CHAPTER IV. OUR GRAND PROJECT.
AT the end of the fifth week of our guest's stay, among the letterswhich the morning's post brought to The Glen Tower there was one for me,from my son George, in the Crimea.
The effect which this letter produced in our little circle renders itnecessary that I should present it here, to speak for itself.
This is what I read alone in my own room:
"MY DEAREST FATHER--After the great public news of the fall ofSebastopol, have you any ears left for small items of privateintelligence from insignificant subaltern officers? Prepare, if youhave, for a sudden and a startling announcement. How shall I write thewords? How shall I tell you that I am really coming home?
"I have a private opportunity of sending this letter, and only a shorttime to write it in; so I must put many things, if I can, into fewwords. The doctor has reported me fit to travel at last, and I leave,thanks to the privilege of a wounded man, by the next ship. The name ofthe vessel and the time of starting are on the list which I inclose. Ihave made all my calculations, and, allowing for every possible delay,I find that I shall be with you, at the latest, on the first ofNovember--perhaps some days earlier.
"I am far too full of my return, and of something else connected with itwhich is equally dear to me, to say anything about public affairs, moreespecially as I know that the newspapers must, by this time, have givenyou plenty of information. Let me fill the rest of this paper with asubject which is very near to my heart--nearer, I am almost ashamedto say, than the great triumph of my countrymen, in which my disabledcondition has prevented me from taking any share.
"I gathered from your last letter that Miss Yelverton was to pay you avisit this autumn, in your capacity of her guardian. If she is alreadywith you, pray move heaven and earth to keep her at The Glen Tower tillI come back. Do you anticipate my confession from this entreaty? Mydear, dear father, all my hopes rest on that one darling treasure whichyou are guarding perhaps, at this moment, under your own roof--all myhappiness depends on making Jessie Yelverton my wife.
"If I did not sincerely believe that you will heartily approve of mychoice, I should hardly have ventured on this abrupt confession. Nowthat I have made it, let me go on and tell you why I have kept myattachment up to this time a secret from every one--even from Jessieherself. (You see I call her by her Christian name already!)
"I should have risked everything, father, and have laid my whole heartopen before her more than a year ago, but for the order which sent ourregiment out to take its share in this great struggle of the Russianwar. No ordinary change in my life would have silenced me on the subjectof all others of which I was most anxious to speak; but this change mademe think seriously of the future; and out of those thoughts came theresolution which I have kept until this time. For her sake, and for hersake only, I constrained myself to leave the words unspoken which mighthave made her my promised wife. I resolved to spare her the dreadfulsuspense of waiting for her betrothed husband till the perils of warmight, or might not, give him back to her. I resolved to save her fromthe bitter grief of my death if a bullet laid me low. I resolved topreserve her from the wretched sacrifice of herself if I came back,as many a brave man will come back from this war, invalided for life.Leaving her untrammeled by any engagement, unsuspicious perhaps ofmy real feelings toward her, I might die, and know that, by keepingsilence, I had spared a pang to the heart that was dearest to me. Thiswas the thought that stayed the words on my lips when I left England,uncertain whether I should ever come back. If I had loved her lessdearly, if her happiness had been less precious to me, I might havegiven way under the hard restraint I imposed on myself, and might havespoken selfishly at the last moment.
"And now the time of trial is past; the war is over; and, although Istill walk a little lame, I am, thank God, in as good health and in muchbetter spirits than when I left home. Oh, father, if I should lose hernow--if I should get no reward for sparing her but the bitterest of alldisappointments! Sometimes I am vain enough to think that I made somelittle impression on her; sometimes I doubt if she has a suspicion ofmy love. She lives in a gay world--she is the center of perpetualadmiration--men with all the qualities to win a woman's heart areperpetually about her--can I, dare I hope? Yes, I must! Only keep her,I entreat you, at The Glen Tower. In that quiet world, in that freedomfrom frivolities and temptations, she will listen to me as she mightlisten nowhere else. Keep her, my dearest, kindest father--and, aboveall things, breathe not a word to her of this letter. I have surelyearned the privilege of being the first to open her eyes to the truth.She must know nothing, now that I am coming home, till she knows allfrom my own lips."
Here the writing hurriedly broke off. I am only giving myself credit forcommon feeling, I trust, when I confess that what I read deeply affectedme. I think I never felt so fond of my boy, and so proud of him, as atthe moment when I laid down his letter.
As soon as I could control my spirits, I began to calculate the questionof time with a trembling eagerness, which brought back to my mind my ownyoung days of love and hope. My son was to come back, at the latest, onthe first of November, and Jessie's allotted six weeks would expire onthe twenty-second of October. Ten days too soon! But for the capricewhich had brought her to us exactly that number of days before her timeshe would have been in the house, as a matter of necessity, on George'sreturn.
I searched back in my memory for a conversation that I had held withher a week since on her future plans. Toward the middle of November,her aunt, Lady Westwick, had arranged to go to her house in Paris, andJessie was, of course, to accompany her--to accompany her into that verycircle of the best English and the best French society which containedin it the elements most adverse to George's hopes. Between this time andthat she had no special engagement, and she had only settled to writeand warn her aunt of her return to London a day or two before she leftThe Glen Tower.
Under these circumstances, the first, the all-important necessity was toprevail on her to prolong her stay beyond the allotted six weeks byten days. After the caution to be silent impressed on me (and mostnaturally, poor boy) in George's letter, I felt that I could only appealto her on the ordinary ground of hospitality. Would this be sufficientto effect the object?
I was sure that the hours of the morning and the afternoon had, thusfar, been fully and happily occupied by her various amusements indoorsand out. She was no more weary of her days now than she had been whenshe first came among us. But I was by no means so certain that she wasnot tired of her evenings. I had latterly noticed symptoms of wearinessafter the lamps were lit, and a suspicious regularity in retiring tobed the moment the clock struck ten. If I could provide her with a newamusement for the long evenings, I might leave the days to take careof themselves, and might then make sure (seeing that she had nospecial engagement in London until the middle of November) of her beingsincerely thankful and ready to prolong her stay.
How was this to be done? The piano and the novels had both failed toattract her. What other amusement was there to offer?
It was useless, at present, to ask myself such questions as these. I wastoo much agitated to think collectedly on the most trifling subjects. Iwas even too restless to stay in my own room. My son's letter had givenme so fresh an interest in Jessie that I was now as impatient to see heras if we were about to meet for the first time. I wanted to look ather with my new eyes, to listen to her with my new ears, to study hersecretly with my new purposes, and my new hopes and fears. To my dismay(for I wanted the very weather itself to favor George's interests),it was raining heavily that morning. I knew, therefore, that I shouldprobably find her in her own sitting-room. When I knocked at her door,with George's letter crumpled up in my hand, with George's hopes in fullpossession of my heart, it is no exaggeration to say that my nerves werealmost as much fluttered, and my ideas almost as much confused, asthey were on a certain memorable day in the far past, when I rose, inbrand-new wig and gown, to set my future prospects at the bar on thehazard of my first speech.
No sooner did I find myself in her presence than an irresistible anxietyto make some secret discovery of the real state of her feelings towardGeorge took possession of me. After the customary condolences on theimprisonment to which she was subjected by the weather, I said, in ascareless a manner as it was possible to assume:
"I have heard from my son this morning. He talks of being ordered home,and tells me I may expect to see him before the end of the year."
I was too cautious to mention the exact date of his return, for in thatcase she might have detected my motive for asking her to prolong hervisit.
"Oh, indeed?" she said. "How very nice. How glad you must be."
