The slumbers which followed the prolonged reveries of Geoffery Arden, were rendered unrefreshing by feverish dreams, some of a truly horrible character; in particular the vision that presented itself on his first closing his eyes; which was, that he had himself for some reason or other been condemned to be hung; that it was the night before his execution, and that he was laying trembling in the condemned cell, dreading the approach of dawn. The agony of his feelings awoke him. What he had just suffered, and his infinite relief on finding that all was but a dream, had for some moments a salutary effect, even on his heart, which, if ever heart of man was justly entitled to the epithet, was indeed "desperately wicked;" now, however, the scheme with which he had laid his head on his pillow, seemed almost too diabolical to be attempted; he almost shrank from the idea of inflicting on any human creature the intense suffering with the recent escape from which his own heart still beat audibly.
These were the thoughts of solitude and of darkness. He slept again, and awoke only to fear, as he beheld the full light of day penetrating every where, and making the true forms of all things evident, that his scheme of murderous treachery was too monstrous to be practicable. No one would listen to such a proposition: and as for proofs, could circumstances be indeed tortured into any strong enough to meet the powerful current of opinion, flowing in the opposite direction? Yet, on the other hand, such things had been heard of, and without one-tenth part the stake as to property, which in this instance might be alleged as one powerful incentive, while there was room also to suppose the workings of violent jealousy, and even of revenge. His own mother, moreover, could be summoned to prove that he had actually been accepted, and that he himself ascribed his disappointment afterwards to the rivalship of his brother.
At this moment a servant answered Geoffery's bell, prepared to assist him at his morning toilet.
The man's face was full of importance and mystery; Geoffery noted this, and willing to encourage the fellow, in whatever he might have to tell respecting the opinions of servants, &c., said,
"Why, Davison, you look absolutely frightened! What is the matter?"
"I don't know that I have got any occasion to look frightened," said the man, "for whatever way the poor gentleman came by his death, whether by a fit, as some sais, or by poison, as others thinks, it was nearly over with him before ever we came to the house. But there's no saying, for that matter, who'll be blamed, or who wont; they are all in such a taking about it below, as never was."
"How do you mean?"
"Why the coachman thinks that as it was he that went to Arden for the arsenic for laying for the rats, for it was in the stable-lofts they were most troublesome, that he'll get brought into some mischief, although he had his master's orders; but who is to prove that, now poor Sir Willoughby's dead and gone? And for the butler, he's afraid of his life, but people may think that something must have been wrong with the glasses or the water, when he carried them in; and so he took Johnson and myself to the saddle-room, that we should see where the arsenic lay, and so judge that it was impossible for it to come near any thing that was for eating or drinking. When we got there, however, the packet with the poison was nowhere to be found, although it had lain on the very shelf he showed us, in that selfsame room (the butler sais), no longer ago than yesterday forenoon, when poor Sir Willoughby and Mr. Alfred looked at it themselves."
"Strange indeed!" said Geoffery, "and has inquiry been made? Does any one own to having moved the packet? This may throw light on the whole affair. It is rather too bad that gentlemen are to lose their lives in this manner by the shameful carelessness of servants. How are they to prove it carelessness either? How are they to show it was not intentional? The half of them will be hung, I make no doubt, and richly they deserve it."
"The servants are all ready to swear, that not one of them touched it, or so much as went near the place," replied Davison; "and what's more, the groom who was leading the horses round, after the gentlemen returned from riding, sais, that he saw Mr. Alfred coming out of the saddle-room with a paper parcel in his hand; so that if one of the family thought proper to remove the arsenic himself, and an accident happened in consequence to any article of food, the servants all say that was no fault of theirs."