Beyond all measure astonished by the strange occurrences which had
passed with so much violence and rapidity, the locksmith gazed upon the
shuddering figure in the chair like one half stupefied, and would have
gazed much longer, had not his tongue been loosened by compassion and
humanity.
‘You are ill,’ said Gabriel. ‘Let me call some neighbour in.’
‘Not for the world,’ she rejoined, motioning to him with her trembling
hand, and holding her face averted. ‘It is enough that you have been by,
to see this.’
‘Nay, more than enough--or less,’ said Gabriel.
‘Be it so,’ she returned. ‘As you like. Ask me no questions, I entreat
you.’
‘Neighbour,’ said the locksmith, after a pause. ‘Is this fair, or
reasonable, or just to yourself? Is it like you, who have known me so
long and sought my advice in all matters--like you, who from a girl have
had a strong mind and a staunch heart?’
‘I have need of them,’ she replied. ‘I am growing old, both in years and
care. Perhaps that, and too much trial, have made them weaker than they
used to be. Do not speak to me.’
‘How can I see what I have seen, and hold my peace!’ returned the
locksmith. ‘Who was that man, and why has his coming made this change in
you?’
She was silent, but held to the chair as though to save herself from
falling on the ground.
‘I take the licence of an old acquaintance, Mary,’ said the locksmith,
‘who has ever had a warm regard for you, and maybe has tried to prove it
when he could. Who is this ill-favoured man, and what has he to do with
you? Who is this ghost, that is only seen in the black nights and bad
weather? How does he know, and why does he haunt this house, whispering
through chinks and crevices, as if there was that between him and you,
which neither durst so much as speak aloud of? Who is he?’
‘You do well to say he haunts this house,’ returned the widow, faintly.
‘His shadow has been upon it and me, in light and darkness, at noonday
and midnight. And now, at last, he has come in the body!’
‘But he wouldn’t have gone in the body,’ returned the locksmith with
some irritation, ‘if you had left my arms and legs at liberty. What
riddle is this?’
‘It is one,’ she answered, rising as she spoke, ‘that must remain for
ever as it is. I dare not say more than that.’
‘Dare not!’ repeated the wondering locksmith.
‘Do not press me,’ she replied. ‘I am sick and faint, and every faculty
of life seems dead within me.--No!--Do not touch me, either.’
Gabriel, who had stepped forward to render her assistance, fell back as
she made this hasty exclamation, and regarded her in silent wonder.
‘Let me go my way alone,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and let the hands of
no honest man touch mine to-night.’ When she had tottered to the door,
she turned, and added with a stronger effort, ‘This is a secret, which,
of necessity, I trust to you. You are a true man. As you have ever been
good and kind to me,--keep it. If any noise was heard above, make some
excuse--say anything but what you really saw, and never let a word or
look between us, recall this circumstance. I trust to you. Mind, I trust
to you. How much I trust, you never can conceive.’
Casting her eyes upon him for an instant, she withdrew, and left him
there alone.
Gabriel, not knowing what to think, stood staring at the door with a
countenance full of surprise and dismay. The more he pondered on
what had passed, the less able he was to give it any favourable
interpretation. To find this widow woman, whose life for so many years
had been supposed to be one of solitude and retirement, and who, in her
quiet suffering character, had gained the good opinion and respect of
all who knew her--to find her linked mysteriously with an ill-omened
man, alarmed at his appearance, and yet favouring his escape, was a
discovery that pained as much as startled him. Her reliance on his
secrecy, and his tacit acquiescence, increased his distress of mind. If
he had spoken boldly, persisted in questioning her, detained her
when she rose to leave the room, made any kind of protest, instead of
silently compromising himself, as he felt he had done, he would have
been more at ease.
‘Why did I let her say it was a secret, and she trusted it to me!’ said
Gabriel, putting his wig on one side to scratch his head with greater
ease, and looking ruefully at the fire. ‘I have no more readiness than
old John himself. Why didn’t I say firmly, “You have no right to such
secrets, and I demand of you to tell me what this means,” instead of
standing gaping at her, like an old moon-calf as I am! But there’s my
weakness. I can be obstinate enough with men if need be, but women may
twist me round their fingers at their pleasure.’
He took his wig off outright as he made this reflection, and, warming
his handkerchief at the fire began to rub and polish his bald head with
it, until it glistened again.
‘And yet,’ said the locksmith, softening under this soothing process,
and stopping to smile, ‘it MAY be nothing. Any drunken brawler trying to
make his way into the house, would have alarmed a quiet soul like her.
