ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'M'
r. Dangerfield was at the club that night, and was rather in spirits than otherwise, except, indeed, when poor Charles Nutter was talked of. Then he looked grave, and shrugged, and shook his head, and said—
'A bad business, Sir; and where's his poor wife?'
'Spending the night with us, poor soul,' said Major O'Neill, mildly, 'and hasn't an idaya, poor thing; and indeed, I hope, she mayn't hear it.'
'Pooh! Sir, she must hear it; but you know she might have heard worse, Sir, eh?' rejoined Dangerfield.
'True for you, Sir,' said the major, suspending the filling of his pipe to direct a quiet glance of significance at Dangerfield, and then closing his eyes with a nod.
And just at this point in came Spaight.
'Well, Spaight!'
'Well, Sir.'
'You saw the body, eh?' and a dozen other interrogatories followed, as, cold and wet with melting snow, dishevelled, and storm-beaten—for it was a plaguy rough night—the young fellow, with a general greeting to the company, made his way to the fire.
''Tis a tremendous night, gentlemen, so by your leave I'll stir the fire—and, yes, I seen him, poor Nutter—and, paugh, an ugly sight he is, I can tell you; here Larry, bring me a rummer-glass of punch—his right ear's gone, and a'most all his right hand—and screeching hot, do you mind—an', phiew—altogether 'tis sickening—them fishes, you know—I'm a'most sorry I went in—you remember Dogherty's whiskey shop in Ringsend—he lies in the back parlour, and wondherful little changed in appearance.'
And so Mr. Spaight, with a little round table at his elbow, andhis heels over the fender, sipped his steaming punch, and thawed inwardly and outwardly, as he answered their questions and mixed in their speculations.
Up at the Mills, which had heard the awful news, first from the Widow Macan, and afterwards from Pat Moran, the maids sat over their tea in the kitchen in high excitement and thrilling chat—'The poor master!' 'Oh, the poor man!' 'Oh, la, what's that?' with a start and a peep over the shoulders. 'And oh, dear, and how in the world will the poor little misthress ever live over the news?' And so forth, made a principal part of their talk. There was a good accompaniment of wind outside, and a soft pelting of snow on the window panes, 'and oh, my dear life, but wasn't it dark!'
Up went Moggy, with her thick-wicked kitchen candle, to seek repose; and Betty, resolving not to be long behind, waited only 'to wash up her plates' and slack down the fire, having made up her mind, for she grew more nervous in solitude, to share Moggy's bed for that night.
Moggy had not been twenty minutes gone, and her task was nearly ended, when—'Oh, blessed saints!' murmured Betty, with staring eyes, and dropping the sweeping-brush on the flags, she heard, or thought she heard, her master's step, which was peculiar, crossing the floor overhead.
She listened, herself as pale as a corpse, and nearly as breathless; but there was nothing now but the muffled gusts of the storm, and the close soft beat of the snow, so she listened and listened, but nothing came of it.
''Tis only the vapours,' said Betty, drawing a long breath, and doing her best to be cheerful; and so she finished her labours, stopping every now and then to listen, and humming tunes very loud, in fits and starts. Then it came to her turn to take her candle and go up stairs; she was a good half-hour later than Moggy—all was quiet within the house—only the sound of the storm—the creak and rattle of its strain, and the hurly-burly of the gusts over the roof and chimneys.
Over her shoulder she peered jealously this way and that, as with flaring candle she climbed the stairs. How black the window looked on the lobby, with its white patterns of snow flakes in perpetual succession sliding down the panes. Who could tell what horrid face might be looking in close to her as she passed, secure in the darkness and that drifting white lace veil of snow? So nimbly and lightly up the stairs climbed Betty, the cook.
If listeners seldom hear good of themselves, it is also true that peepers sometimes see more than they like; and Betty, the cook, as she reached the landing, glancing askance with ominous curiosity, beheld a spectacle, the sight of which nearly bereft her of her senses.
Crouching in the deep doorway on the right of the lobby, the cook, I say, saw something—a figure—or a deep shadow—onlya deep shadow—or maybe a dog. She lifted the candle—she peeped under the candlestick: 'twas no shadow, as I live, 'twas a well-defined figure!
He was draped in black, cowering low, with the face turned up. It was Charles Nutter's face, fixed and stealthy. It was only while the fascination lasted—while you might count one, two, three, deliberately—that the horrid gaze met mutually. But there was no mistake there. She saw the stern dark picture as plainly as ever she did. The light glimmered on his white eye-balls.
