutely down. After breakfast is time enough to read it; nothing she can say shall ever move me more.

I pour out my coffee; my resolutions waver and dissipate themselves like the steam rising from my cup. I tear the letter open, and find myself in Heaven straightway. And these are the winged words that bore me there:—

"Why do you not come and see me? Why are you so blind? It is true I do not like you! But I love you with all my heart. Ah! could you not guess? did you not know?"

"PROCTORISED."

What a ghostly train from the forgotten past rises before me as I write the word that heads this sketch! The memory dwells again upon that terrible quarter of an hour in the Proctor's antechamber, where the brooding demon of "fine" and "rustication" seemed to dwell, and where the disordered imagination so clearly traced above the door Dante's fearful legend—Abandon hope all ye that enter here.

How eagerly each delinquent scanned the faces of his fellow-victims as they came forth from the Proctorial presence, vainly trying to gather from their looks some forecast of his impending fate; and how jealously (if a "senior") he eyed the freshman who was going to plead a first offence!

And then the interview that followed—not half so terrible as was expected. The good-natured individual who stood before the fire, in blazer and slippers, was barely recognisable as the terrible official of yesterday's encounter; while the sleek attendant at the Proctor's elbow seemed more like a waiter than the pertinacious and fleet-footed "bull-dog." What a load was raised from the mind as the Proctor made a mild demand for five shillings, and the "bull-dog" pointed to a plate into which you gladly tossed the half-crowns. And then you quitted the room which you vowed never again to enter, feeling that you had been let down very easily. For you knew full well that beneath the Proctor's suave demeanour lurked a sting which too often took the painful form of rustication from the University.

But let us accompany the Proctor as he makes his nightly rounds with his faithful body-guard, and look once more upon the ceremony of "proctorisation."

What an imposing figure he is! The silk gown adorned with velvet sleeves; the white bands round his neck denoting the sanctity of his office; his sturdy attendants: are they not calculated to overawe the frivolous undergraduate?

Following him through the streets, into billiard-room and restaurant, one moralises on the sad necessity that compels this splendid dignitary to play the part of a common policeman. But there is little time for thought. On we go, on our painful mission. Suddenly the keen-eyed "bull-dog" crosses the street, for an undergraduate has just come forth from a tobacconist's shop. He is wearing cap and gown, and—oh, heinous offence—he puffs the "herba nicotiana."

The Proctor steps forward (for smoking in Academical dress is sternly forbidden) and, producing a note-book, vindicates thus the dignity of the law.

"Are you a member of this University, sir?" The offender murmurs that he is. "Your name and college, sir. I must trouble you to call upon me at nine a.m. to-morrow." Then, with raised cap and ceremonious bow, the Proctor leaves his victim to speculate mournfully on what the morrow will bring forth.

Forward! and we move on once more in quest of offenders against the "statutes." What curious reading some of these statutes afford! We seem to get a whiff from bygone ages as we read the enactment condemning the practice of wearing the hair long as unworthy the University; and equally curious is the provision that forbids the student to carry any weapon save a bow and arrow.

But let us continue our journey. Tramp, tramp, tramp! No wonder we find the streets empty: our echoing footsteps give the alarm. But soon we make another capture. This time the undergraduate seeks refuge in flight, but in vain. "Fast" though he is, the bull-dog is faster; and the Proctor enters another name in his note-book. Let him who runs read.

On we go; now visiting the railway station—favourite hunting-ground of the Proctor—now waiting while the theatre discharges its contents; for there the gownless student abounds and the Proctor's heart grows merry.

Here a prisoner states that he is Jones, of Jesus. Vain subterfuge! Though there be many Welshmen at Jesus College, and many of its alumni bear the name of Jones, yet are you not of their number. So says the Proctor, a don of Jesus; and the pseudo Jones wishes that he had not been born.

Twelve o'clock now strikes, and our nightly vigil draws to a close. Still we move forward, amid the jangling rivalry of a thousand bells. Soon the Proctor adds yet another to the list of victims. This one leads us a pretty dance from Carfax to Summertown, and then declares he is not a member of the University. The Proctor smiles as a vision of Theodore Hook flashes across his mind; but, alas! the "bull-dog" recognises the prisoner as an old offender.

Unhappy man! Your dodge does not "go down," although beyond a doubt you will; for the Proctor will visit your double offence with summary rustication.

F.D.H.

UNEXPLAINED

By Letita McClintock

"All ghost stories may be explained," said Mrs. Marchmont, smiling rather scornfully, and addressing a large circle of friends and neighbours who, one Christmas evening, were seated round her hospitable hearth.

"Ah! you think so? Pardon me, if I cannot agree with you," said Mr. Henniker, a well-known Dublin barrister, of burly frame and jovial countenance, famed for his wit and flow of anecdote.

The ladies of the party uttered exclamations in various keys, while the men looked attentive and interested. All that Mr. Henniker pleased to say was wont to command attention, in Dublin at least.

"So you think all ghost stories may be explained? What would Mrs. Marchmont say to our old woman in the black bonnet, Angela?" And the barrister turned to his quiet little wife, who rarely opened her lips. She was eager enough now.

