Mark Hurdlestone Part 34

"He is inexorable. But, Anthony, if you can borrow the money for me to-day, I will repay it to-morrow night."

"Can you promise me this?"

"I swear it. I will sell the reversion of the legacy left me by my aunt Maitland, which falls due at her husband's death. It is eight hundred pounds; I will sell it for half its value to meet the demand. But to accomplish this, more time is required than I can just now command. Will this satisfy you?"

"It will. But woe to us both if you deceive me!"

"Can you imagine me such an ungrateful scoundrel?"

"You have betrayed me once before. If you fail this time, G.o.dfrey, you will not die alone."

Anthony went to the desk, and unlocked it with a trembling hand. As he opened the drawer which contained the money, a sudden chill crept through his veins, and he paused, irresolute how to act. "It is not theft," he argued to himself; "it is but a loan, which will soon be repaid. A few hours cannot make much difference. Long before Frederic requires the money, it will be replaced."

He had gone too far to recede. G.o.dfrey was already at his side and eagerly seized the golden prize. With tears of real or feigned grat.i.tude he left the house, and Anthony had leisure to reflect upon what he had done.

The more he pondered over the rash act, the more imprudent and criminal it appeared; and when, by the next post, he received a letter from Frederic, informing him that he had made a very advantageous purchase of land, and requested him to transmit the money he had left in his keeping, his misery was complete.

"Unfortunate Anthony!" he cried. "Into what new dangers will your unhappy destiny hurry you!"

s.n.a.t.c.hing up his hat, he rushed forth in quest of his unprincipled relative.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Strange voices still are ringing in mine ears, Something of shame, of anguish, and reproach; My brain is dark, I have forgot it all.--S.M.

In the miserable attic over the kitchen in the public-house already described, there was a sound of deep, half-suppressed, pa.s.sionate weeping--a young mother weeping for her first-born, who would not be pacified. The deepest fountain of love in the human heart had been stirred; its hallowed sources abused, and violently broken up; and the shock had been too great for the injured possessor to bear patiently.

Her very reason had yielded to the blow, and she lamented her loss, as a forward child laments the loss of some favorite plaything. Had she not been a creature of pa.s.sionate impulses, the death of this babe of shame would have brought a stern joy to her bereaved mind. She would have wept--for nature speaks from the heart in tears; but she would have blessed G.o.d that He had removed the innocent cause of her distress from being a partaker of her guilt, a sharer of her infamy, a lasting source of regret and sorrow.

Mary Mathews had looked forward with intense desire for the birth of this child. It would be something for her to love and cling to--something for whose sake she would be content to live--for whom she could work and toil; who would meet her with smiles, and feel its dependence upon her exertions. She thought, too, that G.o.dfrey would love her once more, for his infant's sake. Rash girl! She had yet to learn that the love of man never returns to the forsaken object of his selfish gratification.

The night before this event took place, violent words had arisen between Mary and her brother. The ruffian was partially intoxicated, and urged on by the infuriated spirit of intemperance, regardless of the entreaties of the woman Strawberry, or the helpless situation of the unfortunate girl, he had struck her repeatedly; and the violent pa.s.sion into which his brutal unkindness had hurried his victim produced premature confinement, followed by the death of her child, a fine little boy.

G.o.dfrey was absent when all this occurred; and though the day was pretty far advanced, he had not as yet returned.

As to William Mathews, he wished that death had removed both mother and child, as he found Mary too untractable to be of any use to him.

"My child! my child!" sobbed Mary. "What have you done with him? where have you put him? Oh! for the love of Heaven, Mrs. Strawberry, let me look at my child!"

"Hold your peace, you foolish young creature! What do you want with the corpse? You had better lie still, and be quiet, or we may chance to bury you both in the same grave."

"Oh!" sighed the girl, burying her face in the pillow, and giving way to a fresh gush of tears, "that's too good to happen. The wretched never die; the lost, like me, are never found. The wicked are denied the rest, the deep rest of the grave. Oh, my child! my blessed child! Let me but look upon my own flesh and blood, let me baptize the unbaptized with my tears, and I shall feel this horrible load removed from my heart."

"It was a sad thing that it died, before it got the sign of the cross,"

said the G.o.dless old woman. "Sich babes, I've heard the priest say, never see the light o' G.o.d's countenance; but the blackness of darkness abides on them for ever. Howsomever, these kind o' childer never come to no good, whether they live or die. Young giddy creatures should think o'

that before they run into sin, and bring upon themselves trouble and confusion. I was exposed to great temptation in my day; but I never disgraced myself by the like o' that."

"Oh, you were very good, I dare say," said Mary, coaxingly; "and I will think you the best and kindest woman that ever lived, if you will but let me see the poor babe."

"What good will it do you to see it? it will only make you fret. You ought to thank G.o.d that it is gone. It was a mercy you had no right to expect. You are now just as good as ever you were. You can go into a gentleman's service, and hold up your head with the best of them. I would not stay here, if I were you, to be kicked and ordered about by that wicked brother of yours, nor wait, like a slave, upon this Mr.

G.o.dfrey. What is he now? not a bit better than one of us. Not a s.h.i.+lling has he to bless himself with, and I am sure he does not care one farthing for you, and will be glad that the child is off his hands."

