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They descended very softly and cautiously, holding each other, and when they reached the bottom, peered timorously into the apartment that served many purposes – kitchen, sitting-room, and dining-place. The moonlight poured in through the broad, low window.
By it they saw a figure. There could be no mistaking it – it was that of Aunt Joa
The Hockins trembled, not with cold, though it was mid-winter, but with terror. They dared not advance, and they felt powerless to retreat.
Then they saw Aunt Joa
She turned her face towards those who were watching her proceedings, but it was in shadow, and they could not distinguish the features nor note the expression with which she regarded them.
Presently she went back to the cupboard, and returned with the silver teapot. She stood at one end of the table, and now the reflection of the moon on the linen sheet was cast upon her face, and they saw that she was moving her lips – but no sound issued from them.
She thrust her hand into the teapot and drew forth the coins, one by one, and rolled them along the table. The Hockins saw the glint of the metal, and the shadow cast by each piece of money as it rolled. The first coin lodged at the further left-hand corner and the second rested near it; and so on, the pieces were rolled, and ranged themselves in order, ten in a row. Then the next ten were run across the white cloth in the same ma
The couple stood motionless observing proceedings, till suddenly a cloud passed before the face of the moon, so dense as to eclipse the light.
Then in a paroxysm of terror both turned and fled up the stairs, bolted their bedroom door, and jumped into bed.
There was no sleep for them that night. In the gloom when the moon was concealed, in the glare when it shone forth, it was the same, they could hear the light rolling of the coins along the table, and the click as they fell over. Was the supply inexhaustible? It was not so, but apparently the dead woman did not weary of counting the coins. When all had been ranged, she could be heard moving to the further end of the table, and there re-commencing the same proceeding of coin-rolling.
Not till near daybreak did this sound cease, and not till the maid, Sally, had begun to stir in the i
The Hockins did not speak to one another of their experiences during the past night, so long as they were in the house, but when Jabez was in the field, Elizabeth went to him and said: “Husband, what about Aunt Joa
‘I don’t know – maybe it were a dream.’
‘Curious us should ha’ dreamed alike.’
‘I don’t know that; ’twere the gin made us dream, and us both had gin, so us dreamed the same thing.’
‘’Twere more like real truth than dream,’ observed Elizabeth. ‘We’ll take it as dream,’ said Jabez. ‘Mebbe it won’t happen again.’ But precisely the same sounds were heard on the following night. The moon was obscured by thick clouds, and neither of the two had the courage to descend to the kitchen. But they could hear the patter of feet, and then the roll and click of the coins. Again sleep was impossible.
‘Whatever shall we do?’ asked Elizabeth Hockin next morning of her husband. “Us can’t go on like this wi’ the dead woman about our house nightly. There’s no tellin’ she might take it into her head to come upstairs and pull the sheets off us. As we took hers, she may think it fair to carry off ours.”
‘I think,’ said Jabez sorrowfully, ‘we’ll have to return ’em.’
‘But how?’
After some consultation the couple resolved on conveying all the deceased woman’s goods to the churchyard, by night, and placing them on her grave.
‘I reckon,’ said Hockin, ‘we’ll bide in the porch and watch what happens. If they be left there till mornin’, why we may carry ’em back wi’ an easy conscience. We’ve spent some pounds over her buryin’.’
‘What have it come to?’
‘Three pounds five and fourpence, as I make it out.’
‘Well,’ said Elizabeth, ‘we must risk it.’
When night had fallen murk, the farmer and his wife crept from their house, carrying the linen sheets, the teapot, and the silver spoons. They did not start till late, for fear of encountering any villagers on the way, and not till after the maid, Sally, had gone to bed.
They fastened the farm door behind them. The night was dark and stormy, with scudding clouds, so dense as to make deep night, when they did not part and allow the moon to peer forth.
They walked timorously, and side by side, looking about them as they proceeded, and on reaching the churchyard gate they halted to pluck up courage before opening and venturing within. Jabez had furnished himself with a bottle of gin, to give courage to himself and his wife.
Together they heaped the articles that had belonged to Aunt Joa
And now down came a tearing rain, driven by a blast from the Atlantic, howling among the gravestones, and screaming in the battlements of the tower and its bell-chamber windows. The night was so dark, and the rain fell so heavily, that they could see nothing for full half an hour. But then the clouds were rent asunder, and the moon glared white and ghastly over the churchyard.
Elizabeth caught her husband by the arm and pointed. There was, however, no need for her to indicate that on which his eyes were fixed already.
Both saw a lean hand come up out of the grave, and lay hold of one of the fine linen sheets and drag at it. They saw it drag the sheet by one corner, and then it went down underground, and the sheet followed, as though sucked down in a vortex; fold on fold it descended, till the entire sheet had disappeared.
‘Her have taken it for her windin’ sheet,’ whispered Elizabeth. ‘Whativer will her do wi’ the rest?’
‘Have a drop o’ gin; this be terrible tryin’,’ said Jabez in an undertone; and again the couple put their lips to the bottle, which came away considerably lighter after the draughts.
‘Look!’ gasped Elizabeth.
Again the lean hand with long fingers appeared above the soil, and this was seen groping about the grass till it laid hold of the teapot. Then it groped again, and gathered up the spoons, that flashed in the moonbeams. Next, up came the second hand, and a long arm that stretched along the grave till it reached the other sheets. At once, on being raised, these sheets were caught by the wind, and flapped and fluttered like half-hoisted sails. The hands retained them for a while till they bellied with the wind, and then let them go, and they were swept away by the blast across the churchyard, over the wall, and lodged in the carpenter’s yard that adjoined, among his timber.