I watched her narrowly. The clear, dark blue eyes met mine as openly asever. The smooth, round cheeks kept their fresh color quite unchanged.The full, good-humored, smiling lips never trembled or altered theirexpression in the slightest degree. Her light checked silk dress, withits pretty trimming of cherry-colored ribbon, lay quite still over thebosom beneath it. For all the information I could get from her lookand manner, we might as well have been a hundred miles apart from eachother. Is the best woman in the world little better than a fathomlessabyss of duplicity on certain occasions, and where certain feelings ofher own are concerned? I would rather not think that; and yet I don'tknow how to account otherwise for the masterly manner in which MissJessie contrived to baffle me.
I was afraid--literally afraid--to broach the subject of prolonging hersojourn with us on a rainy day, so I changed the topic, in despair, tothe novels that were scattered about her.
"Can you find nothing there," I asked, "to amuse you this wet morning?"
"There are two or three good novels," she said, carelessly, "but I readthem before I left London."
"And the others won't even do for a dull day in the country?" I went on.
"They might do for some people," she answered, "but not for me. I'mrather peculiar, perhaps, in my tastes. I'm sick to death of novels withan earnest purpose. I'm sick to death of outbursts of eloquence, andlarge-minded philanthropy, and graphic descriptions, and unsparinganatomy of the human heart, and all that sort of thing. Good graciousme! isn't it the original intention or purpose, or whatever you call it,of a work of fiction, to set out distinctly by telling a story? Andhow many of these books, I should like to know, do that? Why, so far astelling a story is concerned, the greater part of them might as wellbe sermons as novels. Oh, dear me! what I want is something that seizeshold of my interest, and makes me forget when it is time to dressfor dinner--something that keeps me reading, reading, reading, in abreathless state to find out the end. You know what I mean--at least youought. Why, there was that little chance story you told me yesterdayin the garden--don't you remember?--about your strange client, whom younever saw again: I declare it was much more interesting than half thesenovels, _because_ it was a story. Tell me another about your young days,when you were seeing the world, and meeting with all sorts of remarkablepeople. Or, no--don't tell it now--keep it till the evening, when we allwant something to stir us up. You old people might amuse us young onesout of your own resources oftener than you do. It was very kind of youto get me these books; but, with all respect to them, I would ratherhave the rummaging of your memory than the rummaging of this box. What'sthe matter? Are you afraid I have found out the window in your bosomalready?"
I had half risen from my chair at her last words, and I felt that myface must have flushed at the same moment. She had started an idea in mymind--the very idea of which I had been in search when I was ponderingover the best means of amusing her in the long autumn evenings.
I parried her questions by the best excuses I could offer; changedthe conversation for the next five minutes, and then, making a suddenremembrance of business my apology for leaving her, hastily withdrew todevote myself to the new idea in the solitude of my own room.
A little quiet thinking convinced me that I had discovered a means notonly of occupying her idle time, but of decoying her into staying onwith us, evening by evening, until my son's return. The new projectwhich she had herself unconsciously suggested involved nothing less thanacting forthwith on her own chance hint, and appealing to her interestand curiosity by the recital of incidents and adventures drawn from myown personal experience and (if I could get them to help me) from theexperience of my brothers as well. Strange people and startling eventshad connected themselves with Owen's past life as a clergyman, withMorgan's past life as a doctor, and with my past life as a lawyer, whichoffered elements of interest of a strong and striking kind ready to ourhands. If these narratives were written plainly and unpretendingly;if one of them was read every evening, under circumstances that shouldpique the curiosity and impress the imagination of our young guest, thevery occupation was found for her weary hours which would gratify hertastes, appeal to her natural interest in the early lives of my brothersand myself, and lure her insensibly into prolonging her visit by tendays without exciting a suspicion of our real motive for detaining her.
I sat down at my desk; I hid my face in my hands to keep out allimpressions of external and present things; and I searched back throughthe mysterious labyrinth of the Past, through the dun, ever-deepeningtwilight of the years that were gone.
Slowly, out of the awful shadows, the Ghosts of Memory rose about me.The dead population of a vanished world came back to life round me, aliving man. Men and women whose earthly pilgrimage had ended long since,returned upon me from the unknown spheres, and fond, familiar voicesburst their way back to my ears through the heavy silence of the grave.Moving by me in the nameless inner light, which no eye saw but mine,the dead procession of immaterial scenes and beings unrolled its silentlength. I saw once more the pleading face of a friend of early days,with the haunting vision that had tortured him through life by hisside again--with the long-forgotten despair in his eyes which had oncetouched my heart, and bound me to him, till I had tracked his destinythrough its darkest windings to the end. I saw the figure of an innocentwoman passing to and fro in an ancient country house, with the shadowof a strange suspicion stealing after her wherever she went. I saw aman worn by hardship and old age, stretched dreaming on the straw of astable, and muttering in his dream the terrible secret of his life.
Other scenes and persons followed these, less vivid in their revival,but still always recognizable and distinct; a young girl alone bynight, and in peril of her life, in a cottage on a dreary moor--an upperchamber of an inn, with two beds in it; the curtains of one bed closed,and a man standing by them, waiting, yet dreading to draw them back--ahusband secretly following the first traces of a mystery which hiswife's anxious love had fatally hidden from him since the day when theyfirst met; these, and other visions like them, shadowy reflections ofthe living beings and the real events that had been once, peopled thesolitude and the emptiness around me. They haunted me still when I triedto break the chain of thought which my own efforts had wound about mymind; they followed me to and fro in the room; and they came out withme when I left it. I had lifted the veil from the Past for myself, and Iwas now to rest no more till I had lifted it for others.
I went at once to my eldest brother and showed him my son's letter, andtold him all that I have written here. His kind heart was touched asmine had been. He felt for my suspense; he shared my anxiety; he laidaside his own occupation on the spot.
"Only tell me," he said, "how I can help, and I will give every hour inthe day to you and to George."
I had come to him with my mind almost as full of his past life as ofmy own; I recalled to his memory events in his experience as a workingclergyman in L
ondon; I set him looking among papers which he hadpreserved for half his lifetime, and the very existence of which he hadforgotten long since; I recalled to him the names of persons to whosenecessities he had ministered in his sacred office, and whose stories hehad heard from their own lips or received under their own handwriting.When we parted he was certain of what he was wanted to do, and wasresolute on that very day to begin the work.
I went to Morgan next, and appealed to him as I had already appealedto Owen. It was only part of his odd character to start all sorts ofeccentric objections in reply; to affect a cynical indifference, whichhe was far from really and truly feeling; and to indulge in plenty ofquaint sarcasm on the subject of Jessie and his nephew George. I waitedtill these little surface-ebullitions had all expended themselves, andthen pressed my point again with the earnestness and anxiety that Ireally felt.
Evidently touched by the manner of my appeal to him even more thanby the language in which it was expressed, Morgan took refuge in hiscustomary abruptness, spread out his paper violently on the table,seized his pen and ink, and told me quite fiercely to give him his workand let him tackle it at once.
I set myself to recall to his memory some very remarkable experiencesof his own in his professional days, but he stopped me before I had halfdone.
"I understand," he said, taking a savage dip at the ink, "I'm to makeher flesh creep, and to frighten her out of her wits. I'll do it with avengeance!"
Reserving to myself privately an editorial right of supervision overMorgan's contributions, I returned to my own room to begin my share--byfar the largest one--of the task before us. The stimulus applied to mymind by my son's letter must have been a strong one indeed, for I hadhardly been more than an hour at my desk before I found the old literaryfacility of my youthful days, when I was a writer for the magazines,returning to me as if by magic. I worked on unremittingly tilldinner-time, and then resumed the pen after we had all separated forthe night. At two o'clock the next morning I found myself--God helpme!--masquerading, as it were, in my own long-lost character of ahard-writing young man, with the old familiar cup of strong tea by myside, and the old familiar wet towel tied round my head.
