Mildred Arkell Volume Ii Part 33

"No, I have not." And Rolls turned another leaf over as he spoke, and went on studying; but he stealthily placed his thumb to mark the page he left. Prattleton yawned, whistled, and yawned again, and finally turned away and began to look in the safe; anything to cover his impatience.

Upon which, Henry Arkell distinctly saw Rolls turn back to the page where his thumb was, examine it intently, and then silently blow out the light.

"Halloa!" roared Prattleton, finding himself in darkness.

"What a beast of a candle!" indignantly uttered Mr. Rolls. "It's gone out!"

"What put it out?"

"How can I tell? The damp, I suppose: everything smells mouldy. Give us the matches, Prat."

"I have not got the matches. You took them."

"Did I? Then I'm blest if I have not left them on the bench at the door.

Go for them, Prat, will you: if I lose my place in the book I shall have to begin all over again, and that will keep us longer than you'd like."

Mr. Prattleton--with a few expletives not often heard in churches--felt his way through the vestry door. Henry had not time to retreat, so he drew himself closely up against the wall, and Prattleton pa.s.sed him.

But, to Henry Arkell's surprise, a light almost immediately reappeared inside the vestry. He naturally looked in again.

Rolls had relighted the candle, and was inserting what looked like a thin board, behind one of the leaves of the register: he then drew a sharp penknife down it, close to the binding, and out came the leaf, leaving no trace. He folded the leaf, put it in his pocket with the board and the knife, and then blew out the light again. All was accomplished with speed, but with perfect coolness. "Nothing risk, nothing win," cried he, audibly: "I thought I could do him."

Prattleton soon came up the church with the box of matches, igniting some as he walked, by way of lighting his steps. Henry drew away against the wall, and crouched down beneath a dark mahogany pew.

"There go the three-quarters past one, Rolls; we have been in here five-and-twenty minutes. Don't let the light go out again."

"I shall soon have done. I am getting near the place where the entry ought to be--if it is in at all; but I told you there was a doubt. So much the better for us if it's not."

Prattleton sat down and drummed on the table. Rolls came to the end of the register.

"It's not in, Prattleton. Hurrah! It will be thousands of pounds in our pocket. When the other side brought forth the lame tale that there was such a thing, we thought it was a bag of moons.h.i.+ne. Here's your register. Put it up."

Henry stole silently towards the church door, hoping to get out: he dared not show himself to those two swindlers. He was fortunate: though the door was locked, the key was in, and he pa.s.sed out, leaving it open. What he was to do with himself till morning, he knew not: he might sit down on the gravestones; but he had had enough of graves; he supposed he must pace the town.

The gentlemen set things straight in the vestry, and also came, in due course, to the door. They had left it locked, and now it was open! Each looked at the other in amazement.

"What possessed you to do that?" demanded Rolls, in a fiercer tone than was consistent with politeness.

"I do it! that's good," retorted Prattleton. "It was you locked it, or pretended to."

"I did lock it. You must have opened it when you came down for the matches."

"I wish we may be dropped upon if I did! I should be an idiot to open the door and give nightbirds a chance of scenting what we were up to."

"Psha!" impatiently uttered Rolls, "a locked door could not open of itself. But there's no harm done; so blow out the light, and let's get off."

Thus disputing--for in truth the open door had struck something like terror on the heart of both--George Prattleton and his friend quitted the church, leaving all secure. Mr. George had to carry the key home with him; he could not fling it into the clerk's house, as Lewis had done, for the house was fastened up; most houses are at two in the morning. He had successfully executed a little _ruse_ to get the key, unsuspected by the clerk: watching his opportunity, he had arrived at the clerk's house when that official had gone out for his supper-beer, ostensibly to put a question in regard to the time that a funeral was to take place on the morrow; and while talking to the old dame, he managed to abstract the key, hanging one that outwardly resembled it in its place. The Reverend Mr. Prattleton often took the duty at St. James the Less for the head master; and George was tolerably familiar with its ways and places.

