However, he got up at last, all shuddering and weak, with the remains of the phial grasped in his hand, and with a morbid curiosity returned again to examine the box. This time he set it open and took out the sheet of paper. He could scarcely distinguish the words at first, for the awe of looking at his father’s writing, and receiving thus, as it were, a direct message from the dead; but when the sense slowly broke upon him the effect was like a stroke of magic. He stood staring at the paper, his eyes starting from his head, his face flushing and paling with wild vicissitudes of colour; then he dropped down heavily on the floor, thrusting aside unconsciously Mr. Scarsdale’s chair, which stood in its usual place by the table. He could neither cry nor help himself; he fell heavily, like a man stunned by a sudden blow—voice, strength, consciousness went out of him; he lay prostrate, with his head upon the fleecy lambskin where his father’s feet had been accustomed to rest, no longer a self-defending, self-torturing, conscious parricide, with a brand upon his soul worse than that of Cain; a figure blind and helpless, an insensible, inanimate mass of dull flesh and blood, conscious of nothing in the world, not even that he lived and was a man.
The paper fell fluttering after him and covered his face. It was of the kind and colour which Mr. Scarsdale always used—a blue flimsy leaf, and had been carefully cut to fit the box in which it was placed. What had tempted the recluse to record thus his suspicions and his precaution, no one in the world could now ever tell; save as the expression of a vindictive sentiment, and secret triumph to himself in his solitude for discovering and baffling a secret enemy, there was no meaning in it, and the chances are that nothing would have brought these words from the unhappy father’s pen could he have known the overpowering transport of relief which at sight of them should overthrow all the strength and make useless the defences of the still more unhappy son. On the paper were written in large letters, in Mr. Scarsdale’s distinctest handwriting, the following words—
“Tampered with by some person to me Unknown, and the contents of this chest left untouched by me since the 3rd May, on which day I have reason to believe this was done.”
This was the date of Horace’s fatal visit to Marchmain; and the solemn statement of the dead man relieving him from the actual guilt with which he believed himself accursed, had overpowered him with an emotion beyond words—beyond thought. Enough was left to sting him all his life long with black suggestions of ineffaceable remorse, but so far as act and deed went, he was not guilty. He could say nothing in his unspeakable relief. The desperate tension of his misery had kept him alive and conscious by very consequence of its sufferings—but when the bow was unstrung it yielded instantly. There he lay senseless where his father’s feet had used to rest, smitten to the heart with an undeserved and unutterable consolation—guilty, yet not guilty, by some strange interposition of God. He could not even be thankful in this overpowering, unbelievable relief from his misery; he could only fall fainting, unconscious, rapt beyond all sense and feeling. He was deeply, miserably guilty; too deeply stained ever to be clear of that remembrance in this life; but he was not a parricide. In spite of himself he was saved from that horror, and human hope might be possible to him still.
CHAPTER XXIV.
“AND so the Cornel’s at Marchmain; it’s like you’re acquaint with all the history of that family, Patchey, my lad—tak up your glass; ould comrades like you and me are no in the way of meeting every day, and you’ve a long road and a lone across the moor.”
So said Sergeant Kennedy, possessed with a virtuous curiosity to learn all that could be learned from “the Cornel’s own man,” who, with the instinct peculiar to his class, had speedily found out that good ale and company were to be had at the “Tillington Arms,” where Mrs. Gilsland showed great respect and honour to the important Patchey. Patchey had already taken glasses enough to increase his dignity and solemn demeanour. He had grown slow and big of speech, and eloquent on the great importance of his own services to the Colonel.
“He’s a wise man for other folk,” said Patchey deliberately, “but a child, and nothing but a child, where his own affairs is concerned. If it werena for me that ken the world, and keep a strict eye upon the house, he would be ruined, mum; ye may take my word for it—ten times in the year.”
“Acquaint with all the family?—I’m no a braggart,” said Patchey, in answer to this question; “but it stands to natur that in the coorse of our colloquies upon affairs in general the Cornel says many a thing to me.”
“Not a doubt about it—especially,” said the Sergeant, gravely, “as you’re well known to be a discreet lad, and wan that’s to be trusted—as was known of ye since ever ye entered the regiment, though I say it. Ye see, mistress, he was always a weel-respected man.”