Mark Hurdlestone Part 38

This letter, though written half in joke, confirmed Anthony's worst fears. He imagined that Frederic suspected him of dishonorable conduct, although he forbore to say so in direct terms; and his repugnance to confess what he had done, to either Clary or her brother, was greatly strengthened by the perusal.

It was this want of confidence in friends who really loved him, which involved him in ruin. Had he frankly declared his folly and thrown himself upon Wildegrave's generosity, he would as frankly have been forgiven; but pride and false shame kept his lips sealed.

He was a very young man--a novice in the ways of the world; and even in some degree ignorant of the nature of the crime, the commission of which had made him so unhappy. Instead of a breach of trust, he looked upon it as a felonious offence, which rendered him amenable to the utmost severity of the law. The jail and the gallows were ever in his thoughts; and worse than either, the infamy which would for ever attach itself to his name.

He determined to see his father for the last time, and if he failed in moving his compa.s.sion, he had formed the desperate resolution of putting an end to his own life in his presence; a far greater crime than that for which he dreaded receiving a capital punishment.

"Clary," he said, hastily thrusting the letter into his pocket, "business of importance calls me away to-night. Do not be alarmed if I should be detained until the morning."

"You cannot go to-night, Anthony. It has rained all the afternoon; the ground is wet. The air is raw and damp. You are not well. If you leave the house you will take cold!"

"Do not attempt to detain me, Clary, I must go. I shall leave a letter for your brother on the table, which you must give him if I do not return."

"Something is wrong. Tell me, oh, tell me what it is!"

"You will know all to-morrow," said Anthony, greatly agitated. "I cannot speak of it to-night." He took her hand and pressed it sadly to his heart. "Should we never meet again, dear Clary, will you promise to think kindly of me; and in spite of the contempt of the world, to cherish your cousin's memory?"

"Though all the world should forsake you, yet will I never desert you,"

sobbed Clary, as, sinking into his extended arms, she fainted on his breast.

"This will kill you, poor innocent. May G.o.d bless and keep you from a knowledge of my guilt." He placed her gently upon the sofa, and kissed her pale lips and brow, and calling Ruth to her a.s.sistance, sought with a heavy heart his own chamber.

He sat down and wrote a long letter to Frederic, explaining the unfortunate transaction which had occurred during his absence. This letter he left upon the study table, and putting a brace of loaded pistols into his pocket he sallied out upon his hopeless expedition.

It had been a very wet afternoon. The clouds had parted towards nightfall, and the moon rose with unusual splendor, rendering every object in his path as distinctly visible as at noonday. The beauty of the night only seemed to increase the gloom of Anthony Hurdlestone's spirit. He strode on at a rapid pace, as if to outspeed the quick succession of melancholy thoughts, that were hurrying him on to commit a deed of desperation. He entered the great avenue that led up to the back of the Hall, and past the miser's miserable domicile, and had traversed about half the extent of the darkly shaded path, when his attention was aroused by a tall figure leaning against the trunk of a large elm tree.

A blasted oak, bare of foliage, on the opposite side the road, let in a flood of light through its leafless branches, which shone full upon the face of the stranger, and Anthony, with a shudder, recognised William Mathews.

"A fine evening for your expedition, Mr. Hurdlestone. It might well be termed the forlorn hope; however I wish with all my heart that you may be successful." As he spoke he lowered a fowling-piece from his shoulder to the ground. "Do you hear that raven that sits croaking upon the rotten branch of the old oak opposite? Does not his confounded noise make you nervous? It always does me. It sounds like a bad omen. I was just going to pull down at him as you came along. I fancy, however, that he's too far above us for a good shot."

"I am in no humor for trifling to-night," said Anthony, stopping and glancing up at the bird, who sat motionless on a decayed branch a few yards above his head. "If you are afraid of such sounds, you can soon silence that for ever."

"It would require a good eye, and an excellent fowling-piece, to bring down the black gentleman from his lofty perch. I have heard that you, Mr. Hurdlestone, are accounted a capital shot, far before your cousin G.o.dfrey. I wish you would just give me a trial of your skill."

"Nonsense!" muttered Anthony. "The bird's only a few yards above us. A pistol would bring him down."

"I should like to see it done," said Mathews, with a grin. "Here, sir, take my gun."

Impatient of interruption, and anxious to get rid of the company of a man whose presence he loathed, Anthony drew one of the pistols from his breast pocket, and, taking a deliberate aim at the bird, he fired, and the raven fell dead at his feet. Picking it up, and tossing it over to Mathews, he said--"Do you believe me now? Pshaw! it was not worth staining my hands and clothes with blood for such a paltry prize."

Mathews laughed heartily at this speech; but there was something so revolting in the tones of his mirth, that Anthony quickened his pace to avoid its painful repet.i.tion. A few minutes more brought him in sight of the miser's cottage. No light gleamed from the broken cas.e.m.e.nt, and both the door and the window of the hovel were wide open, and flapping in the night wind. Surprised at a circ.u.mstance so unusual, Anthony hastily entered the house. The first object that met his sight rivetted him to the threshold.

The moon threw a broad line of silver light into the dusty worm-eaten apartment, and danced and gleamed in horrid mockery upon a stream of dark liquid which was slowly spreading itself over the floor. And there, extended upon the brick pavement, his features shockingly distorted, his hands still clenched, and his white locks dabbled in blood, lay the cold, mutilated form of his father.

Overpowered with horror, unable to advance or retreat, Anthony continued to gaze upon the horrid spectacle, until the hair stiffened upon his head, and a cold perspiration bedewed all his limbs.

