“Hush!”—he held his fork up, and shook his head sorrowfully: and I wonder’d where I had seen him before. “Hast thou an angel’s wings?” he ask’d.
“Why, no, sir; but the devil’s own boots—as you shall find if I be not answer’d.”
“Young man—young man,” broke in the one-eyed butler: “our minister is a good minister, an’ speaks roundabout as such: but the short is, that my master is dead, an’ in his coffin.”
“The mortal part,” corrected the minister, cutting another slice.
“Aye, the immortal is a-trippin’ it i’ the New Jeroosalem: but the mortal was very lamentably took wi’ a fit, three days back—the same day, young man, as thou earnest wi’ thy bloody threats.”
“A fit?”
“Aye, sir, an’ verily—such a fit as thou thysel’ witness’d. ’Twas the third attack—an’ he cried, ‘Oh!’ he did, an’ ‘Ah!’—just like that. ‘Oh!’ an’ then ‘Ah!’ Such were his last dyin’ speech. ‘Dear Master,’ says I, ‘there’s no call to die so hard:’ but might so well ha’ whistled, for he was dead as nails. A beautiful corpse, sirs, dang my buttons!”
“Show him to us.”
“Willingly, young man.” He led the way to the very room where Master Tingcomb and I had held our interview. As before, six candles were burning there: but the table was push’d into a corner, and now their light fell on a long black coffin, resting on trestles in the centre of the room. The coffin was clos’d, and studded with silver nails; on the lid was a silver plate bearing these words written—“Hannibal Tingcomb, MDCXLIII.,” with a text of Scripture below.
“Why have you nail’d him down?” I asked.