History of the Black Spectre.
Woodward returned to the public room, where he was soon followed by
Father Mulrenin and Greatrakes, who were shortly joined by Mr. Goodwin;
Mrs. Goodwin having remained at home with Alice. The dancing went on
with great animation, and when the hour of supper arrived there was a
full and merry table. The friar was in great glee, but from time to time
kept his eye closely fixed upon Woodward, whose countenance and conduct
he watched closely; It might have been about the hour of midnight, if
not later, when, after a short lull in the conversation, Father Mulrenin
addressed Mr. Goodwin as follows:--
“Mr. Goodwin, is there not a family in your neighborhood named Lindsay?”
“There is,” replied Goodwin; “and a very respectable family, too.”
“By the way, there is a very curious tradition, or legend, connected
with the family of Mr. Lindsay's wife: have you ever heard of it?”
“That such a tradition, or legend, exists, I believe,” he replied, “but
there are many versions of it--although I have never heard any of
them distinctly; something I did hear about what is termed the
_Shan-dhinne-dhuv_, or the Black Spectre.”
“Well, then,” proceeded the friar, “if the company has no objection to
hear an authentic account of this fearful apparition, I will indulge
them with a slight sketch of the narrative:
“When Essex was over here in the Elizabethan wars--and a nice hand he
made of them; not, God knows, that we ought to regret it, but I like a
good general whether he is for us or against us--devil a doubt of that:
well, when Essex was over here conducting them (with reverence be
it spoken) it so happened that he had a scoundrel with him by name
Hamilton--and a thorough scoundrel was he. O Lord! if I had lived in
those days, and wasn't in Orders to tie my hands up--but no matter; this
same scoundrel was one of the handsomest vagabonds in the English camp.
Well and good; but, indeed, to tell God's truth, it was neither well nor
good, because, as I said, the man was a first-rate, tiptop scoundrel;
but you will find that he was a devilish sight more so before I have put
a period to my little narration. Mr. Woodward, will you hob or nob? I
think your name is Woodward?”
“With great pleasure, sir,” replied Woodward; “and you are right, my
name is Woodward; but proceed with your narrative, for, I assure you, I
feel very much interested in it, especially in that portion of it which
relates to the Black Spectre. Though not a believer in supernatural
appearances, I feel much gratification in listening to accounts of them.
Pray proceed, sir.”
“Well sir, it so happened that this Hamilton, who had been originally
a Scotch Redshank, became privately acquainted with a beautiful and
wealthy orphan girl, a relation of the O'Neils; and it so happened
again, that whether they made a throw on the dice for it or not, he won
her affections. So far, however, there was nothing very particularly
obnoxious in it, because we know that intermarriages between Catholics
and Protestants may disarm the parties of their religious prejudices
against each other; and although I cannot affirm the truth of what I am
about to say from my own experience, still, I think I have been able to
smell out the fact that little Cupid is of no particular religion, and
can be claimed by no particular church; or rather I should say that he
is claimed by all churches and all creeds. This Hamilton, as I said, was
exceedingly handsome, but it seems from the tradition that it was by the
beauty of his eyes that Eva O'Neil was conquered, just as the first
Eve was by the eyes and tongue of the serpent. Not, God knows, that the
great Eve was any great shakes, for she left the world in a nice plight
by falling in love with a serpent; but upon my credit she was not the
first woman, excuse the blunder, who fell in love with a serpent, and
suffered accordingly. I appeal to Pythagoras there.”
“It is an allegory,” replied the Pythagorean, “and simply means that we
are innocent so long as we are young, and that when we come to maturity
we are corrupted and depraved by our passions.”
“How the sorra can you say that,” replied the friar, “when you know that
Adam and Eve were created full-grown?”
“Pray go on with your tradition,” said Greatrakes, “and let us hear the
history of the Black Spectre. I am not myself an infidel in the history
of supernatural appearances, and I wish to hear you out.”