Starting up, he struck at the candle with his hat. She uttered a loud scream, and flinging stick and all at the figure, with a great clang against the door behind, all was swallowed in instantaneous darkness; she whirled into the opposite bed-room she knew not how, and locked the door within, and plunged head-foremost under the bed-clothes, half mad with terror.
The squall was heard of course. Moggy heard it, but she heeded not; for Betty was known to scream at mice, and even moths. And as her door was heard to slam, as was usual in panics of the sort, and as she returned no answer, Moggy was quite sure there was nothing in it.
But Moggy's turn was to come. When spirits 'walk,' I've heard they make the most of their time, and sometimes pay a little round of visits on the same evening.
This is certain; Moggy was by no means so great a fool as Betty in respect of hobgoblins, witches, banshees, pookas, and the world of spirits in general. She eat heartily, and slept soundly, and as yet had never seen the devil. Therefore such terrors as she that night experienced were new to her, and I can't reasonably doubt the truth of her narrative. Awaking suddenly in the night, she saw a light in the room, and heard a quiet rustling going on in the corner, where the old white-painted press showed its front from the wall. So Moggy popped her head through her thin curtains at the side, and—blessed hour!—there she saw the shape of a man looking into the press, the doors being wide open, and the appearance of a key in the lock.
The shape was very like her master. The saints between us and harm! The glow was reflected back from the interior of the press, and showed the front part of the figure in profile with a sharp line of light. She said he had some sort of thick slippers over his boots, a dark coat, with the cape buttoned, and a hat flapping over his face; coat and hat and all, sprinkled over with snow.
As if he heard the rustle of the curtain, he turned toward the bed, and with an awful ejaculation she cried, ''Tis you, Sir!'
'Don't stir, and you'll meet no harm,' he said, and over he posts to the bedside, and he laid his cold hand on her wrist, and told her again to be quiet, and for her life to tell no one what she had seen, and with that she supposed she swooned away; for thenext thing she remembered was listening in mortal fear, the room being all dark, and she heard a sound at the press again, and then steps crossing the floor, and she gave herself up for lost; but he did not come to the bedside any more, and the tread passed out at the door, and so, as she thought, went down stairs.
In the morning the press was locked and the door shut, and the hall-door and back-door locked, and the keys on the hall-table, where they had left them the night before.
You may be sure these two ladies were thankful to behold the gray light, and hear the cheerful sounds of returning day; and it would be no easy matter to describe which of the two looked most pallid, scared, and jaded that morning, as they drank a hysterical dish of tea together in the kitchen, close up to the window, and with the door shut, discoursing, and crying, and praying over their tea-pot in miserable companionship.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'U'
p at the Elms, little Lily that night was sitting in the snug, old-fashioned room, with the good old rector. She was no better; still in doctors' hands and weak, but always happy with him, and he more than ever gentle and tender with her; for though he never would give place to despondency, and was naturally of a trusting, cheery spirit, he could not but remember his young wife, lost so early; and once or twice there was a look—an outline—a light—something, in little Lily's fair, girlish face, that, with a strange momentary agony, brought back the remembrance of her mother's stricken beauty, and plaintive smile. But then his darling's gay talk and pleasant ways would reassure him, and she smiled away the momentary shadow.
And he would tell her all sorts of wonders, old-world gaieties, long before she was born; and how finely the great Mr. Handel played upon the harpsichord in the Music Hall, and how his talk was in German, Latin, French, English, Italian, and half-a-dozen languages besides, sentence about; and how he remembered his own dear mother's dress when she went to Lord Wharton's great ball at the castle—dear, oh! dear, how long ago that was! And then he would relate stories of banshees, and robberies, and ghosts, and hair-breadth escapes, and 'rapparees,' and adventures in the wars of King James, which he heard told in his nonage by the old folk, long vanished, who remembered those troubles.
'And now, darling,' said little Lily, nestling close to him, with a smile, 'youmusttell me all about that strange, handsome Mr. Mervyn; who he is, and what his story.'
'Tut, tut! little rogue——'
'Yes, indeed, you must, and you will; you've kept your little Lily waiting long enough for it, and she'll promise to tell nobody.'
'Handsome he is, and strange, no doubt—it was a strange fancy that funeral. Strange, indeed,' said the rector.
'What funeral, darling?'
'Why, yes, a funeral—the bringing his father's body to be laid here in the vault, in my church; it is their family vault. 'Twas a folly; but what folly will not young men do?'
And the good parson poked the fire a little impatiently.
