The House by the Church-Yard Part 29

Mervyn?'

'Who are you, Sir?' cried Mervyn, again.

'Zekiel Irons,' he answered.

'Irons? what _are_ you, and what business have you here, Sir?' demanded Mervyn.

'The Clerk of Chapelizod,' he continued, quietly and remarkably sternly, but a little thickly, like a man who had been drinking.

Mervyn now grew angry.

'The Clerk of Chapelizod--here--sleeping in my parlour! What the devil, Sir, do you mean?'

'Sleep--Sir--sleep! There's them that sleeps with their eyes open.

Sir--you know who they may be; there's some sleeps sound enough, like me and you; and some that's sleep-walkers,' answered Irons; and his enigmatical talk somehow subdued Mervyn, for he said more quietly--

'Well, what of all this, Sirrah?'

'A message,' answered Irons. The man's manner, though quiet, was dogged, and somewhat savage.

'Give it me, then,' said Mervyn, expecting a note, and extending his hand.

'I've nothing for your hand, Sir, 'tis for your ear,' said he.

'From whom, then, and what?' said Mervyn, growing impatient again.

'I ask your pardon, Mr. Mervyn; I have a good deal to do, back and forward, sometimes early, sometimes late, in the church--Chapelizod Church--all alone, Sir; and I often think of you, when I walk over the south-side vault.'

'What's your message, I say, Sir, and who sends it,' insisted Mervyn.

'Your father,' answered Irons.

Mervyn looked with a black and wild sort of enquiry on the clerk--was he insane or what?--and seemed to swallow down a sort of horror, before his anger rose again.

'You're mistaken--my father's dead,' he said, in a fierce but agitated undertone.

'He's dead, Sir--yes,' said his saturnine visitor, with the same faint smile and cynical quietude.

'Speak out, Sirrah; whom do you come from?'

'The late Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Dunoran.' He spoke, as I have said, a little thickly, like a man who had drunk his modic.u.m of liquor.

'You've been drinking, and you dare to mix my--my father's name with your drunken dreams and babble--you wretched sot!'

A cloud pa.s.sed over the moon just then, and Irons darkened, as if about to vanish, like an offended apparition. But it was only for a minute, and he emerged in the returning light, and spoke--

'A naggin of whiskey, at the Salmon House, to raise my heart before I came here. I'm not drunk--that's sure.' He answered, quite unmoved, like one speaking to himself.

'And--why--what can you mean by speaking of him?' repeated Mervyn, unaccountably agitated.

'I speak _for_ him, Sir, by your leave. Suppose he greets you with a message--and you don't care to hear it?'

'You're mad,' said Mervyn, with an icy stare, to whom the whole colloquy began to shape itself into a dream.

'Belike _you're_ mad, Sir,' answered Irons, in a grim, ugly tone, but with face unmoved. ''Twas not a light matter brought me here--a message--there--well!--your right honourable father, that lies in lead and oak, without a name on his coffin-lid, would have you to know that what he said was--as it should be--and I can prove it--'

'What?--he said _what?_--what is it?--what can you prove? Speak out, Sirrah!' and his eyes shone white in the moonlight, and his hand was advanced towards Irons's throat, and he looked half beside himself, and trembling all over.

'Put down your hand or you hear no more from me,' said Irons, also a little transformed.

Mervyn silently lowered his hand clenched by his side, and, with compressed lips, nodded an impatient sign to him.

'Yes, Sir, he'd have you to understand he never did it, and I can prove it--_but I won't!_'

That moment, something glittered in Mervyn's hand, and he strode towards Irons, overturning a chair with a crash.

'I have you--come on and you're a dead man,' said the clerk, in a hoa.r.s.e voice, drawing into the deep darkness toward the door, with the dull gleam of a pistol-barrel just discernible in his extended hand.

'Stay--don't go,' cried Mervyn, in a piercing voice; 'I conjure--I implore--whatever you are, come back--see, I'm unarmed,' (and he flung his sword back toward the window).

'You young gentlemen are always for drawing upon poor bodies--how would it have gone if I had not looked to myself, Sir, and come furnished?'

said Irons, in his own level tone.

'I don't know--I don't _care_--I don't care if I were dead. Yes, yes, 'tis true, I almost wish he had shot me.'

'Mind, Sir, you're on honour,' said the clerk, in his old tone, as he glided slowly back, his right hand in his coat pocket, and his eye with a quiet suspicion fixed upon Mervyn, and watching his movements.

'I don't know what or who you are, but if ever you knew what human feeling is--I say, if you are anything at all capable of compa.s.sion, you will kill me at a blow rather than trifle any longer with the terrible hope that has been my torture--I believe my insanity, all my life.'

'Well, Sir,' said Irons, mildly, and with that serene suspicion of a smile on his face, 'if you wish to talk to me you must take me different; for, to say truth, I was nearer killing you that time than you were aware, and all the time I mean you no harm! and yet, if I thought you were going to say to anybody living, Zekiel Irons, the clerk, was here on Tuesday night, I believe I'd shoot you now.'

'You wish your visit secret? well, you have my honour, no one living shall hear of it,' said Mervyn. 'Go on.'

'I've little to say, your honour; but, first, do you think your servants heard the noise just now?'

'The old woman's deaf, and her daughter dare not stir after night-fall.

You need fear no interruption.'

'Ay, I know; the house is haunted, they say, but dead men tell no tales.

'Tis the living I fear, I thought it would be darker--the clouds broke up strangely; 'tis as much as my life's worth to me to be seen near this Tyled House; and never you speak to me nor seem to know me when you chance to meet me, do you mind, Sir? I'm bad enough myself, but there's some that's worse.'

'Tis agreed, there shall be no recognition,' answered Mervyn.

'There's them watching me that can see in the clouds, or the running waters, what you're thinking of a mile away, that can move as soft as ghosts, and can gripe as hard as h.e.l.l, when need is. So be patient for a bit--I gave you the message--I tell you 'tis true; and as to my proving it at present, I can, you see, and I can't; but the hour is coming, only be patient, and swear, Sir, upon your soul and honour, that you won't let me come to perdition by reason of speaking the truth.'

'On my soul and honour, I mean it,' answered Mervyn. 'Go on.'

'Nor ever tell, high or low, rich or poor, man, woman, or child, that I came here; because--no matter.'