They went along with stealthy steps, their eyes peering fitfully into dark corners, lest any should be abroad and see them. Once in the more frequented streets it did not so much matter; they might be going home from some late entertainment, as Mr. George and his latch-key were not infrequently in the habit of doing. Rolls was in a glow of delight; and even an odd fear of detection now and then could not check it.

"I was as sure there was no entry there as sure can be. Our side was sure of it also; only it was well to look and see. I'm more glad than if anybody had put a hundred pounds in my hand."

"Who _is_ your side?" asked George Prattleton. "You have not told me anything, you know, Rolls."

"Well, it would not be very interesting to you. It's an old dispute about a t.i.the cause; the name's Whiffam."

Not a very lucid explanation; but George Prattleton was tired and cross, and not really overcurious. At the corner of a street he and Rolls parted, and Mr. George went home and let himself in with his latch-key, deeming n.o.body the wiser for the night's exploit.

CHAPTER XVI.

PERPLEXITY.

Henry Arkell had ample leisure that night for reflection. He got into a newly-built house, whose doors were not yet in, glad of even that shelter. The precise object of what he had seen he did not presume to guess; but, that some bad deed had been transacted, there could be no doubt. And what ought to be his course in it?--it was _that_ that was puzzling him. He could not go to Mr. Wilberforce, the inc.u.mbent of the church, and denounce George Prattleton--as he would have done had this stranger, Rolls, been the sole offender. Of all the people in Westerbury, that it should have been George Prattleton!--the brother of that kind man from whom his family had received so many obligations.

Grat.i.tude towards Mr. Prattleton seemed to demand his silence as to George; and Henry Arkell had an almost ultra sense of the sin of ingrat.i.tude.

There was no one of whom he could take counsel; his father was still absent, and he did not like to betray what he had seen to others. Once, the thought crossed him to ask Travice Arkell; but he knew how vexed George Prattleton would be; and he came to the final resolution of speaking to George himself. The mystery of locking him in seemed to be clear now. He supposed George had done it to get possession of the key, not knowing he was in the church.

With the first glimmering dawn of morning--not very early, you know, in November--Henry was hovering about the precincts of the clerk's house.

He had no particular business there; but he was restless, and thought he might, by good luck, see or find out something, and he could not hope yet to get in at the master's. Hunt came out to fasten back his shutters.

"What's it you, sir?" exclaimed the old man, in surprise. "You be abroad betimes."

"Ay. How's the rheumatism?"

"Be you going to pay for that chaney saucer you broke?" asked Hunt, allowing the rheumatism to drop into abeyance.

"What saucer?"

"Why that chaney saucer. It was on the floor with the cat's milk, when you flung the key in last night and broke it. The missis is as vexed as can be--she have had it for years; and if it were cracked a bit, it did for our cat."

"I never broke it," returned Henry. "At least," he added, recollecting himself, and afraid of making some admission that might excite inquiries, "I did not know that I did."

"No, you weren't perlite enough to stop and see what damage you'd done; you made off as fast as your legs would take you. Here's the pieces on the dresser," added the clerk; "you can come and look at the smash you've made. The missis began a talking of getting 'em jined. 'Jine seven pieces,' says I; 'it would cost more nor a new one of the best chaney; and run out then.'"

He hobbled indoors as fast as he could for his lameness, and Henry followed him. The church key hung on its nail in the niche. Henry stared at it with open eyes; he did not expect to see it there. Had George Prattleton returned it to the clerk in the middle of the night? and was the old man an accomplice? But, as he gazed, his keen eye detected something not familiar in its aspect, and he raised his hand and turned the wards into the light. It was _not_ the church key, though it closely resembled it.

He went into the kitchen: the old man was putting the broken pieces in a row. "There they be, sir; you can count 'em for yourself; and they ought to be replaced with a new one. A common delf would be better than none, for we be short of saucers, and the missis don't like a animal to drink out of the same as us Christians."

"You shall have a saucer," said Henry, somewhat dreamily. "Who threw in the key?"

"Who threw it in?" echoed the clerk.

"I meant to ask what time it was thrown in."

"Why, about five, or a little after: we was at tea. Didn't you know what time it was, yourself, with the clock going the quarters and the halves in your ears while you was at the organ? The missis----Who's that!"