"Oh, he loves me; indeed, indeed, he loves me and the child. Oh, he will grieve for the child. Mrs. Strawberry, if ever you were a mother yourself, have pity upon me, and show me the baby."

She caught the woman by the hand, and looked up in her face with such an expression of longing intense desire, that, harsh as she was, it melted her stony heart; and, going to a closet, she returned with the babe in her arms. It was dressed in its little cap, and long white night-gown--a cold image of purity and perfect peace.

"Oh, mine own! mine own!" wailed the young mother, pressing the cold form against her breast, as she rocked to and fro on the pillow. "My blessed innocent boy! You have left me for ever, and ever, and ever. My child! my infant love! I have wept for you--prayed for you--while yet unborn, have blessed you. Your smiles would have healed up the deep wounds of my broken heart. Together we would have wandered to some distant land, where reproaches, and curses, and blows, would never have found us; and we would have been happy in each's other's love--so happy!

Ah, my murdered child! I call upon you, but you cannot hear me! I weep for you, but you are unconscious of my grief. Ah, woe is me! What shall I do, a-wanting thee? My heart is empty; the world is empty. Its promises are false--its love departed. My child is dead, and I am alone--alone--alone."

"Come, give me the babe, Mary! I hear your brother's step upon the stair."

"You shall not have it!" cried the girl, starting up in the bed, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng fire. "Hus.h.!.+ your loud voice will waken him. He is mine.

G.o.d gave him to me; and you shall not tear him from me. No other hand shall feed and rock him to sleep but mine.

"Lullaby, baby! no danger shall come, My breast is thy pillow, my heart is thy home; That poor heart may break, but it ever shall be True, true to thy father, dear baby, and thee!

"Weep, mother, weep, thy loved infant is sleeping A sleep which no storms of the world can awaken; Ah, what avails all thy pa.s.sionate weeping, The depths of that love which no sorrow has shaken?

"All useless and lost in my desolate sadness, No sunbeam of hope scatters light through the gloom; Instead of the voice of rejoicing and gladness, I hear the wind wave the rank gra.s.s on thy tomb."

Partly moaning, and partly singing, the poor creature, exhausted by a night of severe pain, and still greater mental anxiety, dropped off into a broken slumber, with the dead infant closely pressed to her bosom.

"Well, there they lie together: the dead and the living," said Mrs.

Strawberry. "'Tis a piteous sight. I wish they were both bound to the one place. We'll have no good of this love-sick girl; and I have some fears myself of her brutal brother and the father of the brat. I hear his voice: they are home. Well, they may just step up, and look at their work. If this is not murder, I wonder what is?"

With a feeling of more humanity than Mrs. Strawberry was ever known to display, she arranged the coa.r.s.e pillow that supported Mary's head, and softly closing the door, descended the step-ladder that led to the kitchen; here she found G.o.dfrey and Mathews in close conversation, the latter laughing immoderately.

"And he took the bait so easily, G.o.dfrey? Never suspected that it was all a sham? Ha! ha! ha! Let me look at the money. I can scarcely believe my own senses. Ha! ha! ha! Why, man, you have found out a more expeditious method of making gold than your miserly uncle ever knew."

"Aye, but I have not his method of keeping it, Bill; but you may well laugh. This proud boy is in our toils now. I have him as sure as fate. I must say that I felt a slight pang of remorse when I saw him willing to dare so much for me; and he looked so like my father, that I could almost have fancied that the dead looked through his eyes into my soul.

I have gone too far to recede. What must be, must be; none of us shape our own destinies, or some good angel would have warned Anthony of his danger."

"What the devil has become of Mary?" said Mathews, glancing round the kitchen. "She and I had some words last night; it was a foolish piece of business, but she provoked me past endurance. I found her dressed up very smart just at nightfall, and about to leave the house. I asked her where she was going so late in the evening. She answered, 'To hear the Ranters preach in the village; that she wanted to know what they had to say to her soul.' So I cursed her soul, and bade her go back to her chamber, and not expose her shame to the world; and she grew fierce, and asked me tauntingly, who it was that had brought her to that shame, and if I were not the greater sinner of the two; and I struck her in my anger, and drove her up stairs."

"Struck her!" said G.o.dfrey, starting back. "Struck a woman! That woman your sister, and in her helpless situation! You dared not do such a cowardly, unmanly act?"

"I was drunk," said Mathews, gloomily; "and she was so aggravating that I am not sure that you would have kept your hands off her. She flew at me like an enraged tiger-cat, with clenched fists and eyes flas.h.i.+ng fire, and returned me what I gave with interest; and I believe there would have been murder between us, if Mrs. Strawberry had not dragged her off. What has become of her, mother. How is she now?"

"You had better go up and see," said the woman, with a bitter laugh.

"She is not very likely to fight again to-day."

There was something mysterious in the woman's manner that startled the ruffian. "Come up with me, G.o.dfrey, and speak to her. One word from you will make my peace with Mary. I did not mean to hurt the girl."

Mary had been sleeping. The sound of their steps broke in upon her feverish slumber; but she still kept her eyes closed, as if unwilling to rouse herself from the stupor of grief in which she had fallen.

"She is sleeping," said Mathews, approaching the bed. "By Jove! I thought she was dead. How still she lies. How deadly pale she looks--and what is that upon her breast?"