But then’--and here was the vexation--‘how came it to be that man; how
comes he to have this influence over her; how came she to favour his
getting away from me; and, more than all, how came she not to say it
was a sudden fright, and nothing more? It’s a sad thing to have, in one
minute, reason to mistrust a person I have known so long, and an old
sweetheart into the bargain; but what else can I do, with all this upon
my mind!--Is that Barnaby outside there?’
‘Ay!’ he cried, looking in and nodding. ‘Sure enough it’s Barnaby--how
did you guess?’
‘By your shadow,’ said the locksmith.
‘Oho!’ cried Barnaby, glancing over his shoulder, ‘He’s a merry fellow,
that shadow, and keeps close to me, though I AM silly. We have such
pranks, such walks, such runs, such gambols on the grass! Sometimes
he’ll be half as tall as a church steeple, and sometimes no bigger
than a dwarf. Now, he goes on before, and now behind, and anon he’ll
be stealing on, on this side, or on that, stopping whenever I stop, and
thinking I can’t see him, though I have my eye on him sharp enough. Oh!
he’s a merry fellow. Tell me--is he silly too? I think he is.’
‘Why?’ asked Gabriel.
‘Because he never tires of mocking me, but does it all day long.--Why
don’t you come?’
‘Where?’
‘Upstairs. He wants you. Stay--where’s HIS shadow? Come. You’re a wise
man; tell me that.’
‘Beside him, Barnaby; beside him, I suppose,’ returned the locksmith.
‘No!’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘Guess again.’
‘Gone out a walking, maybe?’
‘He has changed shadows with a woman,’ the idiot whispered in his ear,
and then fell back with a look of triumph. ‘Her shadow’s always with
him, and his with her. That’s sport I think, eh?’
‘Barnaby,’ said the locksmith, with a grave look; ‘come hither, lad.’
‘I know what you want to say. I know!’ he replied, keeping away from
him. ‘But I’m cunning, I’m silent. I only say so much to you--are you
ready?’ As he spoke, he caught up the light, and waved it with a wild
laugh above his head.
‘Softly--gently,’ said the locksmith, exerting all his influence to keep
him calm and quiet. ‘I thought you had been asleep.’
‘So I HAVE been asleep,’ he rejoined, with widely-opened eyes. ‘There
have been great faces coming and going--close to my face, and then a
mile away--low places to creep through, whether I would or no--high
churches to fall down from--strange creatures crowded up together neck
and heels, to sit upon the bed--that’s sleep, eh?’
‘Dreams, Barnaby, dreams,’ said the locksmith.
‘Dreams!’ he echoed softly, drawing closer to him. ‘Those are not
dreams.’
‘What are,’ replied the locksmith, ‘if they are not?’
‘I dreamed,’ said Barnaby, passing his arm through Varden’s, and peering
close into his face as he answered in a whisper, ‘I dreamed just now
that something--it was in the shape of a man--followed me--came softly
after me--wouldn’t let me be--but was always hiding and crouching, like
a cat in dark corners, waiting till I should pass; when it crept out and
came softly after me.--Did you ever see me run?’
‘Many a time, you know.’
‘You never saw me run as I did in this dream. Still it came creeping on
to worry me. Nearer, nearer, nearer--I ran faster--leaped--sprung out
of bed, and to the window--and there, in the street below--but he is
waiting for us. Are you coming?’
‘What in the street below, Barnaby?’ said Varden, imagining that
he traced some connection between this vision and what had actually
occurred.
Barnaby looked into his face, muttered incoherently, waved the light
above his head again, laughed, and drawing the locksmith’s arm more
tightly through his own, led him up the stairs in silence.
They entered a homely bedchamber, garnished in a scanty way with chairs,
whose spindle-shanks bespoke their age, and other furniture of very
little worth; but clean and neatly kept. Reclining in an easy-chair
before the fire, pale and weak from waste of blood, was Edward Chester,
the young gentleman who had been the first to quit the Maypole on the
previous night, and who, extending his hand to the locksmith, welcomed
him as his preserver and friend.
‘Say no more, sir, say no more,’ said Gabriel. ‘I hope I would have done
at least as much for any man in such a strait, and most of all for you,
sir. A certain young lady,’ he added, with some hesitation, ‘has done us
many a kind turn, and we naturally feel--I hope I give you no offence in
saying this, sir?’
The young man smiled and shook his head; at the same time moving in his
chair as if in pain.
‘It’s no great matter,’ he said, in answer to the locksmith’s
sympathising look, ‘a mere uneasiness arising at least as much from
being cooped up here, as from the slight wound I have, or from the loss
of blood. Be seated, Mr Varden.’
‘If I may make so bold, Mr Edward, as to lean upon your chair,’ returned
the locksmith, accommodating his action to his speech, and bending over
him, ‘I’ll stand here for the convenience of speaking low. Barnaby is
not in his quietest humour to-night, and at such times talking never
does him good.’
