THE LAST FATAL HALLOW EVE.
| So do the dark in soul expire, |
| Or live like scorpion girt with fire; |
| So writhes the mind remorse hath riven— |
| Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven, |
| Darkness above, despair beneath, |
| Around it flame, within it death.—Byron. |
The awe-stricken women drew nearer to gaze upon the murdered man.
"Grandma, he is not dead! He breathes," exclaimed Gem, whose young eyes had detected the slight, very slight motion of the man's chest.
The old woman knelt down beside the body, and began to examine it more closely. The shirt-bosom, vest, and coat front were soaked with blood, that still seemed to ooze from some hidden wound.
She hastily unbuttoned his clothing, and found a small round blackened bullet hole over the region of the left lung.
"Turn him over on his left side, men," she said, half rising from her knee.
As they followed her directions, the blood flowed freely both from the wound and from the mouth of the man.
"Joe, mount Fleetfoot and gallop to Blackville as fast as you can go, and bring Dr. Hart, though I don't believe it will be a bit of use; but still it is our duty. And, Tabby, and Libby, stop wringing of your hands and rolling of your eyes, and go up stairs and fetch down the cot bedstead to lay him on, for it stands to reason we can't carry him up-stairs without hastening of his end," said the old woman, as she busied herself with stanching the wound in the chest.
All her orders were immediately obeyed.
The cot bed was made up in the corner of the room, and the wounded man was tenderly raised by the two laborers, and laid upon it.
"Now stand out of my way, all of you, and don't ask any questions, but be ready to fly, the minute I tell you to do anything," said the dame, as she stood over the injured man and still pressed a little wad of lint over the bullet hole to stanch the blood.
The other women and the men withdrew to the fireplace and waited.
"He is very nasty and uncomfortable-looking, lying here in all these stained clothes, but I am afraid to undress him for fear of starting the wound to bleeding again, and that's the sacred truth," said Mrs. Winterose.
"No; don't move me," spoke a very faint voice, which, as she afterwards said, sounded so much as if it might have come from the dead, that the old lady withdrew her hand and recoiled from it.
"Brandy! brandy!" breathed the same voice.
"Tabby, get the brandy bottle and pour some into a glass and bring it here. Quick!" she exclaimed.
Miss Tabby, too much awed to whimper, brought the required stimulant, which Mrs. Winterose immediately administered to the patient.
The effect was good. He breathed more freely and looked around him.
"Now, be of good cheer! I have sent a man on a fast horse for the doctor. He will be here in an hour," said Mrs. Winterose encouragingly.
The wounded man laughed faintly, as he replied:
"Why, what can the doctor do for me? I'm shot to death. I'd like to see a magistrate, or a lawyer, though."
"Would you? Then you shall. Hey! one of you men, run out to the stable as fast as you can, and see if Joe's gone. If he isn't, tell him to fetch lawyer Closeby, as well as the doctor," said Mrs. Winterose.
Both of the laborers started on the errand.
Mrs. Winterose turned to her patient.
"What place is this; and who are you?" he inquired.
"Why, don't you know? This is Black Hall, and I am the caretaker."
"Black Hall!" echoed the man, starting up and gazing around him with an excitement that caused his wound to break out bleeding again. "Black Hall! Is it here that I must die? Here, and—great Heaven!—in the very room where the crime was committed! In the very room haunted by her memory!"
And covering his face with his hands, he fell back upon the pillow.
"Tabby, more brandy!" hastily exclaimed the old lady, as she nervously pressed a fresh piece of lint into the gushing wound.
"Yes, more brandy," he faintly whispered; "keep me alive, if possible, till the lawyer comes."
Miss Tabby brought the stimulant, and Mrs. Winterose put it to his lips.
"But, oh, this room! this fatal room! this haunted room!" he murmured, with a shudder.
"Be quiet, good man; this an't the room where the lady was murdered," said Miss Tabby.
"And which is haunted by her ghost to this day," put in Miss Libby, who had come up to the side of the bed.
