It was a horrible compound—a deadly poison; and as it bubbled in the pot, white teeth and eyes gleamed out from midnight faces, hideous from their own imaginings.
The charm wrought out, the mixture poured into a calabash bottle and closely stopped, the refuse buried in the ground, the pot restored to the hollow tree, the magic flame extinguished with wet sand, Cuffy dismissed his impish brood to their huts, and bore away his revolting decoction, to be buried the ensuing night under the threshold of the Hall. The doom hanging over Corbyn would then fall upon the fated mortals who should step across it first; and thus, Obeah satisfied, his followers would be protected.
Be sure there were early risers among the initiated, and sharp eyes to watch the threshold under ban, and warn off unwary footsteps.
Mr. William Walcot was the first to leave the house; but months went by and still he came and went healthily and haughtily, in spite of Obeah; and he was more frequently at the Hall than either his father or Stephen liked, the Folly being his home proper. The father considered that Will interfered too much on the plantation, to the neglect and detriment of his shipping agency; while Steve, aware of the comparative proximity of the Hall to the Parsonage, regarded him as a dangerous rival.
The fact was that the elder of the twain had determined most fraternally to “cut his brother out” of the favour of Miss Wolferstone, if the clergyman’s rich and lovely ward had any leaning in that direction, and altogether comported himself as if he were his father’s natural and certain successor on the estate.
But Mrs. Walcot sickened: an inexplicable disease, which caused her lower limbs to swell painfully, marred her enjoyment, and made her splendid mansion little better than a prison, although stately Augusta Wolferstone and lively Mary Fulton came like sunbeams now and again to brighten it up. Then Matthias grew aguish and shivery. Finally Steve, diverging from the wood-path on his way from the Parsonage one Sunday at the hour when sun and moon looked each other in the face, fell over a fern-covered boulder and broke his leg.
Cuffy and Scipio, out after dark on some occult errand, directed by his groans, found him lying amidst the rank vegetation, just over the spot where the Obeah refuse lay buried. “A coincidence,” the old man observed to his companion; with the addendum, “Sorry Massa, Steve hurt: him best cane of bundle.”
Cuffy moreover showed his sincerity by binding cooling herbs on the broken limb whilst Scipio ran for a litter, and by setting the said limb skilfully as a surgeon, long before Dr. Hawley could be found.
Superstition regarded these untoward circumstances as so many visitations of warning or admonition. Indeed, so freely did Barbadian society discuss the Walcot succession to the Corbyn property by the light of Walcot ill-luck, that Matthias found his bed of roses invaded by gnats stinging worse than mosquitoes, to say nothing of the private thorns planted by conscience under the rose leaves.
From the morning when Dr. Hawley entered his office like a spirit of evil, to tell how his dead child’s rest was disturbed, his own rest had been disturbed by nightmare memories of Archibald’s death-bed. The dying man had trusted him. He had ill-deserved that trust. He had not meant to defraud the heir, if there was one; he had only been lukewarm in his efforts to find him. But was there one? He thought not; and so advertising was only waste of good money. Besides, it might tempt some knave to worry him with fictitious claims. However, some day he would send Will or Steve to England to make inquiries; and there was time enough.
And so he tried to salve the conscience that would not be salved; especially as Dr. Hawley now and then gave it an unexpected prick, and Cuffy and Dinah looked unutterable thorns.
The rainy season had almost passed. Steve’s leg was nearly well; he could move about by the help of crutches; and Scipio had more than once driven him, very gently, over to the Parsonage, to be especially petted, both by Miss Wolferstone and Mary Fulton, the English parson’s English daughter.
It was Will’s turn to be jealous. He “could not see why a broken leg and a pale face should be so devilish attractive to a woman. They didn’t attract him!” It went to his heart to see Augusta Wolferstone place the easiest cane chair in the verandah ready for his brother, and adjust the softest cushions to his special need. He was exasperated, too, that business should keep him so much at the wharf, and an accident clear the way for Steve to woo the girl in his absence.
