“For my part, I think, neighbour Burtenshaw,” returned the other, “that this great burst of weather’s all of his raising, for in all my born days I never see’d such a hurly-burly, and hope never to see the like of it again. I’ve heard my grandfather tell of folk as could command wind and rain; and, mayhap, Peter may have the power—we all know he can do more nor any other man.”
“We know, at all events,” replied Burtenshaw, “that he lives like no other man; that he spends night after night by himself in that dreary churchyard; that he keeps no living thing, except an old terrier dog, in his crazy cottage; and that he never asks a body into his house from one year’s end to another. I’ve never crossed his threshold these twenty years. But,” continued he, mysteriously, “I happened to pass the house one dark, dismal night, and there what dost think I see’d through the window?”
“What—what didst see?”
“Peter Bradley sitting with a great book open on his knees; it were a Bible, I think, and he crying like a child.”
“Art sure o’ that?”
“The tears were falling fast upon the leaves,” returned Burtenshaw; “but when I knocked at the door, he hastily shut up the book, and ordered me to be gone, in a surly tone, as if he were ashamed of being caught in the fact.”
“I thought no tear had ever dropped from his eye,” said the other. “Why, he laughed when his daughter Susan went off at the hall; and when she died, folks said he received hush-money to say nought about it. That were a bad business anyhow; and now that his grandson Luke be taken in the fact of housebreaking, he minds it no more, not he, than if nothing had happened.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” replied Burtenshaw; “he may be scheming summat all this time. Well, I’ve known Peter Bradley now these two-and-fifty years, and, excepting that one night, I never saw any good about him, and never heard of nobody who could tell who he be, or where he do come from.”
“One thing’s certain at least,” replied the other farmer—”he were never born at Rookwood. How he came here the devil only knows. Save us! what a crash!—this storm be all of his raising, I tell ‘ee.”
“He be—what he certainly will be,” interposed another speaker, in a louder tone, and with less of apprehension in his manner than his comrade, probably from his nerves being better fortified with strong liquor. “Dost thou think, Sammul Plant, as how Providence would entrust the like o’ him with the command of the elements? No—no, it’s rank blasphemy to suppose such a thing, and I’ve too much of the true Catholic and apostate Church about me, to stand by and hear that said.”
“Maybe, then, he gets his power from the Prince of Darkness,” replied Plant; “no man else could go on as he does—only look at him. He seems to be watching for the thunderbowt.”
“I wish he may catch it, then,” returned the other.
“That’s an evil wish, Simon Toft, and thou mayst repent it.”
“Not I!” replied Toft; “it would be a good clearance to the neighbourhood to get rid o’ the old croaking curmudgeon.”
Whether or not Peter overheard the conversation we pretend not to say, but at that moment a blaze of lightning showed him staring fiercely at the group.
“As I live, he’s overheard you, Simon,” exclaimed Plant. “I wouldn’t be in your skin for a trifle.”
“Nor I,” added Burtenshaw.
“Let him overhear me,” answered Toft; “who cares? he shall hear summat worth listening to. I’m not afraid o’ him or his arts, were they as black as Beelzebuth’s own; and to show you I’m not, I’ll go and have a crack with him on the spot.”
“Thou’rt a fool for thy pains, if thou dost, friend Toft,” returned Plant, “that’s all I can say.”
“Be advised by me, and stay here,” seconded Burtenshaw—endeavouring to hold him back.
But Toft would not be advised. Staggering up to Peter, he laid a hard grasp upon his shoulder, and, thus forcibly soliciting his attention, burst into a loud horse-laugh.