'Mr. Mervyn—notMervyn—that was his mother's name; but—see, you must not mention it, Lily, if I tell you—notMr. Mervyn, I say, but my Lord Dunoran, the only son of that disgraced and blood-stained nobleman, who, lying in gaol, under sentence of death for a foul and cowardly murder, swallowed poison, and so closed his guilty life with a tremendous crime, in its nature inexpiable. There, that's all, and too much, darling.'
'And was it very long ago?'
'Why, 'twas before little Lily was born; and long beforethatI knew him—only just a little. He used the Tiled House for a hunting-lodge, and kept his dogs and horses there—a fine gentleman, but vicious, always, I fear, and a gamester; an overbearing man, with a dangerous cast of pride in his eye. You don't remember Lady Dunoran?—pooh, pooh, what am I thinking of? No, to be sure! you could not. 'Tis from her, chiefly, poor lady, he has his good looks. Her eyes were large, and very peculiar, likehis—his, you know, are very fine. She, poor lady, did not live long after the public ruin of the family.'
'And has he been recognised here? The townspeople are so curious.'
'Why, dear child, not one of them ever saw him before. He's been lost sight of by all but a few, a very few friends. My Lord Castlemallard, who was his guardian, of course, knows; and to me he disclosed himself by letter; and we keep his secret; though it matters little who knows it, for it seems to me he's as unhappy as aught could ever make him. The townspeople take him for his cousin, who squandered his fortune in Paris; and how is he the better of their mistake, and how were he the worse if they knew him for whom he is? 'Tis an unhappy family—a curse haunts it. Young in years, old in vice, the wretched nobleman who lies in the vault, by the coffin of that old aunt, scarcely better than himself, whose guineas supplied his early profligacy—alas! he ruined his ill-fated, beautiful cousin, andshe died heart-broken, and her little child, both there—in that melancholy and contaminated house.'
So he rambled on, and from one tale to another, till little Lily's early bed-hour came.
I don't know whether it was Doctor Walsingham's visit in the morning, and the chance of hearing something about it, that prompted the unquiet Tom Toole to roll his cloak about him, and buffet his way through storm and snow, to Devereux's lodgings. It was only a stone's-throw; but even that, on such a night, was no trifle.
However, up he went to Devereux's drawing-room, and found its handsome proprietor altogether in the dumps. The little doctor threw off his sleety cloak and hat in the lobby, and stood before the officer fresh and puffing, and a little flustered and dazzled after his romp with the wind.
Devereux got up and received him with a slight bow and no smile, and a 'Pray take a chair, Doctor Toole.'
'Well, thisisa bright fit of the dismals,' said little Toole, nothing overawed. 'May I sit near the fire?'
'Upon it,' said Devereux, sadly.
'Thank'ee,' said Toole, clapping his feet on the fender, with a grin, and making himself comfortable. 'May I poke it?'
'Eat it—do as you please—anything—everything; play that fiddle (pointing to the ruin of Puddock's guitar, which the lieutenant had left on the table), or undress and go to bed, or get up and dance a minuet, or take that pistol, with all my heart, and shoot me through the head.'
'Thank'ee, again. A fine choice of amusements, I vow,' cried the jolly doctor.
'There, don't mind me, nor all I say, Toole. I'm, I suppose, in the vapours; but, truly, I'm glad to see you, and I thank you, indeed I do, heartily, for your obliging visit; 'tis very neighbourly. But, hang it, I'm weary of the time—the world is a dull place. I'm tired of this planet, and should not mind cutting my throat and trying a new star. Suppose we make the journey together, Toole; there is a brace of pistols over the chimney, and a fair wind for some of them.'
'Rather too much of a gale for my taste, thanking you again,' answered Toole with a cosy chuckle; 'but, ifyou'rebent on the trip, and can't wait, why, at least, let's have a glass together before parting.'
'With all my heart, what you will. Shall it be punch?'
'Punch be it. Come, hang saving; get us up a ha'porth of whiskey,' said little Toole, gaily.
'Hallo, Mrs. Irons, Madam, will you do us the favour to make a bowl of punch as soon as may be?' cried Devereux, over the banister.
'Come, Toole,' said Devereux, 'I'm very dismal. Losses and crosses, and deuce knows what. Whistle or talk, what youplease, I'll listen; tell me anything; stories of horses, dogs, dice, snuff, women, cocks, parsons, wine—what you will. Come, how's Sturk? He's beaten poor Nutter, and won the race; though the stakes, after all, were scarce worth taking—and what's life without a guinea?—he's grown, I'm told, so confoundedly poor, "quis pauper? avarus." A worthy man was Sturk, and, in some respects, resembled the prophet,Shylock; but you know nothing of him—why the plague don't you read your Bible, Toole?'
