The Nebuly Coat | Page 7

the close and mouldering atmosphere of
the church.
The organist drew a deep breath.

"Ah," he said, "what a blessed thing to be in the open air again--to be
quit of all their niggling and naggling, to be quit of that pompous old
fool the Rector, and of that hypocrite Joliffe, and of that pedant of a
doctor! Why does he want to waste money on cementing the vaults? It's
only digging up pestilences; and they won't spend a farthing on the
organ. Not a penny on the Father Smith, clear and sweet-voiced as a
mountain brook. Oh," he cried, "it's too bad! The naturals are worn
down to the quick, you can see the wood in the gutters of the keys, and
the pedal-board's too short and all to pieces. Ah well! the organ's like
me--old, neglected, worn-out. I wish I was dead." He had been talking
half to himself, but he turned to Westray and said: "Forgive me for
being peevish; you'll be peevish, too, when you come to my age--at
least, if you're as poor then as I am, and as lonely, and have nothing to
look forward to. Come along."
They stepped out into the dark--for night had fallen--and plashed along
the flagged path which glimmered like a white streamlet between the
dark turves.
"I will take you a short-cut, if you don't mind some badly-lighted
lanes," said the organist, as they left the churchyard; "it's quicker, and
we shall get more shelter." He turned sharply to the left, and plunged
into an alley so narrow and dark that Westray could not keep up with
him, and fumbled anxiously in the obscurity. The little man reached up,
and took him by the arm. "Let me pilot you," he said; "I know the way.
You can walk straight on; there are no steps."
There was no sign of life, nor any light in the houses, but it was not till
they reached a corner where an isolated lamp cast a wan and uncertain
light that Westray saw that there was no glass in the windows, and that
the houses were deserted.
"It's the old part of the town," said the organist; "there isn't one house in
ten with anyone in it now. All we fashionables have moved further up.
Airs from the river are damp, you know, and wharves so very vulgar."
They left the narrow street, and came on to what Westray made out to
be a long wharf skirting the river. On the right stood abandoned

warehouses, square-fronted, and huddled together like a row of gigantic
packing-cases; on the left they could hear the gurgle of the current
among the mooring-posts, and the flapping of the water against the
quay wall, where the east wind drove the wavelets up the river. The
lines of what had once been a horse-tramway still ran along the quay,
and the pair had some ado to thread their way without tripping, till a
low building on the right broke the line of lofty warehouses. It seemed
to be a church or chapel, having mullioned windows with stone tracery,
and a bell-turret at the west end; but its most marked feature was a row
of heavy buttresses which shored up the side facing the road. They
were built of brick, and formed triangles with the ground and the wall
which they supported. The shadows hung heavy under the building, but
where all else was black the recesses between the buttresses were
blackest. Westray felt his companion's hand tighten on his arm.
"You will think me as great a coward as I am," said the organist, "if I
tell you that I never come this way after dark, and should not have
come here to-night if I had not had you with me. I was always
frightened as a boy at the very darkness in the spaces between the
buttresses, and I have never got over it. I used to think that devils and
hobgoblins lurked in those cavernous depths, and now I fancy evil men
may be hiding in the blackness, all ready to spring out and strangle one.
It is a lonely place, this old wharf, and after nightfall--" He broke off,
and clutched Westray's arm. "Look," he said; "do you see nothing in the
last recess?"
His abruptness made Westray shiver involuntarily, and for a moment
the architect fancied that he discerned the figure of a man standing in
the shadow of the end buttress. But, as he took a few steps nearer, he
saw that he had been deceived by a shadow, and that the space was
empty.
"Your nerves are sadly overstrung," he said to the organist. "There is no
one there; it is only some trick of light and shade. What is the
building?"
"It was once