“Well, then,” replied the friar, “you shall. The villain proposed
marriage to this beautiful young orphan, and as he was a handsome
vagabone, as I have stated, he was accepted; but his eyes, above all
things, were irresistible. They were married by a Protestant clergyman,
and immediately afterwards by a Catholic priest, who was far advanced
in years. The lady would submit to no marriage but a legal one. The
marriage, however, was private; for Hamilton knew that Essex was aware
of his having been during this event a married man, and that his
wife, who was a distant relation of the Earl's, was still living. The
marriage, however, came to Essex's ears, and Hamilton was called to
account. He denied the marriage, the old priest having been now dead,
and none but the Protestant clergyman of the parish being alive to bear
testimony to the fact of the marriage. He endeavored to prevail upon the
clergyman also to deny the marriage, which he refused to do, whereupon
he was found murdered. His wife by this marriage having learned from
Essex that Hamilton had most treacherously deceived her, fell into
premature labor and died; but her last words were an awful curse upon
him, and his children after him, to the last generation.
“'May the Eye that lured me to destruction,' she said, 'become a curse
to you and your descendants forever! May it blight and kill all those
whom it looks upon, and render it dreadful and dreaded to all those who
will place confidence in you or your descendants!'”
“God knows I couldn't much blame her; it was her last Christian
benediction to the villain who had destroyed her, and, setting-charity
aside, I don't see how she could have spoken otherwise.
“When the proofs of the marriage, however, were about to be brought
against him, the Protestant clergyman, who, on discovering his iniquity,
was too honest to conceal it, and who felt bitterly the fraud that had
been practised on him, was found murdered, as I have said, because he
was now the only evidence left against Hamilton's crime. The latter
did not, however, get rid of him by that atrocious and inhuman act. The
spirit of that man haunts the family from that day to this; it is always
a messenger of evil to them whenever he appears, and it matters not
where they go or where they live, he is sure to follow them, and to
fasten upon some of the family, generally the wickedest, of course,
as his victim. Now, Mr. Woodward, what do you think of that family
tradition?”
“I think of it,” replied Woodward, “with contempt, as I do of everything
that proceeds from the lips of an ignorant and illiterate Roman Catholic
priest.”
“Sir,” replied the friar, “I am not the inventor of this family
tradition, nor of the crime which is said--however justly I know not--to
have given rise to it; but this I do know, that no man having claims to
the character of a gentleman would use such language to a defenceless
man as you have just used to me. The legend is traditionary in your
family, and I have only given it as I have heard it. If I were not a
clergyman I would chastise you for your insolence; but my hands are
bound up, and you well know it.”
“Friar,” said Greatrakes, “when you know that your hands are bound up,
you should have avoided insulting any man. You should not have related
a piece of family history--perhaps false from beginning to end--in the
presence of a gentleman so intimately connected with that family as you
knew him to be. It was no topic for a common room like this, and it was
quite unjustifiable in you to have introduced it.”
“I feel, sir, that you are perfectly right,” replied the good-natured
friar, “and I ask Mr. Woodward's pardon for having, without the
slightest intention of offence to him, done so. You will recollect that
he himself expressed an anxiety to hear it.”
“All I say upon the subject,” observed the Pythagorean, “is simply this,
that Pythagoras himself could not have cured me of the rheumatism as my
friend Valentine Greatrakes has done.”
“You will require no cure, and, what is better, no necessity for cure,”
replied Greatrakes, smiling, “if you will have only common sense, my
dear Cooke. Clothe yourself in warm and comfortable garments, and feed
your miserable carcass with good beef and mutton, and, in addition
to which, like myself and the friar here, take a warm tumbler of good
usquebaugh punch to promote digestion.”
“I will never abandon my principles,” replied the philosopher. “Linen
and vegetable diet forever.”
