Chapter III

Nash Caromel died in September. And in how short, or long, a time it was afterwards that a very startling report grew to be whispered, I cannot remember; but I think it must have been at the turn of winter. The two widows were deep in weeds as ever, but over Charlotte Nave a change had come. And I really think I had better call them in future Charlotte Tinkle and Charlotte Nave, or we may get in a fog between the two.

Charlotte Nave grew pale and thin. She ruled the farm, as before, with the deft hand of a capable woman, but her nature appeared to be changing, her high spirits to have flown for ever. Instead of filling the house with company, she secluded herself in it like a hermit, being scarcely ever seen abroad. Ill-natured people, quoting Shakespeare, said the thorns, which in her bosom lay, did prick and sting her.

It was reported that the fear of the fever had taken a haunting hold upon her. She could not get rid of it. Which was on-reasonable, as Nurse Picker phrased it; for if she'd ha' been to catch it, she'd ha' caught it at the time. It was not for herself alone she feared it, but for others, though she did fear it for herself still, very much indeed. An impression lay on her mind that the fever was not yet out of the house, and never would be out of it, and that any fresh person, coming in to reside, would be liable to take it. More than once she was heard to say she would give a great deal not to be tied to the place--but the farm could not get on without a head. Before Nash died, when it was known the disorder had turned to typhus, she had sent all the servants (except Grizzel) and little Dun out of the house. She would not let them come back to it. Dun stayed at the lawyer's; the servants in time got other situations. The gardener's wife went in by day to help old Grizzel with the work, and some of the out-door men lived in the bailiff's house. Nave let out one day that he had remonstrated with his daughter in vain. Some women are cowards in these matters; they can't help being so; and the inward fear, perpetually tormenting them, makes a havoc of their daily lives. But in this case the fear had grown to an exaggerated height. In short, not to mince the matter, it was suspected her brain, on that one point, was unhinged.

Miss Gwinny could not leave her. Another sister, Harriet Nave, had come to her father's house, to keep it and take care of little Dun. Dun was allowed to go into the grounds of the farm and to play under the mulberry-tree on the lawn; and once or twice on a wet day, it was said, his mother had taken him into the parlour that opened with glass-doors, but she never let him run the risk of going in farther. At last old Nave, as was reported, consulted a mad doctor about her, going all the way to Droitwich to do it.

But all this had nothing to do with the startling rumour I spoke of. Things were in this condition when it first arose. It was said that Nash Caromel "came again."

At first the whisper was not listened to, was ridiculed, laughed at: but when one or two credible witnesses protested they had seen him, people began to talk, and then to say there must be something in it.

A little matter that had occurred soon after the funeral, was remembered then. Nash Caromel had used to wear on his watch-chain a small gold locket with his own and his wife's hair in it. I mean his real wife. Mrs. Tinkle wrote a civil note to the mistress of Caromel's Farm asking that the locket might be restored to her daughter--whose property it in fact was. She did not receive any answer, and wrote again. The second letter was returned to Mrs. Tinkle in a blank envelope with a wide black border.

Upon this, Harry Tinkle took up the matter. Stretching a point for his sister, who was pining for the locket and Nash's bit of hair in it, for she possessed no memento at all of her husband, he called at the farm and saw the lady. Some hard words passed between them: she was contemptuously haughty; and he was full of inward indignation, not only at the general treatment accorded to his sister, but also at the unjust will. At last, stung by some sneering contumely she openly cast upon his sister, he retorted in her own coin--answering certain words of hers--

"I hope his ghost will haunt you, you false woman!" Meaning, you know, the ghost of the dead man.

People recalled these words of Harry Tinkle's now, and began to look upon them (spoken by one of the injured Tinkles) in the light of prophecy. What with this, and what with their private belief that Nash Caromel's conscience would hardly allow him to rest quietly in his grave, they thought it very likely that his ghost _was_ haunting her, and only hoped it would not haunt the parish.

