 CHAPTER 60 THE JOURNEY Waiting for the train as we stood upon the platform, I looked back again toward the wooded uplands of Bartram, and far behind, the fine range of mountains, azure and soft in the distance, beyond which lay beloved old Noel, and my lost father and mother, and the scenes of my childhood, never embittered except by the civil who sat beside me. Under happier circumstances I should have been at my then early age, quite wild with pleasurable excitement on entering London for the first time. But black care sat by me, with her pale hand in mine, a voice of fear and warning, those words I could not catch was always in my ear. We drove through London amid the glare of lamps towards the west end, and for a little while the sense of novelty and curiosity overcame my despondency, and I peeped eagerly from the window, while Madame, who was in high good humour, spite of the fatigues of our long railway flight, screeched scraps of topographic information in my ear, for London was a picture book in which she was well read. That is Euston Square, my dear, Russell Square, here is Oxford Street, a market. See there is the Opera House, Her Majesty's Theatre. See all the carriage's waiting? And so on, till we reached at length a little narrow street, which she told me was off Piccadilly, where we drew up before a private house, as it seemed to me, a family hotel, and I was glad to be at rest for the night. Fatigued with the peculiar fatigue of railway travelling, dusty, a little chilly, with eyes aching and wearied, I ascended the stair silently, our garrulous and bustling landlady leading away, and telling her oft-told story of the house, its noble owner in old time, and how those fine drawing-rooms were taken every year, during the session, by the Bishop of Rocheon-Copley, and at last into our double-bedded room. I would feign have been alone, but I was too tired and dejected to care very much for anything. That tea, madame, expanded in spirit, like a giant refreshed, and chattered and sang, and at last seeing that I was nodding, advised my going to bed, while she ran across the street, to see her dear old friend, Mamoiselle Saint-Éloire, who was sure to be up, and would be offended if she failed to make her ever so short a call. I cared little what she said, and was glad to be rid of her even for a short time, and was soon fast asleep. I saw her, I know not how much later, poking about the room like a figure in a dream, and taking off her things. She had her breakfast in bed next morning, and I was, to my comfort, left to take mine in solitary possession of our sitting-room, where I began to wonder how little annoyance I had as yet suffered from her company, and began to speculate upon the chances of my making the journey with tolerable comfort. A hostess gave me five minutes of her valuable time. Her talk rang chiefly upon nuns and convents and her old acquaintance with madame, and it seemed to me that she had at one time driven a kind of trade, no doubt profitable enough, in escorting young ladies to establishments on the continent, and although I did not then quite understand the tone in which she spoke to me, I often thought afterwards that madame had represented me as a young person destined for the holy vocation of the veil. When she was gone I sat listlessly looking out of the window and saw some chance echipages drive by, and now and then a fashionable pedestrian, and wondered if this quiet thoroughfare could really be one of the arteries so near the heart of the tumultuous capital. I think my nervous vitality must have burned very low just then, for I felt perfectly indifferent about all the novelty and world of wonders beyond, and should have hated to leave the dull tranquillity of my window, for an excursion through the splendours of the unseen streets and palaces that surrounded me. It was one o'clock before madame joined me, and finding me in this dull mood she did not press me to accompany her in her drive, no doubt well pleased to be rid of me. After tea that evening, as we sat alone in our room, she entertained me with some very odd conversation, at the time unintelligible, but which acquired a tolerably distinct meaning from the events that followed. Two or three times that day madame appeared to me on the point of saying something of great import, as she scanned me with her bleak wickets there. It was a peculiarity of hers that whenever she was pressed upon by an anxiety that really troubled her, her countenance did not look sad or solicitous as other peoples would, but simply wicked. Her great gaunt mouth was compressed and drawn down firmly at the corners, and her eyes glared with a dismal scowl. At last she said suddenly, Are you ever grateful, Maud? I hope so madame, I answered, and how do you show your gratitude, for instance, would you do a great deal for a person who would run risk for your sake? It struck me all at once that she was sounding me about poor May Cork's, whose fidelity notwithstanding the treason or cowardice of her lover, Tom Brice, I never doubted, and I grew at once wary and reserved. I know of no opportunity, thank heaven, for any such service, madame. How can anyone serve me at present by themselves incurring danger? What do you mean? Do you like, for example, to go to that French pension? Would you not like better some other arrangement? Of course there are other arrangements I should like better, but I see no use in talking of them. They are not to be, I answered. What other arrangements do you mean, my dear chai? Inquired madame, you mean, I suppose, you would like better to go to Lady Nollis. My uncle does not choose it at present, and except with his consent, nothing can be done. He will never consent, dear chai. But he has consented, not immediately indeed, but in a short time, when his affairs are settled. Long tell, they will never be settled, said madame. At all events, for the present time to go to France, Milly seems very happy, and I dare say I shall like it too. I am very glad to leave Bartram Howe at all events. But your uncle, we bring you back there, said madame, dryly. It is doubtful whether he will ever return to Bartram himself, I said. Ah, said madame, with a long-drawn nasal intonation, you think I hate you, you are quite wrong, my dear maude. I am, on the contrary, very much interested for you, I am, I assure you, dear a child. And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old chilblains, upon the back of mine. I looked up in her face, she was not smiling. On the contrary, her wide mouth was drawn down at the corners, ruthlessly, as before, and she gazed on my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes. I used to think the flair of that irony which lighted her face so often, immeasurably worse than any other expression she could assume, but this lackluster stare and dismal collapse of feature was more wicked still. Suppose I should bring you to Lady Nollis and place you in her charge, what would you do then for poor madame, for this dark spectre? I was inwardly startled at these words. I looked into her unsearchable face, but could draw thence nothing but fear. Had she made the same overture only two days since, I think I would have offered her half my fortune, but circumstances were altered. I was no longer in the panic of despair. The lesson I had received from Tom Bryce was fresh in my mind, and my profound distrust of her was uppermost. I saw before me only a tempter and betrayer, and said, Do you mean to imply, madame, that my guardian is not to be trusted, and that I ought to make my escape from him, and that you are really willing to aid me in doing so? This you see was turning the tables upon her. I looked her steadily in the face as I spoke. She returned my gaze with a strange stare and a gape, which haunted me long after, and it seemed as we sat in utter silence that each was rather horribly fascinated by the other's gaze. At last she shut her mouth sternly, and eyed me with a more determined and meaning scowl, and then said in a low tone, I believe more that you are a cunning and wicked little theme. Wisdom is not cunning, madame, nor is it wicked to ask your meaning in explicit language, I replied. Then so, you clever child, we two sit here, playing at a game of chess, over this little table, to decide which shall destroy the other, is it not so? I will not allow you to destroy me, I retorted with a sudden flash. Madame stood up and rubbed her mouth with her open hand. She looked to me like some evil being seen in a dream. I was frightened. You are going to hurt me, I ejaculated scarce knowing what I said. If I were, you deserve it, you are very malicious, my share, or it may be only very stupid. A knock came at the door. Come in, I cried with a glad sense of relief. A maid entered. I let her please me, she said, handing it to me. For me, snarled madame, snatching it. I had seen my uncle's hand and the fulcrum postmark. Madame broke the seal and read. It seemed but a word, for she turned it about after the first momentary glance and examined the interior of the envelope, and then returned to the line she had already