These mad orgies were at their highest and loudest when the innkeeper entered with a flask of brandy in his hand.
“A new flask of brandy, corporal,” answered the man, fixing his eye on the soldier, as he placed the bottle on the table, and then added slowly— “and there’s more below, whenever you please to want it.”
He paused for a minute, looking with steady significance in Deveril’s face, and then turning, left the room, without saying another word.
Deveril’s hilarity subsided — the blood left his face; a dark and sinister expression gradually gathered upon its unsightly features, deeper and blacker every moment; he drew two or three long breaths, with something between a shiver and a sigh, and rose abruptly from his seat.
“What’s the matter? — what’s gone wrong with you now, you gallows dog?” inquired Tisdal, in a tone whose surprise, if not suspicion, was ill-qualified by a semblance of rough jollity.
“Nothing at all — a sort of a chill; the room is cold, isn’t it?” replied Deveril, with an unsuccessful effort to appear at his ease. “Take some liquor, and never mind me.”
Tisdal looked at him doubtfully and steadily for some time; and Deveril’s uneasiness seemed rather to increase than diminish as he stooped down, and taking the poker in his hand, began to batter it heavily upon the hearth.
“What the devil ails you?” said Tisdal, more uneasily, while a vague suspicion of some unknown mischief connected with the incomprehensible movements and conduct of his comrade, began to fill his mind; and after a pause, he added sternly and uneasily —
“I’ll not stay here to see you play the fool; so good night.”
“What are you afraid of — eh?” said Deveril, with a ghastly laugh; and striking again and still harder upon the hearth with the massive poker, “Curse your nonsense; what are you dreaming about? —— what are you afraid of?”
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE TUSSLE AND THE EVES DROPPERS.
CONFIRMED in his suspicions, undefined as they were, Tisdal rose hastily from his seat.
“Don’t go — you must not go; you shan’t go,” cried Deveril, planting himself between Tisdal and the door, and affecting to laugh, while the hilarious cachinnation was horribly belied by the expression of his face. “Why, we’ve not well begun yet, rot it; you shan’t turn tail at this time of night; you’re my guest, you know — and I’m master here.”
As he spoke, he continued to affect a playful jocularity, which, however, did not prevent his companion’s observing the deadly expression which lurked beneath it, and remarking also that he clutched the poker with the genuine earnestness of a man prepared to employ it as a weapon of offence.
“Let me pass,” cried Tisdal, with the ferocity of thoroughly aroused suspicion.
“Nonsense, nonsense,” continued Deveril, in a tone half jocular, half soothing, but which filled the mind of Tisdal with the deadliest fears.
“Let me pass, or by —— ,” cried the puritan, with something bordering upon desperation, for he was unarmed.
Hola! Burke — are you asleep? — here — murder — here,” shouted Deveril, at the top of his voice, and no longer attempting to disguise the nature of his intentions.
Pressing his hat firmly down upon his brows, Tisdal grasped the ponderous brass candlestick, and hurled it at the head of his treacherous entertainer. Deveril, by quickly stooping, escaped the missile, which smote the old wainscoting at the further end of the room, with a crash which might have frightened the rats for ever and a day from the countess’s bower; and in the next moment the two companions were locked together in desperate and deadly conflict. Tugging and striving, they wheeled and shuffled along the floor; down went the table — cups, glasses, bowl, flaggons, and all, rattling and rumbling over the dusty old boards; and down rolled the combatants over the prostrate table, over and over; and as Tisdal tugged and tumbled in this deadly grapple, in the flickering firelight, he saw two strange figures, spectre-like, peering at him from the hearth.
“Deveril, Deveril,” he muttered, half breathless, “you won’t murder me — don’t take my life.”
“Burke, Burke,” still shouted the redoubted Dick Slash, “come — will you come, d — you, or I must brain him. Burke — hola, Burke, he’s choking me!”
Tisdal heard no more; for, whether accidentally or otherwise, the heavy poker which they struggled for, descended stunningly upon his head, and in an instant all was dark, dreamless lethargy.
