RETRIBUTION.
CHAPTER XVII.
STRANGE GUESTS.
September 29, 1791.
Two excitements to-day. First, the appearance at my doors of the person of whose coming I was advised by Mr. Tamworth. He came in his own carriage, and is a meager, hatchet-faced man, whose eye makes me restless, but has not succeeded in making me lose my self-possession. He stayed three hours, all of which he made me spend with him in the oak parlor, and when he had finished with me and got my signature to a long and complicated affidavit, I felt that I would rather sell my house and flee the place than go through such another experience. Happily it is likely to be a long time before I shall be called upon to do so. A voyage to France and back is no light matter; and what with complications and delays, a year or more is likely to elapse before the subject need be opened again in my hearing. I thank God for this. For not only shall I thus have the opportunity of regaining my equanimity, which has been sorely shaken by these late events, but I shall have the chance of adding a few more dollars to my store, against the time when scandal will be busy with this spot, and public reprobation ruin its excellent character and custom.
The oak parlor I have shut and locked. It will not be soon entered again by me.
The other excitement to which I referred was the coming of two new guests from New York, elegant ladies, whose appearance and manners quite overpowered me in the few minutes of conversation I held with them when they first entered my house.
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Good God! what is that? I thought I felt something brush my sleeve. Yet there is no one near me, and nothing astir in the room! And why should such a sudden vision of the old oak parlor rise before my eyes? And why, if I must see it, should it be the room as it looked to me on that night when the two Urquharts sat within it, and not the room as I saw it to-day!