CHAPTER XVI

ALL SAINTS’ AND ALL SOULS’

On a week-day morning a small congregation, consisting mainly of women

and girls, rose from its knees in the mouldy nave of a church called

All Saints’, in the distant barrack-town before-mentioned, at the end

of a service without a sermon. They were about to disperse, when a

smart footstep, entering the porch and coming up the central passage,

arrested their attention. The step echoed with a ring unusual in a

church; it was the clink of spurs. Everybody looked. A young cavalry

soldier in a red uniform, with the three chevrons of a sergeant upon

his sleeve, strode up the aisle, with an embarrassment which was only

the more marked by the intense vigour of his step, and by the

determination upon his face to show none. A slight flush had mounted

his cheek by the time he had run the gauntlet between these women; but,

passing on through the chancel arch, he never paused till he came close

to the altar railing. Here for a moment he stood alone.

The officiating curate, who had not yet doffed his surplice, perceived

the new-comer, and followed him to the communion-space. He whispered to

the soldier, and then beckoned to the clerk, who in his turn whispered

to an elderly woman, apparently his wife, and they also went up the

chancel steps.

“’Tis a wedding!” murmured some of the women, brightening. “Let’s

wait!”

The majority again sat down.

There was a creaking of machinery behind, and some of the young ones

turned their heads. From the interior face of the west wall of the

tower projected a little canopy with a quarter-jack and small bell

beneath it, the automaton being driven by the same clock machinery that

struck the large bell in the tower. Between the tower and the church

was a close screen, the door of which was kept shut during services,

hiding this grotesque clockwork from sight. At present, however, the

door was open, and the egress of the jack, the blows on the bell, and

the mannikin’s retreat into the nook again, were visible to many, and

audible throughout the church.

The jack had struck half-past eleven.

“Where’s the woman?” whispered some of the spectators.

The young sergeant stood still with the abnormal rigidity of the old

pillars around. He faced the south-east, and was as silent as he was

still.

The silence grew to be a noticeable thing as the minutes went on, and

nobody else appeared, and not a soul moved. The rattle of the

quarter-jack again from its niche, its blows for three-quarters, its

fussy retreat, were almost painfully abrupt, and caused many of the

congregation to start palpably.

“I wonder where the woman is!” a voice whispered again.

There began now that slight shifting of feet, that artificial coughing

among several, which betrays a nervous suspense. At length there was a

titter. But the soldier never moved. There he stood, his face to the

south-east, upright as a column, his cap in his hand.

The clock ticked on. The women threw off their nervousness, and titters

and giggling became more frequent. Then came a dead silence. Every one

was waiting for the end. Some persons may have noticed how

extraordinarily the striking of quarters seems to quicken the flight of

time. It was hardly credible that the jack had not got wrong with the

minutes when the rattle began again, the puppet emerged, and the four

quarters were struck fitfully as before. One could almost be positive

that there was a malicious leer upon the hideous creature’s face, and a

mischievous delight in its twitchings. Then followed the dull and

remote resonance of the twelve heavy strokes in the tower above. The

women were impressed, and there was no giggle this time.

The clergyman glided into the vestry, and the clerk vanished. The

sergeant had not yet turned; every woman in the church was waiting to

see his face, and he appeared to know it. At last he did turn, and

stalked resolutely down the nave, braving them all, with a compressed

lip. Two bowed and toothless old almsmen then looked at each other and

chuckled, innocently enough; but the sound had a strange weird effect

in that place.

Opposite to the church was a paved square, around which several

overhanging wood buildings of old time cast a picturesque shade. The

young man on leaving the door went to cross the square, when, in the

middle, he met a little woman. The expression of her face, which had

been one of intense anxiety, sank at the sight of his nearly to terror.

“Well?” he said, in a suppressed passion, fixedly looking at her.

“Oh, Frank—I made a mistake!—I thought that church with the spire was

All Saints’, and I was at the door at half-past eleven to a minute as

you said. I waited till a quarter to twelve, and found then that I was

in All Souls’. But I wasn’t much frightened, for I thought it could be

to-morrow as well.”

“You fool, for so fooling me! But say no more.”

“Shall it be to-morrow, Frank?” she asked blankly.

“To-morrow!” and he gave vent to a hoarse laugh. “I don’t go through

that experience again for some time, I warrant you!”

“But after all,” she expostulated in a trembling voice, “the mistake

was not such a terrible thing! Now, dear Frank, when shall it be?”

“Ah, when? God knows!” he said, with a light irony, and turning from

her walked rapidly away.