They both glanced at the subject of this remark, who had taken a seat on
the other side of the fire, and, smiling vacantly, was making puzzles on
his fingers with a skein of string.
‘Pray, tell me, sir,’ said Varden, dropping his voice still lower,
‘exactly what happened last night. I have my reason for inquiring. You
left the Maypole, alone?’
‘And walked homeward alone, until I had nearly reached the place where
you found me, when I heard the gallop of a horse.’
‘Behind you?’ said the locksmith.
‘Indeed, yes--behind me. It was a single rider, who soon overtook me,
and checking his horse, inquired the way to London.’
‘You were on the alert, sir, knowing how many highwaymen there are,
scouring the roads in all directions?’ said Varden.
‘I was, but I had only a stick, having imprudently left my pistols
in their holster-case with the landlord’s son. I directed him as he
desired. Before the words had passed my lips, he rode upon me furiously,
as if bent on trampling me down beneath his horse’s hoofs. In starting
aside, I slipped and fell. You found me with this stab and an ugly
bruise or two, and without my purse--in which he found little enough for
his pains. And now, Mr Varden,’ he added, shaking the locksmith by the
hand, ‘saving the extent of my gratitude to you, you know as much as I.’
‘Except,’ said Gabriel, bending down yet more, and looking cautiously
towards their silent neighhour, ‘except in respect of the robber
himself. What like was he, sir? Speak low, if you please. Barnaby means
no harm, but I have watched him oftener than you, and I know, little as
you would think it, that he’s listening now.’
It required a strong confidence in the locksmith’s veracity to lead any
one to this belief, for every sense and faculty that Barnaby possessed,
seemed to be fixed upon his game, to the exclusion of all other things.
Something in the young man’s face expressed this opinion, for Gabriel
repeated what he had just said, more earnestly than before, and with
another glance towards Barnaby, again asked what like the man was.
‘The night was so dark,’ said Edward, ‘the attack so sudden, and he so
wrapped and muffled up, that I can hardly say. It seems that--’
‘Don’t mention his name, sir,’ returned the locksmith, following his
look towards Barnaby; ‘I know HE saw him. I want to know what YOU saw.’
‘All I remember is,’ said Edward, ‘that as he checked his horse his
hat was blown off. He caught it, and replaced it on his head, which
I observed was bound with a dark handkerchief. A stranger entered the
Maypole while I was there, whom I had not seen--for I had sat apart for
reasons of my own--and when I rose to leave the room and glanced round,
he was in the shadow of the chimney and hidden from my sight. But, if he
and the robber were two different persons, their voices were strangely
and most remarkably alike; for directly the man addressed me in the
road, I recognised his speech again.’
‘It is as I feared. The very man was here to-night,’ thought the
locksmith, changing colour. ‘What dark history is this!’
‘Halloa!’ cried a hoarse voice in his ear. ‘Halloa, halloa, halloa! Bow
wow wow. What’s the matter here! Hal-loa!’
The speaker--who made the locksmith start as if he had been some
supernatural agent--was a large raven, who had perched upon the top of
the easy-chair, unseen by him and Edward, and listened with a polite
attention and a most extraordinary appearance of comprehending every
word, to all they had said up to this point; turning his head from one
to the other, as if his office were to judge between them, and it were
of the very last importance that he should not lose a word.
‘Look at him!’ said Varden, divided between admiration of the bird and a
kind of fear of him. ‘Was there ever such a knowing imp as that! Oh he’s
a dreadful fellow!’
The raven, with his head very much on one side, and his bright eye
shining like a diamond, preserved a thoughtful silence for a few
seconds, and then replied in a voice so hoarse and distant, that it
seemed to come through his thick feathers rather than out of his mouth.
‘Halloa, halloa, halloa! What’s the matter here! Keep up your spirits.
Never say die. Bow wow wow. I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a devil.
Hurrah!’--And then, as if exulting in his infernal character, he began
to whistle.
‘I more than half believe he speaks the truth. Upon my word I do,’
said Varden. ‘Do you see how he looks at me, as if he knew what I was
saying?’
To which the bird, balancing himself on tiptoe, as it were, and moving
his body up and down in a sort of grave dance, rejoined, ‘I’m a devil,
I’m a devil, I’m a devil,’ and flapped his wings against his sides as
if he were bursting with laughter. Barnaby clapped his hands, and fairly
rolled upon the ground in an ecstasy of delight.
‘Strange companions, sir,’ said the locksmith, shaking his head, and
looking from one to the other. ‘The bird has all the wit.’