read. She folded the letter again, drawing her nails in a sharp pinch along the creases, as she stirred in a blank, hesitating way at me. You are a stupid little ingrate. I am employed by Monsieur Ruffin, and of course I am faithful to my employer. I do not want to talk to you. There you may read that. She jerked the letter before me on the table. It contained but these words. From how, 30th January 1845, my dear madame, be so good as to take the half-past eight o'clock train to Dover to-night, beds are prepared, yours very truly, Silas Ruffin. I cannot say what it was in this short advice that struck me with fear. Was it a thick line beneath the word Dover, that was so uncalled for, and gave me a faint but terrible sense of something preconcerted? I said to madame, why is Dover underlined? I do not know, little fool, no more than you. How can I tell what he's passing in your uncle's head when he make that a mark? Has it not a meaning, madame? How can you talk like that? She answered more in her old way. You are either mocking of me, or you are becoming truly a fool. She rang the bell, called for our bill, saw our hostess, while I made a few hasty preparations in my room. You need not look after the chunks, they will follow us all right. Let us go, chai, we have half an hour only to reach the train. No one ever fussed like madame when occasion offered. There was a cab at the door into which she hurried me. I assumed that she would give all needful directions and leaned back, very weary and sleepy already, though it was so early, listening to her farewell screamed from the cab-step, and seeing her black cloak flitting and flapping this way and that, like the wings of a raven disturbed over its prey. In she got and away we drove through a glare of lamps and shop windows still open, gas everywhere, and cabs, buses and carriages still thundering through the streets. I was too tired and too depressed to look at those things. Madame on the contrary had her head out of the window till we reached the station. Where are the rest of the boxes, I asked, as madame placed me in charge of her box and my bag in the office of the terminus? They will follow with boots in another cab, and will come safe with us in this train. My nose too, we will bring us in the carriage with us. So into a carriage we got, in came madame's box and my bag. Madame stood at the door and, I think, frightened away, intending passengers by her size and shrillness. At last the bell rang her into her place, the door clapped, the whistle sounded, and we were off. CHAPTER 61 Our Bedchamber I had passed a miserable night, and indeed for many nights had not had my due proportion of sleep. I realised sometimes fancy that I may have swallowed something in my tea that helped to make me so irresistibly drowsy. It was a very dark night, no room, and the stars soon hid by the gathering clouds. Madame sat silent, and ruminating in her place with her rugs about her. I in my corner similarly enveloped, trying to keep awake. Madame plainly thought I was asleep already, for she stole a leather flask from her pocket and applied it to her lips, causing an aroma of brandy. But it was vain struggling against the influence that was stealing over me, and I was soon in a profound and dreamless slumber. Madame awoke me at last in a huge fuss. She had got out all our things and hurried them away to a close carriage which was awaiting us. It was still dark and starless. We got along the platform, I half asleep, the porter carrying our rugs, by the glare of a pair of gas jets in the wall, and out by a small door at the end. I remember that Madame, contrary to her want, gave the man some money. By the puzzling light of the carriage-lamps we got in and took our seats. Go on, screamed Madame, and drew up the window with a great chuck, and we were enclosed in darkness and silence the most favourable conditions for thought. My sleep had not restored me as it might. I felt feverish, fatigued, and still very drowsy, though unable to sleep as I had done. I dozed by fits and starts and lay awake or half awake sometimes, not thinking but in a way imagining what kind of a place Dover would be, but too tired and listless to ask Madame any questions, and merely seeing the hedges gray in the lamplight glide backward into darkness as I leaned back. We turned off the main road at right angles and drew up. Get down and push it, it is open, screamed Madame from the window. A gate, I suppose, was thus passed, for when we resumed our brisk trot, Madame bawled across the carriage. We are now in the hotel grounds. And so all again was darkness and silence, and I fell into another dose from which, on waking, I found that we had come to a standstill, and Madame was standing on the low step of an open door, paying the driver. She herself pulled her box and the bag in. I was too tired to care what had become of the rest of our luggage. I descended, glancing to the right and left, but there was nothing visible but a patch of light from the lamps on a paved ground and on the wall. We stepped into the hall of vestibule, and Madame shut the door, and I thought I heard the key turn in it. We were in total darkness. Where are the lights, my dame? Where are the people, I asked, more awake than I had been? Tis bus three o'clock, chow, but there is always light here. She was groping at the side, and in a moment more lighted a Lucifer match, and so a bedroom candle. We were in a flagged lobby, under an archway at the right, and at the left of which opened long, flagged passages, lost in darkness. A winding stair, barely wide enough to admit Madame, dragging her box, led upward under a doorway, in a corner at the right. Come, dear child, take your bag, don't mind the rugs, they are safe enough. But where are we to go? There is no one, I said, looking round in wonder. It certainly was a strange reception at a hotel. Never mind, my dear child, they know me here, and I have always the same room ready when I write for it. Follow me quietly. So she mounted, carrying the candle. The stair was steep and the march long. We halted at the second landing, and entered a gaunt grimy passage. All the way up we had not heard a single sound of life, nor seen a human being, nor so much as past the gaslight. Voila, it is my dear old room, enter, dearest Maude. And so I did. The room was large and lofty, but shabby and dismal. There was a tall four-post bed, with its foot beside the window, hung with dark green curtains of some plush or velvet texture that looked like a dusty paw. The remaining furniture was scant and old, and a ravoured square of threadbare carpet covered a patch of floor at the bedside. The room was grim and large, and had a cold, wart-like atmosphere, as if long uninhabited. But there were cinders in the grate and under it. The imperfect light of our mutton-fat candle made all this look still more comfortless. Maude then placed the candle on the chimney-piece, locked the door, and put the key in her pocket. I always do so in hotel, said she, with a wink at me. And then with a long, ah, expressive of fatigue and relief, she threw herself into a chair. So here we are at last, said she, and glad, there's your bed, Maude. Mine is in the dressing room. She took the candle, and I went with her. A shabby press-bed, a chair, and table were all its furniture. It was rather a closet than a dressing-room, and had no door except that through which we had entered. So we returned, and very tired, wondering, I sat down on the side of my bed and yawned. I hoped they would call for us in time for the packet, I said. Oh, yes, they never fail. She answered, looking steadfastly on her box, which she resiliently unquadring. Uninviting as was my bed, I was longing to lie down in it, and having made those ablutions which our journey rendered necessary, I at length lay down, having first religiously stuck my talismanic pin with the head of ceiling-wats into the bolster. Nothing escaped the restless eye of Madame. What is that, dear child? She inquired, drawing near and scrutinising the head of the gypsy charm, which showed like a little lady-bird newly lighted on the sheet. Nothing, a charm, folly, pray, Madame, allow me to go to sleep. So with another look and a little twiddle between her finger and thumb she seemed satisfied. But unhappily for me she did not seem at all sleepy. She busied herself in unpacking and displaying over the back of the chair a whole series of London purchases, silk dresses, a shawl, a sort of lace demi-quafure, then in vogue, and a variety of other articles. The vainest and most slammakin' of women, the mereest slut at home, a milliner's lay figure out of doors, she had one square foot of looking-glass upon the chimney-piece, and air in tri-defence, and conjured-up grotesque simpers upon her sinister and weary face. I knew that the sure way to prolong this worry was to express my uneasiness under it, so I bore it as quietly as I could, and at last fell asleep with the gaunt image of Madame, with a festoon of grey silk with a cerise stripe, pinched up in her finger and thumb, and smiling over her shoulder across it into the