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

JENNY LEWIS:
A TALE OF ST. MARK'S EVE.

[All rights reserved.]

CHAPTER ILL

IT was half-past ten o'clock at night. Old Bridget
had been as sound as a dormouse for the last hour—a
fact which she communicated to all waking creatures
within -earshotithrough her nose. Half-past ten p.m.
in a village c,hrresponds somewhat with half-past one
a.m. in a town, and Jenny Lewis ought also to have
been asleep; any o'ne seeing a light in her window at
that hour would have suspected illness or a new
bonnet. But she was in her ordinary health, and had
not yet had time to get anyof those bridal garments
which, doubtless, would soon take a deal of trying on;
yet still she was up and dressed and had a candle burn-
ing, for it was the 24th of April, the Eve of St. Mark,
and she was still firm in her intention of trying for a
ghost.
She went softly down-stairs into the kitchen, and
from a nail behind the eight-day clock took down two
large keys, strung together by a strip of leather. For
the cottage being the nearest building to the church,
and old Williams, who kept Jenny's bit of falai in dis-
order, being the sexton, the church keys were always
bung there.
Then she blew out her candle, quietly drew back the
bolts of the door, raised tha latch, and issued into the
moonlight. All was so deathly still, and looked so
weird in the uncertain light, that she half repented of
her design, but steadied her nerves with an effort,
closed the door behind her, and glided off rapidly along
the path, looking like a ghost herself, if any one
could have seen her.
It did not take her more than ten minutes to reach
the churchyard, and then she nearly ran back again,
Peter Boyd's tombstone had such a supernatural look.
" Pooh !" she thought, "a slab of stone! If anything
moved now—" Something did, but it did not make
her run, for the fright got into her legs and paralysed
them, so that she had to cling to the railings for
support. But when the animated horror said " Baa,"
and took the distinct form of a sheep, she once
more recovered her courage: indeed, the presence of
so familiar a creature emboldened her to advance at
once to the church door and insert the key.
It would not have been necessary for a spiritual
experimentalist to have entered the body of the build-
ing at all a few years back, seeing that the church
porch, the place named by the legend as the proper
spot from which to see the procession of the fated, had
then been open to everybody; but the idle men and
boys of the parish had instituted a sacrilegious custom
of adjourning, in wet weather, from the corner which
was their rendezvous when it was fine to that more
sheltered spot, for the purpose of playing pitch-and-
toss; so the clergyman had a gate fitted to the outer
porch, which was now part of the interior, and the
village speculators lost their covered Stock Exchange.
The lock grated reluctantly, and the door, which
swung back quietly enough on ordinary occasions,
was alarmingly noisy now, as if on purpose to
frighten a poor girl, or perhaps to warn her against
carrying her unearthly investigations further.
Still she pushed in—a most determined young
woman when she had once got at idea fixed in her
head; and if Mr. Thomas intended to maintain his
legitimate authority after marriage, it is to be hoped
that he had made up his mind to a few preliminary
scenes; for if a girl can conquer her verves when they
oppose her fancies, Hymen help her husband.
The interior of the little church was very dark, and
solemn, striking her Ni ith an awful chill as she sank
down on the stone settle close to the entrance, for she
felt it a relief to be near the outer world, the waving
trees, the familiar, whispering breeze, and the sheep,
and determined to keep her strange vigil there, where
she could catch a glimpse of the friendly stars through
the gaping door. But the thought suddenly flashed
upon her that, if the phantoms came, they would pass
through the narrow porch, brushing clese by her, and,
hurriedly rising, she sought the place where she sat
every Sunday, and there took up her station, trembling
but determined.