So persistent were his grumblings that Mr. Walcot, for the sake of peace, went back to his old office to lighten Will’s labour and give him an occasional holiday. On one of these days, William, who slept chiefly at the Folly during the wet season, rode from Bridgetown to St. Andrew’s, calling in to see his mother on his way. He there learned that Stephen, taking advantage of a fine day, had gone before him, and was then at St. Andrew’s Parsonage.
This roused his domineering temper; and with scarcely a civil word to his ailing and querulous mother, and a very uncivil cut with his riding-whip to the creole groom who held his horse, he set off neck-or-nothing, resolved to try whether he or Steve had the best of it before the day was out. So vicious was he in his brotherly love that he cut at his horse as if it had been Stephen’s self, and dismounted in front of the Parsonage, little improved by seeing Steve on a couch under the verandah holding a skein of purse-twist for Augusta, whilst Mary read aloud to both.
His first remark was a sneer at his disabled brother’s womanish occupation, his next a rude retort to Augusta’s defence of Stephen. A bad beginning this; and his consciousness that it was bad only paved the way for further discomfiture.
Later in the day, he demanded, rather than solicited, a tête-à-tête conversation with Miss Wolferstone, and with little delicacy and less tact urged his suit as one whose claims were imperial—urged it as Steve’s elder brother, and heir to the Corbyn estate.
Whatever claim he might have had on the young lady’s regard he lost in that interview. His rudeness and unbrotherly feeling were so palpable, she felt impelled to resent both.
“I have no desire, sir, to marry the heir to the Corbyn or any other estate; but I do choose to marry a gentleman. I must therefore decline the honour of your alliance”; and she swept from the library as she spoke, without giving him a chance for another syllable.
Without a word of adieu to the ladies he darted from the house, almost too impatient to wait for the saddling of his horse; certainly too much irritated to accept the genial invitation of Mr. Fulton to remain the night, even though the weather had changed, and the rain was the rain of the tropics.
A sane man would have remembered that previous rains had flooded lowlands, had swelled mountain runnels to rivers, and rivers to torrents, and, so remembering, have taken the safer high-road by which he came, however circuitous.
But he, blinded by passion, disappointment, and jealousy (had he not left his silken brother behind him?) dashed homewards the near way, across Church River and through the wood.
Over the bridge he went safely enough; but when he reached the Corbyn rivulet, fed from Haggart’s spring, he found his way stopped by a formidable stream rushing tumultuously on towards Long Pond. In no mood to hesitate, he madly urged his reluctant animal to attempt the perilous crossing.
He must have either missed the ford, or the horse lost its footing, and been carried down by the force of the water. His body was found the following day at the entrance to Long Pond, blue, swollen, and swathed in a shroud of the poisonous green scum of the pond.
V. ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND
Once more orders were given to open the Corbyn receptacle for the dead.
The preparatory gun was fired into the vault; the brickwork was removed, the door opened for ventilation then for preparation; and lo, the place was strewn with coffins and wrecks of coffins, skeletons and fragments of skeletons; and old Archibald’s black coffin lay across Laura Walcot’s white one, which was itself dinged and battered as if with heavy blows.
Scared out of his senses, Dan ran, as the crow flies, with his strange tale to the mour
ners at the Hall.
Incredulity faded before the fact. Matthias was staggered and terror-stricken. The air was sultry, even for sultry Barbados, and that left no time for fresh arrangements. The solemn ceremonial must proceed.
The hearse had reached the mausoleum before the disordered coffins could be replaced, or the débris collected and cleared into a vacant niche.
Then, with many misgivings and intensified anguish, Matthias saw the white coffin of the unmarried young man deposited by the side of his sister’s, and the creaking door closed upon both.
And as he and Steve, now his only son, were driven back to the Hall, he saw how great a horror had fallen on the funeral guests one and all.
Nor did the horror end there.
Again scuffling, wild yells, and shrieks made darkness terrible for five successive midnights; and then the haunted mausoleum sank to silence like a common grave.
And now there was a lull. The calamitous storms of fate and the season seemed alike to have spent their fury. The earth was green, the sky was bright, and Matthias steadfastly put the past behind him, refusing to look back. Like Pharaoh of old, he hardened his heart, unwilling to “let go” his hold of Corbyn.
