George Fenn - The Man with a Shadow

“And you will not?” said the doctor. “Well, I must be going. I say, though, did you get me that skull?”

“Nay, nay, nay,” said the old man, shaking his head, as he lit his pipe, and began smoking very contentedly, with his eyes half closed. “I couldn’t get no skulls, doctor. It would be sackerlidge and dessercation, and as long; as I’m saxton there shall be nothing of that kind at Duke’s Hampton. Bowdles doos it at King’s Hampton: but no such doings here.”

“But I want it for anatomical purposes, my good man.”

“Can’t help it, sir. I couldn’t do it.”

“Now what nonsense; it’s only lending me a bone.”

“You said sell it to you,” said the old man sharply.

“Well, sell it. I’ll buy it of you.”

“Nay, nay, nay. What would Parson Salis say if I did such a thing? He’d turn me out of being saxton, neck and crop.”

“Ah, well, I won’t worry you, old fellow; and I must go now.”

“Nay, don’t go yet, doctor,” cried the old man querulously. “You haven’t sounded me, nor feeled me, nor nothing.”

“Haven’t I given you some comforting medicine?”

“Yes, doctor; bit o’ ’bacco does me good; but do feel my pulse and look at my tongue.”

“Ah, well, let’s look,” said the doctor, and he patiently examined according to rote. “It’s Anno Domini, Moredock – Anno Domini.”

“Is it, now, doctor? Ah, you always did understand my complaint. If it hadn’t been for you, doctor – ”

“We should have had a new sexton at Duke’s Hampton before now, eh?”

“Yes, doctor,” said the old man, with a shudder.

“Well, without boasting, old chap, I think I did pull you through that last illness.”

“Yes, doctor, you did, you did; and don’t go away again. You were away seven days – seven mortal days of misery to me.”

“Oh, but you’re all right,” said the doctor, looking curiously at the old man.

“Nay, nay, nay. I thought I should have died before you come back, doctor; that I did.”

“But you’re better now.”

“Yes, I’m better now, doctor. I feel safer-like, and I’ve got so much to do that I can’t afford to be ill.”

“And die?”

“Nay, nay, nay; not yet, not yet, not yet, doctor!”

“Ah, well, I’m glad I do you good, Moredock; but I think you might have lent me that skull.”

“You said sell, doctor,” cried the old man.

“Of course I should have paid you. But I suppose I must respect your scruples.”

“Ay, do, doctor, and come oftener. Anno Domini, is it?”

“Yes.”

“’Tain’t a killing disease, is it, doctor?”

“Indeed but it is, old fellow. But, there, I’ll come in now and then and oil your works, and keep you going as long as I can.”

“Do, doctor, do, please. I shall feel so much safer when you’ve been.”

“All right. Good-day, Moredock.”

“Good-day, doctor,” said the old man, gripping his visitor’s arm tightly with a hook-like claw.

“Good-day; and if you do overcome your scruples, I should like that skull. It would be useful to me now.”

The old man kept tightly hold of his visitor’s arm, and hobbled to the door to look out, and then, still gripping hard at the arm, he said in a strange, cachinnatory way, as he laid down his pipe:

“He-he-he! hi-hi-hi! I’ve got it for you, doctor.”

“What? The skull?”

“Hush! Of course I have; only one must make a bit o’ fuss over it. Sackerlidge and dessercation, you know.”

“Oh! I see.”

“I wouldn’t do such a thing for any one but a doctor, you know. Anno Domical purposes, eh?”

“You’re getting the purpose mixed up with your disease, Moredock,” said the doctor, as the old man took out a key from the pocket of his coat, and, after blowing in it and tapping it on the table, prior to drawing a pin from the edge of his waistcoat and treating the key as if it were a periwinkle, he crossed to the old oak coffer.

“Just shut that door, doctor,” he said. “That’s right. Now shove the bolt. Nobody aren’t likely to come unless Dally Watlock does, for she always runs over when she aren’t wanted, and stops away when she is. Thankye, doctor.”

He stooped down, looking like some curious old half-bald bird, to unlock the chest, and then, after raising the lid a short distance, in a cunningly secretive way, he thrust in one arm, and brought out a dark-looking human skull.

“Ha! yes,” cried the doctor, taking the grisly relic of mortality in his hands. “Yes, that’s a very perfect specimen; but it’s a woman’s, evidently. I wanted a man’s.”

“You said sell you a skull,” said the old man angrily. “You never said nowt about man or woman.”

“No. It was an oversight. There, never mind.”

“Ay, but I do mind,” grumbled the old man. “I like to sadersfy my customers. Give it me back.”

“But this will do.”

“Nay, nay, nay; it won’t do,” cried the old man peevishly. “Give it to me.”

The doctor handed back the skull, and the old man hastily replaced it in the coffer, hesitated a few moments, and then brought out another skull.

“Ah! that’s right,” cried the doctor eagerly; “the very thing. How much?”

“Nay, nay, nay; I’m not going to commit sackerlidge and dessercation. I can’t sell it.”

“But you are not going to give it to me?”

“Nay; I only thought as you might put anything you like on the chimbley-piece.”

“I see,” said the doctor, smiling, and placing a small gold coin there, the old man watching eagerly the while. “But I say, Moredock, how many more have you got in that chest?”

“Got? – there?” said the old man suspiciously. “Oh! only them two. Nothing more – nothing more.” But the next instant, as if won over to confidence in his visitor, or feeling bound to trust him, he screwed up his face in a strange leering way and opened the coffer wide.

“You may look in,” he said. “You’re a doctor, and won’t tell. They’re for the doctors.”

“Your customers, eh?”

“Customers?” said the old man sharply; “who said a word about customers?”

“You did. So you deal in those things?”

“No, no; not deal in ’em. I find one sometimes – very old – very old. Been in the earth a mort o’ years.”

As he spoke he watched the doctor curiously while he inspected the specimens of osteology in the oak chest. Then, taking up a tin canister from the bottom, he gave it a shake, the contents rattling loudly, and upon opening it he displayed it half full of white, sound teeth.

“Dentists,” he said, with a grin, which showed his own two or three blackened fangs. “They uses ’em. False teeth. People thinks they’re ivory. So they are.”

“Why, Moredock, what a wicked old wretch you are,” said the doctor. “I don’t wonder you feel afraid to die.”

“Wicked? No more wicked than my neighbours, doctor. Every one’s afraid to die, and wants to live longer. Wicked! How could I save a few pounds together, to keep me out o’ the workus when I grow’s old, if I didn’t do something like this?”

“Ah, how indeed?” said the doctor, looking half-wonderingly at the strange old being.

“And my grandchild, Dalily, up at the Rectory. Man must save – must save. Besides, it’s doing good.”

“Good, eh?”

“Yes,” said the old fellow, with a hideous grin. “Lots o’ them never did no good in their lives, and maybe they’re thankful now they’re dead to find that, after all, they’re some use to their fellow-creatures.”

“Ah! Moredock, people are always ready to find an excuse for their wrong-doing. Seems to me that I ought to expose you up at the Rectory.”