My review of the progress I had made, when I looked back at my pages ofmanuscript, yielded all the encouragement I wanted to drive me on. Itis only just, however, to add to the record of this first day's attempt,that the literary labor which it involved was by no means of themost trying kind. The great strain on the intellect--the strain ofinvention--was spared me by my having real characters and eventsready to my hand. If I had been called on to create, I should, in allprobability, have suffered severely by contrast with the very worstof those unfortunate novelists whom Jessie had so rashly and sothoughtlessly condemned. It is not wonderful that the public shouldrarely know how to estimate the vast service which is done to them bythe production of a good book, seeing that they are, for the most part,utterly ignorant of the immense difficulty of writing even a bad one.
The next day was fine, to my great relief; and our visitor, whilewe were at work, enjoyed her customary scamper on the pony, and hercustomary rambles afterward in the neighborhood of the house. AlthoughI had interruptions to contend with on the part of Owen and Morgan,neither of whom possessed my experience in the production of what heavypeople call "light literature," and both of whom consequently wantedassistance, still I made great progress, and earned my hours of reposeon the evening of the second day.
On that evening I risked the worst, and opened my negotiations for thefuture with "The Queen of Hearts."
About an hour after the tea had been removed, and when I happened to beleft alone in the room with her, I noticed that she rose suddenly andwent to the writing-table. My suspicions were aroused directly, and Ientered on the dangerous subject by inquiring if she intended to writeto her aunt.
"Yes," she said. "I promised to write when the last week came. If youhad paid me the compliment of asking me to stay a little longer, Ishould have returned it by telling you I was sorry to go. As it is, Imean to be sulky and say nothing."
With those words she took up her pen to begin the letter.
"Wait a minute," I remonstrated. "I was just on the point of begging youto stay when I spoke."
"Were you, indeed?" she returned. "I never believed in coincidences ofthat sort before, but now, of course, I put the most unlimited faith inthem!"
"Will you believe in plain proofs?" I asked, adopting her humor. "How doyou think I and my brothers have been employing ourselves all day to-dayand all day yesterday? Guess what we have been about."
"Congratulating yourselves in secret on my approaching departure," sheanswered, tapping her chin saucily with the feather-end of her pen.
I seized the opportunity of astonishing her, and forthwith told herthe truth. She started up from the table, and approached me with theeagerness of a child, her eyes sparkling, and her cheeks flushed.
"Do you really mean it?" she said.
I assured her that I was in earnest. She thereupon not only expressedan interest in our undertaking, which was evidently sincere, but, withcharacteristic impatience, wanted to begin the first evening's readingon that very night. I disappointed her sadly by explaining that werequired time to prepare ourselves, and by assuring her that we shouldnot be ready for the next five days. On the sixth day, I added, weshould be able to begin, and to go on, without missing an evening, forprobably ten days more.
"The next five days?" she replied. "Why, that will just bring us tothe end of my six weeks' visit. I suppose you are not setting a trap tocatch me? This is not a trick of you three cunning old gentlemen to makeme stay on, is it?"
I quailed inwardly as that dangerously close guess at the truth passedher lips.
"You forget," I said, "that the idea only occurred to me after what yousaid yesterday. If it had struck me earlier, we should have been readyearlier, and then where would your suspicions have been?"
"I am ashamed of having felt them," she said, in her frank, hearty way."I retract the word 'trap,' and I beg pardon for calling you 'threecunning old gentlemen.' But what am I to say to my aunt?"
She moved back to the writing-table as she spoke.
"Say nothing," I replied, "till you have heard the first story. Shutup the paper-case till that time, and then decide when you will open itagain to write to your aunt."
She hesitated and smiled. That terribly close guess of hers was not outof her mind yet.
"I rather fancy," she said, slyly, "that the story will turn out to bethe best of the whole series."
"Wrong again," I retorted. "I have a plan for letting chance decidewhich of the stories the first one shall be. They shall be all numberedas they are done; corresponding numbers shall be written inside foldedpieces of card and well mixed together; you shall pick out any one cardyou like; you shall declare the number written within; and, good or bad,the story that answers to that number shall be the story that is read.Is that fair?"
"Fair!" she exclaimed; "it's better than fair; it makes _me_ of someimportance; and I must be more or less than woman not to appreciatethat."
"Then you consent to wait patiently for the next five days?"
"As patiently as I can."
"And you engage to decide nothing about writing to your aunt until youhave heard the first story?"
"I do," she said, returning to the writing-table. "Behold the proofof it." She raised her hand with theatrical solemnity, and closed thepaper-case with an impressive bang.
I leaned back in my chair with my mind at ease for the first time sincethe receipt of my son's letter.
"Only let George return by the first of November," I thought to myself,"and all the aunts in Christendom shall not prevent Jessie Yelvertonfrom being here to meet him."
THE TEN DAYS.
THE FIRST DAY.
SHOWERY and unsettled. In spite of the weather, Jessie put on myMackintosh cloak and rode off over the hills to one of Owen's outlyingfarms. She was already too impatient to wait quietly for th
e evening'sreading in the house, or to enjoy any amusement less exhilarating than agallop in the open air.
I was, on my side, as anxious and as uneasy as our guest. Now that thesix weeks of her stay had expired--now that the day had really arrived,on the evening of which the first story was to be read, I began tocalculate the chances of failure as well as the chances of success. Whatif my own estimate of the interest of the stories turned out to be afalse one? What if some unforeseen accident occurred to delay my son'sreturn beyond ten days?
The arrival of the newspaper had already become an event of the deepestimportance to me. Unreasonable as it was to expect any tidings of Georgeat so early a date, I began, nevertheless, on this first of our days ofsuspense, to look for the name of his ship in the columns of telegraphicnews. The mere mechanical act of looking was some relief to myoverstrained feelings, although I might have known, and did know, thatthe search, for the present, could lead to no satisfactory result.
Toward noon I shut myself up with my collection of manuscripts to revisethem for the last time. Our exertions had thus far produced but six ofthe necessary ten stories. As they were only, however, to be read, oneby one, on six successive evenings, and as we could therefore count onplenty of leisure in the daytime, I was in no fear of our failing tofinish the little series.
Of the six completed stories I had written two, and had found a thirdin the form of a collection of letters among my papers. Morgan had onlywritten one, and this solitary contribution of his had given me moretrouble than both my own put together, in consequence of the perpetualintrusion of my brother's eccentricities in every part of his narrative.The process of removing these quaint turns and frisks of Morgan'shumor--which, however amusing they might have been in an essay, wereutterly out of place in a story appealing to suspended interest for itseffect--certainly tried my patience and my critical faculty (such as itis) more severely than any other part of our literary enterprise whichhad fallen my share.
Owen's investigations among his papers had supplied us with the tworemaining narratives. One was contained in a letter, and the other inthe form of a diary, and both had been received by him directly from thewriters. Besides these contributions, he had undertaken to help us bysome work of his own, and had been engaged for the last four days inmolding certain events which had happened within his personal knowledgeinto the form of a story. His extreme fastidiousness as a writerinterfered, however, so seriously with his progress that he was stillsadly behindhand, and was likely, though less heavily burdened thanMorgan or myself, to be the last to complete his allotted task.
