Thirty Years Since; or, The Ruined Family. A Tale

by Unknown

"What is that noise, then?" demanded the miser, suspiciously.

"Only me putting in the lower bolt of the back-door," answered the maid.

"Oh, Sally, Sally! you never will do things at the time you are bid!" cried the reproachful usurer. "I told you always to shut up at dusk. But come here, and put on your bonnet. I want you to run down to the town for a stamp."

Sally grumbled something about going out so late, and meeting impudent men in the lanes; but after a lapse of time, which the miser thought somewhat extraordinary in length, she appeared equipped for the walk, and received her master's written directions as to the stamp, or rather stamps, he wanted, and where they were to be found in Emberton. The miser then saw her to the door, locked, bolted, and barred it after her departure, and returning to the parlor, lifted the dim and long-wicked candle, bearing on its pale and sickly sides the evidence of many a dirty thumb and finger; and then with slow, and somewhat feeble steps, climbed, one by one, the stairs, and retired to a high apartment at the back of the house, for which he seemed to entertain a deep and reverential affection.

Well, indeed, might he love it; for it was the temple of his divinity, the place in which his riches and his heart reposed, and which contained his every feeling. There, shrined in a safe of iron, let into the wall, were the Lares and Penates of his house, bearing either the goodly forms of golden disks--with the face of the fourth George pre-eminent on one side, and of his namesake saint all saddleless and naked, on the other--or otherwise, the forms of paper parallelograms, inscribed with cabalistic characters, implying promises to pay. Here Mr. Tims sat down, after having closed the door, and placed the candle on a table; and, throwing one leg, clothed in its black worsted stockings, over the other, he sat in a sort of rapt and reverential trance, worshiping Mammon devoutly, in the appropriate forms of vulgar and decimal fractions, interest, simple and compound.

Scarcely had he gone up-stairs, however, when a change of scene came over the lower part of his house. A door, which communicated with the steps that led down to the kitchen, moved slowly upon its hinges, and the moonlight streaming through the grated fan window, above the outer door, fell upon the form of a man, emerging, with a careful and noiseless step, from the lower story into the passage. The beams, which were strong enough to have displayed the features of any one where this very suspicious visitor stood, now fell upon nothing like the human face divine, the countenance of the stranger being completely covered and concealed by a broad black crape, tied tightly behind his head. As soon as he had gained the passage, and stood firm in the moonlight, another form appeared, issuing from the mouth of the same narrow and somewhat steep staircase, with a face equally well concealed. A momentary conversation was then carried on in a whisper between the two, and the first apparition, looking sharply at the chinks of the several doors around, seemingly to discover whether there was any light within, replied to some question from the other, "No, no! He is gone upstairs, to hide it in the room where she told us he kept it. Go down and tell Wat to come up, and keep guard here; and make haste!"

The injunction was soon complied with; and a third person being added to the party, was placed, with a pistol in his hand, between the outer door and the top of the stairs. Before he suffered his two companions to depart, however, on the errand on which they were bent, he seemed to ask two or three questions somewhat anxiously, to which the former speaker replied, "Hurt him! Oh, no! do not be afraid! Only tie him, man! I told you before that we would not. There is never any use of doing more than utility requires. He will cry when he is tied, of course; but do not you budge."

"Very well!" answered the other, in the same low tone, and his two comrades began to ascend the stairs. Before they had taken three steps, however, the first returned again to warn their sentinel not to use his pistol but in the last necessity; observing, that a pistol was a bad weapon, for it made too much noise. He then resumed his way, and in a moment after was hid from his companion. The whole topography of the house seemed well known to the leader of these nocturnal visitants; for, gliding on as noiselessly as possible, he proceeded direct toward the room where the miser sat.

Mr. Tims, little misdoubting that such gentry were already in possession of his house, had remained quietly musing over his gains, somewhat uneasy, indeed, at the absence of Sally, but not much more apprehensive than the continual thoughts of his wealth caused him always to be.

He had indeed once become so incautious, in the eagerness of his contemplations, as to draw forth his large key, and open the strong iron door which covered the receptacle of his golden happiness. But immediately reflecting that Sally was not in the house to give the alarm, if any cause of apprehension arose below, he relocked the chest, and was returning to the table, when a sudden creak of the stairs, as if one of the steps had yielded a little beneath a heavy but cautious foot, roused all his fears. His cheeks and his lips grew pale; his knees trembled; and, with a shaking hand, he raised the candle from the table, and advanced toward the door.