It was broad day when Abigail awoke. On arousing herself, she
found that the dame, whom she had left so disordered, looked
now less feverish, and was locked in repose. Apparently much
gratified by a glance at her aspect, she rose to her feet;
and proceeded, with the stealthy step which she had all along
maintained, but which was not so noiseless as she supposed, to
make her egress from the chamber.
On reaching the passage without, she softly closed the door
of the chamber, and descended straight to the kitchen. There,
preparatory to other household arrangements, she shortly kindled
a fire, and set everything in order for an early breakfast.
Various and arduous were the duties that she had to discharge.
To scrub here, and sweep there--to rub this, and wash that,
employed her continually; and a not very encouraging feature in
her performance, on a close examination, was, that it appeared to
have little effect, and that, after undergoing a very extensive
process of cleansing, everything appeared to be quite as dirty as
at first.
But she was clearly not aware that her industry was so
unprofitable. A much more important idea, indeed--and even a more
singular one--engaged her attention. She felt convinced that she
was bewitched!
Several things, it must be owned, had gone wrong during the
morning. In the first place, she had had some difficulty,
beyond what she could reasonably have looked for, in kindling a
fire; secondly, she had afterwards cut her hand; and thirdly,
in washing the earthenware, she had nearly broken a drinking-mug.
Now, philosophers have discovered, among other great and
mysterious truths, that there can be no effect without a
cause; and though Abigail was not well read in philosophy,
or in anything else (being unable to read at all), her shrewd
mind acquired this information instinctively. She thus became
sensible, on consideration, that her unlucky mishaps were not
spontaneous, but were the effect and issue of some unseen cause.
What could it be? Some people would have thought, on a
superficial review of the subject, that her difficulty in
kindling the fire arose from the fact of its being carelessly
laid; that she had cut her hand through having misguided the
knife; and that she had nearly broken the drinking-mug, which was
her crowning mishap, because she had had but a slight hold of
it. But Abigail was not so simple. She knew, from experience, a
teacher not to be slighted, that the prevailing influence was of
a higher origin; and she hastened to search around for some trace
of its presence.
A brief investigation distinctly elicited its malignant source.
It lay on the shelf of a neighbouring cupboard, in one corner;
and presented to her doubting eyes, on their very first glance,
the fragment of an onion!
Who has not heard what a tide of misfortune the retention of this
esculent, in a broken state, will bring on a household? Abigail
knew its evil effects but too well. But how to counteract them,
without some way injuring herself (which she feared that her
personal interposition would do), was a matter which she was not
so promptly or easily resolved on.
At last, she determined to seek Zedekiah; and endeavour, by a
little excusable cajolery, and the exercise of those arts which
are the chief attribute of her sex, and of which Zedekiah was an
impassioned admirer, to prevail on him to remove the infectious
vegetable. Although he had not yet appeared in the kitchen, she
doubted not that he was up; and the stable, over which he slept,
seemed to her to be the place where she was most likely to find
him.
Zedekiah had, indeed, been up for some time, and, as she
supposed, was really engaged in the stable. But far other
thoughts than his horses engrossed his attention--more melancholy
functions than a groom’s, or even a clerk’s, claimed his
administration.
The great aim of his ambition had at length been attained, and,
in a few days more, he was to officiate at a funeral, not as an
humble follower, but in the honourable capacity of chief mourner.
How to qualify himself for this distinguished post was a matter
which had pressed on his consideration the whole of the previous
night. On rising in the morning, his first thought, in pursuing
the melancholy theme, prompted him to enact the contemplated
obsequies at home, and thus prepare himself for his part by a
rehearsal. Accordingly, he caught up a spade, and proceeded, with
much jocularity of aspect, to dig a hole in the stable-yard,
in the form of a grave. This preliminary measure achieved, his
next step was to provide a coffin and pall; and an old broom,
with a tattered horse-cloth, which lay in one corner of the
stable, furnished him with both those auxiliaries. But here he
was brought to a stand: he had provided the funeral furniture;
his arrangements for interment, as far as referred to personal
particulars, were complete; but there was no mournful bearer to
carry the broom to its grave!
While Zedekiah was meditating on the deficiency, the grave but
impassioned Abigail, marked with the grime of her avocations,
made her appearance in the stable. Here was a bearer for him
every way suitable. Zedekiah, transported with joy, greeted her
eagerly, and at once explained to her how he was situated. But
it required all his rhetoric, supported by his entreaties, to
remove her objection to undertake the office he proposed to her;
and it was not till he consented, in requital, to aid her in the
matter of the onion, which she considered far more weighty and
important, that he was able to win her to his purpose.
Her compliance once gained, the broom and horse-cloth, arranged
in due form, were raised to her shoulder, and she set out for the
grave. Zedekiah followed, “with solemn step and slow,” and with a
dirty napkin, as a substitute for a handkerchief, raised to his
lugubrious visage.
A funereal pace being maintained, the mournful procession
progressed but slowly; but as the grave, though on the extreme
confines of the yard, was no great distance from the stable, it
shortly arrived thither. As it drew up at the brink of the grave,
Zedekiah’s grief became excessive; and several minutes more
elapsed, to the manifest irritation of Abigail, before he could
finally resolve himself to consign the poor broom to its last
home. Then, having stripped it of the horse-cloth, he lifted it
carefully from Abigail’s shoulder, and lowered it into the grave.
The solemn moment of final separation had now arrived; and
Zedekiah, to all appearance, felt it severely. But after one
passionate outburst, his composure gradually returned; and he
proceeded, in a whining tone, and with a stern expression of
countenance, to utter his last farewell, in these words:--
“Ashes to ashes,
And dust to dust!
If death don’t keep thee,
The devil must!”
The funeral thus despatched, the afflicted chief mourner,
pursuant to the arrangement already set forth, was obliged
to tear himself away from the grave, and enter on the design
enforced on him by Abigail. Resolved to carry that design into
execution, he forthwith accompanied Abigail, who was heartily
weary of mourning, and glad to escape, to the kitchen, and
prepared to order himself as she should direct.
But both he and Abigail were unexpectedly interrupted in their
project. As the latter was deliberating, according to her custom
on such occasions, how they could best proceed, they were
confounded by the entrance of Shedlock.
His face was as pale as death; his eyes were almost starting from
their sockets; and he appeared, at first sight, to be hardly able
to stand. His two domestics gazed on him with a feeling of awe;
and the communication that he was about to make to them, and
which we shall have to record hereafter, was not calculated to
compose them.