“Physical suffering now began to take the place of his mental tortures. Parched and consumed with a fierce internal fever, he was tormented by unappeasable thirst—of all human ills the most unendurable. His tongue was dry and dusty, his throat inflamed; his lips had lost all moisture. He licked the humid floor; he sought to imbibe the nitrous drops from the walls; but, instead of allaying his thirst, they increased it. He would have given the world, had he possessed it, for a draught of cold spring-water. Oh, to have died with his lips upon some bubbling fountain’s marge! But to perish thus!
“Nor were the pangs of hunger wanting. He had to endure all the horrors of famine as well as the agonies of quenchless thirst.
“In this dreadful state three days and nights passed over Alan’s fated head. Nor night nor day had he. Time, with him, was only measured by its duration, and that seemed interminable. Each hour added to his suffering, and brought with it no relief. During this period of prolonged misery reason often tottered on her throne. Sometimes he was under the influence of the wildest passions. He dragged coffins from their recesses, hurled them upon the ground, striving to break them open and drag forth their loathsome contents. Upon other occasions he would weep bitterly and wildly; and once—once only—did he attempt to pray; but he started from his knees with an echo of infernal laughter, as he deemed, ringing in his ears. Then, again, would he call down imprecations upon himself and his whole line, trampling upon the pile of coffins he had reared; and, lastly, more subdued, would creep to the boards that contained the body of his child, kissing them with a frantic outbreak of affection.
“At length he became sensible of his approaching dissolution. To him the thought of death might well be terrible; but he quailed not before it, or rather seemed, in his latest moments, to resume all his wonted firmness of character. Gathering together his remaining strength, he dragged himself towards the niche wherein his brother, Sir Reginald Rookwood, was deposited, and, placing his hand upon the coffin, solemnly exclaimed, ‘My curse—my dying curse—be upon thee evermore!’
“Falling with his face upon the coffin, Alan instantly expired. In this attitude his remains were discovered.”
How to repress a smile at the picture conjured up of Lady Rookwood “precipitating herself into the marble coffin”! How not to refrain from laughing at the fantastic description of Alan piling up coffins in the vault and jumping upon them!
XXVIII
Half a mile below Cuckfield stands Ansty Cross, (the “Handstay” of old road-books, and said to derive from the Anglo-Saxon, Heanstige, meaning highway), a cluster of a few cottages and the “Green Cross” inn, once old and picturesque, now rebuilt in the Ready-made Picturesque order of architecture. Here stood one of the numerous turnpike-gates.
Close by is Riddens Farm, a picturesque little homestead, with tile-hung front and clustered chimneys. It still contains one of those old Sussex cast-iron firebacks mentioned in an earlier page, dated 1622.