Volume Two—Chapter One.
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Softly along the dark passages of the County Arms stole Septimus Hardon, and with stealthy hand he loosened bar and bolt, till the front-door yielded to his touch, and he stood in the grey dawn of the morning, looking round the marketplace for a few minutes before making his way along a road not travelled by him for years.
How familiar every spot seemed as he left the town behind!—spots dimly seen as yet, but familiar enough to cause a swelling sensation at his heart, and tears to rise unbidden to his eyes. Now he stopped to gaze upon some old half-forgotten scene; now to listen to the morning hymn rising from the wood upon his left—loud and high notes from thrush and finch, mingled with the starling’s mocking whistle, the mellow flute-tones of the blackbird, and the incessant caw of the rooks. All around seemed so peaceful, so utter a change from the miseries of a close London court, that his thoughts went back from the present to the old days of his boyhood, and for a while a sense of elation coursed through his veins, his eyes sparkled, and he gazed round with delight till they rested upon the spire of the old church, when a chill fell upon his spirit once more, as he remembered the funeral and the miseries of the present. Then, for the hundredth time, he recalled his father’s lonely and fearful end—passing away without a word of forgiveness; his own return as a beggar to his old home, without a right therein—to be met as it were upon the threshold, and to be told that he was an intruder who could be admitted only upon sufferance. But he would enter, he said, if only to ask of the dead to give him a sign respecting the truth of his uncle’s words.
Septimus Hardon’s brow furrowed, and he walked on hastily; then he fell back into his listless, weary way. It was very early, or his gesticulations would have excited attention; but he met no one, and once more hurrying on, he at last stood before the clump of trees within whose shades was the gloomy moss-grown house where so large a portion of his life had been spent. He passed through the rusty iron gate, which creaked mournfully, and then stood before the old place, which looked more gloomy, moss-grown, and damp than ever. Desolation everywhere; for when the son left his home, the father had shut himself up, discharging the gardener and all the indoor servants but the one who filled the post of housekeeper. The vine still hung to the large trellis-work, but here and there, tangled with ivy, it had fallen away, and lay across the path; the windows were dim, the paths overgrown with weeds; while between the door-steps the withered herbage that had grown up the previous year, rustled in the breeze of the early spring. Over such windows as yet possessed them, yellow time-stained blinds were drawn, while here and there upon the ground-(four pages missing from the scan.) the perspiration in large drops upon his forehead, as the blind slowly flapped to and fro, and the lath rapped in a strange ghostly way upon the framework of the window.
For a few minutes Septimus Hardon stopped, leaning against the window-sill, trembling and undecided, till, mustering his strength of mind and body, he slowly drew himself up, climbed within the room, and then as the blind fell back to its place, stood in the presence of the dead, listening to the “rap-rap” of the blind-lath against the window-frame, and a sharp vicious gnawing that proceeded from behind the wainscot of the old house, and all the while not daring to turn his eyes in the direction of the bed whose position he knew so well, and upon which he could feel that the coffin was resting.
Gnaw, gnaw; tear, tear; sharp little teeth savagely working at the thin hard wood, and evidently making rapid progress towards their goal.
The sound was hideous, and the sweat dropped from Septimus Hardon’s forehead with a tiny plash upon the bare boards, where he could see more than one little star-like mark, and then rousing himself, he ran towards the spot from whence the noise proceeded, and kicked furiously at the wainscot, when there was a scuffling noise, followed by a deep stillness, broken only at intervals by the gentle rapping of the blind-lath upon the window-frame.
And there stood the careworn man in his own old room—the old plainly-furnished room that he might have slept in but the previous night, so unaltered was everything, as, with eyes putting off that which he had come to see until the very last, he gazed around. There were the quaint old black-framed prints of Hudibras, whose strange, uncouth figures had frightened him as a boy—figures that, in the half-lights of evening or early morn, he had looked upon until they had seemed to stand forth from the frames as he lay quaking with childish terror; there was the old wall-paper, in whose pattern he had been wont to trace grotesque faces; there again the marbled ceiling, whose blue veins he had been used to follow in their maze-like wanderings, when he lay fevered and wakeful with some childish ailment; the same strips of lean-looking striped carpet; the same old hook in the beam, round which the flies darted and circled in summer; the same rickety corner washstand, with its cracked ewer, and quaint water-bottle and glass, which tinkled when a footstep passed along the passage; the fire-board, which blew down on windy nights, and almost frightened him into a fit, while there it was, even now, half-fallen and leaning against a chair, with a faint dust of the old fine soot, just as it used to be, scattered upon the hearthstone; the same drawers, whose old jingling brass knobs caught in his pinafore, and held him that dark night when he let fall the candle, and stood screaming for help; the same shells upon the chimney-piece—shells that of old he had held to his ear to listen to the roaring sea; even the old rushlight shade—big, and pierced with holes—was there, the old shade that used to stand upon the floor in the wash-hand basin, and throw its great hole-pierced shadow all over ceiling and wall—while each hole formed a glaring eye to stare at him and frighten away sleep.