Manifold was asleep after his gorge,--a sleep from which he never
awoke,--but Doctor Doolittle, anxious to secure Cooke as a patient,
became quite eloquent upon the advantages of a vegetable diet, and of
the Pythagorean system in general; after which the conversation of the
night closed, and the guests departed to their respective lodgings.
The night was still an beautiful. The moon was about to sink, but still
she emitted that faint and shadowy light which lends such calm, but
picturesque beauty to the nocturnal landscape. Woodward was alone;
but it would be difficult to find language in which to describe the
bitterness of his feelings and the frightful sense of his disappointment
on finding, not only that his infamous design upon the life of Alice
Goodwin had been frustrated, but on feeling certain that she had been
restored to perfect health before his eyes. This, however, was not
the worst of it. He had calculated on killing her, and consequently of
securing the twelve hundred a year, on the strength of which he and his
mother could confidently negotiate with the old nobleman, who always
slept with one eye open. In the venom and dark malignity of his heart
he cursed Alice Goodwin, he cursed Valentine Greatrakes, he cursed
the world, and he cursed God, or rather would have cursed him had he
believed in the existence of such a being.
In this mood of mind he was proceeding to his lodgings, when he espied
before him the _Shan-dhinne-dhuv_, or Black Spectre with the middogue in
his hand. He stood and looked at it steadily.
“What is this?” said he, addressing the figure before him. “What pranks
are you playing now? Do you think me a fool? What brought you here? and
what do you mean by this pantomimic nonsense, Mr. Conjurer?”
The figure, of course, made no reply, except by gesture. It brandished
the middogue, or dagger, however, and pointed it three times at his
heart. The spot upon which this strange interview occurred was perfectly
clear of anything that could conceal an individual. In fact it was an
open common. Woodward, consequently, led astray by circumstances with
which the reader will become subsequently acquainted, started forward
with the intention of reaching the individual whom he suspected of
indulging himself in playing with his fears, or rather with jocularly
intending to excite them. He sprang forward, we say, and reached the
spot on which the Black Spectre had stood, but our readers may judge
of his surprise when he found that the spectre, or whatever it was,
had disappeared, and was nowhere, or any longer, visible. Place of
concealment there was none. He examined the ground about him. It was
firm and compact, and without a fissure in which a rat could, conceal
itself.
There is no power in human nature which enables the heart of man, under
similar circumstances, to bear the occurrence of such a scene as we have
described, unmoved. The man was hardened--an infidel, an atheist; but,
notwithstanding all this, a sense of awe, wonder, and even, in some
degree, of terror, came over his heart, which nearly unnerved him.
Most atheists, however, are utter profligates, as he was; or silly
philosophers, who, because they take their own reason for their guide,
will come to no other conclusion than that to which it leads them. “It
is simply a hallucination,” said he to himself, “and merely the result
of having heard the absurd nonsense of what that ignorant and credulous
old friar related tonight concerning my family. Still it is strange,
because I am cool and sober, and in the perfect use of my senses. This
is the same appearance which I saw before near the Haunted House, and of
which I never could get any account. What if there should be--?”
He checked himself and proceeded to his lodgings, with an intention of
returning home the next morning; which he did, after having failed in
the murderous mission which he undertook to accomplish.
“Mother,” said he, after his return home, “all is lost: Alice Goodwin
has been restored to perfect health by Valentine Greatrakes, and
my twelve hundred a year is gone for ever. How can we enter into
negotiations with that sharp old scoundrel, Lord Cockle-town, now?
I assure you I had her at the last gasp, when Greatrakes came in and
restored her to perfect health before my face. But, setting that aside
for the present, is there such a being as what is termed the Black
Spectre, mysteriously connected, if I may say so, with our family?”
His mother's face got pale as death.
“Why do you ask, Harry?” said she.
“Because,” he replied, “I have reason to think that I have seen it
twice.”
“Alas! alas!” she exclaimed, “then the doom of the curse is upon you. It
selects only one of every generation on which to work its vengeance. The
third appearance of it will be fatal to you.”
