The Day of Wrath
Page 6
CHAPTER V.
THE UNBELOVED SON.
The day dawned slowly and, as it seemed, with great difficulty. Themorning was cold and cloudy as is often the case after a tempestuousnight.
There was a great bustling about in the house of mourning. A bier and acoffin had to be made, and the dead clothed in their funeral finery. Theold squire wished the funeral to be a splendid one.
The courtyard had been swept clean. Every household tool and implementof labour had been removed out of the way. They were preparing to keepone of those days of sad and solemn observance which must befall everyhousehold at some time or other.
At such times the street door is kept wide open. Let the country folkscome in and look upon the dead, let them learn from the sight that Deathis the judge of the gentry as well as of the serfs; let them see how therich can be splendid even after death, how they embellish their coffins,how they fasten them with golden nails, how they embroider their pallswith patterns of roses and gold filagree, how they spread the bed ofdeath itself with the finest white watered silk and perfume it with themost fragrant balm.
Yet that fragrant balm cannot stifle the smell of the charnel house.Here, too, men must hold their handkerchiefs to their mouths as they dobefore the corpses of the poor.
For Death is a just judge.
A ragged man passes through the door. He is soaked through and throughwith mud and dirt, it was clear that no roof had covered his head duringlast night's tempest. His feet peeped from out of his boots, his damphair seemed glued to his temples, his eyes were sunken, his cheeks weremere bone, his lips were blue and hollow.
He entered the courtyard falteringly like one who would steal somethingbut does not know how to set about it, and there he stood at theentrance of the hall, leaning against the lintel, with eyes cast downupon the ground.
The dogs approached him, sniffed at his clothes all round, and began togrowl at him.
Only one dog, an old boar-hound, would not be satisfied with sniffingimpatiently among the others, but rushed upon the stranger, placed itstwo front paws upon him, licked his limp hand, and began joyouslybarking at him.
At this the major-domo, a sunburnt old man with a white moustache drewnear, gave the speechless stranger a large piece of bread, and bade himgo about his business.
"In God's name take yourself off," said he, "don't stand here in theway of everybody that comes out or goes in."
The new-comer did not move, but kept on looking straight in front ofhim, his chin and his lips trembled as if he were keeping back by forcea torrent of tears.
The major-domo did not notice this, but the old dog kept leaping up atthe stranger's hand, and yelped and yapped so persistently that it wasplain he wanted to say something.
"Come, stir your stumps and look sharp about it, my good fellow, anddon't set all our dogs barking for nothing," said the major-domo, andwith that he seized the vagabond's hand and turned him round.
And now he saw his face for the first time.
The tears streamed from the eyes of the ragged man, sobbing and weepinghe turned to the wall and hid his face.
The old servant stood there dumbfounded. At first he would not believehis eyes, then at last he clapped his hands together and exclaimed:"Why, if it is not young Master Imre himself. Good Heaven!" and deeplyagitated he approached the young man and began to soothe him, finallyfalling upon his neck and weeping along with him.
"Nobody recognises me," sobbed the youth, whose left hand was bleedingbadly. He had hurt himself somewhat severely when he leaped over thefence of the headsman's house.
"Oh, why have you come home just at this time?" lamented the oldservant, "if only it had been any other day in the whole year but this;this house is a sad dwelling-place just now, there are two corpses init."
"Who has died then?"
"Mistress Leonora and little Ned. How they are all weeping withinthere."
"I shall be the third."
The servant was silent. Perhaps he thought to himself: "Nobody will weepfor you."
"I have deserted from my regiment a third time."
"Oh dear, oh dear! And why have you come home again?"
"I wanted to speak to my father once for all."
"From henceforth your father will speak to nobody but the Lord God."
"I don't ask him to be kind to me. I want to tell him that Death is verynear him, and he must try to avoid it."
"Methinks the poor old man would rather seek out death than fly from it;but you may be seen and recognised here, young master, and takenaway--and then..."
"They will hang me up, eh? Don't be afraid. The pistol with which I shotthe captain is loaded, one shot will be sufficient to save me from thegallows-tree--show me where my father is."
"Go, then! Where the mourning is loudest there will you find him."
The youth went in the direction indicated and entered the room.
The room was wholly darkened, the mirrors and pictures were draped inblack; in the midst of it stood two coffins, within which lay two pallidshapes like wax figures.
It was impossible to recognise them.
On a candelabra beside the coffins burnt four large wax candles, and agilded crucifix had been placed on a little table right opposite.
Kneeling at the foot of the dead was a white-haired man. He glanced nowat the one now at the other of the departed, and from time to time wouldpress his clenched hands to his lips and moan softly like one in atroubled sleep.
It was a heart-breaking sight--this old white-haired man crushed beneaththe hand of God, moaning like some wild beast dedicated to death, butunable to utter a word or shed a tear.
When God visits His people with affliction He also gives them tears thatthey may weep out their sorrow, and power of speech that they may talkof their griefs and so find relief, but even these things were denied tothis old man. There he knelt, scourged by the wrath of God, humbled tothe very earth, like a withered branch which stiffens into drylifelessness without complaint.
