The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-01-02 00:00:00

CHAPTER IV.

" JENNY ! why, where have you got to?" shouted
George Thomas, entering the cottage. "Good morn-
ing, Bridget; where is Jenny? Surely she is up; why,
it is nigh upon seven o'clock !"
"Up ! Bless you, she was up and out more than an
hour ago, for when I came down I found the door
unbolted and on the latch. She -yin be somewhere
about, milking the cow, perhaps."
So Thomas went to look for her but she was not
rnilking the cow, to that mild animal's regretful as-
tonishment, nor feeding the chickens, or the pig, nor
talking to old Williams. The little bit of farm was
soon searched, and the bridegroom elect returned to
Bridget.

"f cannot find her," he said. " Have you been
into her room?"

"Yes, Mr. Thomas, I have, and she has gone out
for certain. Let me wish you joy, sir; I have known
her from an infant, and a better wife man couldn't
have. And lam right glad it's a match for her sake
too, for as I was saying to her only last night, Jenny,'
says I, 'it's not fitting that you should spend all your
days with an old woman like me, and-"
"Thank you, Bridget, thank you; but where can
she have gone to?"
"Perhaps she has gone down to the village for
something."
" Impossible ; I have come straight up from the
village, and must have met her. Besides, she knew I
was coming here this morning, and would not be out
of the way,"
"I don't know that," chuckled Bridget; "young
girls are mortal queer and coy. But sit ye down, she
is sure to be back presently."
So the old woman went about her household affairs,
and Thomas sat still for ten minutes, and then
thought that Jenny might have gone to the wood,
and started off in that direction, searched and shouted,
and then hurried back, expecting to find her returned
during his absence; but she was still away. Nor had
old Williams seen anything of her.
"Perhaps the minister or some other gentleman
wanted to go into the church, ard she has gone with
him," suggested Bridget, beginning herself to think
the girl's prolonged absence rather odd. "Yes," she
added, going to the eight-day clock, "the key is gone.
She is at the church."

With his heart, which had been growing somewhat
heavy, lightened again, George Thom-as started for the
church. The graveyard gate was open; the church
door also, with the key in the lock; but there was no
one in the church, and no response to his shouts.
It was now nearly nine o'clock, and the young man
was thoroughly alarmed, when, half-way between the
church and the cottage, she caught a glimpse of the
tall, spare form of Mr. Roberts, the clergyman, com-
ing up, and ran to meet him.

"oh, sir!" he cried; "where is Jenny Lewis ?"
"Jenny Lewis!" said the clergyman, in astonish-
ment. "How should I know? At home, I hope, as I
am just going to call there for the keys."
"Then you have not been to church this morning,
or seen Jenny ?"
"Certainly not."
Thomas explained matters. Mr. Rtsberts owned
that Jenny's disappearance was singular, but begged
him to be calm, and went with him to the cottage,
where they found Bridget in a fright.
"Haven't you found her ?" she cried. "Wasn't she
in the church ?"
" No."

"Oh, my tongue, my wicked, wicked tongue! She
has watched, and been carried off by the sperrits!"
And the old woman became hysterical.
"What do you mean, Bridget ?" said the clergy-
man shaking her by the shoulder. "Come, tell me
what you suspect."

"Last nighi, was St. Mark's Eve," sobbed Bridget,
"and she will have gone to spend it in the church
porch, to see them as is to die next year, like Ellen
Griffiths, and-"

And, in fine, she told them the whole story, and her
reasons for suspecting that Jenny had been drawn by
her love of the marvellous into the foolish experiment
which she had actually tried—reasons which both Mr.
Roberts and Thomas could not but feel were only too
valid.

"That's it," cried the latter; "and the poor girl
got skeared by something she fancied she saw, and ran
half mad into the wood, where she is now!" And he
rose to renew his search.
"What you say is very probable. Go at once. I
will return to the village, and collect others to come
and help in the search. Where shall we meet, in case
we want to communicate? It should be some place
on the tojl. side of the wood; say the mill, Morgan's
mill."

