THE NIGHT.
“O my Lord, do Thou direct and bless us. I cast all my cares upon
Thee.” It was with this prayer in her heart that Isa laid her aching
head on her pillow on that night. Cares had thickened around her: the
danger of disease, disfigurement, perhaps an early death, was looming
before her, yet Isa was not unhappy. Though scarcely able to frame a
connected prayer, never had the maiden approached the mercy-seat with
more childlike confidence than she did now. As the Christian goes from
strength to strength, Isa’s late victory over malice, resentment, and
self-will, had left a sweet sense of repose in the love and the wisdom of
God. Isa had risked her happiness for the sake of conscience; or rather,
she had placed her happiness in the hands of her Lord, where she felt it
to be safer than in her own. He would guard her from sickness, suffering,
and sorrow, or bless her in the midst of them all. God had given her—of
this Isa now felt a sweet assurance—the heart of one whose affection to
her outweighed the world. Even if it were God’s will that she should not
again on earth meet her Henry, the union of those who are one in Christ
is not for this life alone. Isa, and him whom she loved, had alike given
themselves unreservedly to their Lord: in life or in death they were His,
and no really good thing would their heavenly Father withhold from His
children. Isa’s faith had greatly ripened during the last few days. She
felt the sunshine on her soul—she felt the refreshing dew of God’s grace;
and a mellowed sweetness was the result—while peace mantled her soul
like the soft down on the peach, from whose surface the drops from the
bursting thunder-cloud trickle harmlessly away.
Very different was it with the unhappy Gaspar. Little rest was to be his
during that night. He was in an agony of irresolution: Isa’s words had
not been without their effect. Sometimes he resolved to meet Cora with
an open confession, and throw himself on her generosity to shield his
character from reproach, while he made all the reparation in his power
for the injury which he had done her. Then stronger than ever came the
impulse to fly the country. He had enough of property on the premises
to enable him to live in comfort in some part of Europe where his
antecedents would be unknown. If he could not keep his plunder in England
from the grasp of the law, he would bear it thence, beyond reach of loss
or of shame. But would he be beyond the avenging arm of Divine Justice?
Might not that arm be raised at that very moment to smite him in the
person of his sister; to make her—the pure, the innocent, the generous—a
victim for the crime of her brother?
The sound of footsteps in the sick-room above him made Gaspar restless
and uneasy: prognostications of evil disturbed him. When he fell at
length into a state of slumber, through his dreams sounded the measured
toll of the death-bell: a funeral seemed moving slowly before him, the
black plumes of the hearse nodding over the white-bordered pall. Gaspar
awoke with a start of terror, raised himself on his elbow, and gazed
around him. To his disordered fancy, it seemed as if the light, which was
always kept in his chamber at night, were burning blue; the shadows which
it cast on ceiling and wall took strange shapes, which appalled him, he
knew not why. The dimly-seen portrait of his father above the mantelpiece
seemed to Gaspar to look on him with stern and threatening eyes: as he
gazed, he could fancy that they moved, and, wild as he knew the fancy to
be, the idea made him strangely shiver.
Hark! was there not a moving of bolts and bars in the study adjoining,
and a stealthy footstep heard on the creaking floor? Had Gaspar’s secret
been betrayed? Attracted by rich hoards of plunder, were robbers
entering the house? Mr. Gritton strained his ear and listened; till at
length, unable longer to endure uncertainty, he started up from his couch
and opened the door which divided his sleeping-room from the study. All
there was perfectly dark, perfectly still: if there had been any sound,
it must have been but caused by the night wind shaking the shutters or
moaning under the door. Gaspar could not, however, return to his bed: he
dressed, and, as he did so, marvelled to find his fingers trembling as if
from palsied age.
Taking his candle to light him, Gaspar then proceeded to the vault which
contained his treasure. He had perhaps no very definite purpose in
visiting it, except that of removing a small sum required for household
expenses; yet there was a floating idea in his mind of ascertaining how
large a sum in gold he could convey away packed in so small a space as
not to excite suspicion. Lottie’s accidental discovery of the vault had
made her master more than usually on his guard against betraying his
secret to others. He therefore carefully closed the trap-door behind him
before descending the ladder, and as carefully closed the door which
divided the outer vault from the inner, when he had entered the latter,
the treasure-cave of his wealth.
[Illustration: GASPAR AMONGST HIS TREASURES.]
There stood the miser, in the midst of his hoards of silver and gold—a
lonely, miserable man. Those bags heavy with coin, won at the price of
conscience and honour, had no more power to give peace to his soul than
their hard, cold contents could afford nourishment to his frame. The
place felt damp, the air oppressive. A deathly chill came over Gaspar
Gritton. He had strange difficulty in unfastening the string round one of
his canvas bags. His fingers shook violently as he did so: he overthrew
the heavy bag, and had a dull perception that money was clinking and
falling and rolling around him in every direction. Gaspar stooped with
a vague intention of picking it up, but was utterly unable to find or
even to see the coin; and equally impossible was it for him to regain
his former standing posture. A strange numbness came over the unhappy
man: thought and feeling were alike suspended, and he lay for hours in a
senseless state on the damp, brick-paved floor, besprinkled with gold.
Some degree of consciousness returned at last; but it was that strange
consciousness which may exist in a trance of catalepsy, such as that
which now enchained the faculties of Gaspar Gritton. He lay as one dead,
in the position in which he had fallen, unable to stir a muscle or to
utter a sound—unable to give the smallest outward sign of life. And yet
the mind was awake, alive to the horrors of his situation. Gaspar was
buried in the midst of his treasures, in the living grave which he had so
carefully prepared, so jealously concealed. Men would search for him, and
never find him. But would they even search? Gaspar recalled with anguish
the intention of sudden flight which he had expressed to his sister. She
who cared for him—she who loved him—she who, under other circumstances,
would never have rested until she had found him—would naturally conclude
from his own words that he had fled from fear of exposure, and would
not even make an attempt to discover the place of his retreat. It would
never be discovered till perhaps ages hence, when the edifice above had
crumbled away—the foundations might be dug up, and a nameless skeleton
found surrounded by heaps of money and treasures of silver plate. Gaspar
had meditated flying from duty, and stern judgment had arrested him on
the threshold. In the gloomy, silent vault the sinner was left alone with
God and his conscience. The candle which Gaspar had brought with him
burned down, flickered in the socket, went out. All was darkness, all
silence, all horror! It was as if the fearful sentence had already been
passed upon him who had been enslaved by the love of money,—_Your gold
and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against
you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire; ye have heaped treasure
together for the last days._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]