Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/362

 . 21. 1861.] frightened like, and forgot to fasten the back door, and I’m blest if that wicked old wretch didn’t come right in, and up to my bedside! Then the cunning man said it wer no use, he couldn’t do nothing agen she, I must be sent right away; so mother sent me up to my aunt’s in London, and in three months I was as well and as fat as a pig!”

As no one seemed inclined to raise a murmur of doubt on the conclusion of Mrs. Jack’s story, I did not presume to do so, but swallowed it in another glass of the ale.

One of the labouring men, a good-humoured six-foot fellow, now entered the lists.

“I went to a cunning woman once; when them ducks of mine was stolen; you remember ’em, Bill?”

Yes, Bill perfectly remembered them; one was white with a streak on the wing, and t’other two, &c., &c.

“Well,” continued six feet, “she holds up her finger at me, and says she:—

‘Ducks!—a running stream!—a dark woman! Go home, and don’t let anybody know what I’ve told you, and your luck’ll turn! ”turn!’ [sic]

“I thought this worn’t much for a shilling; but sure enough they were found next day!”

“Ha!” said the sawyer, gravely, “that arn’t nothing to what I’ve seen and known!”

“And me, too,” cried the drayman, pushing the red cap off his red little face and staring fiercely round, “when I wer about fourteen I chased a thing without a head for more than a mile, and then it got away from me over a hedge!”

“Like enough,” interrupted Sawdust. “I’ve seen worse nor that myself!”

“And ’tain’t very long,” continued the drayman, “since I had my horses bewitched. We wer a going up a hill and they tugged and tugged, and I whipped and swore, but all for nought; up that hill they couldn’t get. By-and-by, marm comes out herself, out of her cottage close handy, and says she—”

‘Why don’t ye whip your horses, master?’

‘You faggot,’ says I. ‘I wish I had the burning of you! Take yourself off, or I’ll come and thrash you as long as I can see you!’ An’ I made one step at her, an’ off she goes, an’ away goes my horses like wild cats! ’Tworn’t long before we got to our journey’s end, I can tell you!”

Every one drew a long breath and took a long draught but Sawdust, who solemnly repeated the assurance that it worn’t nothing to what he’d seen.

“Then,” asked Mrs. Jack, briskly, “if you knows more than other people, why don’t you up and tell us all about it?”

“Because,” he prophetically replied, “there was some one there as would only laugh at it, and sperits worn’t to be made game of like that!”

“Queer goings on there is in this world!” exclaimed Vulcan, rubbing his roasted knees. “Wife always sticks a rusty knife over the head of our bed-settle, and that keeps away nightmare and all them sort o’ hobgobbles; so, perhaps, that’s how it is I never see nothing myself—but twice.”

Every one was breathless with awe, only Mrs. Jack summoning courage to utter an interrogative “Well?”

“Well,” he repeated, gazing contemplatively up the wide chimney, “the first I see, I don’t like to be too sure about, ’cos I went to bed pretty considerably tight, and can’t be certain whether I wer asleep or awake; t’other time it wer a strange cat got in the room. Lord, how frightened I wer to be sure!”

Such a lame and impotent conclusion was disappointing, but the shepherd who had sat very quiet since this subject had been on the tapis, now told us that something rather strange had happened in his family that he’d tell us if we liked. Every one was agreeable to listen, Mrs. Jack assured him, so he cleared his throat and began:

“One of my brothers was Tom; he wer the youngest lad but one, and she was a gal, and died; so mother and father took to Tom most of all of us, and Tom wer very fond of them, and after he went to sea, every time he come home he bringed the old woman something.

“One of them times he buyed her a beautiful set of chaney tea things; real chaney they was, all complete and gilted over with gold most beautiful! Mother only used them on high days and holidays.

“Let’s see, I think it was my eldest sister as had the two twins, ah! so it was; pretty babies they was too, as ever I see, and I was one of the godfathers, and after the christening we all went down to mother’s to tea.

“Out comes the best chaney in course, and mother she makes the tea, and we was all a talking and laughing, merry enough, when all of a sudden the chaney teapot cracked from top to bottom! Then mother she slaps her hand on the table, and bustes out a crying, and says:

“There’s“‘There’s [sic] something happened to my poor Tom, I know there is!’ and sure enough there was, for he was drowned off Ingy, just about the time the chaney teapot cracked!”

“Well, that wor’ a warning, surely,” said Mrs. Jack, thoughtfully; “some people says there ain’t nothing in warnings, but I knows there is. When my sister’s husband died, I said to her:

‘There, don’t fret, the worst’s over!’

‘No,’ she says, ‘Mary, I know there’s worse to come, for the poor dear’s corpse is that limp, you might throw him anywhere;anywhere;’ [sic] and just to see the trouble that dear cretur’s gone through—my blessed!”

Mrs. Jack’s reminiscences cast a shade over us all, and the clock striking ten caused a general move; Jack himself stood out for another half hour, but his better half declaring that she couldn’t go home by herself, for it’d scare the wits out of her to cross the churchyard alone, he yielded the point; the drayman yawningly rolled away, and the labourers generously waited for each other, no one seeming anxious for a solitary walk.

With many a civil “Good night, master, and thank ye,” they departed, and after vainly endeavouring to sift from Sawdust his extra