Still as he gazed he fancied that the clenched hands moved, that a bitter smile writhed the thin parted lips of the dead; and influenced by a strange fascination, against which he struggled in vain, he continued to watch the ghastly countenance, until horror and astonishment involved every other object in misty obscurity.

He heard the sound of approaching footsteps, but his limbs had lost the power of motion, his tongue of speech, and he suffered the constables, who entered with Grenard Pike, to lead him away without offering the least resistance. They placed him in a post-chaise, between two of the officers of justice, and put the irons upon his wrists, but he remained in the same state of stupefaction, making no remark upon his unusual situation, or taking the least notice of his strange companions. When the vehicle stopped at the entrance of the county jail, then, and not until then, did the awfulness of his situation appear to strike him.

Starting from his frightful mental abstraction, he eagerly demanded of the officers why his hands were manacled, and for what crime they had brought him there?

When told for the murder of his father, he regarded the men with a look of surprised incredulity. "My poor father! what interest could I have to murder my father? You cannot think I committed this horrid crime?"

"We do not know what to think, Mr. Hurdlestone," said one of the men. "I am very sorry to see you in this plight, but appearances are very much against you. Your father was an old man and a bad man, and it is little you owed to his parental care. But he could not have lived many years, and all the entailed property must have been yours; it was an act of insanity on your part to kill him. A fearful crime to send him so unprepared into the presence of his G.o.d."

"You cannot believe me guilty," said Anthony.

The men shook their heads. "I condemn no man until the law condemns, him," returned the former spokesman. "But there is evidence enough in your case to hang a hundred men."

"I have one witness in my favor. He knows my innocence, and to Him I appeal," said Anthony, solemnly.

"Aye, but will he prove it my lad?"

"I trust He will."

"Well, time will show. The a.s.sizes will be held next week, so you have not long to remain in doubt. I would be inclined to think you innocent, if you could prove to me what business you had with loaded pistols in your possession--why one was loaded, and the other unloaded, and how your hands and clothes came stained with blood--why you quarrelled with the old man last night, and went to him again to-night with offensive weapons on your person, and at such an unseasonable hour? These are stubborn facts."

"They, are indeed," sighed the prisoner. A natural gush of feeling succeeded, and from that hour Anthony resigned himself to his fate.

CHAPTER XX.

O dread uncertainty: Life-wasting agony!

How dost thou pain the heart, Causing such tears to start As sorrow never shed O'er hopes for ever fled!--S.M.

What a night of intense anxiety was that to the young Clary! Hour after hour, she paced the veranda in front of the cottage; now listening for approaching footsteps, now straining her eyes to catch through the gloom of the fir-trees the figure of him for whom she watched and wept in vain. The cold night wind sighed through her fair locks, scattering them upon the midnight air. The rising dews chilled the fragile form, but stilled not the wild throbbing of the aching heart.

"Oh, to know the worst--the very worst--were better than this sore agony." Years of care were compressed into that one night of weary watching. "He will never come. I shall never, never see him again. I feel now, as I felt when my sisters were taken from me, that I should see them no more on earth. But I cannot weep for him as I wept for them.

I knew that they were happy, that they were gone to rest, and I felt as if an angel's hand dried my tears. But I weep for him as one without hope, as for one whom a terrible destiny has torn from me. I love him, but my love is a crime, for he loves another. Oh, woe is me! Why did we ever meet, if thus we are doomed to part?"

She looked up at the cold clear moon--up to the glorious stars of night, and her thoughts, so lately chained to earth, soared upwards to the Father of her spirit, and once more she bowed in silent adoration to her Saviour and her G.o.d.

"Forgive me, holy Father!" she murmured. "I have strayed from thy fold, and my steps have stumbled upon the rough places of the earth. I have reared up an idol in thy sacred temple, and wors.h.i.+pped the creature more than the Creator. The love of the world is an unholy thing. It cannot satisfy the cravings of an immortal spirit. It cannot fill up the emptiness of the human heart. Return to thy rest, O my soul! I dedicate thee and all thy affections to thy G.o.d!"

She bowed her head upon her hands and wept; such tears purify the source from whence they flow, and Clary felt a solemn calm steal over her agitated spirit, as, kneeling beneath the wide canopy of heaven, she prayed long and earnestly for strength to subdue her pa.s.sion for Anthony, and to become obedient in word, thought, and deed, to the will of G.o.d; and she prayed for him, with a fervor and devotion which love alone can give--prayed that he might be s.h.i.+elded from all temptation, from the wickedness and vanity of the world, from the deceitfulness of his own heart.

She was still in the act of devotion, when the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps caused her to start suddenly from her knees. A man ran past at full speed, then another, and another: then a group of women without hats and shawls, running and calling to one another. What could all this mean, at that still hour of night, and in that lonely place?

Clary's heart beat tumultuously. She rushed to the garden gate, that opened from the lawn into the main road. She called aloud to one of the retreating figures to stop and inform her what was the matter. Why they were abroad at that late hour, and whither they were going? No one slackened their speed, or stayed one moment to answer her enquires. At length an old man, tired and out of breath, came panting along; one whom Clary knew, and springing into the road she intercepted his path.

"Ralph Hilton, what is the matter? Is there a fire in the neighborhood?

Where are you all going?"

"Up to the Hall, Miss Clary. Dear, dear, have you not heard the news?

The old man has been murdered. Murdered by his son. Alack, alack, 'tis a desperate piece of wickedness! The coroner is up at the old cottage, sitting upon the body, and I want to get a sight of the murdered man, like the rest of 'un."

"Who is it you mean? Who has been murdered?" gasped out the terrified girl.