little shaving-glass that stood on the chimney. I woke suddenly in the morning, and sat up in my bed, having for a moment forgotten all about our travelling. A moment more, however, brought it all back again. Are we in time, Madame? For the packet, she inquired with one of her charming smiles, and cutting a caper on the floor, to be sure you don't suppose they would forget. We have two hours yet to wait. Can we see the sea from the window? No, dearest child, you will see it's time enough. I'd like to get up, I said. Time enough, my dear Maud, you are fatigued, are you sure you feel quite well? Well enough to get up. I should be better, I think, out of bed. There is no hurry, you know. You need not even go by the next packet, but, Uncle, you tell me, I may use my discretion. Is there any water? They will bring some. Please, Madame, ring the bell. She pulled it with alacrity. I afterwards learnt that it did not ring. What has become of my gypsy pin, I demanded, with an unaccountable sinking of the heart? Oh, the little pin with the red top! Maybe it has fallen on the ground. We will find when you get up. I suspected that she had taken it me to spite me. It would have been quite the thing she would have liked. I cannot describe to you how the loss of this little charm depressed and excited me. I searched the bed, I turned over all the bed clothes, I searched in and outside. At last I gave up. How odious, I cried, somebody has stolen it merely to vex me. And, like a fool as I was, I threw myself on my face on the bed and wept, partly in anger, partly in dismay. After a time, however, this blew over, I had a hope of recovering it. If Madame had stolen it, it would turn up yet. But in the meantime its disappearance troubled me like an omen. I am afraid, my dear child, you are not very well. It is really very odd you should make such fuss about a pin. Nobody will believe. Do you not think it would be a good plan to take a good breakfast in your bed? She continued to urge this point for some time. At last, however, having by this time quite recovered my self-command and resolved to preserve ostensibly fair terms with Madame, who could contribute so essentially to make me wretched during the rest of my journey and possibly to prejudice me very seriously on my arrival, I said quietly, Well, Madame, I know it is very silly, but I had kept that foolish little pin so long and so carefully that I had grown quite fond of it. But I suppose it is lost, and I must contempt myself, though I cannot laugh as you do, so I will get up now and dress. I think you will do well to get all the repose you can, answered Madame. But as you please, she added, observing that I was getting up. So soon as I had got some of my things on, I said, Is there a pretty view from the window? No, said Madame. I looked out and saw a dreary quadrangle of cut stone in one side of which my window was placed, as I looked to dream rose up before me. This hotel, I said in a puzzled way, is it a hotel? Why, this is just like, it is the inner court of Bartram Howe. Madame clapped her large hands together, made a fantastic chasse on the floor, burst into a great nasal laugh like the scream of a parrot, and then said, Well, dearest Maude, is not clever-cheek? I was so utterly confounded that I could only stare about me in stupid silence, a spectacle which renewed Madame's peals of laughter. We are at Bartram Howe, I repeated, in utter consternation, how is this done? I had no reply but shrieks of laughter, and one of those well-purchased dances in which she excelled. It is a mistake, is it? What is it? All a mistake, of course, Bartram Howe, it is so like Dover, as all philosophers know. I sat down in total silence, looking out into the deep and dark enclosure, and trying to comprehend the reality and the meaning of all this. Well, Madame, I suppose you will be able to satisfy my uncle of your fidelity and intelligence, but to me it seems that his money has been ill-spent, and his directions anything but well-observed. Ah, ah, never mind, I think he will forgive me, loved Madame. Her tone frightened me. I began to think, with a vague but overpowering sense of danger, that she had acted under the Machiavellian directions of her superior. You have brought me back, then, by my uncle's orders. Did I say so? No. But what you have said can have no other meaning, though I can't believe it. But why have I been brought here? What is the object of all this stupidity and trip? I will know. It is not possible that my uncle, a gentleman and a kinsman, can be privy to so disreputable a manoeuvre. First, you will eat your breakfast, dear Maud. Next you can tell your story to your uncle, Monsieur Rathin, and then you shall hear what he thinks of my so terrible misconduct. Nonsense, Chow. Can you not think how many things may happen to change your uncle's plans? Is he not in danger to be a rest? Bah! You are a child, still. You cannot have intelligence more than a child. Just yourself and I will order breakfast. I could not comprehend the strategy which had been practised on me. Why had I been so shamelessly deceived? If it were decided that I should remain here, for what imaginable reason had I been sent so far on my journey to France? Why had I been conveyed back with such mystery? Why was I removed to this uncomfortable and desolate room, on the same floor with the apartment in which Shark had met his death? And with no window commanding the front of the house, and no view, but the deep and weed-choked court that looked like a deserted churchyard in a city? I suppose I may go to my own room, I said. Not today, my dear child, for it was all disarranged when we go away, to be ready again in two, three days. Where is Mary-Quince? I asked. Mary-Quince? She has followed us to France, said Madame, making what in Ireland they call a bull. They are not sure where they go, or what we'll do for a day or two more. I will go and get breakfast. Adieu for a moment. Madame was out of the door, as she said this, and I thought I heard the key turn in the lock. CHAPTER 62 A well-known face looks in. You who have never experienced it can have no idea how angry and frightened you become under the sinister insult of being locked into a room, as on trying the door I found I was. The key was in the lock, I could see it through the hole. I called after Madame, I shook the solid oak door, beat upon it with my hands, kicked it, but all to no purpose. I rushed into the next room forgetting, if indeed I had observed it, that there was no door from it upon the gallery. I turned round in an angry and dismayed perplexity, and, like prisoners in romances, examined the windows. I was shocked and affrighted on discovering in reality what they occasionally find, a series of iron bars crossing the window. They were firmly secured in the oak woodwork of the window frame, and each window was, besides, so compactly screwed down that it could not open. This bedroom was converted into a prison. A momentary hope flashed on me. Perhaps all the windows were secured alike. But it was no such thing. These jail-like precautions were confined to the windows to which I had access. For a few minutes I felt quite distracted, but I bethought to me that I must now, if ever, control my terrors and exert whatever faculties I possessed. I stood upon a chair and examined the oakwork. I thought I detected marks of new chiselling here and there. The screws, too, looked new, and they and the scars on the woodwork were freshly smeared over with some coloured stuff by way of disguise. While I was making these observations I heard the key stealthily stirred. I suspect that Madame wished to surprise me. Her approaching step, indeed, was seldom audible. She had the soft tread of the feline tribe. I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when she entered. Why did you lock the door, Madame? She slipped in, suddenly, with an insidious smirk, and locked the door hastily. He speak quite shy, will you, and I will tell you everything presently. She paused with her ear laid to the door. Now I can speak my share. I will tell you there is bailiff in the house. Two, three, four such impertinent fellows. They have another as bad as themselves to make a list of the furniture. We must keep them out of these rooms, dear Maud. You left the key in the door on the outside, I retorted. That was not to keep them out, but me in, Madame. Did I leave the key in the door? Ejaculated Madame with both hands raised, and such a genuine look of consternation as, for a moment, shook me. It was the nature of this woman's deceptions that they often puzzled, though they seldom convinced me. I really think, Maud, all those so frequent changes and excitements, they will overturn my poor heads. And the windows are secured with iron bars. What are they for? I whispered sternly, pointing with my finger at these rooms' securities. That is for more than forty years when the Philippe Elmer was to reside here, and had this room for his children's nursery, and was afraid they should fall out. But if you look, you will find these bars have been put here very recently. The screws and marks