The news we had heard was only too true, for, sad to relate, poor John Archer, who up to that very morning had been the picture of robust health, suddenly fell the victim of a violent fever that carried him off within a few hours. The doctors were at a loss to account for the disease, as there was no fever at that time in the neighbourhood. It was an isolated case. During his delirium he was heard to give vent to certain incoherent ravings, frequently calling out, "The waxen image! the waxen image!" He was heard to couple the names of De Chevron and Madge Mandrake together, but the bystanders, his parents, understood nothing of his meaning.
There remains little more to relate. It appears that my father when left alone in the house had been prying into every nook and corner of it for his snuff-box, which he had lost, until he stumbled upon the little waxen image in the glazed cupboard, of the history of which he knew nothing, but which he instantly recognised as intended for a likeness of John Archer, imagining that either myself or Claribel had been amusing ourselves with endeavouring to represent the lineaments of our common friend in wax, and thinking it very good and clever, he thought it would make a pretty chimney ornament, and accordingly placed it on the mantelpiece when the fire was yet low. Afterwards, he had heaped on fuel, being very cold that day, and shortly afterwards had been called away by a neighbour on business. In the meantime the fire had blazed up and so heated the room that before he returned to the parlour there was nothing left of the effigy of John Archer but a shapeless heap of wax.
On recovering from the swoon my poor friend reproached herself in the severest terms with not having foreseen such a contingency, adding that she alone had been the cause of John's death, as she ought to have locked the cupboard and taken away the key. I strove to reason with her and comfort her, but she was deaf to all consolation. The sad event of John's death had cast a gloom over us all. As for Claribel, poor soul, it was a shock from which she never recovered. She drooped and pined away from that hour, and outlived young Archer but one month. Peace be to their ashes!
On concluding her affecting narrative, our worthy hostess thrust a corner of her apron into her eye in order to staunch a rising tear called into existence by tender recollections of her poor deceased friend and her unfortunate lover, but she was soon cut short in the indulgence of her grief by the boisterous applause that simultaneously ensued from all the members of the club. This was the cheering and clapping of hands before alluded to that had attracted the attention of our artist while painting from the fair Helen in the opposite room, and which, as our reader will recollect, was the signal for the young portrait painter to commence his Italian story of "The Three Pauls."
"And so that rascal De Chevron cheated the gallows after all," broke in Mr. Oldstone, during the pause that succeeded the tumultuous cheering that greeted the relation of Dame Hearty.
"But what became of Madge Mandrake? You have not told us that. She didn't escape scot-free, surely?"
"Well, you see, sir, the law had no actual hold on her," replied the hostess; "but I have every reason to believe that she died hard. She was discovered dead one day on the floor of her hovel, in her day clothes, her eyes fixed and starting from her head, her features distorted, and her fingers extended like claws, as if grasping the floor. Some thought she had died in a fit, but, whatever the cause of her death, it is certain she must have suffered great agony, and I cannot look upon the mode of her death otherwise than as a judgment for her many sins. She had never been known to enter a church within the memory of man, and though she had led a notoriously bad life, it seems that the parish could not deny her a Christian burial, and she was interred in the old churchyard yonder with all due ceremony, but report said at the time that she had frequently been seen since by those who happened to be passing through the churchyard late at night or thereabouts, and that should a thunderstorm burst over the head of the benighted traveller, as he wended his weary steps past this abode of the dead, a shadowy form with a steeple-crowned hat and astride on a broomstick might be seen riding through the murky air, and behind her a black tom cat with a pair of flame-coloured eyes. Yells and groans, mingled with demoniacal laughter, were said to have been heard, as if proceeding from beneath the ground by those who happened to pass through the churchyard close to her grave after nightfall. Owls, bats, carrion crows, and other obscene birds would be found perched on the head of her grave, and, scared at the footsteps of a stranger, would fly screeching away.
"At least, this is what the country folk would say; but never having seen nor heard any of these things myself, gentlemen, I cannot vouch for their authenticity, yet there are few folks in the village to this day but would not put themselves much out of the way in order to avoid passing through that same churchyard on a stormy night."
"In fact," remarked Mr. Crucible, "there is every reason to believe that the old lady was d——"