The young man, groping his way along, with his soul benumbed withsorrow, approached the old man, and gently, noiselessly knelt down byhis side.
The old man regarded him stupidly, and for some time seemed to bewondering who it was. He could not speak, for, though still alive, Deathhad already mastered his tongue, and his son fancied he did notrecognise him. Perchance it was impossible to recognise that haggarddistorted face, that ragged garb, those dishevelled locks.
"I am your son whom you drove away, and who will soon be your dead sontoo," he exclaimed, with deep emotion, trying to seize the old man'shand that he might kiss it.
But the old man drew back his hand with horror. One could see loathingin the expression of his face, just as if the Devil had extended hishand to him in the moment of his most sacred sorrow.
"I deserve your disgust, your repudiation. I sinned grievously againstyou. You have grown grey betimes because of me. But all this shall beatoned for by a death, my death. You never loved me, you drove me awayfrom your house as you would never have driven a dog, you let me perishin want and wretchedness; from my childish years upwards I have neverhad a good word from you, had it been otherwise things might have beenvery different. Those whom you loved God took away from you, those youdid not love you drove away yourself, and now you are alone in theworld."
The old man signified to him in dumb show that he was to say no more.
"I have not come hither to ask anything of you, so short will be theremaining period of my life that I shall want no provision for the way.I only want to reveal to you a horrible diabolical plot which threatensyour grey head, your family, and perhaps your very house. My father, inten minutes' time I shall have ceased to live, and no more words of minewill ever trouble your soul again, do not repulse me in the very hour ofmy death!"
The old man slowly rose from his knees, surveyed his tatterdemalion sonfrom head to foot with infinite contempt, and his lips moved andquivered as if they would have said something, but not a word fell from
them.
The son did not know that his father had had a stroke and could notspeak.
"Have you not one word for me?--bad or good, a curse or a blessing? Onlya single word, father! before you see me die!" and he dragged himself onhis knees to the feet of the old man, who supported himself tremulouslyagainst the altar that had been placed opposite the two coffins, hishair seemed to rise, his eyes started from his head. Then he seized theheavy gilded crucifix and slowly raised it aloft in his right hand as ifhe would have stricken to the earth with it his own son who knelt thereembracing his knees.
During this painful scene the door opened, the clash of the butt ends ofmuskets brought sharply to the ground was heard, and a corporal andthree soldiers appeared on the scene.
Imre looked round at this noise. For an instant his face turned deadlypale; behind the backs of the soldiers he perceived the grinning face ofhis evil angel, the headsman's 'prentice. He felt that he was lost.
He glanced around him. Whither should he flee for refuge? Close besidehim were two corpses with cold unsympathetic faces--and there was also athird, a living face, still colder, still more unsympathetic than thefaces of the dead, living and yet not loving, the face of his own fatherwho still stood there with the large heavy crucifix in his upliftedfist.
The corporal approached the youth and seized him by the collar. What didit matter to him that the culprit was standing beside two corpsescovered with a funeral pall? what did he care about the painfulness ofthe scene? Naturally he only saw before him a deserter, a deserter whomit was his duty to arrest.
At this the youth grew absolutely desperate, and at the same time theinstinct of self-preservation arose within him. In one magical momentthere flashed through his mind all the horrors which the future had instore for him--the cold dungeon wall, the narrow barred windows, theheavy rattling chain, the court-martial, the reading of the sentence,the pillory, the gaping crowd, the white shirt worn by the condemned,the man of death, the executioner, with a Prayer Book in one hand and acord in the other, the ignominious death, the black carrion crows----
"Ah!" he roared in despair, and with the iron strength of frenzy he torehimself loose from the grasp of the corporal who fell prone into thefireplace with a fearful crash.
"Whoever touches me is a dead man!" screamed Imre, with a voice full offury and defiance, and tearing open his vest he drew forth with one handa dagger and with the other a large hussar pistol. The broken-wingedyoung eagle had turned upon its pursuers, hacking at them with itswounded beak and flapping its still uninjured pinion in their faces.
The soldiers began to fall back before the infuriated youth, who, withbloodshot eyes and foaming mouth, followed hard upon them, and eitherfrom fear or compassion opened a way before him.
Then the white-headed old man seized from behind the youth's murderousuplifted arms, and held him back.
When the young man felt the touch of those cold tremulous hands upon hisarm, he let fall the weapons from both his own hands, his arms fell downbenumbed by his side, his whole body collapsed; nerveless and swooninghe sank in a heap upon the ground. The soldiers lifted him upon theirshoulders, removed him from the room, put fetters upon his hands andfeet, and carried him off.
The old man looked coldly after them. When they had gone, he again kneltdown close to the two coffins, his white locks falling about his face,raised his clasped hands to his tremulous but impotent lips, and keptgazing, gazing fixedly first at one of his dear departed and then at theother.
Not a tear, not a single tear fell from his eyes.