Disengaging himself as the soldiers entered, Deveril arose, torn and agitated, and smeared with the blood which flowed plenteously from Tisdal’s wound.
“Get candles, will you — some of you,” cried Garvey, his shrill voice strained to an absolute screech, in his intense agitation; for if he was alarmed at the violent struggle which he had but just witnessed, he was now doubly terrified at its result, fearing, and as it seemed, not without cause, that the unfortunate puritan was actually murdered. “Lights, will you? — lights! candles here!”
“Hold your fool’s tongue,” said Miles Garrett, gruffly, for he it was who had accompanied Garvey, and with him entered the room from the little closet which we have already described. “Hold your tongue, wiil you, or you’ll have the whole street up here and grasping Tisdal by the collar, he dragged him up into a sitting posture. “He’s not dead, and very little damaged either.”
“He has mauled me to some purpose,” said Deveril, now speaking for the first time since the conflict, and adjusting his torn shirt mechanically with one hand, the other still holding the ponderous poker, while he gazed in the heavy face of his betrayed comrade.
“Every man for himself, and God for us all. Egad, you did not give yourselves much trouble to get my weazand out of his gripe; and I have luck to thank, and not you, gentlemen, that I have a puff of breath in my body.”
Candles were now brought in, and Tisdal was placed in an arm chair, and some water dashed in his face. An odd tableau enough the room presented: a great, old, damp-stained, dreary chamber, with a little group standing around one sitting form; Garvey, with a glass of water in his hand, frightened and fidgetty, pale as clay; in sinister suspense, splashing the cold showers in the face of their torpid victim, whose grizzled locks and livid features were drenched in blood and water.
Garrett, silent, stern, and gloomy, with his strong hand still upon the old man’s collar; and Deveril coolly readjusting his disarranged attire, and stealing, from time to time, a curious look, half shrinking, half ferocious, at the puritan; and lastly, near the door, imperfectly lighted, with grounded muskets, stood the broad-hatted soldiers, silent and listless, while their corporal, in grim luxury, chewed a quid of tobacco. At last, Tisdal opened his eyes, stared wildly round, and attempted to rise, but fell again giddily into his chair, muttering incoherently all the while.
“Thank God — thank God,” whispered Garvey, and the pious ebullition of gratitude we are bound to admit, was spoken in the genuine sincerity of selfishness; “by the law, sir, there’s nothing the matter with him — no murder, after all.”
“It’s dark, sir — dark, sir — to be sure it is; dark — dark — curse the road, and the trees; dark — dark as pitch,” muttered Tisdal, staring wildly before him.
“We’ll get some more water,” suggested Garvey, relapsing into alarm.
“Ay, ay — in the water, was it? A year ago, found there — so it was — dangerous bit, sir,” continued Tisdal, and then, on a sudden perceiving Deveril, he said in a tone of alacrity— “ha, Dick — Dick — Dick — little Dick for ever; Dick, Dick at it again.”
“The men may stand on the lobby, I suppose, sir,” said Deveril, hastening to drown the voice of the bewildered puritan, and addressing Miles Garrett, at whose disposal the soldiers were placed.
“Ay, take them to the lobby,” said he; and as the order was obeyed, Tisdal continued —
“Dick — Dick — he didn’t hurt you, eh; no, no, no — it’s nothing, is it?” and as he spoke, he raised his hand to his head.
The sober black of his sleeve seemed to fix his gaze, and with a puzzled look of dismay and horror, he said —
“Dick, Dick, they’ve found you out; I often told you, my God, a thousand times, I told you, you’d come to the gallows; is it — tell me, are we blown?” he cried, with a bewildered look, gazing from face to face; “Dick — Dick, stand by me, and we’ll have one blaze for it; blood and lightning! man, don’t knock under.”
