The House by the Church-Yard eBook

’Possibly, poor fellow, he was not in a condition to have his accounts overhauled, and on changing an agency things sometimes come out that otherwise might have kept quiet.  He was the sort of fellow who would go through with a thing; and if he thought the best way on going out of the agency was to go out of the world also, out he’d go.  They were always a resolute family—­Nutter’s great uncle, you know, drowned himself in that little lake—­what do you call it?—­in the county of Cavan, and ’twas mighty coolly and resolutely done too.’

But there was a haunting undivulged suspicion in the minds of each.  Every man knew what his neighbour was thinking of, though he did not care to ask about his ugly dreams, or to relate his own.  They all knew what sort of terms Sturk and Nutter had been on.  They tried to put the thought away, for though Nutter was not a joker, nor a songster, nor a story-teller, yet they liked him.  Besides, Nutter might possibly turn up in a day or two, and in that case ’twould go best with those who had not risked an atrocious conjecture about him in public.  So every man waited, and held his tongue upon that point till his neighbour should begin.

CHAPTER LVI.

DOCTOR WALSINGHAM AND THE CHAPELIZOD CHRISTIANS MEET TO THE SOUND OF THE HOLY BELL, AND A VAMPIRE SITS IN THE CHURCH.

The next day the Sabbath bell from the ivied tower of Chapelizod Church called all good church-folk round to their pews and seats.  Sturk’s place was empty—­already it knew him no more—­and Mrs. Sturk was absent; but the little file of children, on whom the neighbours looked with an awful and a tender curiosity, was there.  Lord Townshend, too, was in the viceregal seat, with gentlemen of his household behind, splendid in star and peruke, and eyed over their prayer-books by many inquisitive Christians.  Nutter’s little pew, under the gallery, was void like Sturk’s.  These sudden blanks were eloquent, and many, as from time to time the dismal gap opened silent before their eyes, felt their thoughts wander and lead them away in a strange and dismal dance, among the nodding hawthorns in the Butcher’s Wood, amidst the damps of night, where Sturk lay in his leggings, and powder and blood, and the beetle droned by unheeding, and no one saw him save the guilty eyes that gleamed back as the shadowy shape stole swiftly away among the trees.

Dr. Walsingham’s sermon had reference to the two-fold tragedy of the week, Nutter’s supposed death by drowning, and the murder of Sturk.  In his discourses he sometimes came out with a queer bit of erudition.  Such as, while it edified one portion of his congregation, filled the other with unfeigned amazement.

‘We may pray for rain,’ said he on one occasion, when the collect had been read; ’and for other elemental influence with humble confidence.  For if it be true, as the Roman annalists relate, that their augurs could, by certain rites and imprecations, produce thunder-storms—­if it be certain that thunder and lightning were successfully invoked by King Porsenna, and as Lucius Piso, whom Pliny calls a very respectable author, avers that the same thing had frequently been done before his time by King Numa Pompilius, surely it is not presumption in a Christian congregation,’ and so forth.