“This is all contemptible absurdity, my dear mother. I don't care if I
saw it a thousand times. How can it interfere with my fate?”
“It does not interfere,” she replied, “it only intimates it, and
whatever the nature of the individual's death among our family may be,
it shadows it out. What signs did it make to you?”
“It brandished what is called in this country a middogue, or Irish
dagger, at my heart.”
His mother got pale again.
“Harry,” said she, “I would recommend you to leave the kingdom. Avoid
the third warning!”
“Mother,” he replied, “this certainly is sad nonsense. I have no notion
of leaving the kingdom in consequence of such superstitious stuff as
this; all these things are soap bubbles; put your finger on them and
they dissolve into nothing. How is Charles? for I have not yet seen
him.”
“Improving very much, although not able yet to leave his room.”
Woodward walked about and seemed absorbed in thought.
“It is a painful thing, mother,” said he, “that Charles is so long
recovering. Do you know that I am half inclined to think he will never
recover? His wound was a dreadful one, and its consequences on his
constitution will, I fear, be fatal.”
“I hope not, Harry,” she replied, “for ever since his illness I have
found that my heart gathers about him with an affection that I have
never felt for him before.”
“Your resolution, then, is fixed, I suppose, to leave him your
property?”
“It is fixed; there is, or can be, no doubt about it. Once I come to a
determination I am immovable. We shall be able to wheedle Lord
Cockletown and his niece.”
Harry paused a moment, then passed out of the room, and retired to his
own apartment.
Here he remained for hours. At the close of the evening he appeared in
the withdrawing-room, but still in a silent and gloomy state.
The perfect cure of Miss Goodwin had spread like wildfire, and reached
the whole country.
Greatrake's reputation was then at its highest, and the number of his
cures was the theme of all conversation, Barney Casey had well marked
Woodward since his return from Ballyspellan, and having heard, in
connection with others, that Miss Goodwin had been cured by Greatrakes,
he resolved to keep his eye upon him, and, indeed, as the event will
prove, it was well he did so.
That night, about the hour of twelve o'clock, Barney, who had suspected
that he (Woodward) had either murdered Grace Davoren in order to
conceal his own guilt, or kept her in some secret place for the most
unjustifiable purposes, remarked that, as was generally usual with him,
he did not go to bed at the period peculiar to the habits of the family.
“There is something on my mind this night,” said Barney; “I can't tell
what it is; but I think he is bent on some villainous scheme that ought
to be watched, and in the name of God I will watch him.”
Woodward went out of the house more stealthily than usual, and took his
way towards the town of Rathfillan. A good way in the distance behind
him might be discovered another figure dogging his footsteps, that
figure being no other than the honest figure of Barney Casey. On
went Woodward unsuspicious that he was watched, until he reached the
indescribable cabin of Sol Donnel, the old herbalist. The night had
become dark, and Barney was able, without being seen, to come near
enough to Woodward to hear his words and observe his actions. He tapped
at the old man's window, which, after some delay and a good deal of
grumbling, was at length opened to him. The hut consisted of only one
room--a fact which Barney well knew.
“Who is there?” said the old herbalist. “Why do you come at this hour to
deprive me of my rest? Nobody comes for any good purpose at such an hour
as this.”
“Open your door, you hypocritical old sinner, and I will speak to you.
Open your door instantly.”
“Wait, then; I will open it; to be sure--I will open it; because I know
whoever you are that if there was not something extraordinary in it, it
isn't at this hour you'd be coming to me.”
“Open the door I say, and then I shall speak to you.”
The window, which the old herbalist had opened, and, in the hurry of
the moment, left unshut, remained unshut, and Barney, after Woodward had
entered, stood close to it in order to hear the conversation which might
pass between them.
“Now,” said Woodward, after he had entered the hut, “I want a dose
from you. One of my dogs, I fear, is seized with incipient symptoms of
hydrophobia, and I wish to dose him to death.”