‘Strange indeed!’ said Edward, holding out his forefinger to the raven,
who, in acknowledgment of the attention, made a dive at it immediately
with his iron bill. ‘Is he old?’
‘A mere boy, sir,’ replied the locksmith. ‘A hundred and twenty, or
thereabouts. Call him down, Barnaby, my man.’
‘Call him!’ echoed Barnaby, sitting upright upon the floor, and staring
vacantly at Gabriel, as he thrust his hair back from his face. ‘But who
can make him come! He calls me, and makes me go where he will. He goes
on before, and I follow. He’s the master, and I’m the man. Is that the
truth, Grip?’
The raven gave a short, comfortable, confidential kind of croak;--a most
expressive croak, which seemed to say, ‘You needn’t let these fellows
into our secrets. We understand each other. It’s all right.’
‘I make HIM come?’ cried Barnaby, pointing to the bird. ‘Him, who never
goes to sleep, or so much as winks!--Why, any time of night, you may see
his eyes in my dark room, shining like two sparks. And every night, and
all night too, he’s broad awake, talking to himself, thinking what he
shall do to-morrow, where we shall go, and what he shall steal, and
hide, and bury. I make HIM come! Ha ha ha!’
On second thoughts, the bird appeared disposed to come of himself. After
a short survey of the ground, and a few sidelong looks at the ceiling
and at everybody present in turn, he fluttered to the floor, and went
to Barnaby--not in a hop, or walk, or run, but in a pace like that of
a very particular gentleman with exceedingly tight boots on, trying to
walk fast over loose pebbles. Then, stepping into his extended hand,
and condescending to be held out at arm’s length, he gave vent to a
succession of sounds, not unlike the drawing of some eight or ten dozen
of long corks, and again asserted his brimstone birth and parentage with
great distinctness.
The locksmith shook his head--perhaps in some doubt of the creature’s
being really nothing but a bird--perhaps in pity for Barnaby, who by
this time had him in his arms, and was rolling about, with him, on the
ground. As he raised his eyes from the poor fellow he encountered those
of his mother, who had entered the room, and was looking on in silence.
She was quite white in the face, even to her lips, but had wholly
subdued her emotion, and wore her usual quiet look. Varden fancied as he
glanced at her that she shrunk from his eye; and that she busied herself
about the wounded gentleman to avoid him the better.
It was time he went to bed, she said. He was to be removed to his own
home on the morrow, and he had already exceeded his time for sitting up,
by a full hour. Acting on this hint, the locksmith prepared to take his
leave.
‘By the bye,’ said Edward, as he shook him by the hand, and looked from
him to Mrs Rudge and back again, ‘what noise was that below? I heard
your voice in the midst of it, and should have inquired before, but our
other conversation drove it from my memory. What was it?’
The locksmith looked towards her, and bit his lip. She leant against the
chair, and bent her eyes upon the ground. Barnaby too--he was listening.
--‘Some mad or drunken fellow, sir,’ Varden at length made answer,
looking steadily at the widow as he spoke. ‘He mistook the house, and
tried to force an entrance.’
She breathed more freely, but stood quite motionless. As the locksmith
said ‘Good night,’ and Barnaby caught up the candle to light him down
the stairs, she took it from him, and charged him--with more haste and
earnestness than so slight an occasion appeared to warrant--not to stir.
The raven followed them to satisfy himself that all was right below,
and when they reached the street-door, stood on the bottom stair drawing
corks out of number.
With a trembling hand she unfastened the chain and bolts, and turned
the key. As she had her hand upon the latch, the locksmith said in a low
voice,
‘I have told a lie to-night, for your sake, Mary, and for the sake of
bygone times and old acquaintance, when I would scorn to do so for my
own. I hope I may have done no harm, or led to none. I can’t help the
suspicions you have forced upon me, and I am loth, I tell you plainly,
to leave Mr Edward here. Take care he comes to no hurt. I doubt the
safety of this roof, and am glad he leaves it so soon. Now, let me go.’
For a moment she hid her face in her hands and wept; but resisting the
strong impulse which evidently moved her to reply, opened the door--no
wider than was sufficient for the passage of his body--and motioned him
away. As the locksmith stood upon the step, it was chained and locked
behind him, and the raven, in furtherance of these precautions, barked
like a lusty house-dog.
‘In league with that ill-looking figure that might have fallen from a
gibbet--he listening and hiding here--Barnaby first upon the spot last
night--can she who has always borne so fair a name be guilty of such
crimes in secret!’ said the locksmith, musing. ‘Heaven forgive me if I
am wrong, and send me just thoughts; but she is poor, the temptation
may be great, and we daily hear of things as strange.--Ay, bark away, my
friend. If there’s any wickedness going on, that raven’s in it, I’ll be
sworn.’