Not so Stephen. His bumptious front had lowered when his sister was striken down in the very midst of festivity. Old Cuffy’s prophetic warnings had not fallen on deaf ears. He appealed to his father to remove the remains of sister and brother from the Corbyn mausoleum, and to take prompt steps to find a living heir, if such existed. Matthias was obstinate; so was he, and a little more conscientious.
He conferred with Dr. Hawley. Judge his surprise to find that the Captain Hudson, whose services his father had rejected with so much asperity, had eight years before picked up at sea a woman lashed to a spar, who supposed herself the sole survivor of the Mermaid, in which husband and son had both gone down. The Mermaid’s destination had been Barbados, and the woman’s name was Corbyn. Shortly after, happening to hail a passing schooner, the Boyne from Cork to Bristol, he transferred the rescued lady to that vessel, his own barque being outward bound.
“And, my young friend, as you appear anxious to see justice done,” added the Doctor, “I may tell you I have already guaranteed Captain Hudson his expenses in the prosecution of a search for that lady.”
A hearty hand-shake at parting sealed a cordial agreement between the twain, and Steve set off for the Parsonage with a lighter heart than had been his for many a day.
The season rounded, bringing with it a prospect of Steve’s marriage with Miss Wolferstone when their term of mourning expired.
Long before that, fresh sables were called for.
Mrs. Walcot’s unaccountable disease, aggravated by grief and her exclusion from society, had terminated fatally.
An altercation again arose between father and son respecting the place of sepulchre. It ended in orders for the opening of the mausoleum under Mr. Walcot’s own eye.
The sight he beheld was enough to chill his blood; but it never turned him from his purpose. Scientific men discussing the phenomena had talked of gaseous forces; but he spoke only of conspiracy amongst his black slaves to bend his will to theirs.
Again the battered and broken coffins were replaced, and the fragments hid out of sight; again he laid his dead among the Corbyn dead.
Again the Corbyn dead arose at midnight to protest against intrusion; again the night was hideous with discordant cries; and, as if the free spirits of the air were leagued with the captives in that tomb, the rising wind howled and shrieked in unison.
Fiery Barbados could not remember more oppressive weather. The louring clouds, the stifling heat, the sultry heavy atmosphere had boded tempest, and at midnight came down the rain in sheets, driven by a breeze from the north-east which grew and strengthened to a tremendous gale. Then there was a treacherous calm, and then suddenly the winds ran riot; and from three to five o’clock mad hurricane swept the island from end to end, flashing lightnings forth to trace destruction by.
Daylight broke on August 11th, 1831, upon ruin and desolation. Houses and huts were blown down, fields laid waste, trees uprooted, valleys inundated. Wreck strewed the coast. The Government House was unroofed, the Custom House blown down, churches were damaged; the verdant paradise was a wilderness.
Amidst the general wreck, Corbyn had not escaped; yet the Hall itself stood firm, though the windmill sails and cap were torn to shivers. But the Walcot House at the Folly had disappeared, and with it much valuable property.
The coast had its black chronicles. A ship had been driven on the rocks in Long Bay, and only one of her crew was washed ashore. He was the second mate, a fine young man with light wavy hair, straight nose, ample forehead, and blue eyes. He had been borne on the crest of a wave, and cast on a rock with just strength left to scramble a few yards beyond the range of the swooping billows, and to thank God for his miraculous preservation.
He was bruised, ragged, and destitute; yet in the universal ruin his wants were all but disregarded. A compassionate negress gave him a draught of rum and a piece of corn-cake, but her own hut was dismantled, and shelter was far to seek.
On all sides he saw desolation and trouble. Dispirited, he turned to the highway, in hopes of gaining a shelter before nightfall. Some unseen hand led him in his helpless friendlessness to take the road William Walcot had traversed in his frenzy. Now, as then, the little stream was swollen to a great one; but the sailor was a good swimmer, and having daylight to his task crossed in safety where the other lost his life. The path through Corbyn Wood was blocked in places by fallen trees, which made his progress slow and perilous. There was no lack of scattered cocoa-nuts and other fruit to stay his hunger, but night fell as he slept the sleep of exhaustion on an uptorn tree-trunk.
