Part 21 (2/2)

”Mad? Burdon, mad? No; it is something worse.”

”But it is not too late,” I said humbly.

”Yes, too late--too late! I disown him. He is no longer son of mine.”

”And you sit there in that dining-room every night, Sir John,” I said, ”with all us servants gathered round, and read that half a chapter and then say, 'As we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us.' Sir John-- master--he is your own son, and I love him as if he was my own.”

There wasn't a sound in that place for a minute, and then he drew his breath in a catching way that startled me, for it was as if he was going to have a fit. But his face was very calm and stern now, as he says to me gently:

”You are right, old friend;”--and my heart gave quite a bound--”old friend.”

”Let's go to him and save him, master, from his sin.”

”Two weak old men, Burdon, and him strong, desperate, and taken by surprise. My good fellow, what would follow then?”

”I don't know, Sir John. I can only see one thing, and that is, that we should have done our duty by the lad. Let's leave the rest to Him.”

He drew a long deep breath.

”Yes,” he says. ”Come along.”

We went back in the darkness to the cellar door and listened; but all seemed very still, and I turned the key in the patent Bramah lock without a sound. We went in, and stood there on the sawdust, with that hot smell of burnt oil seeming to get stronger, and there was a faint light in the inner cellar now, and a curious rustling, panting sound.

We crept forward, one on each side of the opening; and as we looked in, my hand went down on one of the sherry bottles in the bin by my arm, and it made a faint click, which sounded quite loud.

I forgot all about Sir John; I didn't even know that he was there, as I stared in from the darkness at the scene before me. They--I say they, for the whispering had taught me that there was more than one--had got the stone up while we had been away. It had been pushed aside on to the sawdust, and a soft yellow light shone up now out of the hole, showing me my young master, looking so strange and staring-eyed and ghastly, that I could hardly believe it was he. But it was, sure enough, though dressed in rough workman's clothes, and stained and daubed with clay.

It wasn't that, though, which took my attention, but his face; and as I looked, I thought of what had been said a little while ago in my place, and I felt it was true, and that he was mad. He had just crept up out of the hole, when he uttered a low groan and sank down on his knees, and then fell sidewise across the hole in the floor. He was not there many moments before there was a low angry whispering; he seemed to be heaved up, and, a big workman-looking fellow came struggling up till he sat on the sawdust with his legs in the hole, and spoke down to some one.

”It's all right,” he said. ”The chests are here; but the fool has fainted away. Quick the lamp, and then the tools.”

He bent down and took a smoky oil lamp that was handed to him, and I drew a deep breath, for the sound of his voice had seemed familiar; but the light which shone on his face made me sure in spite of his rough clothes and the beard he had grown. It was Edward Gunning, our old servant, who was discharged for being too fond of drink, turned bricklayer once again.

As he took the lamp, he got up, held it above his head, looked round, and then, with a grin of satisfaction at the sight of the chests, stepped softly toward the opening into the outer cellar, where Sir John and I were watching.

It didn't take many moments, and I hardly know now how it happened, but I just saw young Mr Barclay lying helpless on the sawdust, another head appearing at the hole, and then, with the light full upon it, Edward Gunning's face being thrust out of the opening into the cellar where we were, and his eyes gleaming curiously before they seemed to shut with a snap. For, all at once--perhaps it was me being a butler and so used to wine--my hand closed upon the neck of one of those bottles, which rose up sudden-like above my head, and came down with a crash upon that of this wretched man.

There was a crash; the splash of wine; the splintering of gla.s.s; the smell of sherry--fine old sherry, yellow seal--and I stood for a moment with the bottle neck and some sawdust in my hand, startled by the yell the man gave, by the heavy fall, and the sudden darkness which had come upon us.

Then--I suppose it was all like a flash--I had rushed to the inner cellar and was dragging the slab over the hole, listening the while to a hollow rustling noise which ended as I got the slab across and sat on it to keep it down.

”Where are you, Burdon?” says Sir John.

”Here, sir!--Quick! A light!”

I heard him hurry off; and it seemed an hour before he came back, while I sat listening to a terrible moaning, and smelling the spilt sherry and the oily knocked-out lamp. Then Sir John came in, quite pale, but looking full of fight, and the first thing he did was to stoop down over Edward Gunning and take a pistol from his breast. ”You take that, Burdon,” he said, ”and use it if we are attacked.”

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