Mad: A Story of Dust and Ashes

by George Manville Fenn

And there stood the careworn man in his own old room—the old plainly-furnished room that he might have slept in but the previous night, so unaltered was everything, as, with eyes putting off that which he had come to see until the very last, he gazed around. There were the quaint old black-framed prints of Hudibras, whose strange, uncouth figures had frightened him as a boy—figures that, in the half-lights of evening or early morn, he had looked upon until they had seemed to stand forth from the frames as he lay quaking with childish terror; there was the old wall-paper, in whose pattern he had been wont to trace grotesque faces; there again the marbled ceiling, whose blue veins he had been used to follow in their maze-like wanderings, when he lay fevered and wakeful with some childish ailment; the same strips of lean-looking striped carpet; the same old hook in the beam, round which the flies darted and circled in summer; the same rickety corner washstand, with its cracked ewer, and quaint water-bottle and glass, which tinkled when a footstep passed along the passage; the fire-board, which blew down on windy nights, and almost frightened him into a fit, while there it was, even now, half-fallen and leaning against a chair, with a faint dust of the old fine soot, just as it used to be, scattered upon the hearthstone; the same drawers, whose old jingling brass knobs caught in his pinafore, and held him that dark night when he let fall the candle, and stood screaming for help; the same shells upon the chimney-piece—shells that of old he had held to his ear to listen to the roaring sea; even the old rushlight shade—big, and pierced with holes—was there, the old shade that used to stand upon the floor in the wash-hand basin, and throw its great hole-pierced shadow all over ceiling and wall—while each hole formed a glaring eye to stare at him and frighten away sleep.

Familiar sights that made him disbelieve in the lapse of time, and think it impossible that he could be standing there an elderly man; for all his association with the room seemed those first-formed impressions of childhood. But he cast away the dreamy, musing fit; for he felt that he had driven it to the last, and he must look now. Yes; there was his old bed, with the great black-cloth coffin, nearly covered by its lid, now drawn down a little from the head.

“Tap-tap, tap-tap,” went the blind-lath; while outside shone the sun, and through the open window came the cheery twitter of the birds. Within the room Septimus Hardon could hear the heavy beating of his own heart. Then again, close behind him, came the sound of hurried scuffling beyond the wainscot; then a shrill squealing; and directly after, the loud sharp tearing of hungry teeth, gnaw, gnaw, gnaw incessantly, for the scared rats had again returned to the charge.

Septimus Hardon roused himself from his stupor, and kicked angrily at the wainscot, and once again he heard the hurrying rush of the hunger-driven little animals as they fled, and a shuddering sensation ran through his veins as he recalled the past.

And now he nerved himself to approach the bed, and stretched out his hand to remove the coffin-lid; but for some time he stood with his hands resting upon it. A dread had overshadowed him that he was about to gaze upon something too hideous for human eyes to bear; but at last he thrust the covering aside, and it fell upon the bed, when, with swimming head, he clung to the bedstead for a few minutes to save himself from falling. But the tremor passed off, for he was once more roused by the indefatigable gnawing of the rats; and he asked himself how long it would be before they would work their way through the thin oaken panel, and then whether they would attack the coffin.

Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw incessantly, till he once more angrily struck at the wall, when the noise ceased. And now Septimus Hardon strode firmly up to the bedside and gazed upon his father’s face, not hideously disfigured, or frightful to look upon, but pale, calm, stern, with the brow slightly contracted, and, seen there in the twilight of that shaded room, apparently sleeping.

Dead—not sleeping. Gone from him without a word, without a sign, of forgiveness; leaving him a beggar with a name that was fouled and stained for ever in the sight of men. Gone—taking with him a secret of such vital importance; but Septimus Hardon thought not now of all this, for his memory was back amidst those early days when his mother was living, and his father would relax from his stern fits, so that for a while happiness seemed to dwell within their home. Then came the recollection of his mother’s death, and the cold indifference into which his father had sunk. Then again all the sorrows and pains were forgotten, and the old man’s virtues shone forth, as his shabby, travel-stained son sank upon his knees by the coffin and buried his face in his hands.

The sun streamed through the loose corner of the blind and shone like a golden bar-sinister across the kneeling man; the sparrows twittered in the eaves, and ever upon the window-frame the blind kept up its monotonous tap, tap, tap, at regular intervals, while at times a puff of light air made it shiver and shudder from top to bottom. But, above all, came from behind the wainscot the incessant gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, as though the rats knew, that their time was short, and that their prey would soon be beyond their reach; gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, as though splintering off large pieces of the woodwork, while now no angrily-stricken blow scared them off; gnaw, gnaw, gnaw, until little ragged splinters and chips began to be thrust out beneath the skirting-board; then more, and more, and more, till a tiny, light heap, that a breath would have scattered, appeared close to a ragged hole. Then heap and hole grew larger, and as the noise increased a sharp nose was seen moving quickly, as a rat worked vigorously, till, as it obtained room to tear away at the board, the heap grew bigger, fragments were thrust out hastily into the room, and at last the little archway afforded space for the passage of the worker, a sharp-eyed, keen-looking, little animal, which, after peering about eagerly for a few moments, darted into the room, darted back again, and then renewed its attack upon the skirting-board until the hole was enlarged.

Then for a while all was silent, but a keen observer might have detected within the darkness the sharp nose of the rat, and the eager glint of its watching orbs. Then came a faint rustle, and the rat seemed to glide out into the room; then another head appeared at the hole, and another lean, vicious animal was out, but a louder tap than usual from the blind sent them darting back to their lair.

Another five minutes and they were out again—one, two, three; another, and another, and another—a swarm of rats, savage with hunger; but now the loud, chirrupping squabble of a pair of sparrows which settled on the window-sill scared the little animals once more, and they fled in haste to their corner.