Death finds us 'mid our playthings--snatches us,
As a cross nurse might do a wayward child,
From all our toys and baubles. His rough call
Unlooses all our favourite ties on earth;
And well if they are such as may be answer'd
In yonder world, where all is judged of truly.
_Old Play_.
It was a ghastly scene which opened, upon Martha Trapbois's return with
a light. Her own haggard and austere features were exaggerated by
all the desperation of grief, fear, and passion--but the latter was
predominant. On the floor lay the body of the robber, who had expired
without a groan, while his blood, flowing plentifully, had crimsoned
all around. Another body lay also there, on which the unfortunate woman
precipitated herself in agony, for it was that of her unhappy father. In
the next moment she started up, and exclaiming--"There may be life yet!"
strove to raise the body. Nigel went to her assistance, but not without
a glance at the open window; which Martha, as acute as if undisturbed
either by passion or terror, failed not to interpret justly.
"Fear not," she cried, "fear not; they are base cowards, to whom courage
is as much unknown as mercy. If I had had weapons, I could have defended
myself against them without assistance or protection.--Oh! my poor
father! protection comes too late for this cold and stiff corpse.--He is
dead--dead!"
While she spoke, they were attempting to raise the dead body of the old
miser; but it was evident, even from the feeling of the inactive weight
and rigid joints, that life had forsaken her station. Nigel looked for a
wound, but saw none. The daughter of the deceased, with more presence
of mind than a daughter could at the time have been supposed capable
of exerting, discovered the instrument of his murder--a sort of scarf,
which had been drawn so tight round his throat, as to stifle his cries
for assistance, in the first instance, and afterwards to extinguish
life.
She undid the fatal noose; and, laying the old man's body in the arms of
Lord Glenvarloch, she ran for water, for spirits, for essences, in the
vain hope that life might be only suspended. That hope proved indeed
vain. She chafed his temples, raised his head, loosened his nightgown,
(for it seemed as if he had arisen from bed upon hearing the entrance
of the villains,) and, finally, opened, with difficulty, his fixed and
closely-clenched hands, from one of which dropped a key, from the other
the very piece of gold about which the unhappy man had been a little
before so anxious, and which probably, in the impaired state of his
mental faculties, he was disposed to defend with as desperate energy as
if its amount had been necessary to his actual existence.
"It is in vain--it is in vain," said the daughter, desisting from her
fruitless attempts to recall the spirit which had been effectually
dislodged, for the neck had been twisted by the violence of the
murderers; "It is in vain--he is murdered--I always knew it would be
thus; and now I witness it!"
She then snatched up the key and the piece of money, but it was only to
dash them again on the floor, as she exclaimed, "Accursed be ye both,
for you are the causes of this deed!"
Nigel would have spoken--would have reminded her, that measures should
be instantly taken for the pursuit of the murderer who had escaped, as
well as for her own security against his return; but she interrupted him
sharply.
"Be silent," she said, "be silent. Think you, the thoughts of my own
heart are not enough to distract me, and with such a sight as this
before me? I say, be silent," she said again, and in a yet sterner
tone--"Can a daughter listen, and her father's murdered corpse lying on
her knees?"
Lord Glenvarloch, however overpowered by the energy of her grief, felt
not the less the embarrassment of his own situation. He had discharged
both his pistols--the robber might return--he had probably other
assistants besides the man who had fallen, and it seemed to him, indeed,
as if he had heard a muttering beneath the windows. He explained hastily
to his companion the necessity of procuring ammunition.
"You are right," she said, somewhat contemptuously, "and have ventured
already more than ever I expected of man. Go, and shift for yourself,
since that is your purpose--leave me to my fate."
Without stopping for needless expostulation, Nigel hastened to his own
room through the secret passage, furnished himself with the ammunition
he sought for, and returned with the same celerity; wondering himself at
the accuracy with which he achieved, in the dark, all the meanderings
of the passage which he had traversed only once, and that in a moment of
such violent agitation.
He found, on his return, the unfortunate woman standing like a statue by
the body of her father, which she had laid straight on the floor, having
covered the face with the skirt of his gown. She testified neither
surprise nor pleasure at Nigel's return, but said to him calmly--"My
moan is made--my sorrow--all the sorrow at least that man shall ever
have noting of, is gone past; but I will have justice, and the base
villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by
the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber
the earth long after him. Stranger, whom heaven has sent to forward
the revenge reserved for this action, go to Hildebrod's--there they are
awake all night in their revels--bid him come hither--he is bound by his
duty, and dare not, and shall not, refuse his assistance, which he knows
well I can reward. Why do ye tarry?--go instantly."
