Volume Two—Chapter One.
Home.
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.