Mark Hurdlestone Part 40

"Sit down, Bill;" for the smuggler had sprung to his feet, and stood before his colleague in a menacing att.i.tude; "and don't look so fierce.

It won't do for you and I to quarrel. I meant it for a marriage portion for Mary; surely you don't wish to rob her?"

"It's just the same as appropriating it to yourself," growled the villain; "you know that she can't keep anything from you."

"Mary, my pet," said G.o.dfrey, now half intoxicated with the brandy he had drank, taking up a handful of the money and going up to the bed, "I heard you say a few days ago that you wanted a new frock; look, here is plenty of money to buy you a score of smart dresses. Will you not give me a kiss for all this gold?"

The girl turned her wide wandering eyes upon him, glanced at his hands, and uttered a wild scream.

"Why, Mary! what the deuce ails you?"

"What's that upon your hands, G.o.dfrey? What's that upon your hands? It's blood--blood! Oh, take it away! don't bring to me the price of blood!"

"Nonsense; you are dreaming, girl--gold can gild every stain."

"I have been dreaming," said Mary, rising up in the bed, and putting back the long hair which had escaped from under her cap, and now fell in rich neglected ma.s.ses round her pallid face. "Yes. I have been dreaming--such an awful dream! I see it before me yet."

"What was it, Mary?" asked her brother, with quivering lips.

"It was a lonesome place," continued the girl, "a dark lonesome place; but G.o.d's moon was s.h.i.+ning there, and there was no need of the sun, or of any other light, for all seemed plain to me as the noon day.

"I saw an old man with grey hairs, and another man old and grey was beside him. The countenances of both were dark and unlovely. And one old man was on his knees--but it was not to G.o.d he knelt; he had set up an idol to wors.h.i.+p, and that idol was gold; and G.o.d, as a punishment, had turned his heart to stone, so that nothing but the gold could awaken the least sympathy there. And whilst he knelt to the idol, I heard a cry--a loud, horrid, despairing cry--and the old man fell to the earth weltering in his blood; but he had still strength to lock up his idol, and he held the key as tightly as if it had been the key of heaven. And I saw two young men enter the house and attack the old man, while his companion, whom they did not see, stole out of a back door and fled. And they dashed the wounded old man against the stones, and they marred his visage with savage blows; and they trod him underfoot, and tore from him his idol, and fled.

"And I saw another youth with a face full of sorrow, and while he wept over the dead man, he was surrounded by strange figures, who, regardless of his grief, forced him from the room. And while I pondered over these things in my heart, an angel came to my bed-side, and whispered a message from G.o.d in my ears. And I awoke from my sleep; and lo, the old man's idol was before me, and his blood was upon your hands, G.o.dfrey Hurdlestone."

"Is this a dream?" cried G.o.dfrey, glancing instinctively at his hands, on whose white well-formed fingers no trace of the recently enacted tragedy remained, "did you really witness the scene you have just described; tell me the truth. Mary, or by ----"

"Could these feeble limbs carry me to Ashton," said the girl, interrupting the dreadful oath ere it found utterance, "or could this rocking brain steady them, were I, indeed, able to rise from my bed--"

"Mathews," cried G.o.dfrey, "what do you think of this?"

"That we should be off, or put such dreamers to silence."

"Be off! That's impossible. It would give rise to the suspicion that we were the murderers. Besides, are we not both subpoenaed as witnesses against him."

"I don't like it," said Mathews, gloomily. "The devil has revealed every circ.u.mstance to the girl. What if she were to witness against us?"

"Nonsense! Who would take the evidence of a dream?" said G.o.dfrey.

"I'm not so sure that it was a dream. You know her of old. She's very cunning."

"But the girl's too ill to move from her bed. Besides, she never would betray me."

"I'm not so sure of that. She's turned mighty religious of late. It was only last night that I heard her pray to G.o.d to forgive her sinful soul; and then she promised to lead a new life. Now I should not wonder if she were to begin by hanging us."

"If I thought so," said G.o.dfrey, grasping a knife he held in his hand, and glancing towards the bed. "But no. We both do her injustice. She would die for me. She would never betray me. Mary," he continued, going to the bed-side, "what was the message that the angel told you?"

"It was in the unknown tongue," said Mary. "I understood it in my sleep, but since I awoke it has all pa.s.sed from my memory." Then laughing in her delirium, she burst out singing:

His voice was like the midnight wind That ushers in the storm, When the thunder mutters far behind On the dark clouds onward borne; When the trees are bending to its breath, The waters plas.h.i.+ng high, And nature crouches pale as death Beneath the lurid sky.

'Twas in such tones he spake to me, So awful and so dread; If thou would'st read the mystery, Those tones will wake the dead.

"She is mad!" muttered G.o.dfrey, resuming his seat at the table. "Are you afraid, Bill, of the ravings of a maniac? Come, gather up courage and pa.s.s the bottle this way; and tell me how we are to divide the rest of the spoil."

"Let us throw the dice for it."