Such was our position, and such the resources at our command, whenthe first of the Ten Days dawned upon us. Shortly after four in theafternoon I completed my work of revision, numbered the manuscripts fromone to six exactly as they happened to lie under my hand, and inclosedthem all in a portfolio, covered with purple morocco, which became knownfrom that time by the imposing title of The Purple Volume.
Miss Jessie returned from her expedition just as I was tying the stringsof the portfolio, and, womanlike, instantly asked leave to peep inside,which favor I, manlike, positively declined to grant.
As soon as dinner was over our guest retired to array herself inmagnificent evening costume. It had been arranged that the readings wereto take place in her own sitting-room; and she was so enthusiasticallydesirous to do honor to the occasion, that she regretted not havingbrought with her from London the dress in which she had been presentedat court the year before, and not having borrowed certain materials foradditional splendor which she briefly described as "aunt's diamonds."
Toward eight o'clock we assembled in the sitting-room, and a strangelyassorted company we were. At the head of the table, radiant in silkand jewelry, flowers and furbelows, sat The Queen of Hearts, looking sohandsome and so happy that I secretly congratulated my absent son onthe excellent taste he had shown in falling in love with her. Round thisbright young creature (Owen, at the foot of the table, and Morgan andI on either side) sat her three wrinkled, gray-headed, dingily-attiredhosts, and just behind her, in still more inappropriate companionship,towered the spectral figure of the man in armor, which had sounaccountably attracted her on her arrival. This strange scene waslighted up by candles in high and heavy brass sconces. Before Jessiestood a mighty china punch-bowl of the olden time, containing the foldedpieces of card, inside which were written the numbers to be drawn, andbefore Owen reposed the Purple Volume from which one of us was to read.The walls of the room were hung all round with faded tapestry; theclumsy furniture was black with age; and, in spite of the light from thesconces, the lofty ceiling was almost lost in gloom. If Rembrandt couldhave painted our background, Reynolds our guest, and Hogarth ourselves,the picture of the scene would have been complete.
When the old clock over the tower gateway had chimed eight, I roseto inaugurate the proceedings by requesting Jessie to take one of thepieces of card out of the punch-bowl, and to declare the number.
She laughed; then suddenly became frightened and serious; then lookedat me, and said, "It was dreadfully like business;" and then entreatedMorgan not to stare at her, or, in the present state of her nerves, sheshould upset the punch-bowl. At last she summoned resolution enough totake out one of the pieces of card and to unfold it.
"Declare the number, my dear," said Owen.
"Number Four," answered Jessie, making a magnificent courtesy, andbeginning to look like herself again.
Owen opened the Purple Volume, searched through the manuscripts,and suddenly changed color. The cause of his discomposure was soonexplained. Malicious fate had assigned to the most diffident individualin the company the trying responsibility of leading the way. Number Fourwas one of the two narratives which Owen had found among his own papers.
"I am almost sorry," began my eldest brother, confusedly, "that it hasfallen to my turn to read first. I hardly know which I distrust most,myself or my story."
"Try and fancy you are in the pulpit again," said Morgan, sarcastically."Gentlemen of your cloth, Owen, seldom seem to distrust themselves ortheir manuscripts when they get into that position."
"The fact is," continued Owen, mildly impenetrable to his brother'scynical remark, "that the little thing I am going to try and read ishardly a story at all. I am afraid it is only an anecdote. I becamepossessed of the letter which contains my narrative under thesecircumstances. At the time when I was a clergyman in London, my churchwas attended for some months by a lady who was the wife of a largefarmer in the country. She had been obliged to come to town, and toremain there for the sake of one of her children, a little boy, whorequired the best medical advice."
At the words "medical advice" Morgan shook his head and growled tohimself contemptuously. Owen went on:
"While she was attending in this way to one child, his share in her lovewas unexpectedly disputed by another, who came into the world ratherbefore his time. I baptized the baby, and was asked to the littlechristening party afterward. This was my first introduction to the lady,and I was very favorably impressed by her; not so much on account ofher personal appearance, for she was but a little woman and had nopretensions to beauty, as on account of a certain simplicity, andhearty, downright kindness in her manner, as well as of an excellentfrankness and good sense in her conversation. One of the guests present,who saw how she had interested me, and who spoke of her in the highestterms, surprised me by inquiring if I should ever have supposed thatquiet, good-humored little woman to be capable of performing an act ofcourage which would have tried the nerves of the boldest man in England?I naturally enough begged for an explanation; but my neighbor at thetable only smiled and said, 'If you can find an opportunity, ask herwhat happened at The Black Cottage, and you will hear something thatwill astonish you.' I acted on the hint as soon as I had an opportunityof speaking to her privately. The lady answered that it was too longa story to tell then, and explained, on my suggesting that she shouldrelate it on some future day, that she was about to start for hercountry home the next mor
ning. 'But,' she was good enough to add, 'as Ihave been under great obligations to you for many Sundays past, and asyou seem interested in this matter, I will employ my first leisure timeafter my return in telling you by writing, instead of by word of mouth,what really happened to me on one memorable night of my life in TheBlack Cottage.'
"She faithfully performed her promise. In a fortnight afterward Ireceived from her the narrative which I am now about to read."
BROTHER OWEN'S STORY
OF
THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK COTTAGE.
To begin at the beginning, I must take you back to the time after mymother's death, when my only brother had gone to sea, when my sister wasout at service, and when I lived alone with my father in the midst of amoor in the west of England.
The moor was covered with great limestone rocks, and intersected hereand there by streamlets. The nearest habitation to ours was situatedabout a mile and a half off, where a strip of the fertile land stretchedout into the waste like a tongue. Here the outbuildings of the greatMoor Farm, then in the possession of my husband's father, began. Thefarm-lands stretched down gently into a beautiful rich valley, lyingnicely sheltered by the high platform of the moor. When the ground beganto rise again, miles and miles away, it led up to a country house calledHolme Manor, belonging to a gentleman named Knifton. Mr. Kniftonhad lately married a young lady whom my mother had nursed, and whosekindness and friendship for me, her foster-sister, I shall remembergratefully to the last day of my life. These and other slightparticulars it is necessary to my story that I should tell you, and itis also necessary that you should be especially careful to bear themwell in mind.
My father was by trade a stone-mason. His cottage stood a mile and ahalf from the nearest habitation. In all other directions we were fouror five times that distance from neighbors. Being very poor people, thislonely situation had one great attraction for us--we lived rent freeon it. In addition to that advantage, the stones, by shaping which myfather gained his livelihood, lay all about him at his very door, sothat he thought his position, solitary as it was, quite an enviable one.I can hardly say that I agreed with him, though I never complained.I was very fond of my father, and managed to make the best of myloneliness with the thought of being useful to him. Mrs. Kniftonwished to take me into her service when she married, but I declined,unwillingly enough, for my father's sake. If I had gone away, he wouldhave had nobody to live with him; and my mother made me promise on herdeath-bed that he should never be left to pine away alone in the midstof the bleak moor.
Our cottage, small as it was, was stoutly and snugly built, with stonefrom the moor as a matter of course. The walls were lined inside andfenced outside with wood, the gift of Mr. Knifton's father to my father.This double covering of cracks and crevices, which would have beensuperfluous in a sheltered position, was absolutely necessary, in ourexposed situation, to keep out the cold winds which, excepting just thesummer months, swept over us continually all the year round. The outsideboards, covering our roughly-built stone walls, my father protectedagainst the wet with pitch and tar. This gave to our little abode acuriously dark, dingy look, especially when it was seen from a distance;and so it had come to be called in the neighborhood, even before I wasborn, The Black Cottage.
