Part 19 (2/2)
”When was it you were arrested?” asked s.h.a.garach.
”It's three weeks and three days yesterday, misther; that I know by the scratches I made in me cell.”
”Can't you read?”
”Only the big, black letthers, misther.”
This explained Mungovan's ignorance of Floyd's arrest. It seemed to be an accident that the two had never met in prison. Though they occupied cells in the same ward, their daily work carried them to opposite parts of the yard, Mungovan's to the harness-shop under ”Slim” Butler; Robert's to the greenhouses near the team gate.
”Misther!” The poor wretch clasped s.h.a.garach's wrist and drew the lawyer's ear to his lips again.
”Misther, will you bury me where Ellen is buried?”
”I'll see if that can be done.”
”Misther!” The man's eyes were glazing. ”Look!” He fumbled with aspen fingers in his breast, finally drawing forth an envelope. From this he removed a ringlet of black hair, probably a love-lock of Ellen's. Then he showed the inclosed writing to s.h.a.garach. It was not addressed.
”Read it,” he whispered. ”Ellen gev it me to carry.”
s.h.a.garach opened the envelope and read in a servant-girl's painstaking hand the following words: ”The peddler has not come for two days, so I send you this by a trustworthy messanger. As I rote you in my last, the professor said in the study, 'Harry gets his deserts.' That was all I could hear only he and Mr. Robert talked for a long time afterwards. The will is in the safe in the study. If I hear ennything more I will let you know, and please send me the money you promised me soon.”
There was neither address nor signature to this doc.u.ment.
”To carry where?” asked s.h.a.garach, but the man's brain was all clotted with a single idea.
”Will you bury me by Ellen's side, misther, in the green churchyard under the soft turf that the wind combs smooth like in my own dear counthry? Will you bury me beside Ellen I disgraced so, misther? She'll know I'm wid her there. Will you bury me, misther?”
”I will. I will. Where did Ellen bid you carry the letter?”
”The letther? Och, I carried the letther in me mouth. Sure, I wouldn't be afther givin' up Ellen's letther to the warden.”
”I mean----” But the man was pa.s.sing through the delirium that precedes the last fainting calm. Several times his lips moved, murmuring ”Ellen.” His fingers clutched the love-lock to his breast. Once he turned his head and asked for ”Father Flynn.” But Father Flynn was ministering now at another ceremony as opposite to this as laughter is to tears.
Toward the end a smile of singular sweetness irradiated his rough face, made delicate by the waxy color of death. Were his thoughts playing back again among the memories of childhood, in the beloved island, perhaps at the knee of that honest mother whom he feared to disgrace? Or were they leaping forward to the joy of the cool bed under the churchyard daisies at Ellen's side? s.h.a.garach, holding the shred of paper in his hand, brooding over the answer to his unanswered question, could only watch the flickering spark in reverential awe.
But he did not default his side of the pact they had made, he and Dennis Mungovan, with clasped hands in the hospital alcove. At a great sacrifice of time he sought out Ellen Greeley's sister, explained the secret of Ellen's marriage and Mungovan's repentance for his follies, and, with the help of Father Flynn, persuaded her to consent to an interment of the couple together. He even went to the pains of communicating the death to Mungovan's worthy mother, having obtained her address from Ellen Greeley's sister and heir. But the circ.u.mstances and place of the ”accident” which killed him were humanely concealed.
In return for all this solicitude the lawyer had an unaddressed and ambiguous scrawl in his possession. Three facts were established in relation to the person for whom it was intended. In the first place whoever it was he knew that Harry Arnold had ”got his deserts” under his uncle's will. Secondly, he had employed Ellen Greeley as a spy upon the doings in the professor's household. Thirdly, he was in league with the missing peddler, who seemed to act as a go-between for Ellen and her correspondent.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE NEST-EGG HATCHES OUT.
”St! Bobbs!”
The sound was at Robert's left ear. He had been dreaming of Emily arrayed in bridal white and kneeling at his side before the altar of joy. Uncle Benjamin in a clergyman's surplice was p.r.o.nouncing a benediction upon them. The good old custom of a nuptial kiss was about to be observed, when the warning whisper and his prison nickname rudely awakened him to his surroundings. The sweet vision melted into a black reality, the wide arches of the cathedral contracting to narrow cell walls and the loved faces of Emily and his uncle cruelly vanis.h.i.+ng.
”Bobbs! Do you 'ear?”
”Yes!” Robert rubbed his eyes as if to restore the illusion and his answer was slumbrously indistinct.
”Count that bell.”
A distant clock was giving out two strokes faintly but with vibrations prolonged in the silence.
”'Ear the hother coves snoozing.”
The deep breathing of the convicts grew more and more audible as Robert's senses became sharper and he sat up on his couch.
”Hi 'ear you, Bobbs. Hare you making your toilet?” inquired the facetious cracksman.
”Yes.”
”Leave your bloomin' boots be'ind as a keepsake. We haren't p.u.s.s.y-footed, me hangel.”
”All right, I'm ready.”
”Now, take out the blocks, me boy, and 'andle with care. If they falls on your toes they might 'urt, besides disturbin' the bloomin' deputy, which we must be werry careful to havoid, Bobbs, out of consideration for 'is feelings. s.h.!.+”
A footstep was heard coming along the corridor, and the re-enforcement of light told the prisoners that the turnkey had a lantern in his hand, the dim gas jet at one end only sufficing to deepen the shadows in the cells. Robert lay back on his pallet and closed his eyes till the steps retreated. In a half-minute the turnkey would be back. He was a new man, both Gradger and Hawkins being still on the sick list from the blows they had received in the riot of the day before.
”St, Bobbs, hare you ready?”
”All ready.”
Robert had removed six bricks and carefully m.u.f.fled them in his bedquilt, leaving an aperture not much larger than the door of a kennel. The light came nearer and nearer and suddenly he heard the cracksman groaning piteously. The turnkey raised his lantern, approached the cell from which these sounds issued and peered in.
”Somebody bludgeoned yesterday,” thought he. But ”somebody” was standing at the front of his cell, with his hands firmly grasping two bars. As the turnkey stooped and brought his eyes nearer, the two bars were wrenched out and clasped around his neck. Being a st.u.r.dy fellow, his instinct was to struggle rather than to cry. But his struggle availed him nothing in the surprise of the moment, with the odds of position against him. His head was drawn down through the bars and he nuzzled a soft substance on the cracksman's breast. Then a strange odor got possession of his senses. He gasped, fought, gasped again, and finally fainted away. When his writhings had ceased the cracksman removed his lantern and laid it lightly on the floor outside.
”Climb through, Bobbs--not that way.”
Robert had stood on the bed and thrust one leg through the aperture.
”Head foremost, as the little feller dives.”
Robert reversed his position, and with a terrible wrenching of his shoulders worked the upper part of his body through the opening, Dobbs giving him loyal a.s.sistance and encouragement meanwhile. The turnkey hanging helpless into the cracksman's cell, his body outlined against the lantern, caused him to start back.
”Ee's hall right. Hi nursed 'im asleep on my breast-pin. Hain't it daintily perfumed?”
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