'Well,' said Toole, candidly, 'I don't know the Old Testament as well as the New; but certainly, whoever he's like, he's held out wonderfully. 'Tis nine weeks since he met that accident, and there he's still, above ground; but that's all—just above ground, you see.'
'And how's Cluffe?'
'Pooh, Cluffe indeed! Nothing ever wrong with him but occasional over-eating. Sir, you'd a laughed to-day had you seen him. I gave him a bolus, twice the size of a gooseberry. "What's this?" said he. "A bolus," says I. "The devil," says he; "dia-bolus, then," says I—"hey?" said I, "well?" ha! ha! and by Jove, Sir, it actually half stuck in his œsophagus, and I shoved it down like a bullet, with a probang; you'd a died a laughing, yet 'twasn't a bit too big. Why, I tell you, upon my honour, Mrs. Rebecca Chattesworth's black boy, only t'other day, swallowed a musket bullet twice the size, ha! ha!—he did—and I set him to rights in no time with a little powder.'
'Gunpowder?' said Devereux. 'And what of O'Flaherty? I'm told he was going to shoot poor Miles O'More.'
'Ha, ha! hey? Well, I don't think either remembered in the morning what they quarrelled about,' replied Toole; 'so it went off in smoke, Sir.'
'Well, and how is Miles?'
'Why, ha, ha! he's back again, with a bill, as usual, and a horse to sell—a good one—the black one, don't you remember? He wants five and thirty guineas; 'tisn't worth two pounds ten. "Do you know anyone who wants him? I would not mind taking a bill, with a couple of good names upon it," says he. Upon my credit I believe he thought I'd buy him myself. "Well," says I, "I think I do know a fellow that would give you his value, and pay you cash besides," says I. 'Twas as good as a play to see his face. "Who is he?" says he, taking me close by the arm. "The knacker," says I. 'Twas a bite for Miles; hey? ha, ha, ha!'
'And is it true old Tresham's going to join our club at last?'
'He! hang him! he's like a brute beast, and never drinks but when he's dry, and then small beer. But, I forgot to tell you, by all that's lovely, they do say the charming Magnolia—a fine bouncing girl that—is all but betrothed to Lieutenant O'Flaherty.'
Devereux laughed, and thus encouraged, Toole went on, with a wink and a whisper.
'Why, the night of the ball, you know, he saw her home, and they say he kissed her—by Bacchus, on both sides of the face,—at the door there, under the porch; and you know, if he had not a right, she'd a-knocked him down.'
'Psha! the girl's a Christian, and when she's smacked on one cheek she turns the other. And what says the major to it?'
'Why, as it happened, he opened the door precisely as the thing occurred; and he wished Lieutenant O'Flaherty good-night, and paid him a visit in the morning. And they say 'tis all satisfactory; and—by Jove! 'tis good punch.' And Mrs. Irons entered with a china bowl on a tray.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'A'
nd the china bowl, with its silver ladle, and fine fragrance of lemon and old malt whiskey, and a social pair of glasses, were placed on the table by fair Mistress Irons; and Devereux filled his glass, and Toole did likewise; and the little doctor rattled on; and Devereux threw in his word, and finally sang a song. 'Twas a ballad, with little in the words; but the air was sweet and plaintive, and so was the singer's voice:—
'A star so High,In my sad sky,I've early loved and late:A clear lone star,Serene and far,Doth rule my wayward fate.'Tho' dark and chillThe night be still,A light comes up for me:In eastern skiesMy star doth rise,And fortune dawns for me.'And proud and bold,My way I hold;For o'er me high I see,In night's deep blue,My star shine true,And fortune beams on me.'Now onward still,Thro' dark and chill,My lonely way must be;In vain regret,My star will set,And fortune's dark for me.'And whether glad,Or proud, or sad,Or howsoe'er I be;In dawn or noon,Or setting soon,My star, I'll follow thee.'
And so there was a pause and a silence. In the silvery notes of the singer there was the ring of a prophecy; and Toole half read its meaning. And himself loving a song, and being soft over his music, he remained fixed for a few seconds, and then sighed, smiling, and dried his light blue eyes covertly; and he praised the song and singer briskly; and sighed again, with his fingers on the stem of his glass. And by this time Devereux had drawn the window-curtain, and was looking across the river, through the darkness, towards the Elms, perhaps for that solitary distant light—his star—now blurred and lost in the storm. Whatever his contemplations, it was plain, when he turned about, that the dark spirit was upon him again.