"I wish I could quite forget that old woman, John, dear," she said, with a shiver.

"Won't you tell us, dear Mrs. Henniker? Please—please do!" cried the ladies in chorus.

"Nay; John must tell that tale," said the wife, shrinking into herself, as it were.

No one knew how it happened that the conversation had turned upon mesmerism, spiritualism and other themes trenching upon the supernatural. Perhaps the season, suggesting old-fashioned tales, had something to do with it; or maybe the whistling wind, mingling with the pattering of hail and rattle of cab-wheels, led the mind to brood over uncanny legends. Anyhow, all the company spoke of ghosts: some to mock, others to speculate; and here was the witty lawyer prepared to tell a grave tale of his own experience.

His jovial face grew stern. Like the Ancient Mariner, he addressed himself to one in company, but all were silent and attentive.

"You say all ghost stories may be explained, Mrs. Marchmont. So would I have said a year ago; but since we last met at your hospitable fireside, my wife and I have gone through a very astonishing experience. We 'can a tale unfold.' No man was better inclined to laugh at ghost stories than I.

"Well, to begin my true tale. We wished for a complete change of scene last February, and Angela thought she would like to reside in the same county as her sisters and cousins and aunts—"

"Dorsetshire, I believe, Mrs. Henniker?" interrupted the lady of the house.

Angela nodded.

"I intended to take a house for my family, leave them comfortably settled in it, and run backwards and forwards between Dorsetshire and Dublin. Well, it so happened that I did leave them for a single day during the three months of my tenancy of the Hall. I had seen a wonderful advertisement of a spacious dwelling-house, with offices, gardens, pleasure grounds—to be had for fifty pounds per annum. I went to the agent to make inquiries.

"'Is this flourishing advertisement correct?' asked I.

"'Perfectly.'

"'What! so many advantages are to be had for fifty pounds a year?'

"'Most certainly. I advise you to go and see for yourself.'

"I took the agent's advice, and Angela was enchanted with the description I was able to give her on my return. A charming little park, beautifully planted with rare shrubs and trees—a bowery, secluded spot, so shut in by noble elms as to seem remote from the world. The house—such a mansion as in Ireland would be called Manor-house or Castle—large, lofty rooms thoroughly furnished, every modern improvement. My wife, as surprised as myself that a place of the kind should be going for a mere song, begged me to see the agent again, and close with him. It was done at once. I would have taken the Hall for a year, but Mr. Harold advised me not to do so. 'Take it by the quarter, or at longest by the half-year,' he recommended.

"I replied that it appeared such a desirable bargain that I wished to take it by the year. His answer to this was a reiteration of his first advice. I can't tell you how he influenced me, for he really said no more than I tell you; but I yielded to his evident wish without knowing why I did so, and I closed with him for six months, not a year."

"Glamour, Mr. Henniker!"

"It would seem so, Mrs. Marchmont. We went to the Hall, and Angela was delighted with it. The snowdrops lay in snowy masses about the grounds—the garden gave promise of beauty as the season advanced. How the children ran over the house! how charmed we were with every nook and corner of it! Our own bed-room was a comfortable, large room, opening into a very roomy dressing-room, in which my wife placed two cribs for our youngest boys, Hal and Jack—"

"Don't forget to say that our bed-chamber opened from a sitting-room," interrupted Mrs. Henniker.

"Well, for three weeks we all slept the sleep of the just in our really splendid suite of apartments. Not a grumble from our servants—nothing but satisfaction with our rare bargain. I was on the eve of returning to dear, dirty Dublin and the Four Courts, when—"

"When? We are all attention, Mr. Henniker."

"Angela and I were sitting in the drawing-room under the bed-chamber I have described, when a loud cry startled us, 'Mother, mother, mother!'

"The little boys were in bed in the dressing-room. Angela dropped her tea-cup and dashed out of the room, forgetting that there was no light in the rooms above us.

"I caught up a candle and followed her quickly. We found the children sobbing wildly. Jack's arms were almost strangling his mother, while he cried in great excitement, 'Oh, the old woman in the black bonnet! The old woman in the black bonnet! Oh—oh—oh!'

"I thought a little fatherly correction would be beneficial, but Angela would not suffer me to interfere. She tried to soothe the little beggars, and in a few minutes they were coherent enough in their story. A frightful old woman, wearing a black bonnet, had been in the room. She came close to them and bent over their cribs, with her dreadful face near to theirs.

"'How did you see her?' we asked. 'There was no candle here."

"She had light about her, they said; at any rate, they saw her quite well. An exhaustive search was made. No trace of a human being was to be found. I refrained from speaking to the other children, who slept in an upper story, though I softly entered their rooms and examined presses and wardrobes, and peeped behind dark corners, laughing in my sleeve all the while. Of course we both believed that Hal had been frightened by a dream, and that his little brother had roared from sympathy. 'Don't breathe a word of this to the servants,' whispered Mrs. Henniker. 'I'm not such a fool, my dear,' I replied. 'But pray search the lower regions, and see if Jane and Nancy have any visitor in the kitchen,' she continued. 'She came through your door, mother, from the sitting-room,' sobbed Hal, with eyes starting out of his head.