I have now related the preliminary particulars which it is desirablethat you should know, and may proceed at once to the pleasanter task oftelling you my story.
One cloudy autumn day, when I was rather more than eighteen years old,a herdsman walked over from Moor Farm with a letter which had been leftthere for my father. It came from a builder living at our county town,half a day's journey off, and it invited my father to come to him andgive his judgment about an estimate for some stonework on a very largescale. My father's expenses for loss of time were to be paid, and he wasto have his share of employment afterwards in preparing the stone. Hewas only too glad, therefore, to obey the directions which the lettercontained, and to prepare at once for his long walk to the county town.
Considering the time at which he received the letter, and the necessityof resting before he attempted to return, it was impossible for him toavoid being away from home for one night, at least. He proposed to me,in case I disliked being left alone in the Black Cottage, to lock thedoor and to take me to Moor Farm to sleep with any one of the milkmaidswho would give me a share of her bed. I by no means liked the notion ofsleeping with a girl whom I did not know, and I saw no reason to feelafraid of being left alone for only one night; so I declined. No thieveshad ever come near us; our poverty was sufficient protection againstthem; and of other dangers there were none that even the most timidperson could apprehend. Accordingly, I got my father's dinner, laughingat the notion of my taking refuge under the protection of a milkmaidat Moor Farm. He started for his walk as soon as he had done, saying heshould try and be back by dinner-time the next day, and leaving me andmy cat Polly to take care of the house.
I had cleared the table and brightened up the fire, and had sat down tomy work with the cat dozing at my feet, when I heard the trampling ofhorses, and, running to the door, saw Mr. and Mrs. Knifton, with theirgroom behind them, riding up to the Black Cottage. It was part of theyoung lady's kindness never to neglect an opportunity of coming to payme a friendly visit, and her husband was generally willing to accompanyher for his wife's sake. I made my best courtesy, therefore, with agreat deal of pleasure, but with no particular surprise at seeing them.They dismounted and entered the cottage, laughing and talking in greatspirits. I soon heard that they were riding to the same county townfor which my father was bound and that they intended to stay with somefriends there for a few days, and to return home on horseback, as theywent out.
I heard this, and I also discovered that they had been having anargument, in jest, about money-matters, as they rode along toour cottage. Mrs. Knifton had accused her husband of inveterateextravagance, and of never being able to go out with money in his pocketwithout spending it all, if he possibly could, before he got home again.Mr. Knifton had laughingly defended himself by declaring that all hispocket-money went in presents for his wife, and that, if he spent itlavishly, it was under her sole influence and superintendence.
"We are going to Cliverton now," he said to Mrs. Knifton, naming thecounty town, and warming himself at our poor fire just as pleasantlyas if he had been standing on his own grand hearth. "You will stop toadmire every pretty thing in every one of the Cliverton shop-windows;I shall hand you the purse, and you will go in and buy. When wehave reached home again, and you have had time to get tired of yourpurchases, you will clasp your hands in amazement, and declare that youare quite shocked at my habits of inveterate extravagance. I am only thebanker who keeps the money; you, my love, are the spendthrift who throwsit all away!"
"Am I, sir?" said Mrs. Knifton, with a look of mock indignation. "Wewill see if I am to be misrepresented in this way with impunity.Bessie, my dear" (turning to me), "you shall judge how far I deserve thecharacter which that unscrupulous man has just given to me. _I_ am thespendthrift, am I? And you are only the banker? Very well. Banker, giveme my money at once, if you please!"
Mr. Knifton laughed, and took some gold and silver from his waistcoatpocket.
"No, no," said Mrs. Knifton, "you may want what you have got there fornecessary expenses. Is that all the money you have about you? What doI feel here?" and she tapped her husband on the chest, just over thebreast-pocket of his coat.
Mr. Knifton laughed again, and produced his pocketbook. His wifesnatched it out of his hand, opened it, and drew out some bank-notes,put them back again immediately, and, closing the pocketbook, steppedacross the room to my poor mother's little walnut-wood book-case, theonly bit of valuable furniture we had in the house.
"What are you going to do there?" asked Mr. Knifton, following his wife.
Mrs. Knifton opened the glass door of the book-case, put the pocketbookin a vacant place on one of the lower shelves, closed and locked thedoor again, and gave me the key.
"You called me a
spendthrift just now," she said. "There is my answer.Not one farthing of that money shall you spend at Cliverton on _me_.Keep the key in your pocket, Bessie, and, whatever Mr. Knifton may say,on no account let him have it until we call again on our way back. No,sir, I won't trust you with that money in your pocket in the town ofCliverton. I will make sure of your taking it all home again, by leavingit here in more trustworthy hands than yours until we ride back. Bessie,my dear, what do you say to that as a lesson in economy inflicted on aprudent husband by a spendthrift wife?"
She took Mr. Knifton's arm while she spoke, and drew him away to thedoor. He protested and made some resistance, but she easily carried herpoint, for he was far too fond of her to have a will of his own in anytrifling matter between them. Whatever the men might say, Mr. Kniftonwas a model husband in the estimation of all the women who knew him.
"You will see us as we come back, Bessie. Till then, you are our banker,and the pocketbook is yours," cried Mrs. Knifton, gayly, at the door.Her husband lifted her into the saddle, mounted himself, and away theyboth galloped over the moor as wild and happy as a couple of children.
Although my being trusted with money by Mrs. Knifton was no novelty (inher maiden days she always employed me to pay her dress-maker's bills),I did not feel quite easy at having a pocketbook full of bank-notes leftby her in my charge. I had no positive apprehensions about the safety ofthe deposit placed in my hands, but it was one of the odd points in mycharacter then (and I think it is still) to feel an unreasonably strongobjection to charging myself with money responsibilities of any kind,even to suit the convenience of my dearest friends. As soon as I wasleft alone, the very sight of the pocketbook behind the glass door ofthe book-case began to worry me, and instead of returning to my work, Ipuzzled my brains about finding a place to lock it up in, where it wouldnot be exposed to the view of any chance passers-by who might stray intothe Black Cottage.
This was not an easy matter to compass in a poor house like ours, wherewe had nothing valuable to put under lock and key. After running overvarious hiding-places in my mind, I thought of my tea-caddy, a presentfrom Mrs. Knifton, which I always kept out of harm's way in my ownbedroom. Most unluckily--as it afterward turned out--instead of takingthe pocketbook to the tea-caddy, I went into my room first to take thetea-caddy to the pocketbook. I only acted in this roundabout way fromsheer thoughtlessness, and severely enough I was punished for it, as youwill acknowledge yourself when you have read a page or two more of mystory.
I was just getting the unlucky tea-caddy out of my cupboard, when Iheard footsteps in the passage, and, running out immediately, saw twomen walk into the kitchen--the room in which I had received Mr. and Mrs.Knifton. I inquired what they wanted sharply enough, and one of themanswered immediately that they wanted my father. He turned toward me, ofcourse, as he spoke, and I recognized him as a stone-mason, going amonghis comrades by the name of Shifty Dick. He bore a very bad characterfor everything but wrestling, a sport for which the working men of ourparts were famous all through the county. Shifty Dick was champion,and he had got his name from some tricks of wrestling, for which he wascelebrated. He was a tall, heavy man, with a lowering, scarred face, andhuge hairy hands--the last visitor in the whole world that I should havebeen glad to see under any circumstances. His companion was a stranger,whom he addressed by the name of Jerry--a quick, dapper, wicked-lookingman, who took off his cap to me with mock politeness, and showed, inso doing, a very bald head, with some very ugly-looking knobs on it. Idistrusted him worse than I did Shifty Dick, and managed to get betweenhis leering eyes and the book-case, as I told the two that my father wasgone out, and that I did not expect him back till the next day.