are quite new. Indeed, ejaculated Madame, with prolonged emphasis in precisely the same consternation. Why, my dear, they told me downstairs what I have teller you when I ask the reason. Let me see. And Madame mounted on a chair and made her scrutiny with much curiosity, but could not agree with me as to the very recent date of the Carpentry. There is nothing, I think, so exasperating as that sort of falsehood which affects not to see what is quite palpable. Do you mean to say, Madame, that you really think those chisellings and screws are forty years old? How can I tell, chair? What does signify whether it is forty or only fourteen years? Bah! We have other things to think about, those villain men. I am glad to see bar and bolt and lock and key at least to our room, to keep such phalos out. At that moment a knock came to the door and Madame's nasal, e-moment, answered promptly, and she opened the door, stealthily popping out to her head. Oh, that is all right. Go you long, nodding more. Go away. Who's there? I cried. Oh, your tongue! said Madame, imperiously to the visitor, whose voice I fancied. I recognise. Go away! Out slipped Madame again, locking the door, but this time she returned immediately, bearing a tray with breakfast. I think she fancied that I would perhaps attempt to break away and escape, but I had no such thought at that moment. She hastily set down the tray on the floor at the threshold, locking the door as before. My share of breakfast was a little tea, but Madame's digestion was seldom disturbed by her sympathies, and she ate voraciously. During this process there was a silence unusual in her company, but when her meal was ended she proposed a reconnaissance, professing much uncertainty as to whether my uncle had been arrested or not. And in case the poor old gentleman be pooed in what you call stone jug, where are we to go, my dear Maude, to Gnoll or to Elveston, you must direct. And so she disappeared, turning the key in the door as before. It was an old custom of hers, locking herself in her room, and leaving the key in the lock, and the habit prevailed, for she left it in there again. With a heavy heart I completed my simple toilet, wondering all the while how much of Madame's story might be false and how much, if any, true. Then I looked out upon the dingy courtyard below in its deep, damp shadow, and thought, how could an assassin have scaled that height in safety, and entered so noiselessly as not to awaken the slumbering game-ster? Then there were the iron bars across my window, what a fool had I been to object to that security. I was laboring hard to reassure myself, and keep all ghastly suspicions at arm's length, but I wished that my room had been to the front of the house, with some view less dismal. Lost in these ruminations of fear as I stood at the window, I was startled by the sound of a sharp tread in the lobby, and by the key turning in the lock of my door. In a panic I sprang back into the corner, and stood with my eyes fixed upon the door. It opened a little, and the black head of Meg Hawks was introduced. Oh, Meg! I cried, thank God! I guessed it was you, Miss Maud, and feared Miss. The miller's daughter was pale, and her eyes, I thought, were red and swollen. Oh, Meg, for God's sake, what is it all? I don't come in. The olden's gone down, and locked the cross-door, and left me to watch. They think I care now to bat you, no more of themselves. I don't know all, but some are more, nor her. They tell her now, she's—they say she's not safe, an awful quarrelsome, but I hear a deal when Father and Master Dudley be a-talking in the mill. They think, coming in and out, I don't mind, but I put one thing and tethered together, and don't you eat nor drink now, tell you miss? Hide away this, is black enough, but wholesome anyhow. And she slipped a piece of a coarse loathe from under her apron. I didn't mind, drinking out by the water in the jug there, it's clean-spring. Oh, Meg! Oh, Meg, I know what you mean, said I faintly. I miss, I'm feared they'll try it. They'll try to make away with you, somehow. I'm going to your friends after dark, and don't try it sooner. I'll get away to Elliston, to your lady cousin, and I'll bring them back with me in a ring. To keep a good ear at last, Megawks will stand to you. You are better to me than Father and Mother, and all. And she clasped me round the waist, and buried her head in my dress. And I'll give my life for you, darling, and if they urge you, I'll kill myself. She recovered her sternum mood quickly. Not a word last, she said in her old term. Then she tried to get away, they'll kill you. You can't do it, leave her to me. It won't be whatever it is till two or three o'clock in the morning. I'll have them a year long of force, to keep a brave heart, there's a darling. I suppose she heard, or fancy she heard, a step approaching, for she said, Hush! Her pale, wild face vanished. The door shut quickly and softly, and the key turned again in the lock. Meg in her rude way had spoken softly, almost under her breath. But no prophecy shrieked by the piphoneth ever thundered so madly in the ears of the hearer. I dare say that Meg fancied I was marvelously little moved by her words. I felt my gaze grow intense, and my flesh and bones literally freeze. She did not know that every word she spoke seemed to burst like a blaze in my brain. She had delivered her frightful warning, and told her story coarsely and bluntly, which in effect means distinctly and coarsely. And I dare say the announcement so made, like a quick bold incision in surgery, was more tolerable than the slow, imperfect mangling which falters and recedes and equivocates with torture. Madame was long away. I sat down at the window and tried to appreciate my dreadful situation. I was stupid. The imagery was all frightful. But I beheld it as we sometimes see horrors, heads cut off and houses burnt, in a dream, and without the corresponding emotions. It did not seem as if all this were really happening to me. I remember sitting at the window and looking and blinking at the opposite side of the building, like a person unable but striving to see an object distinctly, and every minute pressing my hand to the side of my head and saying, Oh, it won't be. It won't be. Oh, no. Never. It could not be. And in this stunned state, Madame found me on her return. But the valley of the shadow of death has its varieties of dread. The horror of great darkness is disturbed by voices and illumined by sights. There are periods of incapacity and collapse, followed by paroxysms of active terror. Thus in my journey, during those long hours I found it, agonies subsiding into lethages and these breaking again into frenzy. I sometimes wonder how I carried my reason safely through the ordeal. Madame locked the door and amused herself with her own business without minding me, humming little nasal snatches of French airs as she smirked on her silken purchases displayed in the daylight. Suddenly it struck me that it was very dark considering how early it was. I looked at my watch. It seemed to me a great effort of concentration to understand it. Four o'clock it said. Four o'clock. It would be dark at five, night in one hour. Madame, what o'clock is it? Is it evening? I cried with my hand to my forehead like a person puzzled. Two, three minutes past four. It had five minutes to four when I came upstairs answered she without interrupting her examination of a piece of darned lace which she was holding close to her eyes at the window. Oh, Madame, Madame, I'm frightened! cried I, with a wild and piteous voice grasping her arm and looking up as shipwrecked people made their last to heaven into her inexorable eyes. Madame looked frightened too, I thought, as she stared into my face. At last she said rather angrily and shaking her arm loose. What do you mean, child? Oh, save me, Madame! Oh, save me! Oh, save me, Madame! I pleaded, with a wild monotony of perfect terror grasping and clinging to her dress and looking up with an agonised face into the eyes of that shadowy atropole. Save her, you indeed! Save what nae-ee-ee-ee! Oh, Madame, oh dear Madame, for God's sake only get me away, get me from this and I'll do anything you ask me all my life. I will, indeed, Madame, I will. Oh, save me, save me, save me! I was clinging to Madame as to my guardian angel in my agony. And who told you, child, you are in any danger? Demanded Madame looking down on me with a blackened witch-like stare. I am, Madame, I am in great danger. Oh, Madame, think of me, take pity on me. I have none to help me. There is none but God and you. Madame all this time viewed me with the same dismal stare. Like a sorceress reading futurity in my face. Well, maybe you are, but how can I tell? Maybe your uncle is mad, maybe you are mad. You have been my enemy always, why should I care? Again I burst into wild entreaty and clasping her face poured forth my supplications with the bitterness of death. I have no confidence in you, little Maud. You are little rogue, petit traîtresse. Reflect if you can, how you have always cheated, Madame. You have attempt to ruin me. You