Was this the cause of the change apparent in her? Could it be that Nash Caromel's spirit returned to the house in which he died, and that she could not rest for it? Was this the true reason, and not the fever, why she kept the child and the servants out of the house?--lest they should be scared by the sight? Gossips shivered as they whispered to one another of these unearthly doubts, which soon grew into a belief. But you must understand that never a syllable had been heard from herself, or a hint given, that Caromel's Farm was troubled by anything of the kind; neither did she know, or was likely to hear, that it was talked of abroad. Meanwhile, as the time slipped on, every now and then something would occur to renew the report--that Nash Caromel had been seen.

One afternoon, during a ride, the Squire's horse fell lame. On his return he sent for Dobbs, the blacksmith and farrier. Dobbs promised to be over about six o'clock; he was obliged to go elsewhere first. When six o'clock struck, the Squire, naturally impatient, began to look out for Dobbs. And if he sent Thomas out of the room once during dinner, to see whether the man had arrived, he sent him half-a-dozen times.

Seven o'clock, and no Dobbs. The pater was in a fume; he did nothing but walk to and fro between the house and the stables, and call Dobbs names as he looked out for him. At last, there came a rush across the fold-yard, and Dobbs appeared, his face looking very peculiar, and his hair standing up in affright, like a porcupine's quills.

"Why, what on earth has taken you?" began the Squire, surprised out of the reproach that had been upon his tongue.

"I don't know what has taken me," gasped Dobbs. "Except that I've seen Mr. Nash Caromel."

"What?" roared the Squire, his surprise changing to anger.

"As true as I'm a living man, I've seen him, sir," persisted Dobbs, wiping his face with a blue cotton handkerchief. "I've seen his shadow."

"Seen the Dickens!" retorted the Squire, slightingly. "One would think _he_ was after you, by the way you flew up here. I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself, Dobbs."

"Being later than I thought to be, sir, I took the field way; it's a bit shorter," went on Dobbs, attempting to explain. "In passing through that little copse at the back of Caromel's Farm, I met a curious-looking shadow of a figure that somehow startled me. May I never stir from this spot, sir, if it was not Caromel himself."

"You have been drinking, Dobbs."

"A strapping pace I was going at, knowing I was being waited for here," continued Dobbs, too much absorbed in his story to heed the sarcasm. "I never saw Mr. Nash Caromel plainer in his lifetime than I saw him then, sir. Drinking? No, that I had not been, Squire; the place where I went to is teetotal. It was up at the Glebe, and they don't have nothing stronger in their house than tea. They gave me two good cups of that."

"Tea plays some people worse tricks than drink, especially if it is green," observed the Squire: and I am bound to confess that Dobbs, apart from his state of fright, seemed as sober as we were. "I wouldn't confess myself a fool, Dobbs, if I were you."

Dobbs put out his brawny right arm. "Master," said he, with quite a solemn emphasis, "as true as that there moon's a-shining down upon us, I this night saw Nash Caromel. I should know him among a thousand. And I thought my heart would just ha' leaped out of me."

To hear this strong, matter-of-fact man assert this, with his sturdy frame and his practical common sense, sounded remarkable. Any one accustomed to seeing him in his forge, working away at his anvil, would never have believed it of him. Tod laughed. The Squire marched off to the stables with an impatient word. I followed with Dobbs.

"The idea of your believing in ghosts and shadows, Dobbs!"

"Me believe in 'em, Master Johnny! No more I did; I'd have scorned it. Why, do you remember that there stir, sir, about the ghost that was said to haunt Oxlip Dell? Lots of people went into fits over that, a'most lost their heads; but I laughed at it. Now, I never put credit in nothing of the kind; but I have seen Mr. Caromel's ghost to-night."

"Was it in white?"

"Bless your heart, sir, no. He was in a sort o' long-skirted dark cloak that seemed to wrap him well round; and his head was in something black. It might ha' been a cap; I don't know. And here we are at the stable, so I'll say no more: but I can't ever speak anything truer in my life than I've spoke this, sir."

