Mr. Jenifer's Inheritance.

THE Rev. Clement Jenifer had inherited a property! The lawyer's letter announcing the fact lay before him, beside the breakfast which he had forgotten in the thought of this unexpected good fortune. It was not a meagre breakfast, although Mr. Jenifer, at five-and-forty, was still only a curate on a stipend of £150 per annum, for through the greater part of his twenty years in holy orders he had acted on the principle, that if he gave his time to the poor, it was as much as they could expect; and so if they called Parson Jenifer "hard" and "close," and preferred going to the vicar-why, that was not his fault.

His inheritance consisted in a good house and several hundreds a year, and he sat and thought over the difference this would make in his future. No more for him the daily service, read as a part of the day's work—no more visiting of thriftless, complaining, muddling poor, with whom he was completely out of touch-in a word, no more drudgery!

Twenty years of drudgery! That was what his life amounted to. Not for him the spirit of love that softens, and the high thoughts that sanctify, daily tasks; only the grudging gift of obligatory toil. It was written on his face, in lines marked by twenty years-no, not quite twenty-he had thought differently at first-but by more than a dozen years of discontent and repining. It was a pity, too, for the face was one of great possibilities, clouded over by the dulness of heart that fails to see through the service the Master who is served.

Even now he had no regret for the kind old friend who had left him a goodly share of his property, no thought that the hand which had ever been ready to help him and many another was helpless now henceforth, no spirit of gratitude for this last loving gift, only a selfish pleasure in his own good luck, and a feeling of discontent that it had been so long in coming. And thus thinking, he rose and went to see his vicar to make arrangements for the visit to the lawyer, which must precede his taking possession of his new inheritance.

He found no difficulty in obtaining leave of absence for the purpose. The vicar was a kind and open-hearted man, and pleased at his curate's unexpected prosperity.

"Well, Jenifer," he said, "I am very glad for you, though you can't appreciate it as much as if you had a wife and family dependent on you. All the same, you have my hearty congratulations."

"Ah," said Mr. Jenifer, "things generally come too late. Now, if this had happened when I was ten years younger, what a difference it would have made to me!"

" But your friend's life was a very valuable one to many, was it not?" said the vicar. "From all I have heard of him, I should think that even now, there will be plenty of people to say that the end has come ten years too soon, rather than too late."

'Why, he was nearly ninety!" said Jenifer, as if the fact were rather a reproach to the old man. Then he hastened away to make his preparations for leaving.

The vicar's wife came in as the curate went out. She found her husband gazing rather sadly into the dull street.

'Mary, my dear," he said, "it is my belief that after the miracles of the loaves and fishes, there were some amongst the five thousand who complained that the bread was stale, and the fish not so fresh as it might have been."

Meanwhile Clement Jenifer was speeding on to London to see his lawyer. He found there was one condition which he must fulfil, before he could call himself master of house and income. Mr. Dacre had only willed Waterdell Hall to him under the proviso that he should pass one night in the house entirely alone. Mr. Jenifer laughed when this clause was read to him. "That's not a very hard thing to do," said he. Dacre's brain softening when he made his will?"

"But was Mr.

"Not at all," answered the lawyer shortly. "Any one who saw Mr. Dacre in his last hours will tell you that the dear old man's mind was as clear to the end as in his best days. When you go to Waterdell, you will not please your poor neighbours there, if you suggest to them that the man who was so universally beloved and revered was crazy. I have no doubt this letter, which he instructed me to deliver to you personally, will explain the matter."

This was, however, not the case. The note was but a short one, and gave no reason for the testator's wish, except that he had inherited Waterdell Hall under the same stipulation, that he had ever been thankful for having carried it out, and hoped that though his friend Clement Jenifer was older than he himself had been when he came into the property ("for," he wrote, with a touch of his ordinary humour, "I have been, like Charles II., an

unconscionable time a-dying "), yet, that a solitary night passed in his future home would prove as great a blessing to him, as it had been to the writer, and so, without further explanation, signed himself his affectionate friend, Thomas Dacre.

That was all. Clement Jenifer never liked being made ridiculous, and he thought that this will went very near that possibility. Yet he could not lose his inheritance for fear of being absurd, so after certain business instructions from the lawyer, he went to his hotel for that night, and next morning started for Waterdell. He put up at a little inn in the nearest market-town before proceeding to his destination, where, the lawyer had informed him, he would find all things in readiness to receive him for his lonely vigil, if vigil it was to be. The inn was full of farmers of the neighbourhood, come in to the market; and after much discourse on grain and turnips, the conversation, Mr. Jenifer found-he being, of course, unknown-turned on the death of Mr. Dacre.

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They do say," said one red-faced, grey-whiskered man of substantial appearance-" they do say that the ghost has begun to walk again since the Squire's death."

"What ghost?" asked a younger man with an incredulous laugh: "I never heard of a ghost at Waterdell."

"No, you mayn't," said the first man; "but I've heard tell from my father, times upon times, that before Squire Dacre come here, there were a power of queer things seen and heard at Waterdell; and they say, that since he's dead, they be come back."

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They say; who says?" asked a thin weasel-faced farmer.