conspire with the bad domestics at no to destroy me. And you expect me here to take your part. You would never listen to me. You had no mercy for me. You joined to hunt me away from your house, like wolf, what you expect to find me now. This terrific bar with a long nasal yell of scorn, wrang in my ears like a clap of thunder. I say you are mad, petit encelant. To suppose I should care for you more than the poor hare, I took care for the hound. More than the bird who as he escaped will love the wasleur. I do not care, I ought not care, it is your turn to suffer. Lie down on your bed there, and suffer quaintly. CHAPTER 63 SPICED CLAROT I did not lie down, but I disbared. I walked round and round the room, wringing my hands in utter distraction. I threw myself at the bedside on my knees, and could not pray, I could only shiver and moan, with hands clasped, and eyes of horror turned up to heaven. I think Madame was in her malignant way, perplexed, that some evil was intended me, I am sure she was persuaded. But I daresay Meg Hawks had said rightly in telling me that she was not fully in their secrets. The first paroxysms of despair subsided into another state. All at once my mind was filled with the idea of Meg Hawks, her enterprise, and my chances of escape. There is one point at which the road to Elverston makes a short ascent. There is a sudden curve there, two great ash trees, and a roadside style between, at the right side covered with ivy. Going back and forward I did not recollect having particularly remarked this point in the highway. But now it was before me in the thin light of the thinnest segment of moon, and the figure of Meg Hawks, her back toward me, always ascending towards Elverston. It was constantly the same picture, the same motion, without progress, the same dreadful suspense and impatience. I was now sitting on the side of the bed, looking wistfully across the room. When I did not see Meg Hawks I beheld Madame, darkly eyeing first one, then another point of the chamber, evidently puzzling over some problem, and in one of her most savage moods, sometimes muttering to herself, sometimes protruding, and sometimes screwing up her great mouth. She went into her own room, where she remained, I think, nearly ten minutes, and on her return there was that in the flash of her eyes, the glow of her face, and the peculiar fragrance that surrounded her, that showed me she had been partaking of her favourite restorative. I had not moved since she left my room. She paused about the middle of the floor and looked at me with what I can only describe as her wild beast stare. You are a very secret family, you ruffians. You are subconning. I hate the conning people. By my faith I will see Mr Silas Ruffin and ask what he mean. I had him tell old Wyatt that Mr Dudley has gone away tonight. He shall tell me everything, or else I will make a sheikh a mouse, a maddo sivre k'je vee. Madame's words had hardly ceased when I was again watching Meg Hawks on the steep road, mountain, but never reaching the top of the acivity, on the way to Elverston and mentally praying that she might be brought safely there. They in prayer of an agonised heart, Meg's journey was already frustrated. She was not to reach Elverston in time. Anne revisited her apartment and returned, not, I think, improved in temper. She walked about the room, hustling the scanty furniture hither and thither as she encountered it. She kicked her empty box out of her way, with a horrid crash and a curse in French. She strode and swaggered round the room, muttering all the way and turning the corners of her course with a furious whisk. At last out of the door she went, I think she fancied she had not been sufficiently taken into confidence as to what was intended for me. It was now growing late, and yet no, sucker. I was seized, I remember, with a dreadful icy shivering. I was listening for signals of deliverance, at every distant sound half stifled with a palpitation, these sounds piercing my ear with a horrible and exaggerating distinctness. Oh, Meg, oh, cousin Monica, oh, come, oh, heaven have mercy, Lord have mercy! I thought I heard a roaring and jangle of voices. Perhaps it came from Uncle Silas's room. It might be the tipsy violence of Madame. It might, merciful heaven, be the arrival of friends. I started to my feet. I listened, quivering with attention. Was it in my brain? Was it real? I was at the door, and it seemed to open of itself. Madame had forgotten to lock it. She was losing her head a little by this time. The key stood in the gallery door beyond. It too was open. I fled wildly. There was a subsiding sound of voices in my uncle's room. I was, I know not how, on the lobby at the great stairhead outside my uncle's apartment. My hand was on the banisters, my foot on the first step, when below me and against the faint lights that glimmered through the great window on the landing. I saw a bulky human form ascending, and a voice said, HASH! I staggered back, and at that instant fancied with a thrill of conviction, I heard Lady Nollis' voice in Uncle Silas' room. I don't know how I entered the room. I was there like a ghost. I was frightened at my own state. Lady Nollis was not there. No one but Madame and my guardian. I can never forget the look that Uncle Silas fixed on me as he cowered, seemingly as appalled as I. I think I must have looked like a phantom newly risen from the grave. What's that? Where did you come from, whispered he? Death, death, was my whispered answer, as I froze with terror where I stood. What does she mean? What does all this mean? said Uncle Silas, recovering wonderfully, and turning with a withering sneer on Madame. Do you think it right to disobey my plain directions and let her run about the house at this hour? Death, death, I'll pray to God for you and me, I whispered in the same dreadful tones. My uncle stared strangely at me, and after several horrible seconds in which he seemed to have recovered himself, he said sternly and coolly, You give too much place to your imagination, niece, your spirits are in an odd state. You ought to have advice. Oh uncle pity me, oh uncle you are good, you're kind, you're kind when you think. You could not, you could not, could not, or think of your brother that was always so good to you. He sees me here, he sees us both, oh save me uncle, save me, and I'll give up everything to you. I'll pray to God to bless you, I'll never forget your goodness and mercy, but don't keep me in doubt, if I'm to go, oh for God's sake shoot me now. You are always odd, niece, I begin to fear you are insane, he replied in the same stern, icy tone. Oh uncle, oh am I, am I mad, I hope not, but you'll conduct yourself like a sane person if you wish to enjoy the privileges of one. Then with his finger pointing at me he turned to Madame and said in a tone of suppressed ferocity, What's the meaning of this, why is she here? Madame was gabbling volubly, but to me it was only a shrilly noise. My whole soul was concentrated in my uncle, the arbiter of my life, before whom I stood in the wildest agony of supplication. That night was dreadful, the people I saw dizzily, made of smoke or shining vapour, smiling or frowning. I could have passed my hand through them, they were evil spirits. There's no ill intended you, by blank there's none, said my uncle, for the first time violently agitated. Madame told you why we've changed your room, you told her about the bailiffs did not chew. With a sample fury he demanded of Madame, whose nasal roulades of talk were running on like an accompaniment all the time. She had told me indeed only a few hours since, and now it sounded to me like the echo of something heard a month ago or more. You can't go about the house, did you yet? With bailiffs in occupation, there now, there's a whole thing, get to your room more, don't flex me, there's a good girl. He was trying to smile as he spoke these last words, and with quavering soft tones to quiet me. But the old scowl was there, the smile was corpse-like and contorted, and the softness of his tones was more dreadful than another man's ferocity. There, Madame, she'll go quite gently, and you can call if you want help. Don't let it happen again. Come, Mauds, said Madame, encircling, but not hurting my arm with her grip. Let us go, my friend. I did go, you will wonder, as well you may, as you may wonder at the docility with which strong men walk through the press-room to the drop, and thank the people of the prison for their civility when they bid them goodbye and facilitate the fixing of the rope and adjusting of the cap. Have you never wondered that they don't make a last battle for life with the unscrupulous energy of terror, instead of surrendering it so gently in cold blood, on a silent calculation, the arithmetic of despair? I went upstairs with Madame, like a sonambulist. I rather quickened my step as I drew near my room. I went in and stood a phantom at the window, looking into the dark quadrangle. A thin, glimmering crescent hung in the frosty sky, and all heaven was strewn with stars. Over the steep roof at the other side, spread on the darkest year