He made a frantic effort to rise, but was easily overpowered, and kept in his chair, where he continued to sit in dogged silence, while, minute after minute, one by one, his scattered recollections returned, and slowly resumed their successive connexion, until at last the scene, in which he had just borne so principal a part, and all the occurrences of the evening, in their true bearings, stood fully reinstated and restored before his mind’s eye. At length, after a silence of many minutes, he said, in a tone of stern reproach —
“Deveril, you have done for me! You’re a blacker scoundrel than I took you for. You once had a notion of honour about you: you’re nothing now but a stag — you’re not game, what you once were you’re not game.”
“Game as you are” — retorted Deveril, with an ineffectual effort to appear perfectly at his ease, for spite of his effrontery, there was something so indefensibly unprofessional in his conduct to his old associate, that he felt an emotion almost akin to genuine shame, as he attempted to return his steady gaze of gloomy reproach.
“I might have served you out. I might have blown your fox’s head off your shoulders — I might have taken your life as easily as drawn a trigger, when you came to Drumgunniol a few weeks ago, but like a chicken-hearted fool, I spared you,” continued Tisdal, bitterly.
“Thank you for nothing,” replied Deveril, scornfully. “You thought the wild Irish might do it as well. My fox’s head, as you call it, saved me there, and no love of yours, comrade.”
“Gentlemen,” said Tisdal, suddenly rising, after a considerable pause, “you have no right to keep me here. I’m no prisoner — I shall leave you now — I’m a free man.”
At a word from Garrett the door opened, and the guard showed themselves. Tisdal threw one look of rage and despair at Deveril, and then cast himself again into the chair.
“Well,” said he, at length, in a tone of sullen, bitter despondency, “what do you want of me? Speak out, and have done with it, can’t you?”
“You see, Mr. Tisdal, you had better behave peaceably,” said Garrett. “There is nothing to be gained by violence. We are protected, and you in every way in our power — you have been overheard — your admissions and confessions; and so, methinks, a submissive behaviour will best become you, as the reverse will inevitably make your position only the more perilous. You see those soldiers — we, too, are armed: and I tell you fairly, that, except with my permission, you shall not leave this room alive. So, Mr. Tisdal, let me recommend you calmly to submit to what cannot be avoided.”
“I’m betrayed and lost,” muttered Tisdal.
“No, no — not lost,” interrupted Garvey, with one of his sweetest smiles of villainy— “that is, unless you choose it. No, no — not lost at all.”
“Mr. Garvey says truly,” resumed Miles Garrett. “You shall have the choosing of your own fate. We shall confer with you for a time, and submit your fortunes to your own decision.”
Garvey, meanwhile, was arranging some paper, which, along with a small ink-horn and pens, he took from his coatpocket, and, mounting a pair of spring spectacles upon his nose, he completed his elaborate preparations for writing.
The soldiers withdrew — the doors were closed — and Tisdal was left alone with his three oddly-matched companions.
Half an hour passed, and an hour; and the sentinels who kept watch on the lobby were yet undischarged. They had heard nothing but the broken hum of voices from within, sometimes raised in vehement expostulations, sometimes in ferocious threats and imprecations, and once or twice was heard a voice as of one whose heart was wrung with agony unspeakable — a bitter, hoarse moan of anguish and horror unendurable. Then, again, these abrupt discordant outbreaks would subside into the same level hum, and at times even into utter silence. Thus time wore away, until at last the guard of musketeers on the lobby saw the chamber-door open, and Deveril come forth.
“Well,” said he, with a yawn, “it’s settled after all, and without troubling you, gentlemen. He turns out to be a safer man than we took him for, and no crop-eared Covenant rascal after all, though he has a deuced Whiggish sort of a slang and toggery about him; but he’s a true man, corporal — a true man.”
The corporal, who was somewhat tired of his occupation, spit through his teeth upon the floor, and, giving his quid a new turn, remarked morosely that— “He did not care the butt-end of a burned match if the devil had him.”
In the countess’s chamber, meanwhile, Garrett was standing by the table reading, with an air of evident satisfaction, the last sheet of several, on which the ink was scarcely yet dry. They were the sworn depositions of Jeremiah Tisdal. The Puritan himself sate just as we left him, except that his elbows were leaning on the table, and his face buried in his coarse sinewy hands; so that only his burning forehead and its swollen veins are visible.