"Well, my man Marvel for one; he went across by the spinney last night, where he has been almost every evening these thirty year, and he swears that he saw some one walking up and down the long path, and heard some awful noises."

"Ah!" said the thin man, with a grunt, "Marvel always were a liar."

"Liar or no liar," said the fat farmer rather angrily, "my father saw the ghost himself sixty years ago: often and often he has told me of it; and I believe the old Squire knew of it too, for he never laughed or scoffed as some fools do" (with a significant sniff) "when folk talked of ghosts."

And so the talk drifted on to other matters, and Mr. Jenifer was left to contemplate another element of absurdity introduced into his well-arranged commonplace existence, and felt quite angry at the thought that he of all men should, by the irony of fate, be brought into a ghost story. But as he never had

believed in ghosts, he did not mean to begin now; and after inquiring his way to Waterdell Hall, he found that he must start at once if he wished to reach there before nightfall. It was a somewhat dull walk, which led him at last along a narrow road ending in an abrupt descent. The high hedges on either side had lost their summer beauty without yet gaining the glory of autumn; the few rose berries were sickly-looking and withered, and frosted with a whitish blight, and their leaves hung shivering on the twigs, whilst in the fields beyond the evening mists were already rising. The road turned sharply to the right, and then Waterdell Hall lay before its future owner.

To a cheerful eye it might have seemed nestling in a bower of greenery; but Jenifer, out of tune with things in general, and tired with his walk, saw in its withdrawal from the high road a guilty seclusion from observation. Four tall Wellingtonias rose dark and solemn above the little wicket gate, and cast a gloom over the garden patch, in which some late geraniums and petunias only served by their touches of brilliant colour to accentuate the general melancholy. The house itself, instead of boldly looking forth on the passers-by, turned its face away from the road, and had no prospect but the little bit of garden and the four sentinel trees.

The door stood open, and Mr. Jenifer entered a narrow passage where no welcoming footsteps came to meet his own; only a Virginian creeper torn by the wind tapped on the porch; otherwise all was still. Mr. Jenifer looked round him for a moment, and then went through the silent house to the chief sitting-room. It was neither large nor high, but it had that individual charm which only age and years of occupation can give. The oldfashioned mantel reached, with its dark rich carvings, to the ceiling, across which was a massive oaken beam, nearly black with age; the fireplace, with its glaring logs, gave out a cheerful glimmer, reflected in the small quarries of the window opposite, over which hung a carven scroll, whose inscription there was not light enough to read. Mr. Jenifer breathed a sigh of relief at the comfortable appearance here, in contrast to the depressing aspect of the rest of the house; but instead of settling himself (as he felt tempted to do) by the fire, he again went out to look over the surrounding property. Behind, the ground rose abruptly, and was bounded by a closely-growing coppice, through which a narrow path seemed to strike in the direction of the village. The parson climbed the hill, leaving the coppice on his left, and standing on the highest portion of the meadow, looked across the low hedge at the last pageant of the sunset. Some elm trees

were silhouetted against the sky, athwart which lay bars of rosy flame, tender and evanescent. One moment the dying light leaped up brighter and throbbed through all the burning heaven, and then suddenly it died away, and the day was not.

Jenifer turned and looked at the Hall. Already it seemed to be losing itself in the darkness which gathered round it, hiding in the recesses of the gables, drawing curtains of mist over the twisted chimneys. The silence, entire and absolute, struck almost with oppression on the mind of this man accustomed to city noises; but even as he thought to himself "How still it all is," there sounded in the coppice close behind him a long, sobbing, moaning cry, which rose and fell, and rose again, and then ceased.

Clement Jenifer was not a particularly tender-hearted or compassionate man, but that sudden cry filled him with a vague fear of some cruel deed just perpetrated-some awful mystery to be brought to light; and after a moment's hesitation he turned in the direction whence it had seemed to come, and found himself on a long path, with a thick yew hedge on either side. Far ahead, in the dim twilight, he could descry a figure walking slowly away from him; he could hear a moaning sound, as of some one in pain. Mr. Jenifer hastened his pace in order to come up with the sufferer, and as he gained on him, and could see him more distinctly, it seemed to him that there was something familiar in the gait and bearing of the Unknown. And as he so thought, the figure turned, and, facing him, advanced with slow, uncertain footsteps, wringing his hands as he came. What was it that struck Mr. Jenifer as so well known to him? What was it that filled him with sudden horror, and sent the blood back to his heart? All the tales of ghosts and haunting noises at which he had scoffed so lately recurred to his mind, and yet there was nothing unearthly in the aspect of the man who was approaching him. And now they two stood face to face, and Clement Jenifer saw that this-he knew not what to call it-bore the face which he himself had borne twenty years ago, and he knew-though how, he could not tell-that he was standing face to face with the ghost of his own dead past.

Then ensued a conversation-strange, unnatural-between these two, who still were one; but whether the words were uttered on the evening air, or whether the knowledge of what was in the mind of each was mutual to both, it were hard to say.

"Why do I haunt you?" said this double of himself, gazing on him with reproachful eyes. "Do not murdered victims haunt their slayers, and have not you murdered that which was the best part of me? Where are the promises of your young days?