There’s a dark spirit walking in our house,
And swiftly will the destiny close on us.
SCHILLER.
IT was nearly twelve o’clock when the Edinburgh coach reached
Stirling, carrying Harry, much subdued and cast down, but in reality
this time detained by obstacles over which he had no control. During
all this journey he had been contemplating the grim strength of ruin
face to face--feeling himself now utterly beyond help or hope, able to
do nothing but sit down and wait for the final blow. The place at which
he had appointed his servant to meet him was some distance from the
coach-office; and taking his little valise in his hand, Harry walked
with a heavy, weary step, much unlike his usual elastic one, to find
John.
The streets were still and deserted, the shops shut, the lights
extinguished in almost every house he passed. The very public-houses,
inns, and lower places of the same kind had put out all but one
solitary lamp, which, just enough to light those who were within,
looked dreary and melancholy to everybody without. Harry went along
the street feeling himself an utter stranger here. This was partly
true; for the friends he had made were of a very unpromising kind, and,
themselves broken men for the most part, could render little comfort
to a man at the point of ruin; but partly it was the mere desolation
of the silent street, echoing to his footstep, which impressed the
sensitive mind of Harry. He went along with his valise under his arm,
and his pale face drooping--a face marked with lines of altogether new
rigidity, and full of a silent forlorn despair, which it was touching
to see in one so young, and naturally so hopeful. He could not tell
what chill it was that overpowered his heart--ruin!--a descent from
his rank and his inheritance--a return characterless, and with many
a new habit of evil, to the occupation in which once before he had
failed--worse than all, the remembrance of his sins, which returned
to look him in the face like upbraiding spirits. Yet even this was
not all: a vague dread, a shivering, mysterious presentiment of some
unknown evil to come, hovered over these real griefs, and gave them
shape and form, in a torpor of despair.
He set out upon the road with his servant at a rapid pace; but in spite
of himself, the tramp of John’s horse, continually taking the course
of his own behind, irritated him almost beyond endurance. He suffered
it as long as he could, feeling his irritation a weakness; but at last
yielded to the overpowering sense of annoyance which this trifling
matter occasioned him, and sent his man on, following himself more
slowly.
The night was very dark--dark as it is only in a perfectly rural
country; and as the ringing silence closed about him, and he heard
nothing but an occasional sigh from the river, or a faint flutter
among the falling leaves, or the sound of his own progress upon the
solitary road, Harry’s thoughts strayed away from his great miseries.
Once or twice, a leaf in its descent blew across his face, and made his
horse wince, and his heart beat--and then, there returned upon Harry
his vague and inexpressible fear; but shut out from every _sight_,
as he was, by this utter darkness, there rose up scenes of cheerful
light before his imagination, beautiful to see: Uncle Sandy’s house at
Ayr--the little parlour in Glasgow--the home in Allenders to which he
was returning. A strange, dreamy pleasure stole over him--he forgot
his sins, his misfortunes, his near and inevitable ruin--he thought of
the home enjoyments which no man had known more largely--he thought
of his little loving wife--of the passionate affection of Martha--of
Rose’s gentler tenderness, and strange little poetic Lettie, with her
wistful eyes. Poor Harry! his heart swelled with sudden relief as these
came to his imagination: little domestic remembrances, looks, words,
innocent mistakes and blunders, things which long ago brought pleasant,
kindly laughter, or tender tears to the faces of them all. The reins
fell loosely on his horse’s neck as he resigned himself to this repose;
and the cottage firesides at Maidlin, and the boyish companions of
Ayr, looked in, and interwove themselves with those fancies of home.
Sometimes he tried to rouse himself, and a sharp pain shot through
his heart as for a moment he remembered his real state and prospects;
but still this singular dream returned upon him, and in his heart he
thanked God!
Meanwhile, in Allenders they sit and watch, looking out with dread and
sickening pain into the darkness, praying till their hearts are again
“like to break.” Sometimes Agnes kneels down by a chair, and hides her
face, and utters a low unconscious cry; sometimes Martha walks heavily
up or down the room, pausing in the midst, to think she hears in
reality the sound which has mocked them in imagination all the night.
“I am going to my own room--do not come to me,” said Martha, at last,
in a half-whisper, and she left them without another word.
But not to her own chamber to weep or pray, as they thought; Mysie
nodding by the kitchen fire was suddenly startled by Martha’s
appearance, with a rigid white face like death, and a cloak enveloping
her whole person. With a slight scream, the drowsy girl started to her
feet, scarcely knowing if she saw a human being or a spirit.