of the night, this glorious blazing-ry of the unfathomable Creator. To me a dreadful scroll, in extrable eyes, the cloud of cruel witnesses looking down in freezing brightness on my prayers and agonies. I turned about and sat down, leaning my head upon my arms. Then suddenly I sat up, as for the first time the picture of Uncle Silas's little room, and the travelling bags and black boxes plied on the floor by his table. The desk, hat-case, umbrella, coats, rugs, and mufflers, all ready for a journey, reached my brain and suggested thought. The mise-en-scene had remained in every detail fixed upon my retina, and how I wondered, when is he going, how soon, is he going to carry me away and place me in a madhouse? Am I, am I mad, I began to think, is this all a dream, or is it real? I remembered how a thin, polite gentleman with a tall, grizzled head, and a black velvet waistcoat came into the carriage on our journey, and said a few words to me. How, madame, whispered him something, and he murmured, Oh, very gently, with raised eyebrows, and a glance at me, and thenceforward spoke no more to me, only to madame, and at the next station carried his hat and other travelling-chattels into another carriage. Had she told him I was mad? These hurried bars, madame, always with me, the direfall hints that dropped from my uncle, my own terrific sensations, all these evidences revolved in my brain and presented themselves in turn, like writings on a wheel of fire. There came a knock at the door. Oh, mech, was it she? No, old Wyatt whispered madame something about her room. So madame re-entered, with a little silver tray and flaggen in her hands, and a glass. Something came from Uncle Silas in un-gentlemanlike fashion. Dream, moored, said madame, raising the cover, and evidently enjoying the fragrant steam. I could not. I might have done so had I been able to swallow anything, for I was too distracted to think of Meg's warning. Madame suddenly recollected her mistake of that evening and tried the door, but it was duly locked. She took the key from her pocket and placed it in her breast. You will have these rooms to yourself, my share. I shall sleep downstairs tonight. She poured out some of the hot clarity into the glass abstractly, and drank it off. It is very good, I drank without think, but it is very good. Why don't you drink some? I could not, I repeated, and madame boldly helped herself. Very polite, certainly, to madame, was it to say nothing at all for her. So she pronounced her, but is all same thing, and so she ran on in her tipsy vein, which was loud and sarcastic with a fierce laugh now and then. Afterwards I heard that they were afraid of madame, who was given to cross-purposes and violent in her cups. She had been noisy and quarrelsome downstairs. She was under the delusion that I was to be conveyed away that night to a remote and safe place, and she was to be handsomely compensated for services and evidence to be afterwards given. She was not to be trusted, however, with the truth. That was to be known but to three people on earth. I never knew, but I believed that the spice-claret which madame drank was drugged. She was a person who could, I have been told, drink a great deal without exhibiting any change from it, but an inflamed colour and furious temper. I could only state for certain what I saw, and that was that shortly after she had finished the claret she laid down upon my bed and, I now know, fell asleep. I then thought she was feigning sleep only, and that she was really watching me. About an hour after this I suddenly heard a little clink in the yard beneath. I peeped out but saw nothing. The sound was repeated, however, sometimes more frequently, sometimes at long intervals. At last, in the deep shadow next to Father Wall, I thought I could discover a figure, sometimes erect, sometimes stooping and bowing towards the earth. I could see this figure only in the rudest outline, mingling with the dark. Like a thunderbolt it smoked my brain, they are making my grave. After the first dreadful stun I grew quite wild, and ran up and down the room wringing my hands and grasping prayers to heaven, then a calm stole over me, such a dreadful calm as I could fancy glide over one who floated in a boat, under the shadow of the traitor's gate, leaving life and hope and trouble behind. Right after there came a very low tap at my door, then another, like a tiny post-knock. I could never understand why it was I made no answer. Had I done so, and thus shown that I was awake, it might have sealed my fate. I was standing in the middle of the floor, staring at the door, which I expected to see open and admit I knew not what troop of spectres. CHAPTER 63 THE HOUR OF DEATH It was a very still night and frosty. My candle had long burnt out. There was still a faint moonlight which fell in a square of yellow, on the floor near the window, leaving the rest of the room in what, to an eye less accustomed than mine, had become to that faint light, would have been total darkness. Now I am sure I heard a soft whispering outside my door. I knew that I was in a state of siege. The crisis was come, and strange to say I felt myself grow all at once resolute and self-possessed. It was not a subsidence, however, of the dreadful excitement, but a sudden screwing up of my nerves to a pitch such as I cannot describe. I suppose the people outside moved with great caution, and the perfect solidity of the floor which had not anywhere a creaking board in it, favoured their noiseless movements. It was well for me that there were in the house three persons whom it was part of their plan to mystify respecting my fate. This alone compelled the extreme caution of their proceedings. They suspected that I had placed furniture against the door, and were afraid to force it lest it crash. A screen perhaps a long and shrilly struggle might follow. I remained for a space which I cannot pretend to estimate in the same posture, afraid to stir, afraid to move my eye from the door. A very peculiar grating sound above my head startled me from my watch, something of the character of soaring, only more crunching, and with a faint continued rumble in it, utterly inexplicable. I sounded over that portion of the roof which was farthest from the door, toward which I now glided, and as I took my stand under cover of the projecting angle of a clumsy old press that stood close by it, I perceived the room a little darkened, and I saw a man descend and take his stand upon the window-stone. He let go a rope which, however, was still fast round his body, and employed both his hands, with apparently some exertion, about something at the side of the window, which in a moment more, in one mass, bars and all, swung noisesly open, admitting the frosty night air, and the man, whom I now distinctly saw to be dudly roughing, kneeled on the sill, and stepped after a moment's listening into the room. His foot made no sound upon the floor, his head was bare, and he wore his usual short shooting-jacket. I cowered to the ground in my post of observation. He stood, as it seemed to me, irresolutely for a moment, and then drew from his pocket an instrument which I distinctly saw against the faint moonlight. Imagine a hammer, one end of which has been beaten into a longish tapering spike, with a handle of something longer than usual. He drew stealthily to the window, and seemed to examine this hurriedly, and tested its strength with a twist or two of his hand, and then he adjusted it very carefully in his grasp, and made two or three little experimental picks with it in the air. I remained perfectly still, with a terrible composure, crouched in my hiding-place, my teeth clenched, and prepared to struggle like a Tigress for my life when discovered. I thought his next measure would be to light a match. I saw a lantern I fancied on the windowsill, but this was not his plan. He stole in a groping way which seemed strange to me, who could distinguish objects in this light, to the side of my bed, the exact position of which he evidently knew. He stooped over it. Madame was breathing in the deep respiration of heavy sleep. Suddenly but softly he laid, as it seemed to me, his left hand over her face, and nearly at the same instant, there came a scrunching blow, and a natural shriek, beginning small and welling for two or three seconds into a yell, such as our imagined in haunted houses, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed, and then another blow, and with a horrid gasp, he recoiled a step or two, and stood perfectly still. I heard a horrible tremor quivering through the joints and curtains of the bedstead, the convulsions of the murdered woman, so as a dreadful sound, like the shaking of a tree and rustling of leaves. Then once more he stepped to the side of the bed, and I heard another of those horrid blows, and silence, and another, and more silence, and the diabolical surgery was ended. For a few seconds I think I was on the point of fainting, but a gentle stir outside the door, close to my ear, startled me, and proved that there had been a watcher posted outside. There was a little tapping