"Not—not the room where Rosa was murdered this day fifteen years ago?" murmured the man, gazing around him. "Am I delirious, then? It seems the very same room, only with different furniture."
"It is the correspondial room in this wing. T'other room is in t'other wing," explained Miss Tabby.
"And yet, what difference? what difference?" he murmured, restlessly.
"Mother," whispered Miss Tabby, "it seems to me as I've see a this man before."
"Shouldn't wonder," replied the old lady in a low tone. "Mr. Horace Blondelle has been living at the Dubarry Springs, within ten miles of us, for the last thirteen or fourteen years, and it would be queer if you hadn't seen him before."
"Queer or not, I never did see Mr. Horace Blondelle, to know him as sich, in all my life before. And that an't what I mean neither, mother. I have seen this man in a fright somewhere or other."
"The man in a fright?"
"No; me in a fright when I saw him."
"Hush! don't whisper! See, it disturbs him," said the old lady.
And in truth the wounded man had turned to listen to them, and was gazing uneasily from one to the other.
When they became silent, he beckoned Miss Tabby to approach.
She bent over him.
"Now, look at me well, old girl," he whispered faintly, "and see if you can't recollect when you met me last."
"Ah!" screamed Miss Tabby, as if she had seen a ghost. "It was on the night of the flood! And you reskeed of us!"
"That's so."
"Well, then, my good gentleman, it ought to be a comfort and a conserlation to you, a laying wounded there, to reflect as how you did reskee us from drownding that night," said Miss Tabby, soothingly.
"I don't know as far as the rescuing of you is concerned, old girl, whether the act will be found set down on the debit or credit side of my account at the last day," he said, with a gleam of his old humor sparkling up from beneath all his pain of mind and body.
"So this was the man," said the old lady to herself, while Miss Libby and even Gem, looked at him with a new interest.
"Mr. Blondelle, can you tell me how you came to be wounded?" inquired the old lady.
"No, not now. I must save all my strength for what I have to say to the lawyer. Give me more brandy. And then let me alone," he said, speaking faintly and with difficulty.
His request was complied with, and then the three old women, with Gem, withdrew to the fire.
The two laboring men came in from their errand and joined them at the fire.
"Did you catch Joe?" inquired the dame.
"Yes, mum, just as he was riding off. We had to run after him and shout; but we stopped him, and gave him your message."
"All right; and now tell me—for I hadn't a chance to ask before—how came this gentleman to be wounded?"
"Don't know, mum. We was on our way to a little Hallow Eve merry-making at a neighbor's house in the Quarries, when we fell in long o' Joe, who had been to the pine woods to gather cones; and we was all jogging along, Joe foremost, when he stumbled and fell over something, which proved to be this man, which, to tell the truth, we took to be dead at the time," replied one of the men.
"And have you no idea who shot him?"
"No more than you have yourself, mum. You see—"
A groan from the wounded man interrupted the conversation.
"Hush! we disturb him. I ought to have known better than to talk," whispered Mrs. Winterose, and then she walked to the bedside and inquired:
"What is the matter? Can I do anything for you?"
"No; let me alone, and be quiet," was the feeble reply.
The old woman went back to the fireplace, and sat down in silence. The two laboring men, uninvited, seated themselves at a short distance. All thoughts of going to a merry-making were given up for that night.
And a weary death-watch commenced, and continued in awful silence and stillness until it was interrupted by the sound of horses' feet in front of the house, and soon after by a loud knocking.
Miss Tabby sprang up to open the door and admit the doctor and the lawyer.
"This is a terrible thing, Mrs. Winterose," said Dr. Hart, as he shook hands with the old lady, and bowed to the other members of the family.
"Terrible indeed, sir," replied Mrs. Winterose, as she led the way to the bedside.
"I am sorry to see you wounded, Mr. Blondelle; but we shall bring you round all right," said Dr. Hart, as he took the hand of the dying man.
"Doctor, you know, or you will soon know, that you cannot do any such thing. So let us have no flattery. But if you can give me anything to keep me alive until I shall have finished a statement, that it may take me an hour to make, you will do the only thing you possibly can do for me," said Mr. Blondelle, speaking faintly, with difficulty, and with frequent pauses.