"I would," said Nigel, "but I am fearful of leaving you alone; the
villains may return, and--"
"True, most true," answered Martha, "he may return; and, though I care
little for his murdering me, he may possess himself of what has most
tempted him. Keep this key and this piece of gold; they are both of
importance--defend your life if assailed, and if you kill the villain I
will make you rich. I go myself to call for aid."
Nigel would have remonstrated with her, but she had departed, and in
a moment he heard the house-door clank behind her. For an instant he
thought of following her; but upon recollection that the distance was
but short betwixt the tavern of Hildebrod and the house of Trapbois,
he concluded that she knew it better than he--incurred little danger in
passing it, and that he would do well in the meanwhile to remain on the
watch as she recommended.
It was no pleasant situation for one unused to such scenes to remain
in the apartment with two dead bodies, recently those of living and
breathing men, who had both, within the space of less than half an hour,
suffered violent death; one of them by the hand of the assassin, the
other, whose blood still continued to flow from the wound in his throat,
and to flood all around him, by the spectator's own deed of violence,
though of justice. He turned his face from those wretched relics of
mortality with a feeling of disgust, mingled with superstition; and he
found, when he had done so, that the consciousness of the presence
of these ghastly objects, though unseen by him, rendered him more
uncomfortable than even when he had his eyes fixed upon, and reflected
by, the cold, staring, lifeless eyeballs of the deceased. Fancy also
played her usual sport with him. He now thought he heard the well-worn
damask nightgown of the deceased usurer rustle; anon, that he heard the
slaughtered bravo draw up his leg, the boot scratching the floor as if
he was about to rise; and again he deemed he heard the footsteps and
the whisper of the returned ruffian under the window from which he had
lately escaped. To face the last and most real danger, and to parry the
terrors which the other class of feelings were like to impress upon him,
Nigel went to the window, and was much cheered to observe the light of
several torches illuminating the street, and followed, as the murmur
of voices denoted, by a number of persons, armed, it would seem, with
firelocks and halberds, and attendant on Hildebrod, who (not in his
fantastic office of duke, but in that which he really possessed of
bailiff of the liberty and sanctuary of Whitefriars) was on his way to
inquire into the crime and its circumstances.
It was a strange and melancholy contrast to see these debauchees,
disturbed in the very depth of their midnight revel, on their arrival at
such a scene as this. They stared on each other, and on the bloody work
before them, with lack-lustre eyes; staggered with uncertain steps
over boards slippery with blood; their noisy brawling voices sunk into
stammering whispers; and, with spirits quelled by what they saw, while
their brains were still stupefied by the liquor which they had drunk,
they seemed like men walking in their sleep.
Old Hildebrod was an exception to the general condition. That seasoned
cask, however full, was at all times capable of motion, when there
occurred a motive sufficiently strong to set him a-rolling. He seemed
much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence,
had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been
supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The
daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and
distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of
struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the
more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm
concerning his health. On her entrance, she had seen her father sinking
under the strength of two men, upon whom she rushed with all the fury
she was capable of. As their faces were blackened, and their figures
disguised, she could not pretend, in the hurry of a moment so dreadfully
agitating, to distinguish either of them as persons whom she had seen
before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until
she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had
escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the
reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the
premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the
window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed
singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong
iron bars, which old Trapbois was in the habit of shutting with his own
hand at nightfall. He minuted down with great accuracy, the state of
every thing in the apartment, and examined carefully the features of the
slain robber. He was dressed like a seaman of the lowest order, but
his face was known to none present. Hildebrod next sent for an Alsatian
surgeon, whose vices, undoing what his skill might have done for him,
had consigned him to the wretched practice of this place. He made him
examine the dead bodies, and make a proper declaration of the manner in
which the sufferers seemed to have come by their end. The circumstances
of the sash did not escape the learned judge, and having listened to
all that could be heard or conjectured on the subject, and collected
all particulars of evidence which appeared to bear on the bloody
transaction, he commanded the door of the apartment to be locked until
next morning; and carrying, the unfortunate daughter of the murdered
man into the kitchen, where there was no one in presence but Lord
Glenvarloch, he asked her gravely, whether she suspected no one in
particular of having committed the deed.
"Do _you_ suspect no one?" answered Martha, looking fixedly on him.
"Perhaps, I may, mistress; but it is my part to ask questions, yours to
answer them. That's the rule of the game."
"Then I suspect him who wore yonder sash. Do not you know whom I mean?"