"God bless you, sir!" said Thomas, hurrying off.
Ho spent the morning and early portion of the after-
noon in fruitless searehings of the wood and the moun-
tain beyond it, and returned to Black Morgan's mill at
about three o'clock to see whether any of Mr. Roberts's
party had reached the place of rendezvous with any
better tidings. There was no one there, nothinc, but
the broken wheel, the ruinous tenement, the ruling
stream, sparkling in the warp afternoon sun.
Thomas sat on a rock overhanging a deep pool, in
which the trout lay thick, and tried to! compose his
bewildered brains, striving to think of some possible
place which had, not yet been tried,when, as he looked
at the mill, a sudden idea flashed upon him.
Black Morgan was an old lover of Jenny's, and had
never got over her rejection of him; he was three
parts mad, they said, and, at all events, was a desper-
ate fellow; could he have anything to do with her dis-
appearance? A definite idea of any kind was such a
relief in the state of mazy uncertainty in which he was,
that this notion fixed itself at once in his mind as a
certain fact, and he would have staked his life that he
had hit at last upon the right clue.
So he sprang to his feet and ran to the door of the
mill, which was fastened. He knocked and kicked
with all his might, but there was no reply. Was
Morgan out? No; he could hear him singing—

....
"Oh, the demon and his bride, •
And the great, great owl,
To drown their sorrows tried,
In the Pope's own bowl."
"Open the door, or I will smash it in!" cried
Thomas.

Morgan went on singing—
" Bat she could not get a sup, not she;
For he drank it all up, did ho."

Thomas tried to put his threat into execution, but
couldn't. He managed to climb up to one of the
windows; but could neither force himself between the
bars, nor wrench one of them out.
He could see Morgan sitting on his bed, taking a
drink out of a black bottle. Beside him were provi-
sions and a stone jar, and across his knees lay his
gun.
"What have you done with her, you scoundrel !"
shouted Thomas through the window. Morgan
finished his drink, replaced the cork in the bottle, and
then said, without looking up—
" Aha, you did not know I was Pope! Whatever
is done to her is done by the authority of the great
owl. You are George Thom.; at wham I shall have
a shot."

And catching up his gun, he turned suddenly to-
wards the window, to the bars of which Thomas was
clinging, and fired—so rapidly, that the intended
victim had only just time to let go his hold and tumble
to the ground.
"Down !" cried the madman, thinking he had hit
him. "Thanks, great owl!

"You have broken the charm,
And I've worked him harm.
One dying, the other dead :
That is how their kissing hasped
So perish the enemies of Black Morgan! Ha, ha!
They did not know I was Pope !"
As Thomas rose from the ground unharmed, one
line of the mad doggrel fell on his ear, and excited
his nerves, already overstrung, to a frightful pitch—

"One dying, t e other dead l"
Did Morgan think that he hid shot him through the
head, and was Jenny still allve, inside there, but
dying? Or was he supposed to be the dying one, and
was she-

"Oh, no, no, no I" he cried, thrusting the thought
from him with all his might, feeling that it would
turn his brain at a moment when presence of mind
and coolness were everything; and, compelling him-
self to be calm, he set to work to look for some in-
strument which might aid him in forcing the door.
He soon found 1111 iron-pointed stake. the support of a
‘

sapling, which had been bound to it in the days when
Morgan had cared for the embellishment of his
premises, loose in the ground now, and easily torn up.
Armed with this, he returned to the door, and push-
ing steadily with all his great strength against the
lower part of it, soon forced it back frcli the iamb,
and instantly thrust in the iron point of his stake,
so that it could not close again when the pressure was
removed. Having gained this advantage, he soon
managed to work his improvised crow-bar close up to
the lock, and then, using it as a lever, he wrenched at
it with his full force. The wood cracked, the nails
and screws which secured the lock started and loosened.
One more effort, and the door would fly open.
No; the stake broke short off

