Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (208 page)

"Well,
now,
after
such
a
night
as
that,
Mr.
Baxter
he'd
shut
up
the shop,
and
the
old
lady
that
did
for
him
had
orders
not
to
come
in; and
knowing
what
she
did
about
his
language,
she
took
care
to
obey them
orders.
But
one
day
it
so
happened,
about
three
o'clock
in
the afternoon,
the
house
being
shut
up
as
I
said,
there
come
a
most
fearful to-do
inside,
and
smoke
out
of
the
windows,
and
Baxter
crying
out seemingly
in
an
agony.
So
the
man
as
lived
next
door
he
run
round
to the
back
premises
and
burst
the
door
in,
and
several
others
come
too. Well,
he
tell
me
he
never
in
all
his
life
smelt
such
a
fearful—well, odour,
as
what
there
was
in
that
kitchen-place.
It
seem
as
if
Baxter had
been
boiling
something
in
a
pot
and
overset
it
on
his
leg.
There he
laid
on
the
floor,
trying
to
keep
back
the
cries,
but
it
was
more than
he
could
manage,
and
when
he
seen
the
people
come
in—oh,
he was
in
a
nice
condition:
if
his
tongue
warn't
blistered
worse
than
his leg
it
wam't
his
fault.
Well,
they
picked
him
up,
and
got
him
into
a chair,
and
run
for
the
medical
man,
and
one
of
'em
was
going
to
pick up
the
pot,
and
Baxter,
he
screams
out
to
let
it
alone.
So
he
did,
but he
couldn't
see
as
there
was
anything
in
the
pot
but
a
few
old
brown bones.
Then
they
says,
'Dr.
Lawrence'll
be
here
in
a
minute,
Mr.
Baxter;
he'll
soon
put
you
to
rights.'
And
then
he
was
off
again.
He
must be
got
up
to
his
room,
he
couldn't
have
the
doctor
come
in
there
and see
all
that
mess—they
must
throw
a
cloth
over
it—anything—the tablecloth
out
of
the
parlour;
well,
so
they
did.
But
that
must
have been
poisonous
stuff
in
that
pot,
for
it
was
pretty
near
on
two
months afore
Baxter
were
about
agin.
Beg
pardon,
Master
Henry,
was
you going
to
say
something?"

"Yes,
I
was,"
said
the
Squire.
"I
wonder
you
haven't
told
me
all this
before.
However,
I
was
going
to
say
I
remember
old
Lawrence telling
me
he'd
attended
Baxter.
He
was
a
queer
card,
he
said.
Lawrence
was
up
in
the
bedroom
one
day,
and
picked
up
a
little
mask covered
with
black
velvet,
and
put
it
on
in
fun
and
went
to
look
at himself
in
the
glass.
He
hadn't
time
for
a
proper
look,
for
old
Baxter shouted
out
to
him
from
the
bed:
'Put
it
down,
you
fool!
Do
you want
to
look
through
a
dead
man's
eyes?'
and
it
startled
him
so
that he
did
put
it
down,
and
then
he
asked
Baxter
what
he
meant.
And Baxter
insisted
on
him
handing
it
over,
and
said
the
man
he
bought
it from
was
dead,
or
some
such
nonsense.
But
Lawrence
felt
it
as
he handed
it
over,
and
he
declared
he
was
sure
it
was
made
out
of
the front
of
a
skull.
He
bought
a
distilling
apparatus
at
Baxter's
sale,
he told
me,
but
he
could
never
use
it:
it
seemed
to
taint
everything, however
much
he
cleaned
it.
But
go
on,
Patten."