The words were hardly out of my mouth before I repented that my anxietyto get rid of my unwelcome visitors had made me incautious enough toacknowledge that my father would be away from home for the whole night.
Shifty Dick and his companion looked at each other when I unwisely letout the truth, but made no remark except to ask me if I would give thema drop of cider. I answered sharply that I had no cider in the house,having no fear of the consequences of refusing them drink, becauseI knew that plenty of men were at work within hail, in a neighboringquarry. The two looked at each other again when I denied having anycider to give them; and Jerry (as I am obliged to call him, knowing noother name by which to distinguish the fellow) took off his cap to meonce more, and, with a kind of blackguard gentility upon him, said theywould have the pleasure of calling the next day, when my father wasat home. I said good-afternoon as ungraciously as possible, and, to mygreat relief, they both left the cottage immediately afterward.
As soon as they were well away, I watched them from the door. Theytrudged off in the direction of Moor Farm; and, as it was beginning toget dusk, I soon lost sight of them.
Half an hour afterward I looked out again.
The wind had lulled with the sunset, but the mist was rising, and aheavy rain was beginning to fall. Never did the lonely prospect of themoor look so dreary as it looked to my eyes that evening. Never did Iregret any slight thing more sincerely than I then regretted the leavingof Mr. Knifton's pocketbook in my charge. I cannot say that I sufferedunder any actual alarm, for I felt next to certain that neither ShiftyDick nor Jerry had got a chance of setting eyes on so small a thing asthe pocketbook while they were in the kitchen; but there was a kindof vague distrust troubling me--a suspicion of the night--a dislike ofbeing left by myself, which I never remember having experienced before.This feeling so increased after I had closed the door and gone backto the kitchen, that, when I heard the voices of the quarrymen as theypassed our cottage on their way home to the village in the valley belowMoor Farm, I stepped out into the passage with a momentary notionof telling them how I was situated, and asking them for advice andprotection.
I had hardly formed this idea, however, before I dismissed it. Noneof the quarrymen were intimate friends of mine. I had a noddingacquaintance with them, and believed them to be honest men, as timeswent. But my own common sense told me that what little knowledge oftheir characters I had was by no means sufficient to warrant me inadmitting them into my confidence in the matter of the pocketbook. I hadseen enough of poverty and poor men to know what a terrible temptation alarge sum of money is to those whose whole lives are passed inscraping up sixpences by weary hard work. It is one thing to write finesentiments in books about incorruptible honesty, and another thing toput those sentiments in practice when one day's work is all that a manhas to set up in the way of an obstacle between starvation and his ownfireside.
The only resource that remained was to carry the pocketbook with me toMoor Farm, and ask permission to pass the night there. But I could notpersuade myself that there was any real necessity for taking such acourse as this; and, if the truth must be told, my pride revolted at theidea of presenting myself in the character of a coward before the peopleat the farm. Timidity is thought rather a graceful attraction amongladies, but among poor women it is something to be laughed at. A womanwith less spirit of her own than I had, and always shall have, wouldhave considered twice in my situation before she made up her mind toencounter the jokes of plowmen and the jeers of milkmaids. As for me, Ihad hardly considered about going to the farm before I despised myselffor entertaining any such notion. "No, no," thought I, "I am not thewoman to walk a mile and a half through rain, and mist, and darkness totell a whole kitchenful of people that I am afraid. Come what may, hereI stop till father gets back."
Having arrived at that valiant resolution, the first thing I did was tolock and bolt the back and front doors, and see to the security of everyshutter in the house.
That duty performed, I made a blazing fire, lighted my candle, and satdown to tea, as snug and comfortable as possible. I could hardly believenow, with the light in the room, and the sense of security inspired bythe closed doors and shutters, that I had ever felt even the slightestapprehension earlier in the day. I sang as I washed up the tea-things;and even the cat seemed to catch the infection o
f my good spirits. Inever knew the pretty creature so playful as she was that evening.
The tea-things put by, I took up my knitting, and worked away at itso long that I began at last to get drowsy. The fire was so bright andcomforting that I could not muster resolution enough to leave it andgo to bed. I sat staring lazily into the blaze, with my knitting on mylap--sat till the splashing of the rain outside and the fitful, sullensobbing of the wind grew fainter and fainter on my ear. The last soundsI heard before I fairly dozed off to sleep were the cheerful cracklingof the fire and the steady purring of the cat, as she basked luxuriouslyin the warm light on the hearth. Those were the last sounds before Ifell asleep. The sound that woke me was one loud bang at the front door.
I started up, with my heart (as the saying is) in my mouth, with afrightful momentary shuddering at the roots of my hair--I started upbreathless, cold and motionless, waiting in the silence I hardly knewfor what, doubtful at first whether I had dreamed about the bang at thedoor, or whether the blow had really been struck on it.
In a minute or less there came a second bang, louder than the first. Iran out into the passage.
"Who's there?"
"Let us in," answered a voice, which I recognised immediately as thevoice of Shifty Dick.
"Wait a bit, my dear, and let me explain," said a second voice, in thelow, oily, jeering tones of Dick's companion--the wickedly clever littleman whom he called Jerry. "You are alone in the house, my pretty littledear. You may crack your sweet voice with screeching, and there's nobodynear to hear you. Listen to reason, my love, and let us in. We don'twant cider this time--we only want a very neat-looking pocketbookwhich you happen to have, and your late excellent mother's four silverteaspoons, which you keep so nice and clean on the chimney-piece. If youlet us in we won't hurt a hair of your head, my cherub, and we promiseto go away the moment we have got what we want, unless you particularlywish us to stop to tea. If you keep us out, we shall be obliged to breakinto the house and then--"
"And then," burst in Shifty Dick, "we'll _mash_ you!"
"Yes," said Jerry, "we'll mash you, my beauty. But you won't drive us todoing that, will you? You will let us in?"
This long parley gave me time to recover from the effect which thefirst bang at the door had produced on my nerves. The threats of the twovillains would have terrified some women out of their senses, but theonly result they produced on _me_ was violent indignation. I had, thankGod, a strong spirit of my own, and the cool, contemptuous insolence ofthe man Jerry effectually roused it.
"You cowardly villains!" I screamed at them through the door. "You thinkyou can frighten me because I am only a poor girl left alone in thehouse. You ragamuffin thieves, I defy you both! Our bolts are strong,our shutters are thick. I am here to keep my father's house safe, andkeep it I will against an army of you!"
You may imagine what a passion I was in when I vapored and blustered inthat way. I heard Jerry laugh and Shifty Dick swear a whole mouthful ofoaths. Then there was a dead silence for a minute or two, and then thetwo ruffians attacked the door.
I rushed into the kitchen and seized the poker, and then heaped wood onthe fire, and lighted all the candles I could find; for I felt as thoughI could keep up my courage better if I had plenty of light. Strange andimprobable as it may appear, the next thing that attracted my attentionwas my poor pussy, crouched up, panic-stricken, in a corner. I was sofond of the little creature that I took her up in my arms and carriedher into my bedroom and put her inside my bed. A comical thing to do ina situation of deadly peril, was it not? But it seemed quite natural andproper at the time.
All this while the blows were falling faster and faster on the door.They were dealt, as I conjectured, with heavy stones picked up from theground outside. Jerry sang at his wicked work, and Shifty Dick swore. AsI left the bedroom after putting the cat under cover, I heard the lowerpanel of the door begin to crack.
