The Old House Again.—Ada’s Alarm.—Gray and His Gold.
Ada felt that after the experience of the recent interview with Gray,
she had a power over him which, were she free from her promise not to
escape, she might use for the purpose of restoring herself to liberty.
That power was grounded on the superstition of his character—a weakness
which had grown with his crimes, and been increased by the constant
pangs of remorse, which even he could not stifle entirely. The solitude
likewise, and the constant state of trembling anxiety in which he
lived, had shattered his nervous system to that degree that he was
indeed a melancholy and warning spectacle of the mental and bodily
wreck to which crime is sure to reduce its unhallowed perpetrators.
His eyes were sunken and blood-shot, his lips never bore the hue of
health, his step was stealthy and trembling, and his hands shook like
an aspen leaf. He would lock himself in the room which contained his
hoarded wealth, and recount the glittering mass for hours together; but
still he could not think it enough. The demon of avarice had got a
clutch of his heart, and the larger the amount of his gold became, the
wider range his love of the bright temptation took, and constantly
fixed a sum far beyond what he had as that which would content him and
enable him to put in practice his scheme of departure from England, and
vengeance upon Learmont and Britton.
“I must yet have more,” he would mutter. “’Tis but a short delay, and
Learmont cannot refuse me the gold. Yes, two hundred more of those
pieces shall satisfy me. That will make up a goodly sum; and then, in
some other land, I shall get some sleep undisturbed by the awful
visions that here crowd upon my trembling imagination;—but two hundred
more. Perhaps I may get so much before this month is past, and then I
shall be saved the trouble of extorting a renewal of the promise of
this wilful girl. Yes, it shall be so. I will raise my demands upon
Learmont. He cannot—dare not say me nay, unless I were to become
outrageously unreasonable in my drafts upon his purse.—Two hundred.—Let
me think;—five visits at twenty pounds each will be half the money.
Pshaw! I will have forty each visit. Ay, forty; that will not alarm
him: If I insist on more he might, in his cautious brain, think upon
the scheme I mean to practise, and take some means of most effectually
preventing such ruin to himself. I will lull his suspicions. Oh! What a
day of triumph will it be to me when I sail from England with the
conviction that, within four-and-twenty hours after I am gone, Learmont
and Britton will each inhabit a prison. They will then confess that
Jacob Gray is cunning. The sneer will turn with an awful fact to them.
There is but one drawback.—I shall not see them hung. No;—I cannot—dare
not—stay to see them hung. Ada will be rich and great; but she will
know who I am. Will she use her wealth in hunting me through the world?
Or will she forgive in the flush of her prosperity? If—if—I thought
that the firm, untameable spirit which this girl evidently possesses,
and which I may confess it here in secret, daunts me,—if I thought it
would induce her to hunt me down, as she might, for her means would be
ample for such an object, were I hidden even in the bowels of the
earth, I’d—I’d—kill her ere I went. Yes, some night when she slept I
could do it; but not till the hour before I meant to go; for I—I could
not stay in this lone place without her. She scorns me,—treats me with
a haughty contempt; will scarcely condescend to address me: but still
she is here, and there is company in the thought that I know I am not
quite alone in this gloomy place. She may load me with opprobrium,—she
may heap scorn upon my head; but she is here, and I could not lie down
for one night here, without the conviction that there was some one else
within these walls. So, Ada, you are safe now—very safe; but ere I go I
must seek some subtle means of knowing what will be your course of
action when you know all, and the name of Jacob Gray is linked with a
crime that will rouse your nature, and bring an angry flash to your
eye. Ha!—What noise was that?”
Gray sprang to his feet, and he trembled violently, for some slight
noise, such as old decayed houses are full of, came upon his ear in the
stillness that reigned around.
“I—I thought I heard a noise,” he muttered; “but I have thought so
often, when ’twas nothing. Ada is here; I am not quite alone; should I
see anything, I—I could scream, and then she might come, perchance, to
exult in my agony; but there would be protection in her
presence—because—because she is—innocent.—Innocent!—Oh, God! Why am I
not innocent? Is all this world and its enjoyments a gross delusion,
for which I have bartered all the essence and foundation of all
joy—peace!”
For many minutes he remained silent, and the nervous twitching of his
countenance betrayed the disturbed condition of his mind. Then he spoke
quickly and nervously.