"Why, if you call on me for honours, I must needs say I have seen
Captain Peppercull have one of such a fashion, and he was not a man to
change his suits often."
"Send out, then," said Martha, "and have him apprehended."
"If it is he, he will be far by this time; but I will communicate with
the higher powers," answered the judge.
"You would have him escape," resumed she, fixing her eyes on him
sternly.
"By cock and pie," replied Hildebrod, "did it depend on me, the
murdering cut-throat should hang as high as ever Haman did--but let me
take my time. He has friends among us, _that_ you wot well; and all that
should assist me are as drunk as fiddlers."
"I will have revenge--I _will_ have it," repeated she; "and take heed
you trifle not with me."
"Trifle! I would sooner trifle with a she-bear the minute after they had
baited her. I tell you, mistress, be but patient, and we will have him.
I know all his haunts, and he cannot forbear them long; and I will have
trap-doors open for him. You cannot want justice, mistress, for you have
the means to get it."
"They who help me in my revenge," said Martha, "shall share those
means."
"Enough said," replied Hildebrod; "and now I would have you go to my
house, and get something hot--you will be but dreary here by yourself."
"I will send for the old char-woman," replied Martha, "and we have the
stranger gentleman, besides."
"Umph, umph--the stranger gentleman!" said Hildebrod to Nigel, whom
he drew a little apart. "I fancy the captain has made the stranger
gentleman's fortune when he was making a bold dash for his own. I
can tell your honour--I must not say lordship--that I think my having
chanced to give the greasy buff-and-iron scoundrel some hint of what I
recommended to you to-day, has put him on this rough game. The better
for you--you will get the cash without the father-in-law.--You will keep
conditions, I trust?"
"I wish you had said nothing to any one of a scheme so absurd," said
Nigel.
"Absurd!--Why, think you she will not have thee? Take her with the tear
in her eye, man--take her with the tear in her eye. Let me hear from you
to-morrow. Good-night, good-night--a nod is as good as a wink. I must to
my business of sealing and locking up. By the way, this horrid work has
put all out of my head.--Here is a fellow from Mr. Lowestoffe has been
asking to see you. As he said his business was express, the Senate only
made him drink a couple of flagons, and he was just coming to beat up
your quarters when this breeze blew up.--Ahey, friend! there is Master
Nigel Grahame."
A young man, dressed in a green plush jerkin, with a badge on the
sleeve, and having the appearance of a waterman, approached and took
Nigel aside, while Duke Hildebrod went from place to place to exercise
his authority, and to see the windows fastened, and the doors of the
apartment locked up. The news communicated by Lowestoffe's messenger
were not the most pleasant. They were intimated in a courteous whisper
to Nigel, to the following effect:--That Master Lowestoffe prayed him to
consult his safety by instantly leaving Whitefriars, for that a warrant
from the Lord Chief-Justice had been issued out for apprehending him,
and would be put in force to-morrow, by the assistance of a party of
musketeers, a force which the Alsatians neither would nor dared to
resist.
"And so, squire," said the aquatic emissary, "my wherry is to wait you
at the Temple Stairs yonder, at five this morning, and, if you would
give the blood-hounds the slip, why, you may."
"Why did not Master Lowestoffe write to me?" said Nigel.
"Alas! the good gentleman lies up in lavender for it himself, and has as
little to do with pen and ink as if he were a parson."
"Did he send any token to me?" said Nigel.
"Token!--ay, marry did he--token enough, an I have not forgot it," said
the fellow; then, giving a hoist to the waistband of his breeches, he
said,--"Ay, I have it--you were to believe me, because your name was
written with an O, for Grahame. Ay, that was it, I think.--Well, shall
we meet in two hours, when tide turns, and go down the river like a
twelve-oared barge?"
"Where is the king just now, knowest thou?" answered Lord Glenvarloch.
"The king! why, he went down to Greenwich yesterday by water, like a
noble sovereign as he is, who will always float where he can. He was
to have hunted this week, but that purpose is broken, they say; and
the Prince, and the Duke, and all of them at Greenwich, are as merry as
minnows."
"Well," replied Nigel, "I will be ready to go at five; do thou come
hither to carry my baggage."
"Ay, ay, master," replied the fellow, and left the house mixing himself
with the disorderly attendants of Duke Hildebrod, who were now retiring.
That potentate entreated Nigel to make fast the doors behind him, and,
pointing to the female who sat by the expiring fire with her limbs
outstretched, like one whom the hand of Death had already arrested, he
whispered, "Mind your hits, and mind your bargain, or I will cut your
bow-string for you before you can draw it."
