Part 49 (1/2)
Laus-a-me, vat a sight it vas!”
Here Dummie paused, and seemed to recall in imagination the scene he had witnessed; but over the mind of Long Ned a ray of light broke slowly.
”Whew!” said he, lifting up his forefinger, ”whew! I smell a rat; this stolen child, then, was no other than Paul. But, pray, to whom did the house belong? For that fact Harry never communicated to me. I only heard the owner was a lawyer, or parson, or some such thing.”
”Vy now, I'll tell you, but don't be glimflashy. So, you see, ven Judy died, and Harry was scragged, I vas the only von living who vas up to the secret; and vhen Mother Lob vas a taking a drop to comfort her vhen Judy vent off, I hopens a great box in which poor Judy kept her duds and rattletraps, and surely I finds at the bottom of the box hever so many letters and sick like,--for I knew as 'ow they vas there; so I vhips these off and carries 'em 'ome with me, and soon arter, Mother Lob sold me the box o' duds for two quids--'cause vy? I vas a rag-merchant. So now I 'solved, since the secret vas all in my hown keeping, to keep it as tight as vinkey; for first, you sees as 'ow I vas afeard I should be hanged if I vent for to tell,--'cause vy? I stole a vatch, and lots more, as vell as the hurchin; and next I vas afeard as 'ow the mother might come back and haunt me the same as Sall haunted Villy, for it vas a 'orrid night ven her soul took ving. And hover and above this, Meester Pepper, I thought summut might turn hup by and by, in vhich it vould be best for I to keep my hown counsel and nab the revard, if I hever durst make myself known.”
Here Dummie proceeded to narrate how frightened he had been lest Ned should discover all, when (as it may be remembered, Pepper informed Paul at the beginning of this history) he encountered that worthy at Dame Lobkins's house; how this fear had induced him to testify to Pepper that coldness and rudeness which had so enraged the haughty highwayman; and how great had been his relief and delight at finding that Ned returned to the Mug no more. He next proceeded to inform his new confidant of his meeting with the father (the sagacious reader knows where and when), and of what took place at that event. He said how, in his first negotiation with the father, prudently resolving to communicate drop by drop such information as he possessed, he merely, besides confessing to a share in the robbery, stated that he thought he knew the house, etc., to which the infant had been consigned,--and that, if so, it was still alive; but that he would inquire. He then related how the sanguine father, who saw that hanging Dummie for the robbery of his house might not be half so likely a method to recover his son as bribery and conciliation, not only forgave him his former outrage, but whetted his appet.i.te to the search by rewarding him for his disclosure. He then proceeded to state how, unable anywhere to find Paul, or any trace of him, he amused the sire from time to time with forged excuses; how, at first, the sums he received made him by no means desirous to expedite a discovery that would terminate such satisfactory receipts; how at length the magnitude of the proffered reward, joined to the threats of the sire, had made him become seriously anxious to learn the real fate and present ”whereabout”
of Paul; how, the last time he had seen the father, he had, by way of propitiation and first fruit, taken to him all the papers left by the unhappy mother and secreted by himself; and how he was now delighted to find that Ned was acquainted with Paul's address. Since he despaired of finding Paul by his own exertions alone, he became less tenacious of his secret; and he now proffered Ned, on discovery of Paul, a third of that reward the whole of which he had once hoped to engross.
Ned's eyes and mouth opened at this proposition. ”But the name,--the name of the father? You have not told me that yet!” cried he, impatiently.
”Noa, noa!” said Dummie, archly, ”I does n't tell you all, till you tells I summut. Vhere's little Paul, I say; and vhere be us to get at him?”
Ned heaved a sigh.
”As for the oath,” said he, musingly, ”it would be a sin to keep it, now that to break it can do him no harm, and may do him good, especially as, in case of imprisonment or death, the oath is not held to be binding; yet I fear it is too late for the reward. The father will scarcely thank you for finding his son!---Know, Dummie, that Paul is in jail, and that he is one and the same person as Captain Lovett!” Astonishment never wrote in more legible characters than she now displayed on the rough features of Dummie Dunnaker. So strong are the sympathies of a profession compared with all others, that Dummie's first confused thought was that of pride. ”The great Captain Lovett!” he faltered.
”Little Paul at the top of the profession! Lord, Lord! I always said as how he'd the hambition to rise!”
”Well, well, but the father's name?”
At this question the expression of Dummie's face fell; a sudden horror struggled to his eyes--
CHAPTER x.x.xV.
