When she was gone, a striking change came over the old man—his face became more animated; he was younger in look and manner. Presently, he rose from his seat with surprising ease for one so old. He stood for a moment in the middle of the room, leaning forward and listening, with keenness and cunning expressed in his eyes. There was not a sound. The street outside, little frequented even during daylight, was silent. The old man lit the candle, blew out the lamp, and went up the old staircase noiselessly. On one side of the landing above there were two rooms—the first the bedchamber of the grandfather, the second that of the girl. Reaching the landing, he entered his room and closed the door very cautiously, and always listening.
The room was grotesquely furnished. In one corner was a large bed, with four black, bare, oaken posts, with spikes, nearly touching the low ceiling. The bed-coverings were neat and clean; and beside the bed was a strip of carpet. But here all appearance of comfort began and ended. The contrast gave to the rest of the room a dreary aspect: the sombre walls, the patched-up window-panes, the uneven floor, suggested nothing beyond abject poverty and decay.
Still in a listening attitude, and frequently glancing keenly about, as though the fear of being taken by surprise amounted almost to terror, the old man placed the candle on the drawers, and taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked a cupboard in the wall and took out sundry articles. Firstly, a thick long overcoat, into which he disappeared, leaving only his head visible; secondly, a large fur-cap, which he drew down to his eyebrows and over his ears; thirdly, he brought forth a dark-lantern; this he carefully trimmed, lighted, and closed. These strange proceedings completed, he threw the bedclothes, with evident intention, into some disorder, put out the candle, and left the room. For a moment he stood on the landing, listening at his grand-daughter’s half-open door. It was dark within her room, and a soft regular breathing, as from one who sleeps, fell upon the old man’s ear. Apparently satisfied, he nodded his head slowly; and then he began to descend the dark staircase. Step by step he crept down, casting at intervals a trembling ray of light before him from the lantern which he held in his shaky hand. When he reached the passage, he opened the front-door and went into the night, closing the portal without a sound. As he had come, when his grand-daughter stood waiting for him on the doorstep, so he went, hugging himself, and moving with a jerky trot along the silent, lonely way, under the dim lamps fixed in the walls over his head. So he went, like a mysterious, restless shadow. Where? The old city clocks are striking midnight; they awaken echoes in tranquil courts and alleys; their droning tones die out, and break forth again upon the night, as though demanding in their deep monotonous voices—‘Where?’
When Rachel arose at an early hour on the following morning, her pretty face expressed no surprise when she found that her grandfather was up and away without awakening her. The same thing had occurred so often in her young life, that although she felt regret at not seeing him at the breakfast-table, she took for granted that the important affairs of the great firm of Armytage and Company had called him away to the counting-house; so she made herself as happy and contented as might be under the circumstances. She lit the fire, breakfasted, and then busied herself about the old house until towards noon, when she sat down by the window in the sitting-room with her work, looking out upon the dismal row. A dismal place, even upon a bright autumn morning. The row faced a plot of waste ground. On this plot there had once stood, in all probability, a row of houses similar to the row in which Rachel and her grandfather lived; but nothing now remained except the foundations of houses, filled with rubbish of every description in the midst of broken bricks. In the centre of the place there was planted a wooden beam with a crossbar, like a gibbet, from which was suspended a lantern, broken and covered with dust. Whether this lantern had ever been lighted, may be doubtful; but that some one had placed it there with the intention of warning people who had some regard for their shins against trespassing after dark, and had afterwards forgotten to light it, is the probable explanation of the matter. Be this as it may, Rachel sat regarding this scarecrow-looking lamp dreamily, as she had often done, without being conscious that it was there, with the piles of dark houses in the background, when the figure and, more especially, the handsome face of a young man on the opposite side of the street, somehow got in front of the lantern and blotted it out.
As Rachel’s eyes met the eyes of the young man, a smile of recognition crossed the girl’s face. She threw open the window. ‘Good-morning, Mr Tiltcroft.’
To which the young man answered, as he stepped across the road: ‘Good-morning, Miss Rachel.’
‘Have you come from the counting-house?’
‘Yes; I’m on my “rounds,” you know, as usual,’ replied the young man; ‘and happening by mere accident to be passing this way on matters of business for Armytage and Company, I thought it would scarcely be polite to go by the house of Silas Monk without inquiring after the health of Miss Monk, his grand-daughter.’
‘You are very kind. Won’t you come in?’