"
"Shall I bring lights, sir?" asked Michael, after doing as he was
directed.
"No: who wants lights? Stir the fire into a blaze."
Michael left them. It was from him that thus much of the conversation
was subsequently known.
Not five minutes had elapsed when a commotion was heard in the
dining-room. Then the bell rang violently, and the Captain opened the
door--overturning a chair in his passage to it--and shouted out for a
light. More than one servant flew to obey the order: in his hasty moods
their master brooked not delay: and three separate candles were carried
in.
"Good lack, master!" exclaimed the butler, John Rimmer, who was a native
of Church Dykely, "what's amiss with the Parson?"
"Lift him up, and loosen his neck-cloth," said Captain Monk, his tone
less imperious than usual.
Mr. West lay on the hearthrug near his chair, his head resting close to
the fender. Rimmer raised his head, another servant took off his black
neck-tie; for it was only on high days that the poor Vicar indulged in
a white one. He gasped twice, struggled slightly, and then lay quietly
in the butler's arms.
"Oh, sir!" burst forth the man in a horror-stricken voice to his master,
"this is surely death!"
It surely was. George West, who had gone there but just before in the
height of health and strength, had breathed his last.
How did it happen? How could it have happened? Ay, how indeed? It was a
question which has never been entirely solved in Church Leet to this
day.
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