at the door. Who's that? whispered Dudley hoarsely. A friend answered a sweet voice, and a key was introduced, the door quickly unlocked, and Uncle Silas entered. I saw that frail, tall, white figure, the venerable silver locks that resembled those upon the honored head of John Wesley, and his thin, white hand, the back of which hung so close to my face, that I feared to breathe. I could see his fingers twitching nervously. The smell of perfumes and of ether entered the room with him. Dudley was trembling now like a man in an egg-fit. Look what you made me do, he said maniacally. Steady, sir, said the old man, close beside me. Yes, you damned old murderer, I've a mind to do for you. There, Dudley, like a dear boy, don't give way. It's done. Right or wrong, we can't help it. You must be quiet, said the old man with a stern gentleness. Dudley groaned. Whoever advised it, you're a gainer, Dudley, said Uncle Silas. Then there was a pause. I hope that was not heard, said Uncle Silas. Dudley walked to the window and stood there. Come, Dudley, you and Hawks must use expedition. You know you must get that out of the way. I've done too much. I won't do now, I'll not touch it. I wish my aunt was off first. I wish I was a soldier. Do as you like, you and Hawks. I won't go night, damn you both and that. And he hurled the hammer with all his force upon the floor. Come, come, be reasonable, Dudley, dear boy. There's nothing to fear but your own folly. You won't make a noise. Oh, my God, said Dudley Horsley, and wiped his forehead with his open hand. There now you be all well in a minute, continued the old man. You said it wouldn't hurt her if I'd known she'd a screech like that. I'd never have done it. It was a damn lie. You're the damnedest villain on earth. Come, Dudley, said the old man under his breath, but very certainly. Make up your mind, if you don't choose to go on it can't be helped. Only it's a pity you began. For you it is a good deal. It does not much matter for me. I, for you, echoed Dudley through his septic, the old talk. Well, sir, snarled the old man in the same low tones. You should have thought of all this before. If only taking leave of the world a year or two sooner, but a year or two something. I'll leave you to do as you please. Stop, will you? Stop here. I know it's a fixed thing now. If a fella does a thing he's damned for, you might as well talk him a bit anyhow. I don't care much if I was shot. Then I'll there, just stick to that and don't run off again. There's a box and a bag here. We must change the direction and take them away. The box has some jewels. Can you see them? I wish we had a light. No, I'd rather not. I can see well enough. I wish we were out of this. Here's the box. Pull it to the window, said the old man, to my inexpressible relief, advancing at last a few steps. Coolness was given me in that dreadful moment and I knew that all depended on my being prompt and resolute. I stood up swiftly. I often thought if I had happened to wear silk, instead of the cashmere I had on that night as Russell would have betrayed me. I distinctly saw the tall, stooping figure of my uncle and the outline of his venerable tresses as he stood between me and the dull light of the window like a shape, cutting card. He was saying, just to there, and pointing with his long arm at that contracting patch of moonlight which lay squared upon the floor. The door was about a quarter open and Justice Dudley began to drag Madame's heavy box with my jewel case in it across the floor from her room, inhaling a great breath with a mental prayer for help. I glided on tiptoe from the room and found myself on the gallery floor. I turned to my right simply by chance and followed a long gallery in the dark, not running, and was too fearful of making the least noise, but walking with the tiptoe swiftness of terror. At the termination of this was a cross-gallery, one end of which, that to my left, terminated in a great window through which the dusky night view was visible. With the instinct of terror I chose the darker and turned again to my right, hurrying through this long and nearly dark passage, I was terrified by the light, about thirty feet before me, emerging from the ceiling. In spotted patches this light fell through the door and sides of a stable lantern, and showed me a ladder down which, from an open skylight I suppose, for the cool night air floated in my face, came Dickon Hawks notwithstanding his maimed condition. With so much hilarity as to leave me hardly a moment for consideration. He sat on the last round of the ladder and tightened the strap of his wooden leg. At my left was a door-case open, but no door, I entered. It was a short passage about six feet long, leading perhaps to a back-stair, but the door at the end was locked. I was forced to stand in this recess then, which afforded no shelter, while pegged up, stumped by with his lantern in his hand. I fancy he had some idea of listening to his master unperceived, but he stopped close to my hiding-place, blew out the candle, and pinched a long snuff with his horny finger and thumb. Having listened for a few seconds he stumped stealthily along the gallery which I had just traversed, and turned the corner in the direction of the chamber where the crime had just been committed, and the discovery was impending. I could see him against the broad window which in the daytime lighted this long passage, and the moment he had passed the corner I resumed my flight. I descended a stair corresponding with the back-stair, as I am told, up which madame had led me only the night before. I tried the outer door. To my wild surprise it was open. In a moment I was upon the step. In the free air and as instantaneously was seized by the arm in the grip of a man. It was Tom Bryce, who had already betrayed me, and who was now, in sir toon hat, waiting to drive the carriage with the guilty father and son from the scene of their appalled outrage. End of chapter 64 Chapter 65 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan LaFannou Chapter 65 In the oak parlor So it was vain, and I was trapped, and all was over. I stood before him on the step, the white moon shining on my face. I was trembling so that I wonder I could stand. My helpless hands raised towards him, and I looked up in his face. A long, shattering moan, oh, oh, oh, oh, was all I uttered. The man still holding my arm looked, I thought, frightened, into my white, dumb face. Suddenly he said in a wild, fierce whisper, Never say another word. I had not uttered one. They shan't hurt you, miss. Gitchy in, I don't care a damn. It was an uncouth speech. To me it was the voice of an angel. With a burst of gratitude that sounded in my own ears like a laugh, I thanked God for those blessed words. In a moment more he had placed me in the carriage, and almost instantly we were in motion, very cautiously while crossing the court, until he had got the wheels upon the grass, and then at a rapid pace improving his speed as the distance increased. He drove along the side of the back approach to the house, keeping on the grass, so that our progress, though swaying like that of a ship in a swell, was very nearly as noiseless. The gate had been left unlocked, he swung it open and remounted the box, and we were now beyond the spell of Bartram Howe, thundering, heaven be praised, along the queen's highway, right in the root to Elverston. It was literally a gallop. Through the chariot windows I saw Tom stand as he drove, and every now and then throw an awful glance over his shoulder. Were we pursued? Never was agony of prayer like mine, as with clasped hands and wild stare I gazed through the windows on the road, whose trees and hedges and gabled cottages were chasing on another backward at so giddy a speed. We were now ascending that identical steep, with the giant ash trees at the right and the style between, which my vision of Meg Hawks had presented all that night, when my excited eye detected a running figure within the hedge. I saw the head of someone crossing the style in pursuit, and I heard Bryce's name shriek, Drive on! On! On! I screamed. But Bryce pulled up. I was on my knees on the floor of the carriage, with clasped hands expecting capture, when the door opened, and Meg Hawks' palest death, her cloak drawn over her black tresses looked in. Oh! Oh! Thank God! She screamed. Shake hands, lass, Tom, you're a gooden, he's a good lad, Tom. Come in, Meg, you must sit by me, I said, recovering all at once. Meg made no demure, take my hand, I said, offering mine to her disengaged one. I can't miss, my arms broke, and so it was porting. She had been inspired and overtaken in her errand of mercy for me, and her ruffian father had felt her with his cudgel, and then knocked her into the cottage. Went however she had contrived to escape, and was now flying to Elverston, having tried in vain to get a hearing in Feltrum, whose people had been for hours in bed. The door being shut upon, Meg, the steaming horses were instantly at a gallop again. Tom was still watching us before, with many an anxious glance to rearward for pursuit. Again he pulled up, and