Sir David Goater, lord of the manor, had died two
years previously, and his grateful heir had commemo-
rated the event in coloured glass, which heightened
the ghostly effects of the moonbeams, showing;
strange tints and devices on the rough pew hoard-
ings and the uneven stone pavement, and so subduing
the light that for some time Jenny could hardly dis-
tingui,h surrounding objects, though, as the pupils of
her eyes dilated, they came out clearlyenough. There
was the font where Billy Jones, a boy of ten, was
baptised last Sunday, and acted on the occasion in so
unseemly a manner, resenting the contact of cold
water, and kicking at the officiating minister with
his hobnail boots; there was the pulpit, an object so
associated with the hearty, honest, prosaic clergyman
that it was lik company; there were the communion
rails, where she had knelt to take the sacrament, for
the first time after her confirmation, only a few
months ago, and where she was to kneel again, side
by side with Somebody, ere another had elapsed. It
was not light enough to read the Ten Commandments
over the altar, but she could decipher the inscription
on the painted window—" To the Glory of God, and
the memory of Sir David Goater ;" and it struck even
her, a poor simple country girl, as a very odd combina-
tion, as it would you, if you knew anything of Sir
David's antecedents. Altogether she was quite re-
gaining her composure, when a low, gurgling, grum-
bling sound, coming from no particular spot, but fill-
ing the entire church, set all her nerves tingling again.
Boom ! It was only the clock striking eleven; it
always growled and groaned before it could get out
the first stroke.
This was ths third alarm which had ended in
nothing, and Jenny began to feel sceptical about the
apparitions, and to fancy that perhaps the ill-fated
Ellen Griffiths had been frightened to death by a
phantom of her own creation; and taken a tombstone
or a sheep for a likeness of herself, and had not the
strength of mind which enabled a certain Jenny
Lewis to strip the innocent bugbear of its horrors.
When half an hour and more had elapsed, without
any other sight or sound occurring to alarm her, these
philosophic ideas began to wax stronger in Jenny's
head. Pooh! ghosts indeed! There were no such
things. Bridget was an old goose, and she herself
was a young one, to be out of her bed at that time of
night. She would stop the night, however, now she
had once come, and keep awake if she could, but she
felt very sleepy. Hah ! what was that? Though
objects might be distinguished in the church, it was
very much lighter outside, and the gap of the half-
open door was a broad patch of moonlight, on which
the watcher, despite her growing scepticism, kept her
eyes fixed, as the spot whence any appearance might
be expected; and her doubts melted like mists in the
sun when a dark object obscured the entrance, paused
a moment, stepped into the porch, and paused again.
Now, for the first time, Jenny really repented her rash
and foolish expedition. Her curiosity was quite gone,
and she would have given all she had in the world to
be at home in her own snug little bed. Indeed, she
was half-dead with terror; her heart and brain
throbbed madly, the blood seemed congealed in her
veins, a cold sweat broke out onlier forehead, and her
limbs lost their power, as they of necessity must when
the will, their motive force, is paralysed.
The moonlight fell full upon the figure, which was
that of a man, and, in spite of her horrible dread,
Jenny, with the instinct of a loving woman, looked at
once to see whether the phantom was that of her be-
trothed, and experienced a feeling of awful relief
when she recognised the features of her other lover—
the rejected one, Black Morgan.
The phantom moved forward into the church, not
like a conventional ghost, but cautiously, as one
whose eyes were unaccustomed to the darkness—not
that such ininutife were noticed by poor Jenny, who
shrank together on her seat, as the footsteps
approached, in an agony of helpless dread. They
came yet nearer, a shadow fell upon her, and she sank
to the ground like a wounded bird, her wild eyes fixed
on a black, murderous fnce, which bent over her, and
a strong hand, which was extended towards her.
Human nature could bear no more, and at the touch
she fainted.
When her reason returned, she knew that she was
no longer in the church, for the night breeze breathed
upon her forehead, trees rustled over her head, and
she was in motion—was being carried through the
wood. By whom? By Black Morgan. It was no
phantom, then, that had appeared to her, but it was
fleeh and blood that she had to deal with—a man,
and one over whom she had once possessed some in-
fluence, who held her in his power, and her courage
and presence of mind returned.
"Let me go ;" she cried, struggling. "Put me
down this instant, Morgan. How dare you!"
"6 Put you down! Ha,- ha!" cried Morgan. "I
know. Then Thomas would have power to protect
you again, and you would escape, The great owl
raid, Never let her touch earth till you put her
underneath it, or your chance is gone, and the sacri-
fice spoiled."
"Let me go !" screamed the struggling girl. "Help,
help !"
Morgan, holding her like a child with his left arm,
grasped her slender throat with his right hand.
"Stop that noise, my pretty chicken, or I'll wring
your neck," said he; and his will and power to fulfil
the threat were so evident, that Jenny obeyed him.
"'Go to the church,' said the great owl," he continued,
" ' and there you will find the faithless bride of the
Pope, helpless, andunder the power of witches. Take
her up, let her not touch the ground by the way, but
bear her to the place appointed. If she scream and
struggle, wring her neck, even as you would the neck
of a partridge, and carry her carcase to the house of
her lover; but do not so spoil the sacrifice if you can
help it.'"
Poor Jenny now saw, with renewed terror, that the
man was mad, and in her estimation of the terrible, a
madman came very near to a ghost. Still, she had
the sense to see that resistance would only irritate him,
and that her best chance of safety lay in keeping quiet
and watching her opportunity.
So she said no more, and Morgan, muttering mingled
sense and nonsense, 'carried her to his mill, and, as the
door had been left open, directly into the lower room.
He did not immediately put her down, but stepped
carefully across the apartment, which was in total
darkness, feeling his way before him with each foot
before he planted it firmly. At length he stopped,
and shifting his burden till he got a hand under each
arm, began to put her down. To her surprise her feet
would not touch the ground. Fie must be lowering
her to a place beneath the level of where he himself

stood, perhaps into a hole over the mill wheel and the
depth of waters beneath it.
She clung to his arms, but after letting her down
as far as he coull reach, he shook her off, and she fell.
not far, but sufficiently to shake her and throw her
off her balance.

Presently a match was struck, but the light only
came to her from above, and when she could see
around, she found herself at the bottom of an oblong
pit, with brick sides.
_

'
"Oh," she cried, "I am in a grave!"
"That's it," said Morgan, coming to the edge with
the candle. "You are in your grave, you have said
it. Down Llangollen way, there are the ruins of an old
nunnery, and some one clearing off the rubbish, came
on the skeleton of a woman who had been bricked up
alive because she broke her vows to the Pope. lam
Pope, and the great owl bad given you to me; but
you kiss my euemy, and lay your head on his bosom,
and so you are to be buried alive."
" Mercy ! Mercy!"
"He will wonder where his bride has got to, won't
he? And the parson will wait in the church, and the
folks will hunt. ! ha! they do not know lam
Pope; you did not know I was Pope, but you ought
to have known it. And you, you will be a little
hungry and thirsty presently, and a little more hungry
and thirsty to-morrow, and then you will scream,
and despair, and go mad; and then you will get
fainter and fainter till you die, and I shall be sitting
over your head all the time, eating and drinking my
fill; and my enemy will be looking for you, and
breaking his heart. Because ye knew not that I was
Pope."

Oh, let rue out, Morgan !" pleaded poor Jenny.
"It frightens me to be here, and to hear you talk so!
It was not my fault if I could not help loving George;
but I will be a sister to you, and like you. Oh !"
Deaf to her cries, Black Morgan put the lid on the
pit, drew his bed over the spot, and sat on it. I lad
he covered the surface with earth, his victim's suffer-
ings would have been short; as it was, the air pene-
trated through the cracks of the cover in sufficient
quantity to prevent absolute suffocation.