'Curse that punch,' said he, in language still more emphatic. 'You're like Mephistopheles in the play—you come in upon my quiet to draw me to my ruin. 'Twas the devil sent you here, to kill my soul, I believe; but you sha'n't.Drink, will you?—ay—I'll give you a draught—a draught ofairwill cool you. Drink to your heart's content.'
And to Toole's consternation up went the window, and a hideous rush of eddying storm and snow whirled into the room. Out went the candles—the curtains flapped high in air, and lashed the ceiling—the door banged with a hideous crash—papers, and who knows what beside, went spinning, hurry-scurry round the room; and Toole's wig was very near taking wing from his head.
'Hey—hey—hey! holloo!' cried the doctor, out of breath, and with his artificial ringlets frisking about his chops and eyes.
'Out, sorcerer—temptation, begone—avaunt, Mephistopheles—cauldron, away!' thundered the captain; and sure enough, fromthe open window, through the icy sleet, whirled the jovial bowl; and the jingle of the china was heard faint through the tempest.
Toole was swearing, in the whirlwind and darkness, like a trooper.
'Thank Heaven! 'tis gone,' continued Devereux; 'I'm safe—no thanks to you, though; and, hark ye, doctor, I'm best alone; leave me—leave me, pray—and pray forgive me.'
The doctor groped and stumbled out of the room, growling all the while, and the door slammed behind him with a crash like a cannon.
'The fellow's brain's disordered—delirium tremens, and jump out of that cursed window, I wouldn't wonder,' muttered the doctor, adjusting his wig on the lobby, and then calling rather mildly over the banisters, he brought up Mrs. Irons with a candle, and found his cloak, hat, and cane; and with a mysterious look beckoned that matron to follow him, and in the hall, winking up towards the ceiling at the spot where Devereux might at the moment be presumed to be standing—
'I say, has he been feverish or queer, or—eh?—any way humorsome or out of the way?' And then—'See now, you may as well have an eye after him, and if you remark anything strange, don't fail to let me know—d'ye see? and for the present you had better get him to shut his window and light his candles.'
And so the doctor, wrapped in his mantle, plunged into the hurricane and darkness; and was sensible, with a throb of angry regret, of a whiff of punch rising from the footpath, as he turned the corner of the steps.
An hour later, Devereux being alone, called to Mrs. Irons, and receiving her with a courteous gravity, he said—
'Madam, will you be so good as to lend me your Bible?'
Devereux was prosecuting his reformation, which, as the reader sees, had set in rather tempestuously, but was now settling in serenity and calm.
Mrs. Irons only said—
'My——?' and then paused, doubting her ears.
'YourBible, if you please, Madam.'
'Oh?—oh! my Bible? I—to be sure, captain, jewel,' and she peeped at his face, and loitered for a while at the door, for she had unpleasant misgivings about him, and did not know what to make of his request, so utterly without parallel. She'd have fiddled at the door some time longer, speculating about his sanity, but that Devereux turned full upon her with a proud stare, and rising, he made her a slight bow, and said: 'Ithankyou, Madam,' with a sharp courtesy, that said: 'avaunt, and quit my sight!' so sternly, though politely, that she vanished on the instant; and down stairs she marvelled with Juggy Byrne, 'what the puck the captain could want of a Bible! Upon my conscience it sounds well. It's what he's not right in his head,I'm afeared. A Bible!'—and an aërial voice seemed to say, 'a pistol,' and another, 'a coffin,'—'An' I'm sure I wish that quare little Lieutenant Puddock id come up and keep him company. I dunno' what's come over him.'
And they tumbled about the rattletraps under the cupboard, and rummaged the drawers in search of the sacred volume. For though Juggy said there was no such thing, and never had been in her time, Mrs. Irons put her down with asperity. It was not to be found, however, and the matron thought she remembered that old Mrs. Legge's cook had borrowed it some time ago for a charm. So she explained the accident to Captain Devereux, who said—
'I thank you, Madam; 'tis no matter. I wish you a good-night, Madam;' and the door closed.
'No Bible!' said Devereux, 'the old witch!'
Mrs. Irons, as you remember, never spared her rhetoric, which was fierce, shrill, and fluent, when the exercise of that gift was called for. The parish clerk bore it with a cynical and taciturn patience, not, perhaps, so common as it should be in his sex; and this night, when she awoke, and her eyes rested on the form of her husband at her bedside, with a candle lighted, and buckling on his shoes, with his foot on the chair, she sat up straight in her bed, wide awake in an instant, for it was wonderful how the sight of that meek man roused the wife in her bosom, especially after an absence, and she had not seen him since four o'clock that evening; so you may suppose his reception was warm, and her expressions every way worthy of her feelings.