came to the window. Oh! What is it? cried I. About that letter, miss, I couldn't help it, it was dicken, he found it in my pocket, that's all. Oh yes, no matter, thank you, thank heaven, are we near Elverston? To be a mile, miss, and please him to mind I had no finger in it. Thanks, thank you, you're very good, I shall always thank you, Tom, as long as I live. At length we entered Elverston, I think I was half-wild, I don't know how I got into the hall. I was in the oak parlor, I believe, when I saw Cather Monica. I was standing, my arms extended. I could not speak, but I ran with a loud long scream into her arms. I forget a great deal after that. Chapter 66 Conclusion Oh, my beloved cousin Monica, thank heaven you are living still and younger, I think, than I in all things but in years. And Millie, my dear companion, she is now the happy wife of that good little clergyman, Sprit Biddlepen. It has been in my power to be of use to them, and he shall have the next presentation to Dawling. Meg Hawkes, proud and wayward, and the most affectionate creature on earth, was married to Tom Brice a few months after these events, and as both wished to emigrate, I furnished them with the capital, and I am told they are likely to be rich. I hear from my kind Meg often, and she seems very happy. My dear old friends, Mary Quince and Mrs Rusk, are alas growing old, but living with me, and very happy. And after long solicitation, I persuaded Dr Brierly, the best and truest of ministers, with my dearest friend's concurrence, to undertake the management of the Derbyshire estates. In this I have been most fortunate. He is the very person for such a charge, so punctual, so laborious, so kind, and so shrewd. Appliance with medical advice cousin Monica hurried me away to the Continent, where she would never permit me to allude to the terrific scenes which remain branded so awfully on my brain. It needed no constraint, it is a sort of agony to me even now to think of them. The plan was craftily devised, neither old-wired nor giles the butler had a suspicion that I had returned to Bartram. Had I been put to death, the secret of my fate would have been deposited in the keeping of four persons only, the two Ruffins, Hawks, and ultimately Madame. My dear cousin Monica had been artfully led to believe in my departure for France, and prepared for my silence. Suspicious might not have been excited for a year after my death, and then would never, in all probability, have pointed to Bartram as the scene of the crime. The weeds would have grown over me, and I should have lain in that deep grave where the corpse of Madame de la Rougière was unearthed, in the dartsome quadrangle of Bartram Howe. It was more than two years after that I heard what had befallen at Bartram after my flight. Old Wyatt, who went early to Uncle Silas's room to her surprise, for he had told her that he was that night to accompany his son, who had to meet the mail-chain to Darby at five o'clock in the morning, saw her old master lying on the sofa, much in his usual position. There was not much change about him, Old Wyatt said, but that his scent-bottle was spilt on its side over on the table, and he, dead. She thought he was not quite cold when she found him, and she said to the old butler for Dr Joltz, who said he died of too much Ludlum, of my wretched uncle's religion, what am I to say? Was it utter hypocrisy, or had it at any time a vein of sincerity in it? I cannot say. I don't believe that he had any heart left for religion, which is the highest form of affection to take hold of. Perhaps he was a skeptic with misgivings about the future, but passed the time for finding anything reliable in it. The devil approached the citadel of his heart by stealth, with many zigzags and parallels. The idea of marrying me to his son by fair means, then by foul, and when that wicked chance was gone, then the design of seizing all by murder supervened. I dare say that Uncle Silas thought for a while that he was a righteous man. He wished to have heaven and to escape hell, if there were such places. While there were other things whose existence was not speculative, of which some he coveted, and some he dreaded more, and temptation came. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. There comes with old age a time when the heart is no longer fusible or malleable, and must retain the form in which it has cooled down. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still. He which is filthy, let him be filthy still. Dudley had disappeared, but in one of her letters Meck writing from her Australian farm says, there's a fellow in Toon as calls himself Coldbrook, the good Husserwood, fifteen foot length, and as by baths a-silling as the pearl-o'er at Bartram, only lots of rats they do say, my lady, a-buying and selling a gall back and forward with the digging folk and the merchants. His chicken mouth be rye with scar a-burns official, and no whiskers bless you. But my Tommy told him, he knowed him for Mustard Dudley. I had seen him, but he said it should Tom, soonest look at him, and denied it, were mouthful as curses and oath. Tom baint right sure, if I seeed him once I'd know for certain, but happened will be best to let be. This was all. Old Hawke stood his ground relying on the profound cunning with which their actual proceedings had been concealed, even from the suspicions of the two inmates of the house, and on the mystery that habitually shrouded Bartram Howe and all its belongings from the eyes of the outer world. Eventually enough he fancied that I'd made my escape long before the room was entered, and even if he were arrested there was no evidence he was certain to connect him with the murder, or knowledge of which he would stoutly deny. There was an inquest on the body of my uncle and Dr. Jolce was the chief witness. They found that his death was caused by an excessive dose of Lordnam, accidentally administered by himself. It was not until nearly a year after the dreadful occurrences at Bartram that Dickon Hawkes was arrested on a very awful charge and placed in jail. It was an old crime committed in Lancashire that had found him out. After his conviction, as a last chance he tried a disclosure of all the circumstances of the unsuspected death of the French woman. Her body was discovered buried where he indicated in the inner court of Bartram Howe, and after due legal inquiry was interred in the churchyard of Feltrum. Thus I escaped the horrors of the witness-box, or far worse, torture of a dreadful secret. Dr. Brierley, shortly after Lady Nollis had described to him the manner in which Dudley entered my room, visited the house of Bartram Howe, and minutely examined the windows of the room in which Mr. Charke had slept on the night of his murder. One of these he found provided with powerful steel hinges, very craftily sunk and concealed in the timber of the window frame, which was secured by an iron pin outside, and swung open on its removal. This was the room in which they had placed me, and missed the contrivance by means of which the room had been entered. The problem of Mr. Charke's murder was solved. I have penned it. I sit for a moment, breathless. My hands are cold and damp. I rise with a great sigh, and look out on the sweet green landscape and pastoral hills, and see the flowers and birds and the waving boughs of glorious trees, all images of liberty and safety, and as the tremendous nightmare of my youth melts into air, I lift my eyes in boundless gratitude to the God of all comfort whose mighty hand and outstretched arm delivered me. When I lower my eyes and uncloth my hands, my cheeks are wet with tears. A tiny voice is calling me, Mama, and a beloved smiling face with his dear father's silken brown tresses peeps in. Yes, darling, I'll walk. Come away. I am Lady Ulburi, happy in the affection of a beloved and noble-hearted husband. The shy, useless girl you have known is now a mother, trying to be a good one, and this, the last pledge, has lived. I am not going to tell of sorrows, how brief has been my pride of early maternity, or how beloved were those whom the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, but sometimes as smiling on my little boy, the tears gather in my eyes and he wonders, I can see, why they come. I am thinking and trembling while I smile to think how strong is love, how frail is life, and rejoicing while I tremble that, in the deathless love of those whom all, the Lord of life, who never gave a pang in vain, conveys the sweet and ennobling promise of a compensation by eternal reunion. So, through my sorrows, I have heard a voice from Heaven say, Right, from henceforth blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. This world is a parable, the habitation of symbols, the phantoms or spiritual things immortal, shown in immaterial shape. May the blessed second sight be mine, to recognise under these beautiful forms of earth the angels who wear them, for I am sure we may walk with them if we will, and hear them speak. End of chapter 66 End of Uncle Silas A Tale of Bartram Howe by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou