Chapter 2

It was not to be expected that Mr Davidson should escape being taken
through the principal rooms of the Court, in spite of the fact that
the house was entirely out of commission. Pictures, carpets, curtains,
furniture, were all covered up or put away, as old Mr Avery had
said; and the admiration which our friend was very ready to bestow
had to be lavished on the proportions of the rooms, and on the one
painted ceiling, upon which an artist who had fled from London in the
plague-year had depicted the Triumph of Loyalty and Defeat of Sedition.
In this Mr Davidson could show an unfeigned interest. The portraits of
Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, Peters, and the rest, writhing in carefully
devised torments, were evidently the part of the design to which most
pains had been devoted.

“That were the old Lady Sadleir had that paintin’ done, same as the
one what put up the Chapel. They say she were the first that went up
to London to dance on Oliver Cromwell’s grave.” So said Mr Avery, and
continued musingly, “Well, I suppose she got some satisfaction to her
mind, but I don’t know as I should want to pay the fare to London and
back just for that; and my son-in-law, he say the same; he say he don’t
know as he should have cared to pay all that money only for that. I was
tellin’ the gentleman as we came along in the train, Mary, what your
’Arry says about this Gregory singin’ down at Stanford here. We ’ad a
bit of a laugh over that, sir, didn’t us?”

“Yes, to be sure we did; ha! ha!” Once again Mr Davidson strove to do
justice to the pleasantry of the keeper. “But,” he said, “if Mrs Porter
can show me the Chapel, I think it should be now, for the days aren’t
long, and I want to get back to Longbridge before it falls quite dark.”

Even if Brockstone Court has not been illustrated in _Rural Life_ (and
I think it has not), I do not propose to point out its excellences
here; but of the Chapel a word must be said. It stands about a hundred
yards from the house, and has its own little graveyard and trees about
it. It is a stone building about seventy feet long, and in the Gothic
style, as that style was understood in the middle of the seventeenth
century. On the whole it resembles some of the Oxford college chapels
as much as anything, save that it has a distinct chancel, like a parish
church, and a fanciful domed bell-turret at the south-west angle.

When the west door was thrown open, Mr Davidson could not repress an
exclamation of pleased surprise at the completeness and richness of
the interior. Screen-work, pulpit, seating, and glass--all were of
the same period; and as he advanced into the nave and sighted the
organ-case with its gold-embossed pipes in the western gallery, his cup
of satisfaction was filled. The glass in the nave windows was chiefly
armorial; and in the chancel were figure-subjects, of the kind that may
be seen at Abbey Dore, of Lord Scudamore’s work.

But this is not an archæological review.

While Mr Davidson was still busy examining the remains of the organ
(attributed to one of the Dallams, I believe), old Mr Avery had
stumped up into the chancel and was lifting the dust-cloths from the
blue-velvet cushions of the stall-desks. Evidently it was here that the
family sat.

Mr Davidson heard him say in a rather hushed tone of surprise, “Why,
Mary, here’s all the books open agin!”

The reply was in a voice that sounded peevish rather than surprised.
“Tt-tt-tt, well, there, I never!”

Mrs Porter went over to where her father was standing, and they
continued talking in a lower key. Mr Davidson saw plainly that
something not quite in the common run was under discussion; so he came
down the gallery stairs and joined them. There was no sign of disorder
in the chancel any more than in the rest of the Chapel, which was
beautifully clean; but the eight folio Prayer-Books on the cushions of
the stall-desks were indubitably open.

Mrs Porter was inclined to be fretful over it. “Whoever can it be as
does it?” she said: “for there’s no key but mine, nor yet door but the
one we came in by, and the winders is barred, every one of ’em; I don’t
like it, father, that I don’t.”

“What is it, Mrs Porter? Anything wrong?” said Mr Davidson.

“No, sir, nothing reely wrong, only these books. Every time, pretty
near, that I come in to do up the place, I shuts ’em and spreads the
cloths over ’em to keep off the dust, ever since Mr Clark spoke about
it, when I first come; and yet there they are again, and always the
same page--and as I says, whoever it can be as does it with the door
and winders shut; and as I says, it makes anyone feel queer comin’ in
here alone, as I ’ave to do, not as I’m given that way myself, not
to be frightened easy, I mean to say; and there’s not a rat in the
place--not as no rat wouldn’t trouble to do a thing like that, do you
think, sir?”

“Hardly, I should say; but it sounds very queer. Are they always open
at the same place, did you say?”

“Always the same place, sir, one of the psalms it is, and I didn’t
particular notice it the first time or two, till I see a little red
line of printing, and it’s always caught my eye since.”

Mr Davidson walked along the stalls and looked at the open books. Sure
enough, they all stood at the same page; Psalm cix., and at the head
of it, just between the number and the _Deus laudum_, was a rubric,
“For the 25th day of April.” Without pretending to minute knowledge
of the history of the Book of Common Prayer, he knew enough to be sure
that this was a very odd and wholly unauthorized addition to its text;
and though he remembered that April 25 is St Mark’s Day, he could not
imagine what appropriateness this very savage psalm could have to that
festival. With slight misgivings he ventured to turn over the leaves to
examine the title-page, and knowing the need for particular accuracy in
these matters, he devoted some ten minutes to making a line-for-line
transcript of it. The date was 1653; the printer called himself Anthony
Cadman. He turned to the list of proper psalms for certain days; yes,
added to it was that same inexplicable entry: _For the 25th day of
April: the 109th Psalm_. An expert would no doubt have thought of many
other points to inquire into, but this antiquary, as I have said, was
no expert. He took stock, however, of the binding--a handsome one of
tooled blue leather, bearing the arms that figured in several of the
nave windows in various combinations.

“How often,” he said at last to Mrs Porter, “have you found these books
lying open like this?”

“Reely I couldn’t say, sir, but it’s a great many times now. Do you
recollect, father, me telling you about it the first time I noticed it?”

“That I do, my dear; you was in a rare taking, and I don’t so much
wonder at it; that was five year ago I was paying you a visit at
Michaelmas time, and you come in at tea-time, and says you, ‘Father,
there’s the books laying open under the cloths agin;’ and I didn’t
know what my daughter was speakin’ about, you see, sir, and I says,
‘Books?’ just like that, I says; and then it all came out. But as Harry
says,--that’s my son-in-law, sir,--‘whoever it can be,’ he says, ‘as
does it, because there ain’t only the one door, and we keeps the key
locked up,’ he says, ‘and the winders is barred, every one on ’em.
Well,’ he says, ‘I lay once I could catch ’em at it, they wouldn’t do
it a second time,’ he says. And no more they wouldn’t, I don’t believe,
sir. Well, that was five year ago, and it’s been happenin’ constant
ever since by your account, my dear. Young Mr Clark, he don’t seem to
think much to it; but then he don’t live here, you see, and ’tisn’t his
business to come and clean up here of a dark afternoon, is it?”

“I suppose you never notice anything else odd when you are at work
here, Mrs Porter?” said Mr Davidson.

“No, sir, I do not,” said Mrs Porter, “and it’s a funny thing to me I
don’t, with the feeling I have as there’s someone settin’ here--no,
it’s the other side, just within the screen--and lookin’ at me all the
time I’m dustin’ in the gallery and pews. But I never yet see nothin’
worse than myself, as the sayin’ goes, and I kindly hope I never may.”