Feeling deeply the ineffable brutality which could recommend the
prosecuting such views over a wretch in such a condition, Lord
Glenvarloch yet commanded his temper so far as to receive the advice
in silence, and attend to the former part of it, by barring the door
carefully behind Duke Hildebrod and his suite, with the tacit hope
that he should never again see or hear of them. He then returned to the
kitchen, in which the unhappy woman remained, her hands still clenched,
her eyes fixed, and her limbs extended, like those of a person in a
trance. Much moved by her situation, and with the prospect which lay
before her, he endeavoured to awaken her to existence by every means in
his power, and at length apparently succeeded in dispelling her stupor,
and attracting her attention. He then explained to her that he was
in the act of leaving Whitefriars in a few hours--that his future
destination was uncertain, but that he desired anxiously to know whether
he could contribute to her protection by apprizing any friend of her
situation, or otherwise. With some difficulty she seemed to comprehend
his meaning, and thanked him with her usual short ungracious manner. "He
might mean well," she said, "but he ought to know that the miserable had
no friends."
Nigel said, "He would not willingly be importunate, but, as he was about
to leave the Friars--" She interrupted him--
"You are about to leave the Friars? I will go with you."
"You go with me!" exclaimed Lord Glenvarloch.
"Yes," she said, "I will persuade my father to leave this murdering
den." But, as she spoke, the more perfect recollection of what had
passed crowded on her mind. She hid her face in her hands, and burst out
into a dreadful fit of sobs, moans, and lamentations, which terminated
in hysterics, violent in proportion to the uncommon strength of her body
and mind.
Lord Glenvarloch, shocked, confused, and inexperienced, was about to
leave the house in quest of medical, or at least female assistance; but
the patient, when the paroxysm had somewhat spent its force, held him
fast by the sleeve with one hand, covering her face with the other,
while a copious flood of tears came to relieve the emotions of grief by
which she had been so violently agitated.
"Do not leave me," she said--"do not leave me, and call no one. I have
never been in this way before, and would not now," she said, sitting
upright, and wiping her eyes with her apron,--"would not now--but
that--but that he loved _me_. if he loved nothing else that was
human--To die so, and by such hands!"
And again the unhappy woman gave way to a paroxysm of sorrow, mingling
her tears with sobbing, wailing, and all the abandonment of female
grief, when at its utmost height. At length, she gradually recovered
the austerity of her natural composure, and maintained it as if by a
forcible exertion of resolution, repelling, as she spoke, the repeated
returns of the hysterical affection, by such an effort as that by which
epileptic patients are known to suspend the recurrence of their fits.
Yet her mind, however resolved, could not so absolutely overcome the
affection of her nerves, but that she was agitated by strong fits of
trembling, which, for a minute or two at a time, shook her whole frame
in a manner frightful to witness. Nigel forgot his own situation, and,
indeed, every thing else, in the interest inspired by the unhappy woman
before him--an interest which affected a proud spirit the more deeply,
that she herself, with correspondent highness of mind, seemed determined
to owe as little as possible either to the humanity or the pity of
others.
"I am not wont to be in this way," she said,--"but--but--Nature will
have power over the frail beings it has made. Over you, sir, I have some
right; for, without you, I had not survived this awful night. I wish
your aid had been either earlier or later--but you have saved my life,
and you are bound to assist in making it endurable to me."
"If you will show me how it is possible," answered Nigel.
"You are going hence, you say, instantly--carry me with you," said
the unhappy woman. "By my own efforts, I shall never escape from this
wilderness of guilt and misery."
"Alas! what can I do for you?" replied Nigel. "My own way, and I must
not deviate from it, leads me, in all probability, to a dungeon. I
might, indeed, transport you from hence with me, if you could afterwards
bestow yourself with any friend."
"Friend!" she exclaimed--"I have no friend--they have long since
discarded us. A spectre arising from the dead were more welcome than
I should be at the doors of those who have disclaimed us; and, if they
were willing to restore their friendship to me now, I would despise it,
because they withdrew it from him--from him"--(here she underwent strong
but suppressed agitation, and then added firmly)--"from _him_ who lies
yonder.--I have no friend." Here she paused; and then suddenly, as if
recollecting herself, added, "I have no friend, but I have that
will purchase many--I have that which will purchase both friends and
avengers.--It is well thought of; I must not leave it for a prey to
cheats and ruffians.--Stranger, you must return to yonder room. Pass
through it boldly to his--that is, to the sleeping apartment; push the
bedstead aside; beneath each of the posts is a brass plate, as if to
support the weight, but it is that upon the left, nearest to the wall,
which must serve your turn--press the corner of the plate, and it will
spring up and show a keyhole, which this key will open. You will then
lift a concealed trap-door, and in a cavity of the floor you will
discover a small chest. Bring it hither; it shall accompany our journey,
and it will be hard if the contents cannot purchase me a place of
refuge."