Meek Irons finished buckling that shoe, and then lifted the other to the edge of the chair, and proceeded to do the like for it, serenely, after his wont, and seeming to hear nothing. So Mrs. Irons proceeded, as was her custom when that patient person refused to be roused—she grasped his collar near his cheek, meaning to shake him into attention.
But instantly, as the operation commenced, the clerk griped her with his long, horny fingers by the throat, with a snap so sure and energetic that not a cry, not a gasp even, or a wheeze, could escape through 'the trachea,' as medical men have it; and her face and forehead purpled up, and her eyes goggled and glared in her head; and her husband looked so insanely wicked, that, as the pale picture darkened before her, and she heard curse after curse, and one foul name after another hiss off his tongue, like water off a hot iron, in her singing ears, she gave herself up for lost. He closed this exercise by chucking her head viciously against the board of the bed half-a-dozen times, and leaving her thereafter a good deal more confused even than on the eventful evening when he had first declared his love.
So soon as she came a little to herself, and saw him coolly buttoning his leggings at the bedside, his buckles being adjustedby this time, her fear subsided, or rather her just indignation rose above it, and drowned it; and she was on the point of breaking out afresh, only in a way commensurate with her wrongs, and proportionately more formidable; when, on the first symptom of attack, he clutched her, if possible, tighter, the gaping, goggling, purpling, the darkening of vision and humming in ears, all recommenced; likewise the knocking of her head with improved good-will, and, spite of her struggles and scratching, the bewildered lady, unused to even a show of insurrection, underwent the same horrid series of sensations at the hands of her rebellious lord.
When they had both had enough of it, Mr. Irons went on with his buttoning, and his lady gradually came to. This time, however, she was effectually frightened—too much so even to resort to hysterics, for she was not quite sure that when he had buttoned the last button of his left legging he might not resume operations, and terminate their conjugal relations.
Therefore, being all of a tremble, with her hands clasped, and too much terrified to cry, she besought Irons, whose bodily strength surprised her, for her life, and his pale, malign glance, askew over his shoulder, held her with a sort of a spell that was quite new to her—in fact, she had never respected Irons so before.
When he had adjusted his leggings, he stood lithe and erect at the bedside, and with his fist at her face, delivered a short charge, the point of which was, that unless she lay like a mouse till morning he'd have her life, though he hanged for it. And with that he drew the curtain, and was hidden from her sight for some time.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'I'
t was an awful night, indeed, on which all this occurred, and that apparition had shown itself up at the Mills. And truly it would seem the devil had business on his hands, for in the cedar-parlour of the Tiled House another unexpected manifestation occurred just about the same hour.
What gentleman is there of broken fortunes, undefined rights, and in search of evidence, without a legal adviser of some sort? Mr. Mervyn, of course, had his, and paid for the luxury according to custom. And every now and then off went a despatch from the Tiled House to the oracular London attorney; sometimes it was a budget of evidence, and sometimes only a string of queries. To-night, to the awful diapason of the storm—he was penning one of these—the fruit of a tedious study of many papers and letters, tied up in bundles by his desk, all of them redolent of ominous or fearful associations.
I don't know why it is the hours fly with such a strange celerity in the monotony and solitude of such nightwork. But Mervyn was surprised, as many a one similarly occupied has been, on looking at his watch, to find that it was now long past midnight; so he threw himself back in his chair with a sigh, and thought how vainly his life was speeding away, and heard, with a sort of wonder, how mad was the roar of the storm without, while he had quietly penned his long rescript undisturbed.
The wild bursts of supernatural fury and agony which swell and mingle in a hurricane, I dare say, led his imagination a strange aërial journey through the dark. Now it was the baying of hell hounds, and the long shriek of the spirit that flies before them. Anon it was the bellowing thunder of an ocean, and the myriad voices of shipwreck. And the old house quivering from base to cornice under the strain; and then there would come a pause, like a gasp, and the tempest once more rolled up, and the same mad hubbub shook and clamoured at the windows.
So he let his Pegasus spread his pinions on the blast, and mingled with the wild rout that peopled the darkness; or, in plainer words, he abandoned his fancy to the haunted associations of the hour, the storm, and the house, with a not unpleasant horror. In one of these momentary lulls of the wind, there came a sharp, distinct knocking on the window-pane. He remembered with a thrill the old story of the supernatural hand which had troubled that house, and began its pranks at this very window.
Ay, ay, 'twas the impatient rapping of a knuckle on the glass quite indisputably.