“And what hour is this to come for such a purpose?” asked Sol Donnel. “It
isn't at midnight that a man comes to me to ask for a dose of poison for
a dog.”
“You are very right in that,” replied Woodward; “but the truth is, that
I had an assignation with a girl in the town, and I thought that I might
as well call upon you now as at any other time.”
The eye of the old sinner glistened, for he knew perfectly well that the
malady of the dog was a fable.
“Well,” said he, “I can give you the dose, but what's to be the
recompense?”
“What do you ask?” replied the other. “I will dose nothing under five
pounds.”
“Are you certain that your dose will be sure to effect its purpose?”
asked Woodward.
“As sure as I am of life,” replied the old sinner; “one glass of it
would settle a man as soon as it would a dog;” and as he spoke he
fastened his keen, glittering eyes upon Woodward. The glance seemed to
say, I understand you, and I know that the dog you are about to give the
dose to walks upon two legs instead of four.
“Now,” said Woodward after having secured the bottle, “here are your
five pounds, and _mark me_----” he looked sternly in the face of the
herbalist, but added not another word.
The herbalist, having secured the money and deposited it in his pocket,
said, with a malicious grin,
“Couldn't you, Mr. Woodward, have prevented yourself from going to the
expense of five pounds for poisoning a dog, that you could have shot
without all this expense?”
Woodward looked at him. “Your life,” said he, “will not be worth a day's
purchase if you breathe a syllable of what took place between us this
night. Sol Donnel, I am a desperate man, otherwise I would not have come
to you. Keep the secret between us, for, if you divulge it, you may take
my word for it that you will not survive it twenty-four hours. Now, be
warned, for I am both resolute and serious.”
The herbalist felt the energy of his language and was subdued.
“No,” he replied, “I shall never breathe it; kill your dog in your own
way; all I can say is, that half a glass of it would kill the strongest
horse in your stable; only let me remark that I gave you the bottle to
kill a dog!”
“Now,” thought Barney Casey, “what can all this mean? There is none
of the dogs wrong. He is at some devil's work; but what it is I do not
know; I shall watch him well, however, and it will go hard or I shall
find out his purpose.”
As Woodward was about to depart he mused for a time, and at length
addressed the herbalist.
“Suppose,” said he, “that I wish to kill this dog by slow degrees, would
it not be a good plan to give him a little of it every day, and let him
die, as it were, by inches?”
“That my bed may be made in heaven but it is a good thought, and by
far the safest plan,” replied the herbalist, “and the very one I would
recommend you. A small spoonful every day put into his coffee or her
coffee, as the case may be, will, in the course of a fortnight or three
weeks, make a complete cure.”
“Why, you old scoundrel, who ever heard of a dog drinking coffee?”
“I did,” replied the old villain, with another grin, “and many a time
it is newly sweetened for them, too, and they take it until they fall
asleep; but they forget to waken somehow. Taste that yourself, and
you'll find that it is beautifully sweetened; because if it was given to
the dog in its natural bitter state he might refuse to take it at all,
or, what would be worse and more dangerous still, he might suspect the
reason why it was given to him.”
The two persons looked each other in the face, and it would, indeed,
be difficult to witness such an expression as the countenance of each
betrayed. That of the herbalist lay principally in his ferret eyes. It
was cruel, selfish, cunning, and avaricious. The eye of the other was
dark, significant, vindictive, and terrible. In his handsome features
there was, when contrasted with those of the herbalist, a demoniacal
elevation, a satanic intellectuality of expression, which rendered the
contrast striking beyond belief. The one appeared with the power of
Apollyon, the god of destruction, conscious of that power; the other
as his mere contemptible agent of evil-subordinate, low, villanous, and
wicked.
Woodward, after a significant look, bade him good night, and took his
way home.
Barney Casey, however, still dogged him stealthily, because he knew not
whether the dose was intended for Grace Davoren or his brother Charles.