Why is it that at moments there creeps over us an awe, a terror, overpowering but undefined? Why is it that we shudder without a cause, and feel the warm life-blood stand still in its courses?
Are the dead too near?
FALKLAND
Ha! sayest thou! Hideous thought, I feel it twine O'er my iced heart, as curls around his prey The sure and deadly serpent!
What! in the hush and in the solitude Pa.s.sed that dread soul away?
Love and Hatred.
The evening prior to that morning in which the above conversation occurred, Brandon pa.s.sed alone in his lodging at --------. He had felt himself too unwell to attend the customary wa.s.sail, and he sat indolently musing in the solitude of the old-fas.h.i.+oned chamber to which he was consigned. There, two wax-candles on the smooth, quaint table dimly struggled against the gloom of heavy panels, which were relieved at unfrequent intervals by portraits in oaken frames, dingy, harsh, and important with the pomp of laced garments and flowing wigs. The predilection of the landlady for modern tastes had, indeed, on each side of the huge fireplace suspended more novel masterpieces of the fine arts. In emblematic gorgeousness hung the pictures of the four Seasons, buxom wenches all, save Winter, who was deformedly bodied forth in the likeness of an aged carle. These were interspersed by an engraving of Lord Mauleverer, the lieutenant of the neighbouring county, looking extremely majestical in his peer's robes; and by three typifications of Faith, Hope, and Charity,--ladies with whom it may be doubted if the gay earl ever before cultivated so close an intimacy. Curtains, of that antique chintz in which fasces of stripes are alternated by rows of flowers, filled the interstices of three windows; a heavy sideboard occupied the greater portion of one side of the room; and on the opposite side, in the rear of Brandon, a vast screen stretched its slow length along, and relieved the unpopulated and as it were desolate comfort of the apartment.
Pale and imperfectly streamed the light upon Brandon's face, as he sat in his large chair, leaning his cheek on one hand, and gazing with the unconscious earnestness of abstraction on the clear fire. At that moment a whole phalanx of gloomy thought was sweeping in successive array across his mind. His early ambition, his ill-omened marriage, the causes of his after-rise in the wrong-judging world, the first dawn of his reputation, his rapid and flattering successes, his present elevation, his aspiring hope of far higher office, and more patrician honours,--all these phantoms pa.s.sed before him in checkered shadow and light; but ever with each stalked one disquieting and dark remembrance,--the loss of his only son.
Weaving his ambition with the wish to revive the pride of his hereditary name, every acquisition of fortune or of fame rendered him yet more anxious to find the only one who could perpetuate these hollow distinctions to his race.
”I shall recover him yet!” he broke out suddenly and aloud. As he spoke, a quick, darting, spasmodic pain ran s.h.i.+vering through his whole frame, and then fixed for one instant on his heart with a gripe like the talons of a bird; it pa.s.sed away, and was followed by a deadly sickness.
Brandon rose, and filling himself a large tumbler of water, drank with avidity. The sickness pa.s.sed off like the preceding pain; but the sensation had of late been often felt by Brandon, and disregarded,--for few persons were less afflicted with the self-torture of hypochondria; but now, that night, whether it was more keen than usual, or whether his thought had touched on the string that jars naturally on the most startling of human antic.i.p.ations, we know not, but, as he resumed his seat, the idea of his approaching dissolution shot like an ice-bolt through his breast.
So intent was this scheming man upon the living objects of the world, and so little were his thoughts accustomed to turn toward the ultimate goal of all things, that this idea obtruding itself abruptly upon him, startled him with a ghastly awe. He felt the colour rush from his cheek, and a tingling and involuntary pain ran wandering through the channels of his blood, even from the roots of the hair to the soles of his feet.
But the stern soul of Brandon was not one which shadows could long affright. He nerved himself to meet the grim thought thus forced upon his mental eye, and he gazed on it with a steady and enduring look.
”Well,” thought he, ”is my hour coming, or have I yet the ordinary term of mortal nature to expect? It is true, I have lately suffered these strange revulsions of the frame with somewhat of an alarming frequency; perhaps this medicine, which healed the anguish of one infirmity, has produced another more immediately deadly. Yet why should I think this?
My sleep is sound and calm, my habits temperate, my mind active and clear as in its best days. In my youth I never played the traitor with my const.i.tution; why should it desert me at the very threshold of my age? Nay, nay, these are but pa.s.sing twitches, chills of the blood that begins to wax thin. Shall I learn to be less rigorous in my diet?