“I must not give way to thoughts like these,” he said; “they will drive
me mad. Yes, murder lies that way. I must go on now;—the path I have
chosen is one which there is no retracing. ’Tis as if a wall of adamant
followed close behind, to prevent one backward step. I am committed to
the course I have taken;—to pause is madness. I must go on—I must go
on! But I will spare you, Ada, if I can.”
The sound of a distant clock, sounding the hour of twelve, now came
upon the night air, and Jacob Gray listened to the faint moaning tones
of the bell until all was still again, and no sound broke the solemn
stillness but the agitated beating of his own heart.
“Midnight!” he said. “’Tis midnight! I will now endeavour to snatch a
few hours’ repose; I have fatigued myself now for many hours, with the
hope that the body’s weariness might lull the mind’s agony. Agony! I—do
I call it agony! Is that all I have purchased by—crimes?”
He lifted the light, as he spoke, and its feeble rays fell upon the
glittering heap of gold that lay before him. A ghastly smile played
across the pale countenance of Jacob Gray.
“I have gained something,” he said, as he laid his thin, cold hand upon
the gold. “Yes, I have gained these—these pieces of bright metal, that
will exchange for honours—service—gay attire—enchanting music—nay, they
will buy what men affect not to sell—opinion. There may be some pure
state of society, in which, when speaking of a man, the question may
be, ‘What is he?’ But here—here, in civilized, moral, intellectual
England, the question is, ‘What has he?’ These,” he continued, running
his hand among the guineas; “these even will purchase prayers to
Heaven; petitions to God from the good, the saintly, and the pious.
Gold, I love thee—but now to bed—to bed!”
He carefully placed his treasure in its recent receptacle at the back
of the cupboard, and then with a faltering step, and a shifting glance
of fear, he repaired to his own chamber, which was near to Ada’s room.
In his progress he passed the door of the dormitory of his victim—he
paused a moment, and listened attentively. Then in a voice of deep
anguish he said,—
“She can sleep—she can sleep—no ghostly vision scares slumber from her
eyes—while—”
He shuddered, and passed a step or two on, then pausing again, he said,—
“Oh, if she, the young and innocent—the loved of Heaven—if she would
but bid me a ‘good night,’ I think I could sleep—I asked her once, and
she would not—no, she would not give me so much peace; she would not
say good night to me!”
These words were spoken by Gray in a tone of great mental anguish, and
he passed on silently to his own chamber.
A silence, as of the grave, reigned over the old house, and an uneasy
slumber crept over Jacob Gray.
Well might the man of crime dread to sleep; for, although exhausted
nature sunk into repose, the busy fancy slept not; but, ever wakeful,
conjured up strange ghastly shapes to scare the sleeper.
The imagination, unchecked by reason, began its reign—a reign sometimes
so full of beauty and joy, that we sigh to awaken to a perception of
that which is, instead of remaining in the world of dreams.
Jacob Gray’s visions, however, took the shuddering ghastly complexion
of his waking thoughts and recollections.
From memory’s deepest cells would these creep forth one by one in
hideous distinctness—remembrances that were maddening, and scenes would
be enacted over and over again within the busy chambers of the brain,
that in his waking moments he would shun the faintest reminiscence of,
as he would the terrors of a pestilence.
The smithy at Learmont rose up before him, black and heavy as it
appeared among the drifting snow. Then he would hear the howling of the
wind even as it howled on that eventful night, when the storm was just
commencing—momentarily it increased in fury, and Jacob Gray felt that
all the awful events of that night were to do again; why or wherefore
he knew not.
Then the smith, he thought, took him by the throat and threw him down
upon a ghastly rotting corpse, and the long bony arms closed over him,
while he felt his own warm living face in hideous contact with the
slimy rottenness of the grave, he heard then, as he had heard it on
that dreadful night, the cry of fire! And he strove with frantic
efforts to free himself from the embrace of death—but ’twas all in vain.
* * * * *
The flames then waved around him like a sea, and the skeleton arms grew
to a white heat, and burnt into his flesh, and a hot pestilential
breath seemed to come from the grinning jaws of the dead—still he could
not move. His struggles were as those of an infant in that awful
clutch, and he prayed for death to terminate his agony.
Then a voice said, “No! You will remain thus till time is no more.”
With a scream Jacob Gray awoke, and starting wildly from his couch, he
sunk on his knees, shrieking—
“Mercy—mercy! Spare me, Heaven!”