Mrs. Lindsay had made no secret of her intention to leave her property
to the latter, whose danger, and the state of whose health, had awakened
all those affections of the mother which had lain dormant in her heart
so long. The revivification of her affections for him was one of those
capricious manifestations of feeling which can emanate from no other
source but the heart of a mother. Independently of this, there was in
the mind of Mrs. Lindsay a principle of conscious guilt, of hardness of
heart, of all want of common humanity, that sometimes startled her into
terror. She knew the villany of her son Woodward, and, after all, the
heart of a woman and a mother is not like the heart of a man. There is a
tendency to recuperation in a woman's and a mother's heart, which can
be found nowhere else; and the contrast which she felt herself forced
to institute between the generous character of her son Charles and the
villany of Woodward broke down the hard propensities of her spirit, and
subdued her very wickedness into something like humanity. Virtue and
goodness, after all, will work their way, especially where a mother's
feelings, conscious of the evil and conscious of the good, are forced
to strike the balance between them. This consideration it was which
determined Mrs. Lindsay, in addition to other considerations already
alluded to, to come to the resolution of leaving her property to her son
Charles. There is, besides, a want of confidence and of mutual affection
in villany which reacts upon the heart, precisely as it did upon that of
Mrs. Lindsay. She knew that her eldest son was in intention a murderer;
and there is a terrible summons in conscience which sometimes awakens
the soul into a sense of virtue and truth.
Be this as it may, Barney Casey's vigilance was ineffectual. From the
night on which Woodward got the bottle from the herbalist, Charles
Lindsay began gradually and slowly to decline. Barney's situation in the
family was that of a general servant, in fact, a man of all work, and
the necessary consequence was, that he could not contravene the conduct
of Harry Woodward, although he saw clearly that, notwithstanding
Charles's wound was nearly healed, his general health was getting worse.
Now, the benevolence and singular power of Valentine Greatrakes are
historical facts which cannot be contradicted. After about a month from
the time he cured Alice Goodwin he came to the town of Rathfillan, with
several objects in view, one of which was to see Alice Goodwin, and to
ascertain that her health was perfectly reestablished. But the other
and greater one was that which we shall describe. Mr. Lindsay, having
perceived that his son Charles's health was gradually becoming worse,
though his wound was healed, and on finding that the physician who
attended him could neither do anything for his malady, nor even account
for it, or pronounce a diagnosis upon its character, bethought him
of the man who had so completely cured Alice Goodwin. Accordingly, on
Greatrakes's visit to Rathfillan, he waited upon him, and requested, as
a personal favor, that he would come and see his dying son, for indeed
Charles at that time was apparently not many days from death. This
distinguished and wealthy gentleman at once assented, and told Mr.
Lindsay that he “would visit his sen the next day.
“I may not cure him,” said he, “because there are certain complaints
which cannot be cured. Such complaints I never attempt to cure; and even
in others that are curable I sometimes fail. But wherever there is a
possibility of cure I rarely fail. I am not proud of this gift; on the
contrary, it has subdued my heart into a sense of piety and gratitude to
God, who, in his mercy, has been pleased to make me the instrument of so
much good to my fellow-creatures.”
Mr Lindsay returned home to his family in high spirits, and on his way
to the house observed his stepson Woodward and Barney Casey at the door
of the dog-kennel.
“I maintain the dog is wrong,” said Woodward, “and to me it seems an
incipient case of hydrophobia.”
“And to me,” replied Barney, “it appears that his complaint is hunger,
and that you have simply deprived him of his necessary food.”
At this moment Mr. Lindsay approached them, and exclaimed,--
“Harry, let your honest and affectionate heart cheer up. Valentine
Greatrakes will be here to-morrow, and will cure Charles, as he cured
Alice Goodwin, and then we will have them married; for if he recovers
I am determined on it, and will abide no opposition from any quarter.