"But the door communicating with the kitchen has been locked by these
people," said Nigel.
"True, I had forgot; they had their reasons for that, doubtless,"
answered she. "But the secret passage from your apartment is open, and
you may go that way."
Lord Glenvarloch took the key, and, as he lighted a lamp to show him the
way, she read in his countenance some unwillingness to the task imposed.
"You fear?" said she--"there is no cause; the murderer and his victim
are both at rest. Take courage, I will go with you myself--you cannot
know the trick of the spring, and the chest will be too heavy for you."
"No fear, no fear," answered Lord Glenvarloch, ashamed of the
construction she put upon a momentary hesitation, arising from a dislike
to look upon what is horrible, often connected with those high-wrought
minds which are the last to fear what is merely dangerous--"I will do
your errand as you desire; but for you, you must not--cannot go yonder."
"I can--I will," she said. "I am composed. You shall see that I am so."
She took from the table a piece of unfinished sewing-work, and, with
steadiness and composure, passed a silken thread into the eye of a
fine needle.--"Could I have done that," she said, with a smile yet more
ghastly than her previous look of fixed despair, "had not my heart and
hand been both steady?"
She then led the way rapidly up stairs to Nigel's chamber, and proceeded
through the secret passage with the same haste, as if she had feared her
resolution might have failed her ere her purpose was executed. At the
bottom of the stairs she paused a moment, before entering the fatal
apartment, then hurried through with a rapid step to the sleeping
chamber beyond, followed closely by Lord Glenvarloch, whose reluctance
to approach the scene of butchery was altogether lost in the anxiety
which he felt on account of the survivor of the tragedy.
Her first action was to pull aside the curtains of her father's bed. The
bed-clothes were thrown aside in confusion, doubtless in the action of
his starting from sleep to oppose the entrance of the villains into the
next apartment. The hard mattress scarcely showed the slight pressure
where the emaciated body of the old miser had been deposited. His
daughter sank beside the bed, clasped her hands, and prayed to heaven,
in a short and affectionate manner, for support in her affliction,
and for vengeance on the villains who had made her fatherless. A
low-muttered and still more brief petition recommended to Heaven the
soul of the sufferer, and invoked pardon for his sins, in virtue of the
great Christian atonement.
This duty of piety performed, she signed to Nigel to aid her; and,
having pushed aside the heavy bedstead, they saw the brass plate which
Martha had described. She pressed the spring, and, at once, the plate
starting up, showed the keyhole, and a large iron ring used in lifting
the trap-door, which, when raised, displayed the strong box, or small
chest, she had mentioned, and which proved indeed so very weighty, that
it might perhaps have been scarcely possible for Nigel, though a very
strong man, to have raised it without assistance.
Having replaced everything as they had found it, Nigel, with such help
as his companion was able to afford, assumed his load, and made a shift
to carry it into the next apartment, where lay the miserable owner,
insensible to sounds and circumstances, which, if any thing could
have broken his long last slumber, would certainly have done so. His
unfortunate daughter went up to his body, and had even the courage to
remove the sheet which had been decently disposed over it. She put her
hand on the heart, but there was no throb--held a feather to the lips,
but there was no motion--then kissed with deep reverence the starting
veins of the pale forehead, and then the emaciated hand.
"I would you could hear me," she said,--"Father! I would you could hear
me swear, that, if I now save what you most valued on earth, it is only
to assist me in obtaining vengeance for your death."
She replaced the covering, and, without a tear, a sigh, or an additional
word of any kind, renewed her efforts, until they conveyed the
strong-box betwixt them into Lord Glenvarloch's sleeping apartment. "It
must pass," she said, "as part of your baggage. I will be in readiness
so soon as the waterman calls."
She retired; and Lord Glenvarloch, who saw the hour of their departure
approach, tore down a part of the old hanging to make a covering, which
he corded upon the trunk, lest the peculiarity of its shape, and the
care with which it was banded and counterbanded with bars of steel,
might afford suspicions respecting the treasure which it contained.
Having taken this measure of precaution, he changed the rascally
disguise, which he had assumed on entering Whitefriars, into a suit
becoming his quality, and then, unable to sleep, though exhausted
with the events of the night, he threw himself on his bed to await the
summons of the waterman.