The Channings. Henry Wood

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      “Well,” said Judith, looking round, as if fearing the walls would hear, and speaking mysteriously, “it’s about Mr. Hamish. I don’t know but I will tell you, Miss Constance, and it’ll be, so far, a weight off my mind. I was just saying to myself that I had heard of ghosts walking, but what Mr. Hamish does every blessed night, I never did hear of, in all my born days.”

      Constance felt a little startled. “What does he do?” she hastily asked.

      “You know, Miss Constance, my bedroom’s overhead, above the kitchen here, and, being built out on the side, I can see the windows at the back of the house from it—as we can see ‘em from this kitchen window, for the matter of that, if we put our heads out. About a twelvemonth ago—I’m sure its not far short of it—I took to notice that the light in Mr. Hamish’s chamber wasn’t put out so soon as it was in the other rooms. So, one night, when I was half-crazy with that face-ache—you remember my having it, Miss Constance?—and knew I shouldn’t get to sleep, if I lay down, I thought I’d just see how long he kept it in. Would you believe, Miss Constance, that at three o’clock in the morning his light was still burning?”

      “Well,” said Constance, feeling the tale was not half told.

      “I thought, what on earth could he be after? I might have feared that he had got into bed and left it alight by mistake, but that I saw his shadow once or twice pass the blind. Well, I didn’t say a word to him next day, I thought he might not like it: but my mind wouldn’t be easy, and I looked out again, and I found that, night after night, that light was in. Miss Constance, I thought I’d trick him: so I took care to put just about an inch of candle in his bed candlestick, and no more: but, law bless me! when folks is bent on forbidden things, it is not candle-ends that will stop ‘em!”

      “I suppose you mean that the light burnt still, in spite of your inch of candle?” said Constance.

      “It just did,” returned Judith. “He gets into my kitchen and robs my candle-box, I thought to myself. So I counted my candles and marked ‘em; and I found I was wrong, for they wasn’t touched. But one day, when I was putting his cupboard to rights, I came upon a paper right at the back. Two great big composite candles it had in it, and another half burnt away. Oh, this is where you keep your store, my young master, is it? I thought. They were them big round things, which seems never to burn to an end, three to the pound.”

      Constance made no reply. Judith gathered breath, and continued:

      “I took upon myself to speak to him. I told him it wasn’t well for anybody’s health, to sit up at night, in that fashion; not counting the danger he ran of setting the house on fire and burning us all to cinders in our beds. He laughed—you know his way, Miss Constance—and said he’d take care of his health and of the house, and I was just to make myself easy and hold my tongue, and that I need not be uneasy about fire, for I could open my window and drop into the rain-water barrel, and there I should be safe. But, in spite of his joking tone, there ran through it a sound of command; and, from that hour to this, I have never opened my lips about it to anybody living.”

      “And he burns the light still?”

      “Except Saturday and Sunday nights, it’s always alight, longer or shorter. Them two nights, he gets into bed respectable, as the rest of the house do. You have noticed, Miss Constance, that, the evenings he is not out, he’ll go up to his chamber by half-past nine or ten?”

      “Frequently,” assented Constance. “As soon as the reading is over, he will wish us good night.”

      “Well, them nights, when he goes up early, he puts his light out sooner—by twelve, or by half-past, or by one; but when he spends his evenings out, not getting home until eleven, he’ll have it burning till two or three in the morning.”

      “What can he sit up for?” involuntarily exclaimed Constance.

      “I don’t know, unless it is that the work at the office is too heavy for him,” said Judith. “He has his own work to do there, and master’s as well.”

      “It is not at all heavy,” said Constance. “There is an additional clerk since papa’s illness, you know. It cannot be that.”

      “It has to do with the office-books, for certain,” returned Judith. “Why else is he so particular in taking ‘em into his room every night?”

      “He takes—them—for safety,” spoke Constance, in a very hesitating manner, as if not feeling perfectly assured of the grounds for her assertion.

      “Maybe,” sniffed Judith, in disbelief. “It can’t be that he sits up to read,” she resumed. “Nobody in their senses would do that. Reading may be pleasant to some folks, especially them story-books; but sleep is pleasanter. This last two or three blessed nights, since that ill news come to make us miserable, I question if he has gone to bed at all, for his candle has only been put out when daylight came to shame it.”

      “But, Judith, how do you know all this?” exclaimed Constance, after a few minutes’ reflection. “You surely don’t sit up to watch the light?”

      “Pretty fit I should be for my work in the morning, if I did! No, Miss Constance. I moved my bed round to the other corner, so as I could see his window as I lay in it; and I have got myself into a habit of waking up at all hours and looking. Truth to say, I’m not easy: fire is sooner set alight than put out: and if there’s the water-butt for me to drop into, there ain’t water-butts for the rest of the house.”

      “Very true,” murmured Constance, speaking as if she were in reflection.

      “Nobody knows the worry this has been upon my mind,” resumed Judith. “Every night when I have seen his window alight, I have said to myself, ‘I’ll tell my mistress of this when morning comes;’ but, when the morning has come, my resolution has failed me. It might worry her, and anger Mr. Hamish, and do no good after all. If he really has not time for his books in the day, why he must do ‘em at night, I suppose; it would never do for him to fall off, and let the master’s means drop through. What ought to be done, Miss Constance?”

      “I really do not know, Judith,” replied Constance. “You must let me think about it.”

      She fell into an unpleasant reverie. The most feasible solution she could come to, was the one adopted by Judith—that Hamish passed his nights at the books. If so, how sadly he must idle away his time in the day! Did he give his hours up to nonsense and pleasure? And how could he contrive to hide his shortcomings from Mr. Channing? Constance was not sure whether the books went regularly under the actual inspection of Mr. Channing, or whether Hamish went over them aloud. If only the latter, could the faults be concealed? She knew nothing of book-keeping, and was unable to say. Leaving her to puzzle over the matter, we will return to Hamish himself.

      We left him in the last chapter, you may remember, objecting to go down a certain side-street which would have cut off a short distance of their road; his excuse to Arthur being, that a troublesome creditor of his lived in it. The plea was a true one. Not to make a mystery of it, it may as well be acknowledged that Hamish had contracted some debts, and that he found it difficult to pay them. They were not many, and a moderate sum would have settled them; but that moderate sum Hamish did not possess. Let us give him his due. But that he had fully counted upon a time of wealth being close at hand, it is probable that he never would have contracted them. When Hamish erred, it was invariably from thoughtlessness—from carelessness—never from deliberate intention.

      Arthur, of course, turned from the objectionable street, and continued his straightforward course. They were frequently hindered; СКАЧАТЬ