I ran into the kitchen and huddled our four silver spoons into mypocket; then took the unlucky book with the bank-notes and put it in thebosom of my dress. I was determined to defend the property confided tomy care with my life. Just as I had secured the pocketbook I heardthe door splintering, and rushed into the passage again with my heavykitchen poker lifted in both hands.
I was in time to see the bald head of Jerry, with the ugly-looking knobson it, pushed into the passage through a great rent in one of the lowerpanels of the door.
"Get out, you villain, or I'll brain you on the spot!" I screeched,threatening him with the poker.
Mr. Jerry took his head out again much faster than he put it in.
The next thing that came through the rent was a long pitchfork, whichthey darted at me from the outside, to move me from the door. I struckat it with all my might, and the blow must have jarred the hand ofShifty Dick up to his very shoulder, for I heard him give a roar of rageand pain. Before he could catch at the fork with his other hand I haddrawn it inside. By this time even Jerry lost his temper and swore moreawfully than Dick himself.
Then there came another minute of respite. I suspected they had gone toget bigger stones, and I dreaded the giving way of the whole door.
Running into the bedroom as this fear beset me, I laid hold of my chestof drawers, dragged it into the passage, and threw it down against thedoor. On the top of that I heaped my father's big tool chest, threechairs, and a scuttleful of coals; and last, I dragged out the kitchentable and rammed it as hard as I could against the whole barricade. Theyheard me as they were coming up to the door with fresh stones. Jerrysaid: "Stop a bit!" and then the two consulted together in whispers. Ilistened eagerly, and just caught these words:
"Let's try it the other way."
Nothing more was said, but I heard their footsteps retreating from thedoor.
Were they going to besiege the back door now?
I had hardly asked myself that question when I heard their voices at theother side of the house. The back door was smaller than the front, butit had this advantage in the way of strength--it was made of two solidoak boards joined lengthwise, and strengthened inside by heavy crosspieces. It had no bolts like the front door, but was fastened by a barof iron running across it in a slanting direction, and fitting at eitherend into the wall.
"They must have the whole cottage down before they can break in atthat door!" I thought to myself. And they soon found out as much forthemselves. After five minutes of banging at the back door they gave upany further attack in that direction and cast their heavy stones downwith curses of fury awful to hear.
I went into the kitchen and dropped on the window-seat to rest for amoment. Suspense and excitement together were beginning to tell upon me.The perspiration broke out thick on my forehead, and I began to feel thebruises I had inflicted on my hands in making the barricade againstthe front door. I had not lost a particle of my resolution, but I wasbeginning to lose strength. There was a bottle of rum in the cupboard,which my brother the sailor had left with us the last time he wasashore. I drank a drop of it. Never before or since have I put anythingdown my throat that did me half so much good as that precious mouthfulof rum!
I was still sitting in the window-seat drying my face, when I suddenlyheard their voices close behind me.
They were feeling the outside of the window against which I was sitting.It was protected, like all the other windows in the cottage, by ironbars. I listened in dreadful suspense for the sound of filing, butnothing of the sort was audible. They had evidently reckoned onfrightening me easily into letting them in, and had come unprovided withhouse-breaking tools of any kind. A fresh burst of oaths informed methat they had recognized the obstacle of the iron bars. I listenedbreathlessly for some warning of what they were going to do next, buttheir voices seemed to die away in the distance. They were retreatingfrom the window. Were they also retreating from the house altogether?Had they given up the idea of effecting an entrance in despair?
A long silence followed--a silence which tried my courage even moreseverely than the tumult of their first
attack on the cottage.
Dreadful suspicions now beset me of their being able to accomplish bytreachery what they had failed to effect by force. Well as I knew thecottage, I began to doubt whether there might not be ways of cunninglyand silently entering it against which I was not provided. The tickingof the clock annoyed me; the crackling of the fire startled me. I lookedout twenty times in a minute into the dark corners of the passage,straining my eyes, holding my breath, anticipating the most unlikelyevents, the most impossible dangers. Had they really gone, or were theystill prowling about the house? Oh, what a sum of money I would havegiven only to have known what they were about in that interval ofsilence!
I was startled at last out of my suspense in the most awful manner.A shout from one of them reached my ears on a sudden down the kitchenchimney. It was so unexpected and so horrible in the stillness thatI screamed for the first time since the attack on the house. My worstforebodings had never suggested to me that the two villains might mountupon the roof.
"Let us in, you she-devil!" roared a voice down the chimney.
There was another pause. The smoke from the wood fire, thin and lightas it was in the red state of the embers at that moment, had evidentlyobliged the man to take his face from the mouth of the chimney. Icounted the seconds while he was, as I conjectured, getting his breathagain. In less than half a minute there came another shout:
"Let us in, or we'll burn the place down over your head!"
Burn it? Burn what? There was nothing easily combustible but the thatchon the roof; and that had been well soaked by the heavy rain which hadnow fallen incessantly for more than six hours. Burn the place over myhead? How?
While I was still casting about wildly in my mind to discover whatpossible danger there could be of fire, one of the heavy stonesplaced on the thatch to keep it from being torn up by high winds camethundering down the chimney. It scattered the live embers on the hearthall over the room. A richly-furnished place, with knickknacks and finemuslin about it, would have been set on fire immediately. Even ourbare floor and rough furniture gave out a smell of burning at the firstshower of embers which the first stone scattered.
For an instant I stood quite horror-struck before this new proof of thedevilish ingenuity of the villains outside. But the dreadful dangerI was now in recalled me to my senses immediately. There was a largecanful of water in my bedroom, and I ran in at once to fetch it. BeforeI could get back to the kitchen a second stone had been thrown down thechimney, and the floor was smoldering in several places.
I had wit enough to let the smoldering go on for a moment or two more,and to pour the whole of my canful of water over the fire before thethird stone came down the chimney. The live embers on the floor I easilydisposed of after that. The man on the roof must have heard the hissingof the fire as I put it out, and have felt the change produced in theair at the mouth of the chimney, for after the third stone had descendedno more followed it. As for either of the ruffians themselves droppingdown by the same road along which the stones had come, that was not tobe dreaded. The chimney, as I well knew by our experience in cleaningit, was too narrow to give passage to any one above the size of a smallboy.
I looked upward as that comforting reflection crossed my mind--I lookedup, and saw, as plainly as I see the paper I am now writing on, thepoint of a knife coming through the inside of the roof just over myhead. Our cottage had no upper story, and our rooms had no ceilings.Slowly and wickedly the knife wriggled its way through the dry insidethatch between the rafters. It stopped for a while, and there came asound of tearing. That, in its turn, stopped too; there was a great fallof dry thatch on the floor; and I saw the heavy, hairy hand of ShiftyDick, armed with the knife, come through after the fallen fragments. Hetapped at the rafters with the back of the knife, as if to test theirstrength. Thank God, they were substantial and close together! Nothinglighter than a hatchet would have sufficed to remove any part of them.
The murderous hand was still tapping with the knife when I heard ashout from the man Jerry, coming from the neighborhood of my father'sstone-shed in the back yard. The hand and knife disappeared instantly. Iwent to the back door and put my ear to it, and listened.
Both men were now in the shed. I made the most desperate efforts to callto mind what tools and other things were left in it which might beused against me. But my agitation confused me. I could remember nothingexcept my father's big stone-saw, which was far too heavy and unwieldyto be used on the roof of the cottage. I was still puzzling my brains,and making my head swim to no purpose, when I heard the men draggingsomething out of the shed. At the same instant that the noise caught myear, the remembrance flashed across me like lightning of some beams ofwood which had lain in the shed for years past. I had hardly time tofeel certain that they were removing one of these beams before I heardShifty Dick say to Jerry.