“Mysie, you are bold,” said Martha, with such distinct rapidity that
her words seemed to occupy no time. “I want the carriage instantly. I
am going to seek my brother. Come, and show me what has to be done.”
“I’ll waken John,” said the terrified Mysie.
“I do not require John. What is to be done, I can do myself. Give me a
light.”
But Mysie, who was in reality a brave girl, and could manage horses as
easily as she managed the brown cow, and who besides doted on little
Harry and the baby, and would not have hesitated at even a greater
thing for their father, answered by lifting John’s lantern; and
catching down a plaid which hung on the wall as they passed, she led
the way to the stables without another word.
It was a strange scene: Mysie excited, and still half-dreaming, forced
the unwilling horse between the shafts; and Martha, like a marble
statue, with hands which never trembled nor hesitated, secured the
fastenings in perfect silence. John could not have done this daily
business of his in half the time which it took these women to lead the
carriage softly out of the stables round by a lane behind the house
into the highway. They had no time to seek for the lamps to light
them, so Martha carried the lantern in her hand, and held it up into
the darkness as they advanced, while Mysie drove on steadily towards
Stirling.
They had not gone a mile, Martha continually lifting her lantern and
gazing into the gloom, when they heard that some one on a gallopping
horse approached them. Martha rose to her feet, and held up the light.
It seemed to scare the animal, who suddenly paused, with reins dangling
on his neck and foam upon his breast; but he was riderless. “It’s
Allenders’ ain horse,” said Mysie, in a strong hissing whisper through
her closed teeth, as she touched the bay in the carriage with her
whip, and with a leap they proceeded. But Martha desperately caught at
the reins of the other horse, and grasped them--she could not, even
in her agony for Harry, bear to think that her other children should
receive such a dreadful shock as this, while she was not with them to
strengthen them. And the exhausted animal went on quietly for a little
time--then he began to plunge and rear, and turn towards home. “Let him
go--let him go,” again whispered Mysie, now desperate with anxiety and
fright. “You canna get lookit at the roadside for hauding him--let him
go.”
And Martha did let him go.
Not twenty yards farther on, their horse suddenly came to a dead
pause--and there, lying across the highway, was a dark figure, with a
battered hat by its side, and the face gleaming ghastly in the light of
Martha’s lantern. She was bending over him before Mysie’s first gasp of
terror gave her breath; and Martha’s white lips were calling upon God,
upon God--but no sound came from them upon the heavy darkness.
And the heart beats faintly still in Harry’s breast, and the blood
oozes slowly from the cut upon his brow. She feels it warm upon
her hands--this is how she knows it to be blood--as she lifts his
death-like face upon her knee; and still as her hand presses upon
his heart, and she bends her cheek to his lips to feel if he still
breathes, Martha calls upon the name of the Lord. The name--she can say
nothing but the name--but in it is all prayer.
And now she lifts him up into her own arms, up to the fierce heart
which has throbbed with passionate love for him all his life. Mysie
humbly and with terror asks to help her; but Martha, rising from her
knee with all her burden in her arms, thrusts away unconsciously the
trembling aid, and places him--her boy, her son, poor Harry!--in the
carriage like a child. Then through the gloom which no longer needs a
light, through the horror of darkness which lies over them like a cloak
of iron, pressing down upon their very hearts and hiding the face upon
which Martha’s eyes are fixed continually, though she can only _feel_
it where it lies upon her knee--through this night of solemn gloom and
terror, which is the end--home!
And now, Harry’s horse neighs and craves admittance at his
stable-door; and John, roused out of the sleep from which Mysie had
promised to wake him on his master’s return, starts up terrified, and
cannot find his lantern nor the key which Martha’s trembling helper
has left in the stable-door; and Rose and Agnes rush together, in
terror which has no voice, to seek Martha in her room, and finding her
gone, flee out into the impenetrable darkness and call to John for
the lamps he cannot find, and carry uncovered candles--which, in the
damp air, will not burn--to the gate, with a terrible apprehension of
stumbling over Harry in their path; but, still, accident--any but the
slightest--does not cross their distracted minds, and they never once
think of death!
Yet anguish and terrible dread come upon them as they struggle on along
the dark way, groping for they know not what, while the darkness blinds
their eyes, and chokes their very breath. But far on--far along the
road, where there is a little eminence, half a mile away, appears a
faint, slowly moving light. Instinctively drawing closer together, they
stand, and listen, and watch this speck in the intense gloom. And Agnes
does not know that her incoherent prayers are said aloud; nor does
Rose, though she remembers words of them after, like the broken words
of a dream.
