Delaware; or, The Ruined Family. Vol. 2

by G. P. R. James

There are few things in life so troublesome or so tedious as the turnings back which one is often obliged to make, as one journeys along over the surface of the world; the more especially because these turnings back happen, in an infinite proportion, oftener to the hasty and the impatient than to other men; and that, too, on account of their very haste and impatience, which makes them cast a shoe here, or drop their whip there, or ride off and forget their spurs at the other place. But yet it is not an unpleasant sight, to see some sedate old hound, when a whole pack of reckless young dogs have overrun the scent in their eagerness, get them all gently back again, under the sage direction of the huntsman and his whips, and with upturned nose, and tongue like a church bell, announce the recovery.

Know then, dear readers, that in our eagerness to get at the scene just depicted, we have somewhat overrun the scent, and must return, however unwillingly, to the time and circumstances, under which Henry Beauchamp left Mr. Tims of Ryebury, on the preceding night. It was, as may be remembered, fine clear autumn weather. The night, indeed, would have been dark, but for the moon, which poured a grand flood of light through the valleys, and over the plains; and Mr. Tims who loved the light--not so much because his own ways were peculiarly good, as because it is known to be a great scarer of those whose ways are more evil still--remarked with satisfaction, as he ushered his guest to the door, that it was as clear as day.

"Sally, Sally!" he exclaimed, as soon as Mr. Beauchamp was gone, "Are all the doors and windows shut?"

"Lord bless me, yes!" answered the dirty maid, shouting in return from the kitchen, like Achilles from the trenches, "As fast shut as hands can make them."

"What is that noise, then?" demanded the miser, suspiciously. "Only me putting in the lower bolt of the back-door," answered the maid.

"Oh Sally, Sally! you never will do things at the time you are bid!" cried the reproachful usurer. "I told you always to shut up at dusk. But come here, and put on your bonnet I want you to run down to the town for a stamp."

Sally grumbled something about going out so late, and meeting impudent men in the lanes; but after a lapse of time, which the miser thought somewhat extraordinary in length, she appeared equipped for the walk, and received her master's written directions as to the stamp, or rather stamps, he wanted, and where they were to be found in Emberton. The miser then saw her to the door, locked, bolted, and barred it, after her departure, and returning to the parlour, lifted the dim and long wicked candle, bearing on its pale and sickly sides, the evidence of many a dirty thumb and finger; and then with slow, and somewhat feeble steps, climbed, one by one, the stairs, and retired to a high apartment at the back of the house, for which he seemed to entertain a deep and reverential affection.

Well, indeed, might he love it; for it was the temple of his divinity, the place in which his riches and his heart reposed, and which contained his every feeling. There, shrined in a safe of iron, let into the wall, were the Lares and Penates of his house, bearing either the goodly forms of golden disks--with the face of the fourth George pre-eminent on one side, and of his namesake saint all saddleless and naked, on the other--or otherwise, the forms of paper parallelograms, inscribed with cabalistic characters, implying promises to pay. Here Mr. Tims sat down after having closed the door, and placed the candle on a table; and, throwing one leg clothed in its black worsted stocking over the other, he sat in a sort of rapt and reverential trance, worshipping mammon devoutly, in the appropriate forms of vulgar and decimal fractions, interest, simple and compound.

Scarcely had he gone up stairs, however, when a change of scene came over the lower part of his house. A door, which communicated with the steps that led down to the kitchen, moved slowly upon its hinges, and the moonlight streaming through the grated fan window, above the outer door, fell upon the form of a man emerging with a careful and noiseless step from the lower story into the passage. The beams, which were strong enough to have displayed the features of any one where this very suspicious visiter stood, now fell upon nothing like the human face divine, the countenance of the stranger being completely covered and concealed by a broad black crape, tied tightly behind his head. As soon as he had gained the passage, and stood firm in the moonlight, another form appeared, issuing from the mouth of the same narrow and somewhat steep staircase, with a face equally well concealed. A momentary conversation was then carried on in a whisper between the two, and the first apparition, looking sharply at the chinks of the several doors around, seemingly to discover whether there was any light within, replied to some question from the other, "No, no! He is gone up stairs, to hide it in the room where she told us he kept it. Go down and tell Wat to come up, and keep guard here; and make haste!"

The injunction was soon complied with; and a third person being added to the party, was placed, with a pistol in his hand, between the outer door and the top of the stairs. Before he suffered his two companions to depart, however, on the errand on which they were bent, he seemed to ask two or three questions somewhat anxiously, to which the former speaker replied, "Hurt him! Oh, no! do not be afraid! Only tie him, man! I told you before that we would not. There is never any use of doing more than utility requires. He will cry out when he is tied, of course; but do not you budge."