Chapter 8 - Page 2

have been slept in; there was a bundle, in a
clean handkerchief, containing two shirts, two pocket handkerchiefs,
two pairs of cotton socks, a Testament, and that was all. Had he
intended to go away, why did he not take this little luggage in his
hand, being all he had, and of a kind not easily dispensed with? The
Doctor made small question about it, however; he had seemed surprised,
at first, yet gave certainly no energetic token of it; and when Ned,
who began to have notions of things, proposed to advertise him in the
newspapers, or send the town crier round, the Doctor ridiculed the idea
unmercifully.

"Lost, a lank Yankee schoolmaster," quoth he, uplifting his voice after
the manner of the town crier; "supposed to have been blown out of
Doctor Grim's window, or perhaps have ridden off astride of a humble-
bee."

"It is not pretty to laugh in that way, Doctor Grim," said little
Elsie, looking into his face, with a grave shake of her head.

"And why not, you saucy little witch?" said the Doctor.

"It is not the way to laugh, Doctor Grim," persisted the child, but
either could not or would not assign any reason for her disapprobation,
although what she said appeared to produce a noticeable effect on
Doctor Grimshawe, who lapsed into a rough, harsh manner, that seemed to
satisfy Elsie better. Crusty Hannah, meanwhile, seemed to dance about
the house with a certain singular alacrity, a wonderful friskiness,
indeed, as if the diabolical result of the mixture in her nature was
particularly pleased with something; so she went, with queer
gesticulations, crossings, contortions, friskings, evidently in a very
mirthful state; until, being asked by her master what was the matter,
she replied, "Massa, me know what became of the schoolmaster. Great
spider catch in his web and eat him!"

Whether that was the mode of his disappearance, or some other,
certainly the schoolmaster was gone; and the children were left in
great bewilderment at the sudden vacancy in his place. They had not
contracted a very yearning affection for him, and yet his impression
had been individual and real, and they felt that something was gone out
of their lives, now that he was no longer there. Something strange in
their circumstances made itself felt by them; they were more sensible
of the grim Doctor's uncouthness, his strange, reprehensible habits,
his dark, mysterious life,--in looking at these things, and the
spiders, and the graveyard, and their insulation from the world,
through the crystal medium of this stranger's character. In remembering
him in connection with these things, a certain seemly beauty in him
showed strikingly the unfitness, the sombre and