He was awakened by loud shrieks. Following the sound, he emerged from the plantation on to the open road, and soon reached a low windowless building, across which a large sandbox tree had fallen. As he neared it the shrieks were overpowered by loud hurrahs, which somehow made his chilled blood tingle with a sensation akin to a shudder.
People like himself, cast adrift by the hurricane, were on the else-avoided road. In answer to his questions, he was told that the nearest habitation was Corbyn Hall, and that low-domed edifice, the haunted mausoleum of the Corbyns.
“Corbyn?” echoed the sailor; “did you say Corbyn? My name is Corbyn, and I have an uncle Corbyn living in Barbados!”
“Was your uncle’s name Archibald?” asked a passing gentleman on horseback.
“Yes; and my name is Archibald. My father’s name was Charles.”
“Is not your father living?”
“Alas! no. He was drowned in the wreck of the Mermaid, on his way to Barbados, when I was only twelve years old.”
“H’m! And where were you at the time, young man?”
“Shipwrecked too, sir, and my mother also. I clung to a hencoop, and was picked up half-dead by the skipper of the Boyne.”
“And your mother?”
“She too was mercifully saved, as I have been this day; but as Providence willed it, the captain who had picked her up sent her aboard to us, his own vessel being bound on a long voyage; and we had reason to be thankful for it, or we might never have met again in this world. But”—impulsively—“are you my uncle, sir? You ask so many questions.”
“No; Archibald Corbyn has lain for eighteen months in yonder tomb. But I knew him well. I see you are in a sad plight, and in no condition to walk a long distance; so I recommend you to present yourself at Corbyn Hall—no matter the hour at this awful crisis. I do not suppose you will be a very welcome visitor to Mr. Walcot. Executors seldom like to disgorge; and if you can prove your identity as old Archibald’s nephew, you are heir to this estate, and my gentleman will have to turn out. In any case, should he treat you as an impostor—as is not unlikely—any of the old negroes will give you food and shelter, if they have it. Your name will ensure that.”
“I thank you, sir,” was all that Archie
in his weakness and bewildering whirl of emotions could utter, as he bowed and turned as directed towards Corbyn Hall.
“Stay!” cried the stranger, wheeling his horse round. “I am a clergyman and a magistrate—the Rev. John Fulton, of St. Andrew’s. There is my card. Show it. Should Mr. Walcot reject you, call upon me tomorrow; or upon Dr. Hawley, of Kissing Bridge, Bridgetown. We will see you are not wronged. My business is urgent, or I would accompany you now.”
Bareheaded, barefooted, ragged, sea-stained, weary, footsore, and bleeding from sharp stones and sharper thorns, the famished, shipwrecked heir dragged himself slowly to Corbyn Hall, to sink exhausted on the very threshold.
There he was found by ever-wakeful Dinah, whose screams, “A ghost, a ghost!” roused the whole tribe of woolly heads from the mats on which they slept—and blown-down huts had filled house and piazza to overflowing.
“Massa Charlie’s ghost!” from a chorus of tongues reached the chamber where Matthias lay shivering with ague. Watchful Stephen leaned over the balcony to seek the reason of the uproar.
Quick as thought he was in their midst, supporting the fainting youth in his strong arms. Little need to ask his name: the likeness to a picture in the house told it without voice.
Archie Corbyn was carried within; and while Scipio was despatched post-haste for Dr. Hawley, he was restored, refreshed, and tended with an assiduity no Walcot had ever been able to command. The previous day’s hurricane had not created a greater commotion than the finding of the fainting sailor it had blown amongst them.
Matthias Walcot, however, was not disposed to receive Archie Corbyn on the strength of a likeness and his own ipse dixit. He put upon him the onus of proof, in the secret hope (hardly confessed to himself) that difficulties might arise and his own position continue intact. At all events he would remain master in the interim; and—but that he feared a rising amongst his slaves, headed by his own son—so much were his principles demoralized that, in the face of conviction, he would have compelled Archie Corbyn to seek other quarters until his rights were indisputably established.
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