Part 48 (1/2)
”Away, uncle!” said the fiery Walter; ”he is my father's murderer. G.o.d hath given justice to my hands.” These words, uttered in a lower key than before, were but indistinctly heard by Aram through the ma.s.sy door.
”Open, or we force our entrance!” shouted Walter again; and Aram, speaking for the first time, replied in a clear and sonorous voice, so that an angel, had one spoken, could not have more deeply impressed the heart of Rowland Lester with a conviction of the student's innocence,
”Who knocks so rudely? What means this violence? I open my doors to my friends. Is it a friend who asks it?”
”I ask it,” said Rowland Lester, in a trembling and agitated voice.
”There seems some dreadful mistake: come forth, Eugene, and rectify it by a word.”
”Is it you, Rowland Lester? It is enough. I was but with my books, and had secured myself from intrusion. Enter.” The bar was withdrawn, the door was burst open, and even Walter Lester, even the officers of justice with him, drew back for a moment as they beheld the lofty brow, the majestic presence, the features so unutterably calm, of Eugene Aram.
”What want you, sirs?” said he, unmoved and unfaltering, though in the officers of justice he recognized faces he had known before, and in that distant town in which all that he dreaded in the past lay treasured up.
At the sound of his voice the spell that for an instant had arrested the step of the avenging son melted away.
”Seize him!” he cried to the officers; ”you see your prisoner.”
”Hold!” cried Aram, drawing back. ”By what authority is this outrage,--for what am I arrested?”
”Behold,” said Walter, speaking through his teeth, ”behold our warrant! You are accused of murder! Know you the name of Richard Houseman,--pause, consider,--or that of Daniel Clarke?”
Slowly Aram lifted his eyes from the warrant, and it might be seen that his face was a shade more pale, though his look did not quail, or his nerves tremble. Slowly he turned his gaze upon Walter; and then, after one moment's survey, dropped it once more on the paper.
”The name of Houseman is not unfamiliar to me,” said he calmly, but with effort.
”And knew you Daniel Clarke
”What mean these questions?” said Aram, losing temper, and stamping violently on the ground. ”Is it thus that a man, free and guiltless, is to be questioned at the behest, or rather outrage, of every lawless boy?
Lead me to some authority meet for me to answer; for you, boy, my answer is contempt.”
”Big words shall not save thee, murderer!” cried Walter, breaking from his uncle, who in vain endeavored to hold him, and laying his powerful grasp upon Aram's shoulder. Livid was the glare that shot from the student's eye upon his a.s.sailer; and so fearfully did his features work and change with the pa.s.sions within him that even Walter felt a strange shudder thrill through his frame.
”Gentlemen,” said Aram at last, mastering his emotions, and resuming some portion of the remarkable dignity that characterized his usual bearing, as he turned towards the officers of justice, ”I call upon you to discharge your duty. If this be a rightful warrant, I am your prisoner, but I am not this man's. I command your protection from him!”
Walter had already released his gripe, and said, in a muttered voice,
”My pa.s.sion misled me; violence is unworthy my solemn cause. G.o.d and Justice--not these hands--are my avengers.”
”Your avengers!” said Aram. ”What dark words are these? This warrant accuses me of the murder of one Daniel Clarke. What is he to thee?”
”Mark me, man!” said Walter, fixing his eyes on Aram's countenance. ”The name of Daniel Clarke was a feigned name; the real name was Geoffrey Lester: that murdered Lester was my father, and the brother of him whose daughter, had I not come to-day, you would have called your wife!”
Aram felt, while these words were uttered, that the eyes of all in the room were on him; and perhaps that knowledge enabled him not to reveal by outward sign what must have pa.s.sed within during the awful trial of that moment.
”It is a dreadful tale,” he said, ”if true,--dreadful to me, so nearly allied to that family. But as yet I grapple with shadows.”
”What! does not your conscience now convict you?” cried Walter, staggered by the calmness of the prisoner. But here Lester, who could no longer contain himself, interposed; he put by his nephew, and rus.h.i.+ng to Aram, fell, weeping, upon his neck.
”I do not accuse thee, Eugene, my son, my son! I feel, I know thou art innocent of this monstrous crime; some horrid delusion darkens that poor boy's sight. You, you, who would walk aside to save a worm!” and the poor old man, overcome with his emotions, could literally say no more.
Aram looked down on Lester with a compa.s.sionate expression; and soothing him with kind words, and promises that all would be explained, gently moved from his hold, and, anxious to terminate the scene, silently motioned the officers to proceed. Struck with the calmness and dignity of his manner, and fully impressed by it with the notion of his innocence, the officers treated him with a marked respect; they did not even walk by his side, but suffered him to follow their steps. As they descended the stairs, Aram turned round to Walter, with a bitter and reproachful countenance,
”And so, young man, your malice against me has reached even to this!