All this passed. In spite of the blacksmith's superstitious assertion, made in the impulse of terror, there lay on his mind a feeling of shame that he should have betrayed fear to us (or what bordered upon it) in an unguarded moment; and this caused him to be silent to others. So the matter passed off without spreading further.

Several weeks later, it cropped up again. Francis Radcliffe (if the reader has not forgotten him, and who had not long before been delivered out of his brother's hands at Sandstone Torr) was passing along at the back of Caromel's Farm, when he saw a figure that bore an extraordinary resemblance to Nash Caromel. The Squire laughed well when told of it, and Radcliffe laughed too. "But," said he, "had Nash Caromel not been dead, I could have sworn it was he, or his shadow, before any justice of the peace."

His shadow! The same word that Dobbs had used. Francis Radcliffe told this story everywhere, and it caused no little excitement.

"What does this silly rumour mean--about Nash Caromel being seen?" demanded the Squire one day when he met Nave, and condescended to stop to speak to him.

And Nave, hearing the question, turned quite blue: the pater told us so when he came home. Just as though Nave saw the apparition before him then, and was frightened at it.

"The rumour is infamous," he answered, biting his cold lips to keep down his passion. "Infamous and ridiculous both. Emanating from idle fools. I think, sir, as a magistrate, you might order these people before you and punish them."

"Punish people for thinking they see Caromel's ghost!" retorted the Squire. "Bless my heart! What an ignorant man (for a lawyer) you must be! No act has been passed against seeing ghosts. But I'd like to know what gives rise to the fancy about Caromel."

The rumour did not die away. How could it, when from time to time the thing continued to be seen? It frightened Mary Standish into a fit. Going to Caromel's Farm one night to beg grace for something or other that her ill-doing husband, Jim, then working on the farm, had done or left undone, she came upon a wonderfully thin man standing in the nook by the dairy window, and took him to be the bailiff, who was himself no better than a walking lamp-post. "If you please, sir," she was beginning, thinking to have it out with him instead of Mrs. Caromel, "if you please, sir----"

When, upon looking into his pale, stony face, she saw the late master. He vanished into air or into the wall, and down fell Mary Standish in a fainting-fit. The parish grew uneasy at all this--and wondered what had been done to Nash, or what he had done, that he could not rest.

One night I was coming, with Tod, across from Mrs. Scott's, who lived beyond Hyde Stockhausem's. We took the field way from Church Dykely, as being the shortest route, and that led us through the copse at the back of Caromel's Farm. It was a very light night, though not moonlight; and we walked on at a good rate, talking of a frightful scrape Sam Scott had got into, and which he was afraid to tell his mother of. All in a moment, just in the middle of the copse, we came upon a man standing amongst the trees, his face towards us. Tod turned and I turned; and we both saw Nash Caromel. Now, of course, you will laugh. As the Squire did when we got home (in a white heat) and told him: and he called us a couple of poltroons. But, if ever I saw the face of Nash Caromel, I saw it then; and if ever I saw a figure that might be called a shadow, it was his.

"Fine gentlemen, both of you!" scoffed the Squire. "Clear and sensible! Seen a ghost, have you, and confess to it! Ho, ho! Running through the back copse, you come upon somebody that you must take for an apparition! Ha, ha! Nice young cowards! I'd write an account of it to the Worcester papers if I were you. A ghost, with glaring eyes and a white face! Death's head upon a mopstick, lads! I shouldn't have wondered at Johnny; but I do wonder at you, Joe," concluded the Squire, smoothing down.

"I am no more afraid of ghosts than you are, father," quietly answered Joe. "I was not afraid when we saw--what we did see; I can't answer for Johnny. But I do declare, with all my senses (which you are pleased to disparage) about me, that it was the form and face of Nash Caromel, and that 'it' (whatever it might be) seemed to vanish from our sight as we looked."

"Johnny calls it a shadow," mocked the Squire, amiably.

"It looked shadowy," said Tod.

"A tree-trunk, I dare be bound, lads, nothing else," nodded the Squire. And you might as well have tried to make an impression on a post.