Indeed, Harry, your mother is now willing that they should be married,
and is sorry that she ever opposed it. Your mother, thank God, is a
changed woman, and thank God the change is one that makes my very heart
rejoice.”
“God be praised,” exclaimed Barney, “that is good news, and makes my
heart rejoice nearly as much as yours.”
“Father,” said Woodward, “you have taken a heavy load off my mind.
Charles is certainly very ill, and until Greatrakes comes I shall make
it a point to watch and nurse-tend him myself.”
“It is just what I would expect from your kind and affectionate heart,
Harry,” replied Lindsay, rather slowly though, who then passed into
the house to communicate the gratifying intelligence to his wife and
daughter.
The intensity of Woodward's malignity and villany was such that, as we
have mentioned before, on some occasions he forgot himself into such
a state of mind, and, what was worse, into such an expression of
countenance, as, especially to Barney Casey, who so deeply suspected
him, challenged observation. After Lindsay had gone he put his hand to
his chin, and said, still with caution,--
“Yes, poor fellow, I will watch him myself this night; for if he
happened to die before Greatrakes comes to-morrow, what an affliction
would it not be to the family, and especially to myself, who love him so
well. Yes, in order to sustain and support him, I will watch him and act
as his nurse this night.”
There was, however, such an expression on his countenance as could not
be mistaken even by a common observer, much less by such an acute one
as Barney Casey, who had his eye upon him for such a length of time!
His countenance, Barney saw plainly, was as dark as hell, and seemed to
catch its inspiration from that damnable region.
“Barney,” said he, “I shall watch the sick bed, and nurse my brother
Charles tonight, in order, if possible, to sustain him until Greatrakes
cures him to-morrow.”
“Ah, it's you that is the affectionate brother,” replied Barney, who had
read deliberate murder in his countenance. “But,” he exclaimed, after
Woodward had gone, “if you watch him this night, I will watch you. You
know now that he stands between you and your mother's property, and you
will put him out of the way if you can. Yes, I will watch you well this
night.”
The minute poisoned doses which he had contrived to administer to his
brother were always followed by an excessive thirst. Now, Barney had,
as we have often said, strong suspicions; but on this occasion he was
determined to place himself in a position from which he could watch
every movement of Woodward without being suspected himself. His usual
sleeping place was in a low gallery below stairs; but it so happened
that there was a closet beside Charles's bed in which there was neither
bed nor furniture of any kind, with the exception of a single chair. The
door between them had, as is usual, two panes of glass in; it, through
which any person in the dark could see what happened in the room in
which Charles slept.
Barney locked the door on the inside, and it was well that he did so,
for in a short time Woodward came in, with a guilty and a stealthy pace,
and having looked, like a murderer, about the room, he approached the
closet door and tried to open it; but finding that it was locked his
apprehensions vanished, and he deliberately, on seeing that his brother
was asleep, took a bottle out of his pocket, and having poured about a
wine-glassful of the poison into the small jug which contained the usual
drink of the patient, he left the room, satisfied that, as soon as
his brother awoke, he would take the deadly draught. When he departed,
Barney came out, and having substituted another for it--for there was a
variety of potions on the sick table--he, too, stealthily descended
the stairs, and going to the dog-kennel deliberately administered the
pernicious draught to the dog which Woodward had insisted was unwell.
He happily escaped all observation, and accomplished his plan without
either notice or suspicion. He stayed in the kennel in order to watch
the effects of the potion upon the dog, who died in the course of about
fifteen minutes after having received it.
“Now,” said Barney, “I think I have my thumb upon him, and it will go
hard with me or I will make him suffer for this hellish intention to
murder his brother. Mr. Greatrakes is a man of great wealth and high
rank; he is, besides, a magistrate of the county, and, please God, I
will disclose to him all that I have seen and suspect.”
Barney, under the influence of these feelings, went to bed, satisfied
that he had saved the life of Charles Lindsay, at least for that night,
but at the same time resolved to bring his murderous brother to an
account for his conduct.