Familiar sights that made him disbelieve in the lapse of time, and think it impossible that he could be standing there an elderly man; for all his association with the room seemed those first-formed impressions of childhood. But he cast away the dreamy, musing fit; for he felt that he had driven it to the last, and he must look now. Yes; there was his old bed, with the great black-cloth coffin, nearly covered by its lid, now drawn down a little from the head.
“Tap-tap, tap-tap,” went the blind-lath; while outside shone the sun, and through the open window came the cheery twitter of the birds. Within the room Septimus Hardon could hear the heavy beating of his own heart. Then again, close behind him, came the sound of hurried scuffling beyond the wainscot; then a shrill squealing; and directly after, the loud sharp tearing of hungry teeth, gnaw, gnaw, gnaw incessantly, for the scared rats had again returned to the charge.
Septimus Hardon roused himself from his stupor, and kicked angrily at the wainscot, and once again he heard the hurrying rush of the hunger-driven little animals as they fled, and a shuddering sensation ran through his veins as he recalled the past.
And now he nerved himself to approach the bed, and stretched out his hand to remove the coffin-lid; but for some time he stood with his hands resting upon it. A dread had overshadowed him that he was about to gaze upon something too hideous for human eyes to bear; but at last he thrust the covering aside, and it fell upon the bed, when, with swimming head, he clung to the bedstead for a few minutes to save himself from falling. But the tremor passed off, for he was once more roused by the indefatigable gnawing of the rats; and he asked himself how long it would be before they would work their way through the thin oaken panel, and then whether they would attack the coffin.
Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw incessantly, till he once more angrily struck at the wall, when the noise ceased. And now Septimus Hardon strode firmly up to the bedside and gazed upon his father’s face, not hideously disfigured, or frightful to look upon, but pale, calm, stern, with the brow slightly contracted, and, seen there in the twilight of that shaded room, apparently sleeping.
Dead—not sleeping. Gone from him without a word, without a sign, of forgiveness; leaving him a beggar with a name that was fouled and stained for ever in the sight of men. Gone—taking with him a secret of such vital importance; but Septimus Hardon thought not now of all this, for his memory was back amidst those early days when his mother was living, and his father would relax from his stern fits, so that for a while happiness seemed to dwell within their home. Then came the recollection of his mother’s death, and the cold indifference into which his father had sunk. Then again all the sorrows and pains were forgotten, and the old man’s virtues shone forth, as his shabby, travel-stained son sank upon his knees by the coffin and buried his face in his hands.
The sun streamed through the loose corner of the blind and shone like a golden bar-sinister across the kneeling man; the sparrows twittered in the eaves, and ever upon the window-frame the blind kept up its monotonous tap, tap, tap, at regular intervals, while at times a puff of light air made it shiver and shudder from top to bottom. But, above all, came from behind the wainscot the incessant gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, as though the rats knew, that their time was short, and that their prey would soon be beyond their reach; gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, as though splintering off large pieces of the woodwork, while now no angrily-stricken blow scared them off; gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, until little ragged splinters and chips began to be thrust out beneath the skirting-board; then more, and more, and more, till a tiny, light heap, that a breath would have scattered, appeared close to a ragged hole. Then heap and hole grew larger, and as the noise increased a sharp nose was seen moving quickly, as a rat worked vigorously, till, as it obtained room to tear away at the board, the heap grew bigger, fragments were thrust out hastily into the room, and at last the little archway afforded space for the passage of the worker, a sharp-eyed, keen-looking, little animal, which, after peering about eagerly for a few moments, darted into the room, darted back again, and then renewed its attack upon the skirting-board until the hole was enlarged.
Then for a while all was silent, but a keen observer might have detected within the darkness the sharp nose of the rat, and the eager glint of its watching orbs. Then came a faint rustle, and the rat seemed to glide out into the room; then another head appeared at the hole, and another lean, vicious animal was out, but a louder tap than usual from the blind sent them darting back to their lair.
Another five minutes and they were out again—one, two, three; another, and another, and another—a swarm of rats, savage with hunger; but now the loud, chirrupping squabble of a pair of sparrows which settled on the window-sill scared the little animals once more, and they fled in haste to their corner.
Out again, for all was silent; first one peering into the room, with its black, bead-like eyes scanning the place, then darting back at some false alarm, but out again directly, followed by its fellows, till there was a swarm once more, now running a few feet, now darting back to the hole; and still Septimus Hardon knelt, as he had knelt for hours, motionless beside his father’s coffin.
The golden bar shone into and across the room, a bar-sinister no longer, for it played upon the features of the dead, seeming to illumine them with a smile; the sparrows twittered in the eaves, the faint whistle of a carter, cheering his way with some old minor strain, was heard from the road; the blind still tapped softly and shuddered from top to bottom; but the gnawing sounds from the skirting-board had ceased, and the kneeling man remained motionless by the bedside.
Tap, tap, tap, in a strange warning way, as the shuddering motion of the old blind continued. Warning taps, as if softly made by unseen watchers—signals to rouse the kneeling figure whose face was buried in his hands, and whose worn, lean fingers touched the black-cloth of the coffin; taps that now grew louder, for there was a faint, scratching noise, as of little vicious claws passing over a counterpane.