"Which door?"
"The front," was the answer. "We've cracked it already; we'll have itdown now in no time."
Senses less sharpened by danger than mine would have understood buttoo easily, from these words, that they were about to use the beam as abattering-ram against the door. When that conviction overcame me, I lostcourage at last. I felt that the door must come down. No such barricadeas I had constructed could support it for more than a few minutesagainst such shocks as it was now to receive.
"I can do no more to keep the house against them," I said to myself,with my knees knocking together, and the tears at last beginning to wetmy cheeks. "I must trust to the night and the thick darkness, and savemy life by running for it while there is yet time."
I huddled on my cloak and hood, and had my hand on the bar of the backdoor, when a piteous mew from the bedroom reminded me of the existenceof poor Pussy. I ran in, and huddled the creature up in my apron. BeforeI was out in the passage again, the first shock from the beam fell onthe door.
The upper hinge gave way. The chairs and coal-scuttle, forming the topof my barricade, were hurled, rattling, on to the floor, but the lowerhinge of the door, and the chest of drawers and the tool-chest stillkept their places.
"One more!" I heard the villains cry--"one more run with the beam, anddown it comes!"
Just as they must have been starting for that "one more run," I openedthe back door and fled into the night, with the bookful of banknotesin my bosom, the silver spoons in my pocket, and the cat in my arms.I threaded my way easily enough through the familiar obstacles in thebackyard, and was out in the pitch darkness of the moor before I heardthe second shock, and the crash which told me that the whole door hadgiven way.
In a few minutes they must have discovered the fact of my flight withthe pocketbook, for I heard shouts in the distance as if they wererunning out to pursue me. I kept on at the top of my speed, and thenoise soon died away. It was so dark that twenty thieves instead of twowould have found it useless to follow me.
How long it was before I reached the farmhouse--the nearest place towhich I could fly for refuge--I cannot tell you. I remember that I hadjust sense enough to keep the wind at my back (having observed in thebeginning of the evening that it blew toward Moor Farm), and to go onresolutely through the darkness. In all other respects I was by thistime half crazed by what I had gone through. If it had so happened thatthe wind had changed after I had observed its direction early in theevening, I should have gone astray, and have probably perished offatigue and exposure on the moor. Providentially, it still blew steadilyas it had blown for hours past, and I reached the farmhouse with myclothes wet through, and my brain in a high fever. When I made my alarmat the door, they had all gone to bed but the farmer's eldest son,who was sitting up late over his pipe and newspaper. I just musteredstrength enough to gasp out a few words, telling him what was thematter, and then fell down at his feet, for the first time in my life ina dead swoon.
That swoon was followed by a severe illness. When I got strong enoughto look about me again, I found myself in one of the farmhouse beds--myfather, Mrs. Knifton, and the doctor were all in the room--my cat w
asasleep at my feet, and the pocketbook that I had saved lay on the tableby my side.
There was plenty of news for me to hear as soon as I was fit to listento it. Shifty Dick and the other rascal had been caught, and were inprison, waiting their trial at the next assizes. Mr. and Mrs. Kniftonhad been so shocked at the danger I had run--for which they blamed theirown want of thoughtfulness in leaving the pocketbook in my care--thatthey had insisted on my father's removing from our lonely home toa cottage on their land, which we were to inhabit rent free. Thebank-notes that I had saved were given to me to buy furniture with, inplace of the things that the thieves had broken. These pleasant tidingsassisted so greatly in promoting my recovery, that I was soon ableto relate to my friends at the farmhouse the particulars that I havewritten here. They were all surprised and interested, but no one, as Ithought, listened to me with such breathless attention as the farmer'seldest son. Mrs. Knifton noticed this too, and began to make jokes aboutit, in her light-hearted way, as soon as we were alone. I thought littleof her jesting at the time; but when I got well, and we went to liveat our new home, "the young farmer," as he was called in our parts,constantly came to see us, and constantly managed to meet me out ofdoors. I had my share of vanity, like other young women, and I beganto think of Mrs. Knifton's jokes with some attention. To be brief, theyoung farmer managed one Sunday--I never could tell how--to lose his waywith me in returning from church, and before we found out the right roadhome again he had asked me to be his wife.
His relations did all they could to keep us asunder and break offthe match, thinking a poor stonemason's daughter no fit wife for aprosperous yeoman. But the farmer was too obstinate for them. He had oneform of answer to all their objections. "A man, if he is worth the name,marries according to his own notions, and to please himself," he usedto say. "My notion is, that when I take a wife I am placing my characterand my happiness--the most precious things I have to trust--in onewoman's care. The woman I mean to marry had a small charge confided toher care, and showed herself worthy of it at the risk of her life. Thatis proof enough for me that she is worthy of the greatest charge I canput into her hands. Rank and riches are fine things, but the certaintyof getting a good wife is something better still. I'm of age, I know myown mind, and I mean to marry the stone-mason's daughter."
And he did marry me. Whether I proved myself worthy or not of his goodopinion is a question which I must leave you to ask my husband. Allthat I had to relate about myself and my doings is now told. Whateverinterest my perilous adventure may excite, ends, I am well aware, withmy escape to the farmhouse. I have only ventured on writing these fewadditional sentences because my marriage is the moral of my story. Ithas brought me the choicest blessings of happiness and prosperity, and Iowe them all to my night-adventure in _The Black Cottage_.
THE SECOND DAY.
A CLEAR, cloudless, bracing autumn morning. I rose gayly, with thepleasant conviction on my mind that our experiment had thus far beensuccessful beyond our hopes.
Short and slight as the first story had been, the result of it onJessie's mind had proved conclusive. Before I could put the questionto her, she declared of her own accord, and with her customaryexaggeration, that she had definitely abandoned all idea of writing toher aunt until our collection of narratives was exhausted.
"I am in a fever of curiosity about what is to come," she said, when weall parted for the night; "and, even if I wanted to leave you, I couldnot possibly go away now, without hearing the stories to the end."
So far, so good. All my anxieties from this time were for George'sreturn. Again to-day I searched the newspapers, and again there were notidings of the ship.
Miss Jessie occupied the second day by a drive to our county town tomake some little purchases. Owen, and Morgan, and I were all hard atwork, during her absence, on the stories that still remained to becompleted. Owen desponded about ever getting done; Morgan grumbled atwhat he called the absurd difficulty of writing nonsense. I worked onsmoothly and contentedly, stimulated by the success of the first night.
We assembled as before in our guest's sitting-room. As the clock struckeight she drew out the second card. It was Number Two. The lot hadfallen on me to read next.
"Although my story is told in the first person," I said, addressingJessie, "you must not suppose that the events related in this particularcase happened to me. They happened to a friend of mine, who naturallydescribed them to me from his own personal point of view. In producingmy narrative from the recollection of what he told me some years since,I have supposed myself to be listening to him again, and have thereforewritten in his character, and, whenever my memory would help me, asnearly as possible in his language also. By this means I hope I havesucceeded in giving an air of reality to a story which has truth, at anyrate, to recommend it. I must ask you to excuse me if I enter intono details in offering this short explanation. Although the personsconcerned in my narrative have ceased to exist, it is necessary toobserve all due delicacy toward their memories. Who they were, and howI became acquainted with them, are matters of no moment. The interestof the story, such as it is, stands in no need, in this instance, of anyassistance from personal explanations."
With those words I addressed myself to my task, and read as follows:
BROTHER GRIFFITH'S STORY of THE FAMILY SECRET.
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