It is all very well weaving the sort of dream or poem with which Mervyn was half amusing and half awing himself, but the sensation is quite different when a questionable sound or sight comes uninvited to take the matter out of the province of our fancy and the control of our will. Mervyn found himself on his legs, and listening in a less comfortable sort of horror, with his gaze fixed in the direction of that small sharp knocking. But the storm was up again, and drowning every other sound in its fury.
If Mr. Mervyn had been sufficiently frightened, he would have forthwith made good his retreat to his bed-room, or, if he had not been frightened at all, he would have kept his seat, and allowed his fancies to return to their old channel. But, in fact, he took a light in his hand, and opened a bit of the window-shutter. The snow, however, was spread over the panes in a white, sliding curtain, that returned the light of his candle, and hid all without. 'Twas idle trying to peer through it, but as he did, the palm of a hand was suddenly applied to the glass on the outside, and began briskly to rub off the snow, as if to open a peep-hole for distinct inspection.
It was to be more this time than the apparition of a hand—a human face was immediately presented close to the glass—not that of Nutter either—no—it was the face of Irons—pale, with glittering eyes and blue chin, and wet hair quivering against the glass in the storm.
He nodded wildly to Mervyn, brushing away the snow, beckoning towards the back-door, as he supported himself on one knee on the window-stone, and, with his lips close to the glass, cried, 'let me in;' but, in the uproar of the storm, it was by his gestures, imperfectly as they were seen, rather than by his words, that Mervyn comprehended his meaning.
Down went Mr. Mervyn, without a moment's hesitation, leaving the candle standing on the passage table, drew the bolts, opened the door, and in rushed Irons, in a furious gust, his cloak whirling about his head amidst a bitter eddying of snow, and a distant clapping of doors throughout the house.
The door secured again, Mr. Irons stood in his beflaked and dripping mantle, storm-tossed, dishevelled, and alone once again in the shelter of the Tiled House, to explain the motive of his visit.
'Irons! I could hardly believe it,' and Mervyn made a pause, and then, filled with the one idea, he vehemently demanded, 'In Heaven's name, have you come to tell me all you know?'
'Well, maybe—no,' answered the clerk: 'I don't know; I'lltell you something. I'm going, you see, and I came here on my way; and I'll tell you more than last time, but not all—not all yet.'
'Going? and where?—what are your plans?'
'Plans?—I'venoplans. Where am I going!—nowhere—anywhere. I'm going away, that's all.'
'You're leaving this place—eh, to return no more?'
'I'm leaving it to-night; I've the doctor's leave, Parson Walsingham. What d'ye look at, Sir? d'ye think it's what I murdered any one? not but if I stayed here I might though,' and Mr. Irons laughed a frightened, half maniacal sort of laugh. 'I'm going for a bit, a fortnight, or so, maybe, till things get quiet—(lead us not into temptation!)—to Mullingar, or anywhere; only I won't stay longer at hell's door, within stretch of that devil's long arm.'
'Come to the parlour,' said Mervyn, perceiving that Irons was chilled and shivering.
There, with the door and window-shutters closed, a pair of candles on the table, and a couple of faggots of that pleasant bog-wood, which blazes so readily and fragrantly on the hearth, Irons shook off his cloak, and stood, lank and grim, and, as it seemed to Mervyn, horribly scared, but well in view, and trying, sullenly, to collect his thoughts.
'I'm going away, I tell you, for a little while; but I'm come to see you, Sir, to think what I may tell you now, and above all, to warn you again' saying to any living soul one word of what passed between us when I last was here; you've kept your word honourable as yet; if you break it I'll not return,' and he clenched it with an oath, 'Idaren'treturn.'
'I'll tell you the way it happened,' he resumed. ''Tis a good while now, ay twenty-two years; your noble father's dead these twenty-two years and upwards. 'Twas a bad murdher, Sir: they wor both bad murdhers. I look on it,he'sa murdhered man.'
'He—who?' demanded the young man.
'Your father, Sir.'
'My father murdered?' said Mervyn.
'Well, I see no great differ; I see none at all. I'll tell you how it was.'
And he looked over his shoulder again, and into the corners of the room, and then Mr. Irons began—
'I believe, Sir, there's no devil like a vicious young man, with a hard heart and cool courage, in want of money. Of all the men I ever met with, or heard tell of, Charles Archer was the most dreadful. I used sometimes to think hewasthe devil. It wasn't long-headed or cunning he was, but he knew your thoughts before you half knew them yourself. He knew whateveryone was thinking of. He made up his mind at a glance, and struck like a thunderbolt. As for pity or fear, he did not know what they were, and his cunning was so deep and sure there was no catching him.