But the light comes nearer; and John, who has turned his master’s
horse into the stable, and given him water, comes back, to grope his
way to his young mistress on the road, and stand beside her, watching
the slow motion of this distant light. Defenceless and open stands the
house of Allenders, where children lie asleep, serene and peaceful,
worn out with pleasure; and not even the watchers at the gate, amid all
their terror and apprehension, have any idea what it is, which comes
towards them through the night.
What is it? Mysie, hearing some far-off whisper of voices, holds up
her lantern, unwitting that the chief light it throws is upon those
two behind. Martha, sitting rigid in the carriage, with a face of
deadly whiteness on her knee, and her hand pressing upon the heart of
the passive, insensible form--pressing against it, as if the frail
life needed to be held fast, lest it should glide away. A shrill cry
startles the darkness at their side, and Martha only knows they have
reached the gate of Allenders, when she hears Harry’s little gentle
wife fall heavily upon the ground, and is startled by the cry of Rose.
Mysie, frightened and exhausted, stopped the carriage. “Drive on!” said
Martha, and her lips spoke the words half-a-dozen times before they
broke, shrill and loud, upon Mysie’s terrified ear. “Rose, be calm.
John, carry Agnes in. I, myself, will care for Harry; he is alive.”
Alive!--but that was all!
Candles stood wasting on the hall table, and the cold black air stole
in heavily, damp and chill. Upon the stairs, a little white figure
called on Martha and Rose, and shivered, and cast looks of terror on
the open door. For Violet had been dreaming of Harry--dreaming terrible
dreams--and she could not rest.
“Let me carry him. I’m stronger than you, and I’ll be as tender as a
woman,” pleaded the awe-stricken John.
But Martha pushed him aside. “A doctor--a doctor! instantly!”
It was all she could say, as she lifted up her burden.
It was well for Martha that her frame was strong, and hardly strung;
for Mysie, who silently assisted, and supported poor Harry’s feet, left
still the great weight of his insensible form in Martha’s arms; and
Martha felt the strain when it was over--she knew nothing of it now.
Alas, poor Harry!--they laid him on his bed; they clustered round him,
the faces which he had seen in his imagination two little hours ago,
so fresh and bright. In this room, where the fire was faintly dying,
were arranged many little things which Rose had fancied he might want
when he came home; but there he lay, with the blood upon his brow,
unconscious, silent, with nothing but his heavy breathing to tell them
that he was alive.
And immediately they heard the desperate gallop at which John set
off, to bring the doctor. The doctor--not Gilbert Allenders, but a
respectable surgeon in the neighbourhood--returned with him without
delay; and John took especial pains to inform him on the road, that
Allenders was “as muckle himsel as I am,” when they parted.
Poor Harry’s leg was broken again; he had sustained some severe
internal injuries, and was terribly bruised over his whole frame. The
surgeon remained all the night, and did everything it was possible to
do, dispatching John to Stirling for assistance before the dawn. But
when the grey still morning began to steal into the room, and Harry,
faintly conscious, lay moaning on his bed, Agnes clasping her hands in
sorrowful entreaty; and lifting up her pathetic eyes to the doctor’s
face, asked if there was any hope.
When she asked, she had scarcely any doubt there was. Danger,
suffering, even positive agonies of endurance were before him, she saw;
but Harry’s wife did not think he could die.
“We have always hope so long as there is life,” said the doctor,
turning his head away.
And Agnes gasped and fell again. It was the warrant of death.
“Will he die?” said Martha, crushing her hands together as she too
looked, but with eyes that demanded an answer, in the doctor’s face.
He waved his hand, and again turned away. The good man saw the mighty
love which would detain and hold this parting soul, and he could not
meet its despair.
“Harry will die!”--no one said it; no one spoke those terrible words
of doom; but it seemed to them all that the air was heavy with the
sentence; and from Martha, who never wearied and never closed her eyes,
ministering by his bedside within, to little Lettie crouching close to
his door, and praying that God would take her--only take her, and save
“my Harry;” there was not one among them who did not carry in their
very face this great and terrible doom.
Wiping the deadly dews from his brow, administering to him the almost
hourly opiates, which no hand in the house, except her own, not even
the surgeon’s, was steady enough to prepare, Martha watched by him
night and day. Harry was seldom conscious, seldom able to recognize,
or address his nurse; but in his broken ravings were things that
touched her to the heart; things of the pure youth--the household life;
nothing--they all thanked God for the especial mercy--nothing mingling
with these innocent remembrances, of his times of secret sin.