"Pray walk in, friends; pray walk shouted
Morgan. "One visitor tried to come by the window.
You will find him outside, with lead in his head in-
stead of brains. Far better to come in at the door.
I won't ask you to take anything, to eat or drink, as I
want it all myself for a particular purpose, affairs of
state confining me to my palace for a time. But to a
bellyful of shot you shall be most heartily welcome.
I have got a charge ready for the first corner.'
When the stake broke, Thomas retired a few paces,
and then, rushing forward, hurled himself against the
door with a force which the weakened lock could not
stand, and stumbled forward into the room.
"George Thomas !" shrieked the madman. "Curses
on the spell! The devil cannot break it, and shot can-
not harm him. I can strangle him though, I can
strangle----"
And the two men were locked in deadly struggle, in
the course of which the gun went off harmlessly.
Thomas was the more powerful man of the two, and
the best wrestler, but the other was filled with the
mysterious and superhuman strength of madness, and
the contest was fierce and equal, both combatants fall-
ing at length sideways on the ground, and it is doubt-
ful who would have gained the final advantage, had not
Mr. Roberts and a party of five men entered at
the moment, and separated them.
"What is this ?" asked the clergyman. And who
fired?"

"Morgan attempted to shoot me," gasped Thomas.
"secure him, bind him, he knows where she is."
They tied the madman's hands and feet with a rope
which they found upon the floor, and questioned him;
but he only replied with a laugh of maniacal triumph.
"She is somewhere in the mill," cried Thomas.
"Search!"

They climbed up into the ruinous story, and ex-
amined every nook and corner without result.
"Where is she?" said Thomas, returning furious
to the prisoner, who sat on the ground with his back
against the wall bound and helpless. "Have you
murdered her?" Morgan laughed in his face. "What
have you done with her? Speak!"
"Run and get some fresh hands with the drags,"
said Mr. Roberts aside to one of the men; "she may
lie drowned in the pool beneath the mill, poor thing !"
and the man hurried away to the village.
"You won't speak, won't you!" continued the ex-
asperated lover. "Then, by heavens, I'll make you!
Now, look here," he added, drawing a clasp knife
from his pocket, "tell me where she is, or I will cut
your throat !"
The madman did not even shrink when the keen
edge touched his skin, he only laughed again, and
cried—
"Ha !ha ! cut, stab, I have cut deeper than you
can. Your sweetheart is dying, dying in agony I tell
you, and if I told you where she was you could save
her. Ah, clOs that smart? does it rankle? does it go
further home than your knife can?"
"1 will hive it out of him, if torture can do it,"
muttered Thomas. "Who has a bit of whipcord?"
"Stay !" ried Mr. Roberts! "George Thomas, you
are as mad;as the wretch before you. Such doings
NI are not la, ul to Christian men. Hush! all of you, I
„ancy Ihe rd a cry. Take that fellow out, or silence
him someh w?"
For Mor an began shouting and singing his loudest.
He was sern gagged, however, somewhat roughly,
hut effectually enough ; and then all in the room could
distinguisH a low, faint wail coming from one corner
of it.
"It is under the bed!" said the clergyman, push-
ing it on one side, and so revealing the trap-door,
which Thernas tore open, and letting himself down
into the pt, he presently handed up the senseless
form of Jenny, which was received tenderly by the
others, and carried out into the open air, which, with
the remedies which were applied, brought her round
after awhile, and then she was taken home and Bridget
put her to bed.
She was not well enough to go to church to hear
her own banns put up next Sunday, but suffered no
permanent ill effects from the horrible trial she had
gone through, and made an uncommonly interesting
bride at the end of the month, all the population gentle
and simple, for miles and miles round, crowding to see
the sensation marriage, the principal female performer
in which ,had been buried alive by a rejected lover
such a short time previously forming a literal illustra-
tion of the motto, "From grave to gay."
Black Morgan was shut up in a mad-house, and as
there was nothing suicidal in his mania, he throve
there, and lived for many years. This was almost a
pity, forsf he could only have kindly contrived to de-
part from a world in which he really was not of the
slightest use, within the year, it would have given
some slight colour to the legend attached to the Eve
qf St. Mark.