'He came down to the Pied Horse Inn, where I was a drawer, at Newmarket, twice.'
Mervyn looked in his face, quickly, with a ghastly kind of a start.
'Ay, Sir, av coorse you know it; you read the trial; av coorse you did. Well, he came down there twice. 'Twas a good old house, Sir, lots of room, and a well-accustomed inn. An' I think there was but two bad men among all the servants of the house—myself and Glascock. He was an under hostler, and a bad boy. He chose us two out of the whole lot, with a look. He never made a mistake. He knew us some way like a crow knows carrion, and he used us cleverly.'
And Irons cursed him.
'He's a hard master, like his own,' said Irons; 'his wages come to nothing, and his services is hell itself. He could sing, and talk, and drink, and keep things stirring, and the gentlemen liked him; and he was, 'twas said, a wonderful fine player at whist, and piquet, and ombre, and all sorts of card-playing. So you see he could afford to play fair. The first time he came down, he fought three duels about a tipsy quarrel over a pool of Pope Joan. There was no slur on his credit, though; 'twas just a bit of temper. He wounded all three; two but trifling; but one of them—Chapley, or Capley, I think, was his name—through the lungs, and he died, I heard, abroad. I saw him killed—'twasn't the last; it was done while you'd count ten. Mr. Archer came up with a sort of a sneer, pale and angry, and 'twas a clash of the small swords—one, two, three, and a spring like a tiger—and all over. He was frightful strong; ten times as strong as he looked—all a deception.'
'Well, Sir, there was a Jew came down, offering wagers, not, you see, to gentlemen, Sir, but to poor fellows. And Mr. Archer put me and Glascock up to bite him, as he said; and he told us to back Strawberry, and we did. We had that opinion of his judgment and his knowledge—you see, we thought he had ways of finding out these things—that we had no doubt of winning, so we made a wager of twelve pounds. But we had no money—not a crown between us—and we must stake gold with the host of the "Plume of Feathers;" and the long and the short of it was, I never could tell how he put it into our heads, to pledge some of the silver spoons and a gold chain of the master's, intending to take them out when we won the money. Well, Strawberry lost, and we were left in the lurch. So we told Mr. Archer how it was; for he was an off-handed man when he had anything in view, and he told us, as we thought, he'd help us if we lost. "Help you," says he, with a sort of laugh he had, "I want help myself; I haven't a guinea, and I'm afraid you'll be hanged: and then," says he, "stay a bit, and I'll find a way."
'I think hewasin a bad plight just then himself; he was awful expensive with horses and—and—other things; and I thinkthere was a writ, or maybe more, out against him, from other places, and he wanted a lump of money in his hand to levant with, and go abroad. Well, listen, and don't be starting, or making a row, Sir,' and a sulky, lowering, hang-dog shadow, came over Irons. 'Your father, Lord Dunoran, played cards; his partner was Mr. Charles Archer. Whist it was—with a gentleman of the name of Beauclerc, and I forget the other—he wore a chocolate suit, and a black wig. 'Twas I carried them their wine. Well, Mr. Beauclerc won, and Mr. Archer stopped playing, for he had lost enough; and the gentleman in the chocolate—what was his name?—Edwards, I think—ay, 'twas—yes, Edwards, it was—was tired, and turned himself about to the fire, and took a pipe of tobacco; and my lord, your father, played piquet with Mr. Beauclerc; and he lost a power of money to him, Sir; and, by bad luck, he paid a great part of it, as they played, in rouleaus of gold, for he had won at the dice down stairs. Well, Mr. Beauclerc was a little hearty, and he grew tired, and was for going to bed. But my lord was angry, and being disguised with liquor too, he would not let him go till they played more; and play they did, and the luck still went the same way; and my lord grew fierce over it, and cursed and drank, and that did not mend his luck you may be sure; and at last Mr. Beauclerc swears he'd play no more; and both kept talking together, and neither heard well what t'other said; but there was some talk about settling the dispute in the morning.
'Well, Sir, in goes Mr. Beauclerc, staggering—his room was the Flower de luce—and down he throws himself, clothes an' all, on his bed; and then my lord turned on Mr.Edwards, I'm sure that was his name, and persuades him to play at piquet; and to it they went.
'As I was coming in with more wine, I meets Mr. Archer coming out, "Give them their wine," says he, in a whisper, "and follow me." An' so I did. "You know something of Glascock, and have a fast hold of him," says he, "and tell him quietly to bring up Mr. Beauclerc's boots, and come back along with him; and bring me a small glass of rum." And back he goes into the room where the two were stuck in their cards, and talking and thinking of nothing else.'