While leaning against the Devil's Door and thinking on these things, he
became conscious that he was not the only inhabitant of the down. A
figure in white was moving across his front with long, noiseless strides.
Mills stood motionless, and when the form drew quite near he perceived it
to be that of the Duke himself in his nightshirt--apparently walking in
his sleep. Not to alarm the old man, Mills clung close to the shadow of
the stone. The Duke went straight on into the hollow. There he knelt
down, and began scratching the earth with his hands like a badger. After
a few minutes he arose, sighed heavily, and retraced his steps as he had
come.
Fearing that he might harm himself, yet unwilling to arouse him, the
steward followed noiselessly. The Duke kept on his path unerringly,
entered the park, and made for the house, where he let himself in by a
window that stood open--the one probably by which he had come out. Mills
softly closed the window behind his patron, and then retired homeward to
await the revelations of the morning, deeming it unnecessary to alarm the
house.
However, he felt uneasy during the remainder of the night, no less on
account of the Duke's personal condition than because of that which was
imminent next day. Early in the morning he called at Shakeforest Towers.
The blinds were down, and there was something singular upon the porter's
face when he opened the door. The steward inquired for the Duke.
The man's voice was subdued as he replied: 'Sir, I am sorry to say that
his Grace is dead! He left his room some time in the night, and wandered
about nobody knows where. On returning to the upper floor he lost his
balance and fell downstairs.'
The steward told the tale of the Down before the Vicar had spoken. Mills
had always intended to do so after the death of the Duke. The
consequences to himself he underwent cheerfully; but his life was not
prolonged. He died, a farmer at the Cape, when still somewhat under
forty-nine years of age.
The splendid Marlbury breeding flock is as renowned as ever, and, to the
eye, seems the same in every particular that it was in earlier times; but
the animals which composed it on the occasion of the events gathered from
the Justice are divided by many ovine generations from its members now.
Lambing Corner has long since ceased to be used for lambing purposes,
though the name still lingers on as the appellation of the spot. This
abandonment of site may be partly owing to the removal of the high furze
bushes which lent such convenient shelter at that date. Partly, too, it
may be due to another circumstance. For it is said by present shepherds
in that district that during the nights of Christmas week flitting shapes
are seen in the open space around the trilithon, together with the gleam
of a weapon, and the shadow of a man dragging a burden into the hollow.
But of these things there is no certain testimony.
Christmas 1881.
A COMMITTEE-MAN OF 'THE TERROR'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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