“So far so well,” said Garrett, as he slowly folded the document, and carefully placed it in his deep pocket; “we have done with you for the present.”
Tisdal lifted his arm with an expression of rage and menace, but shame or compunction overcame him, and he once more buried his face in his hands, and remained silent.
“Pooh! pooh! Mr. Tisdal — what can ail you?” said Garvey, in his most soothing accents. “There — there — why, you have done no wrong, and need not be ashamed of any one.”
With this remark, Garvey bundled up all his appliances, and hurried after Miles Garrett, who had already left the room.
“Garvey, you must see the landlord,” whispered Garrett in his ear, and, clutching him impressively by the arm, as he spoke; “you must see him, and arrange that other business; and, remember, I have no part in it; it is your own affair, mind you, and no business of mine.”
“I understand, sir, of course. Mr. Garrett, it was my own suggestion,” answered the familiar in a whisper as earnest. “You can pass out, and I will confer with him; but, somehow, I wish a few of these would stay in the way.” He paused, glancing uneasily at the soldiers, who were moving before them down the broad, dim, old staircase: “For, to be plain with you, I should not just choose to meet that old Puritan rascal in his present mood alone, and in such a cut-throat hole of a place as this.”
“You’re as arrant a coward as ever,” said Garrett, contemptuously. “Do as you list, but see to it without delay.”
Thus speaking, Garrett drew his cloak about him, and strode forth into the street, leaving his dependant to manage his tete-a-tete with the innkeeper as best he might.
CHAPTER XXVII.
DEEDS OF DARKNESS.
GARVEY looked wistfully at the departing soldiers, and then casting a hurried glance up the stairs, and seeing nothing in that direction to warrant a precipitate retreat, he timidly glided into the dram-shop at the side, enjoining silence by a significant gesture to Peter Coyle, the proprietor, as he glanced at his grim helpmate, who, with a flushed face, lying back in a high chair, was snoring in a tipsy doze. Stealthily passing her by, he entered a little closet, attended by his ill-looking host; and then, having cleared his voice once or twice, though he did not meditate raising it above a whisper, thus began: —
“Mr. Coyle,” said he, “you know I’m a professional man — and it might often lie in my way to give you a lift. Your place has its advantages and disadvantages — but it happens to suit me; and to show you that I’m serious, I mean to try you with a job of some importance, and that immediately.”
“By cock and pie, sir, you’ll find me up to anything; for fair pay and short accounts is all I ask,” replied the bloated innkeeper, with a sinister look, as if he expected some villain
ous proposal.
“I know it well, Mr. Coyle,” replied Garvey, “and fair pay and cash on the nail shall he your meed. Now, observe me: the relative of a certain old lady, about Whom you shall know nothing but exactly what I tell you, desires to place her for a little time in your charge. This is a rambling old house, and you must have abundance of out-o’-the-way apartments up stairs; let her have one of the most private, and as near the tiles as may be: for it’s just possible that she may endeavour to do something queer; in short, to give you the slip, and cut and run: so the cock-loft is the place, under lock and key, do you mind. Look sharp is the word; for if she gets away, I promise you you’ll get into trouble. Don’t tell that drunken old devil, there,” he continued, confidentially, with a slight nod toward his interesting helpmate, who was snoring, as we have said, in the bar-room; “if she knows it, every body knows it; the secret must be your own, and no one else’s — and your visitor must be as safe and as close as if she were in the Berminghara tower. You shall be well rewarded if you do your business; and, on the other hand, should you fail, I tell you fairly and once more, you were never in such peril before in all your days. So, bethink you before you undertake this job — count the gains, and count the cost, and then for your answer.”
“If that’s all, I’m agreed,” rejoined the fellow, promptly; “that is, if so be, the terms are suitable.”
“Good; then you shall hear from me again; and, meanwhile, hold yourself prepared — and take this for earnest.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 74