Patricia at the inn

by J. C. Snaith

During the rest of that evening, Gamaliel was too shaken to spy again on his guests, or to connive at others doing so. For he was still determined that his new drawer, whom he had engaged for that particular purpose, should go up the ladder also, and finally settle this hard problem as to whether Charles Stuart was actually at his inn or not.

It was not until the following evening that he summoned the courage to make a fresh attempt to set his mind at rest. During the day he could not venture to do so, for the publicity of light was too great. In the meantime he had not an idea of what had happened upstairs. He was still denied the chamber as sedulously as ever. He had tapped on the chamber door during the morning; the pale-eyed lady had appeared, more beautiful and more beset with anguish than before. She had taken a bowl of milk and a loaf of bread from the landlord’s hands, but beyond a word of thanks and a prayer that he should not again disturb the sleeper, he had nothing of her conversation. It was on his lips to inquire of the young man’s condition; but ere he could frame the question the door was swiftly yet silently closed upon him, and for that day his chance had passed. As time wore on, a conviction grew up in his mind that the man was dead. The silence upstairs was so extreme; besides, an intangible sense of foreboding seemed to invade and presently possess, not only the atmosphere of the dismal old inn, but the minds of those dwelling in it.

Cicely went about in tears. The tender-hearted wench was sure something terrible had happened to the poor young gentleman. Her master swore at her, but he could not relieve his own mind of her fears. Joseph, his son, was also afraid: it was true that he and the serving-maid were singularly often in sympathy, more often than Gamaliel cared about. He would have got rid of her long ago, were she not such an industrious, capable girl. Then, again, a shadow seemed to hang over the mind, or what there was of it, of his new drawer. He had hardly spoken a word, and every task he was set to, whether it was cutting faggots or washing the floor, he performed in a perfunctory and absent manner. Indeed, the first day he spent in the service of his new master was not to the satisfaction of the landlord. A more idle, more incapable fellow, he vowed he had never beheld. He would take the first chance of getting rid of him when he had served his turn. Twice during the day he had had to kick him up from the straw in the stable, where he had discovered him fast asleep.

At last, when the darkness had come again, the landlord once more resolved to allay his doubts. His nausea of the night before was merged in his overmastering curiosity. Summoning Will Jackson, he again had recourse to the ladder; and being at the mercy of his passions, he again had the temerity first to ascend himself.

No sooner, however, were his feet on the ladder, than a latent sense of horror was quickened within him. The bitter winter evening biting his ears, the moans of the sea, the gloom, the insecurity of hanging by one’s icy fingers in mid-air, all came upon him as a special reminiscence, and reproduced his pangs of the night before. And no sooner had he cocked his eyes over the shutter than they were greeted by a face as pallid as the sheets in which it lay. The man was asleep. Many evidences of pain had vanished from his countenance; indeed, his slumber looked as natural as it was profound. Then it began to dawn on the landlord that this was the peace of death. The sweat broke out on the watcher’s face. Why, in the fiend’s name, had he ventured up that ladder a second time, when there was a loathsome, ugly corpse at the top to greet him!

So if this was the King, the King was dead. Poor young man! he had died under the knife, perchance. But why had he been so unthoughtful as to die at the “Sea Rover”? There would, doubtless, be no end of a business presently. Yet, more probably, it was not the King at all; in that case there would only be a woman to deal with, for fugitives must be made to pay for the privilege of perishing in that respectable house. Just, however, as Master Gamaliel’s thoughts had travelled back to their customary sphere, and were beginning to revolve in their natural orbit—namely and to wit, the personal interests of Gamaliel Hooker—a phenomenon occurred to the corpse. It raised its arms and stretched itself.

The landlord bit his lips with anger. What a zany he was, to be sure; he had come to his dotage. To think that he should have mistaken a sleeping man for a corpse! It did not occur to him, cunning as he was, that it calls for as full-blooded a creature to be an eminent scoundrel, as it does for one to be distinguished in the more civil sciences. He could not shake off that sinister incident of the night before; he was a bag of nerves; he could hear skeletons creaking in the wind. With the best will in the world, there was hardly enough blood and pulse about him for this business. He had a thought too much imagination. He made but a poor second-rate sort of rascal, after all.

All this time, though the lady was in the chamber, she had been so still that the landlord had not noticed her. Turning his attention to her now, the eavesdropper saw that she was standing hard by the bed. She was no longer regarding the sleeper, however. Her head was bent over something she held in her hand; and her tears were falling fast and thick. In the very frenzy of her companion’s sufferings she had restrained them; but now, when she had procured him some little surcease, her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere, and her infinite compassion extended to another.

Craning to the window and alternately pressing his ears and his eyes to the wood, Gamaliel was able to discover the object of her pity. The thing in her hand was an open locket. It was suspended by a chain of fine gold round her neck, and was worn apparently in the recesses of her bosom. The landlord was presently able to discern that it was a portrait in miniature. Yet it was far too small and delicately wrought for its outlines to be distinguished at that distance. Gamaliel had not to speculate long on its subject, however. For on a sudden impulse the lady pressed it to her lips with a passionate gesture, crying aloud in her throbbing tones:

“Oh, my King! oh, my King! our Lady be with thee forever and alway!”