"Let me examine your injuries," said the doctor, gently.
"Do so, if you must and will. But pray occupy as little of my precious time as possible," pleaded the dying man.
The doctor proceeded to make his examination.
When he had finished it, he made not a single comment.
"I told you so," said Mr. Blondelle, interpreting his silence. "And now give me something to keep me going until I finish my work, and then send all these women out of the room, so as to leave us alone with the lawyer; but let them supply him with writing materials first."
"I will do as you direct; but meanwhile, shall I not send for your wife?" gently inquired the doctor.
"No; what would be the use? It will be all over with me before she can possibly get here," answered Mr. Blondelle.
The doctor did not urge the point; he probably agreed with his patient.
When he had administered a stimulant, he whispered to Mrs. Winterose to place writing materials on the little stand beside the cot, and then to take her daughters and Gem up stairs.
When the women had left the room, the doctor bade the two laboring men retire with Joe to the kitchen, where he himself would have followed them, seeing that the rest of the house was closed up and fireless; but at a sign from the dying man, he stayed, and took a seat by the bedside.
The lawyer sat between the bed's head and the little stand upon which pens, ink, and paper had been placed.
"It is a will," said Mr. Closeby, as he rolled out a sheet of parchment he had taken the precaution to bring.
The dying man laughed low as he replied:
"No, it is a confession. I can make it now, when it will redeem her life without ruining mine."
The lawyer and the doctor exchanged glances, but made no comment.
What Mr. Horace Blondelle's confession would be they had already surmised. What it really was will be seen presently.
The work occupied something more than an hour, for the narrator was very weak from loss of blood, and spoke slowly, faintly, and with frequent pauses, while the lawyer, at leisure, took down his words, and the doctor from time to time consulted his pulse and administered stimulants.
Meanwhile the three old women, with Gem, remained up stairs, gathered around the small fire in their bed-room. Awe hushed their usually garrulous tones, or moved them to speak only in whispers. Never seemed an hour so long. At length it was past, and more than past, when the door at the foot of the stairs was opened, and the doctor's voice was heard calling upon them to come down.
"Is it all over?" whisperingly inquired Mrs. Winterose.
"The work is over."
"But the man, I mean."
"It is not all over with him yet. He still lives, though sinking fast."
"Don't you think he ought to have a clergyman?"
"He would be dead before a clergyman could be brought here."
This rapid, low-toned conversation took place at the foot of the stairs, out of hearing of the dying man, whose senses were fast failing.
Mrs. Winterose then came down into the room and took her seat by the bed, and from time to time bathed the sufferer's brow with her own preparation of aromatic vinegar, or moistened his lips with brandy and water.
Tabby, Libby, and Gem sat around the fire. The doctor and the lawyer stood conferring in a low tone at a distant window.
Thus the death-watch was kept in the silence of awe, until Miss Tabby, unable to resist her desire to do something for the sufferer, crept up to the side of the cot opposite to which her mother sat, and "shook his sands," by asking him in a low tone:
"Is there no one in the world you would like to see, or to send a message to?"
"No—no one—but Sybil Berners—and I have written a message to—her; but—to see her—is impossible," gasped the man at intervals.
"Tabby, go sit down and keep quiet. You only worry the poor soul!" said Mrs. Winterose.
Miss Tabby complied, and the silent death-watch was resumed, and continued unbroken except by the howling of the wind, the beating of the rain, and the rattling of the leafless trees, until at length—inexplicable sound!—wheels were heard, grating over the rough, neglected avenue, and approaching the house.
Who could it be, coming at that late hour of a stormy night, to a house to which, even in daylight and good weather, scarcely a visitor ever came?
The sound of the wheels ceased before the door, and was immediately followed by a knock.
"Burglars never come in wheeled carriages," said Miss Tabby to herself, as she recovered her courage, and went and opened the door.
She recoiled with a loud cry.
Every one started up, and hurried forward to see what could now be the matter.