Mr. Hayhoe closed Northanger Abbey and lit his pipe, for he would sometimes smoke a little, as well as read, when he was out by himself.
He watched for a while the smoke of his pipe rise in little rings, that grew larger until they vanished altogether, and then, as he looked down into the lane, his attention was caught by the queer behaviour of a little mouse. This small creature, Mr. Hayhoe saw, was most dreadfully frightened, but why this was so he did not know. The mouse trembled with fear, and seemed so utterly overcome with a strange dread that it could not even run into the grass for safety.
Mr. Hayhoe watched the mouse. Perhaps the little creature had gone mad. He did not think so. What it appeared to suffer from was terror. Mr. Hayhoe wondered what ailed the thing. No cat was after it; evidently its nest was just under the bank; what was there to frighten it?
The mouse ran to Mr. Hayhoe, looking up at him piteously—as though he were a god who could save. Mr. Hayhoe took the mouse in his hand. It was plump and well. Why was it trembling?
Mr. Hayhoe gently put the mouse down upon the bank near to its hole. Its body twitched for a moment. It turned over, and was dead. Mr. Hayhoe shivered. He looked up into the sky.
The day was become very still; not a breath of wind stirred the new elder leaves in the lane. Like the mouse, all nature seemed too frightened to move. Though there was no sound, an invisible fear moved and crept in the lane. What was it? The trees listened and waited.
Mr. Hayhoe put his book into his pocket. In doing so, he noticed that his hand shook. He looked upward, wondering where the cloud had come from that so suddenly had dimmed the sun. Only a few moments before the sky had been quite clear, and now all had darkened as if a pall had fallen upon the land.
Mr. Hayhoe took out his watch. His hand shook so that he could hardly hold it—the watch was stopped.
A hare came up the lane, looking as frightened as the mouse. She paid no heed to Mr. Hayhoe and stopped within a yard of him, pricked up her ears, and listened. She stood upon her hind legs, with her fore-paws bent under her. She waited for a sound to come. She heard something, scattered the dust of the lane in her hurry to get away, and fled.
What had happened to the creatures, wondered Mr. Hayhoe. Some unseen fear had killed the mouse and made the hare scamper off. What was it that frightened them?
Mr. Hayhoe heard the sound of soft wings. Near to him, upon an elm-tree bough, sat a large owl. The owl blinked its eyes, and peered in the direction of Dodder. It cast out from its stomach a little ball of fur—the undigested portion of a rat—and blinked again.
Mr. Hayhoe shivered. He supposed that a spring thunderstorm must be coming up, and yet he heard no thunder.
As a good husband should do, whenever he is surprised at what goes on about him, Mr. Hayhoe thought of his wife. He remembered, with pleasure, that she had promised, when the coat was done, to meet him in the Dodder churchyard, so that they might eat their lunch together, near to the child’s grave. But now there would be no need to do that. They could get the key of the Vicarage from old Huddy, the caretaker, for that was their own house now, and lunch in the empty dining-room, sitting on a window-sill. Then they could walk as proudly as they liked over their new house, and choose a bedroom for themselves—the bedroom that overlooked the churchyard.
Though thinking about his wife pleased him, as it always did, Mr. Hayhoe still noticed that he trembled. He felt his forehead; it was covered with cold sweat. Surely he was not going to die, like the mouse! He hoped not. But why did he feel so cold? There was nothing in the weather to account for that. Even though the sun was dimmed, the air was warm. Perhaps, he thought, he had better soon leave that bank and go home. He liked a grassy place, but his wife had told him that a bank is not always safe—ants or snakes might be hiding, to sting a good man. He knew he was rather too fond of staying about in country lanes.
Mr. Hayhoe was upon the point of rising, when he distinctly heard the sounds of footsteps approaching from the direction of Dodder.
Near to where he was resting, the lane turned a corner, so that whoever was coming would have to arrive very near before being seen.
The sound of a human footfall, though it may be approaching, is not likely to be much heeded until it comes very near. Though Mr. Hayhoe heard the sound, he did not regard it, except so far as it made him remain where he was for a little longer, wishing to give the footsteps a chance to go into some field or other and disappear.
He wished to think, too—before he closed the gate, that deserved his gratitude for its boldness in checking Lord Bullman, and its kindness in allowing him to open it—of the pleasure that his tidings would give to his wife, Priscilla. Since her child had died, Priscilla had wished, more, he knew, than she liked to say, to live near to where her little boy had been laid to rest.
Priscilla had grieved very deeply at his death, and had only kept her interest in living because of a strange hope that, somehow or other, had got into her head. This was nothing less than the wish to meet Death himself.
She would often—and Mr. Hayhoe, knowing how shrewdly her sorrow pinched her heart, listened to her wild talk—tell her husband how she expected Death to look, if she did meet him.
“If I search carefully,” she said, “and gaze closely upon every stranger that I meet, I shall be sure to know him when he comes to Dodder.”
“He will come to Dodder,” said Mr. Hayhoe sadly, “one time or another.”
“And perhaps you may be the first to welcome him,” said Priscilla.
“Then,” said Mr. Hayhoe, with a smile, “I shall be the first to see our little Tommy.”