"'Who, love?' asked his mother.

"'The old woman in the black bonnet. Oh, don't go away, mother.'

"So Angela had to spend the remainder of the evening between the children's cribs.

"'What can we do to-morrow evening?' asked she. 'I have it! Lucy shall be put to bed beside Jack.' Lucy was our youngest, aged two.

"All went well next night. There was no alarm to summon us from our papers and novels, and we went to bed at eleven, Angela remarking that the three cherubs were sleeping beautifully, and that it had been a good move to let Lucy bear the other two company. I was roused out of sound sleep by wild shrieks from the three children.

"'What! more bad dreams? This sort of thing must be put a stop to,' I said; and I confess I was very angry with the young rascals. My wife was fumbling for the match-box. 'Hush!' she whispered, 'there is somebody in the room.' And I, too, at that instant, felt the presence of some creature besides ourselves and the children. The candle lighted, we again reconnoitred—nothing to be seen in dressing-room, bed-room, or the drawing-room beyond, the door of which was shut. But the curious sense of a presence near us—stronger than any feeling of the kind I had ever previously experienced—was gone. You have all felt the presence of another person unseen. You may be writing—you have not heard the door open, but though your back is towards the visitor, you know somehow that he has entered."

"Quite true, Mr. Henniker—but there is nothing unnatural or unpleasant in that sensation."

"Nothing, of course; I merely instance it to give you some idea of what we felt on that occasion. We were astonished to find the sitting-room untenanted. Meanwhile poor Hal, Jack and Lucy shrieked in chorus 'Oh, the old woman in the black bonnet! Oh, take her away!'

"Poor Angela, trembling, hung over the cribs trying to soothe the children. It was a good while before they could tell what had happened. 'She came again,' said Hal, 'and she came close, close to me, and she put her cold face down near my cheek till she touched me, and I don't like her—oh, I don't like her, mother!'

"'Did she go to Jack and Lucy too?'

"'Yes, yes; and she made them cry as well.'

"'Why do you not like her? Is it the black bonnet? You dreamt of a black bonnet last night, you know,' said I, half-puzzled, half-provoked.

"'She's so frightful,' cried Hal.

"'How could you see her? There was no candle.'

"This question perplexed the little boys. They persisted that she had a light about her somewhere. I need hardly say that there was no comfort for us the rest of the night. 'If anyone is trying to frighten us out of the place, I'll be even with him yet,' said I. My wife believed that a trick had been played upon the children, and she was most indignant.

"Next day the cribs were removed to the upper story, and Charlotte and Joanna, our daughters of twelve and fourteen, were put to sleep in the dressing-room. We predicted an end to the annoyance we had been suffering. The nurse was a quick-tempered woman, who would not stand any nonsense, and Hal's bad dreams would be sternly driven away. We settled ourselves to our comfortable light reading by the drawing-room fire. Suddenly there was a commotion overhead; an outcry—surprised more than terrified, it sounded to us. Angela laid her book down quickly and listened with all her ears. Fast-flying footsteps were heard above; the clapping of a door; then—scurry, scurry—the patter of bare feet down the staircase. We hurried across the hall, and saw Charlotte in her nightgown returning slowly up the kitchen stairs, with a puzzled expression on her honest face.

"'What on earth are you doing, child?' cried Angela.

"'I was giving chase to a hideous old woman in a black bonnet, who chose to intrude upon us,' panted Charlotte. 'I saw her in our room; I jumped out of bed and pursued her through your room and the sitting-room. Then I saw her before me going downstairs, and I ran after her; but the door at the foot of the kitchen staircase was shut. She certainly could not have had time to open it, and I really don't know where she can have gone to!'

"This was Charlotte's explanation of her mad scurry downstairs. Her downright sensible face was puzzled and angry.

"'So you see the little ones must have been tormented by that old wretch, whoever she is. They didn't dream it, father, as you thought. Wouldn't I like to punish her!'"

"What a brave girl!" cried Mrs. Marchmont.

"Brave? Oh, Charlotte's as bold as a lion! She went back to bed; and when we followed her, in a couple of hours, she was sleeping soundly. But I can't say either of us slept so well. If a trick was being played upon us, it was carried out in so clever a manner as to baffle me completely. I need not say that I made careful search of every cranny about the handsome house and offices; and if there was a secret passage or a door in the wall anywhere, it escaped me. We had peace for a fortnight, and then the annoyance recommenced.

"Angela's nerve was shaken at last, and she began to whisper, 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio'—"

"John, you are making a story!" interrupted Mrs. Henniker.

"It is every word true. I am coming to an end. Angela, in spite of her disclaimer, did believe in a ghost in a black bonnet. Charlotte believed in her, but did not care about her ghostship. The nurse and cook and housemaid declared they were meeting the horrible appearance constantly; and they were all three in a mortal funk. As to the children, they would not leave off clinging to their mother, and fretting and trembling when evening came. The milkman, the baker and the butcher, all told the servants that we would not be long at the Hall, for nobody ever remained more than a month or two. This was cheerful and encouraging for me!"