"Agreed. Who shall have the first chance?"

"We will throw for that. The lowest gains. I have it," cried Mathews, clutching the box.

"Stop!" said Mary. "Fair play's a jewel. There are three of you at the table. Will you not let the old man have one chance to win back his gold?"

"The Devil!" cried Mathews, dropping the box, and staggering to his seat, a universal tremor perceptible in his huge limbs. "Where--where is he?"

"At your elbow," said Mary. "Don't you see him frown and shake his head at you? How fast the blood pours down from the wound in his head! It is staining all your clothes. Get up, William, and give the poor old man the chair."

"Don't mind her, Mathews, she is raving," said G.o.dfrey. "Do you see anything?"

"I thought I saw a long, bony, mutilated hand, flitting to and fro, over the gold. Ah! there it is again," said Mathews, starting from his chair.

"You may keep the money, for may I be hanged if I will touch it. Leave this accursed place and yon croaking fiend. Let us join the boys down stairs, and drink and sing, and drive away care."

And so the murderers departed, leaving the poor girl alone with the gold, but they took good care to lock the door after them. When they were gone, Mary threw an old cloak about her, which formed part of the covering to the bed, and stepped upon the floor.

"They are gone," she said; "I have acted my part well. But, alas, this is no place for me. I am called upon by G.o.d himself to save the innocent, and the mission shall be performed, even at the expense of my worthless life.

"They think not that I followed them to the spot--that, weak as I am, G.o.d has given me strength to witness against them. I feel ill, very ill," she continued, putting her hand to her head. "But if I could only reach the Lodge, and inform Captain Whitmore, or Miss Juliet, it might be the means of saving his life. At all events, I will try."

As she pa.s.sed the gold that glittered in the moonbeams, she paused. "I want money for my journey. Shall I take aught of the accursed thing? No.

I will trust in Providence to supply my wants. I have read somewhere that misery travels free."

Then slowly putting on her clothes, and securing a slice of coa.r.s.e bread, that Mrs. Strawberry had brought for her supper, in her handkerchief, Mary approached the window. The distance was not great to the roof of the lean-to, and she had been used to climb tall forest trees when a child, and fearlessly to drop from any height. She unclosed the cas.e.m.e.nt and listened. She heard from below loud shouts and boisterous peals of laughter, mingled with licentious songs and profane oaths.

When the repentant soul is convinced of sin, how dreadful does the language once so familiar appear! The oath and the profane jest smite upon it with a force which makes it recoil within itself; and it flies for protection to the injured Majesty it so often wantonly defied.

"Alas, for the wicked!" said Mary. "'Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.' How long have I, in word, thought and deed, blasphemed the majesty of the Most High, and rebelled against his holy laws! Ought I then to condemn my fellows in iniquity? Am I in reality any better than they? I will go to the grave of my child--that sight will make me humble--that little mound of dark earth holds all that the world now contains for me."

She dropped from the window to the ground. The watch-dog knew her and forbore to bark. He thrust his cold nose into her wasted hand, and wagging his tail looked up inquiringly into her face. There was something of human sympathy in the expression of the generous brute. It went to the heart of the poor wanderer. She leant down and kissed the black head of the n.o.ble animal. A big bright tear glittered among his s.h.a.ggy hair, and the moonbeams welcomed it with an approving smile.

Like a ghost Mary glided down the garden path, overgrown with rank weeds, and she thought that the neglected garden greatly resembled the state of her soul. A few necessary wants had alone been attended to. The flower-beds were overgrown and choked with weeds--the fruit-trees barren from neglect and covered with moss. "But He can make the desolate place into a fruitful field," said Mary. "The wilderness, under his fostering care, can blossom like the rose."

She crossed the lane, and traversing several lonely fields she came to the park near the old Hall, within whose precincts the gothic church, erected by one of the ancestors of the Hurdlestones, reared aloft its venerable spire. How august the sacred building looked in the moonlight!

how white the moonbeams lay upon the graves! Mary sighed deeply, but hers was not a mind to yield easily to superst.i.tious fears. She had learned to fear G.o.d, and there was nothing in his beautiful creation which could make her tremble, save the all-seeing eye which she now felt was upon her.

Pa.s.sing the front of the church, where all the baptized children of the village for ages had found their place of final rest, she stepped behind a dark screen of yews at the back of the church, and knelt hastily upon the ground beside a little mound of freshly turned sods. Stretching herself out upon that lowly bed, and embracing it with pa.s.sionate tenderness, the child of sin and sorrow found a place to weep, and poured out her full heart to the silent ear of night.

The day was breaking, when she slowly rose and wiped away her tears.

Regaining the high road, she was overtaken by a man in a wagon, who had been one of the crowd that had been to look at the murdered man. He invited Mary to take a seat in the wagon, and finding that he was going within a few miles of Norgood, she joyfully accepted the offer--and before G.o.dfrey and her brother recovered from their drunken debauch, or found that she was missing, she was near the end of her journey.