The House by the Church-Yard eBook

Among the congregation that heard this sermon, at the eccentricities of which I have hinted, but which had, beside, much that was striking, simply pathetic, and even awful in it, there glided—­shall I say—­a phantom, with the light of death, and the shadows of hell, and the taint of the grave upon him, and sat among these respectable persons of flesh and blood—­impenetrable—­secure—­for he knew there were but two in the church for whom clever disguises were idle and transparent as the air.  The blue-chinned sly clerk, who read the responses, and quavered the Psalms so demurely, and the white-headed, silver-spectacled, upright man, in my Lord Castlemallard’s pew, who turned over the leaves of his prayer-book so diligently, saw him as he was, and knew him to be Charles Archer, and one of these at least, as this dreadful spirit walked, with his light burning in the noon-day, dogged by inexorable shadows through a desolate world, in search of peace, he knew to be the slave of his lamp.

CHAPTER LVII.

IN WHICH DR. TOOLE AND MR. LOWE MAKE A VISIT AT THE MILLS, AND RECOGNISE SOMETHING REMARKABLE WHILE THERE.

After church, Dr. Toole walking up to the Mills, to pay an afternoon visit to poor little Mrs. Nutter, was overtaken by Mr. Lowe, the magistrate who brought his tall, iron-gray hunter to a walk as he reached him.

‘Any tidings of Nutter?’ asked he, after they had, in the old world phrase, given one another the time of day.

‘Not a word,’ said the doctor; ’I don’t know what to make of it; but you know what’s thought.  The last place he was seen in was his own garden.  The river was plaguy swollen Friday night, and just where he stood it’s deep enough, I can tell you; often I bathed there when I was a boy.  He was consumedly in the dumps, poor fellow; and between ourselves, he was a resolute dog, and atrabilious, and just the fellow to make the jump into kingdom-come if the maggot bit:  and you know his hat was fished out of the river a long way down.  They dragged next morning, but—­pish!—­’twas all nonsense and moonshine; why, there was water enough to carry him to Ringsend in an hour.  He was a good deal out of sorts, as I said, latterly—­a shabby design, Sir, to thrust him out of my Lord Castlemallard’s agency; but that’s past and gone; and, besides, I have reason to know there was some kind of an excitement—­a quarrel it could not be—­poor Sally Nutter’s too mild and quiet for that; but a—­a—­something—­a—­an—­agitation—­or a bad news—­or something—­just before he went out; and so, poor Nutter, you see, it looks very like as if he had done something rash.’

Talking thus, they reached the Mills by the river side, not far from Knockmaroon.

On learning that Toole was about making a call there, Lowe gave his bridle to a little Chapelizod ragamuffin, and, dismounting, accompanied the doctor.  Mrs. Nutter was in her bed.