It was a farmer's boy from the village. His message was soon told. A poor man had been seized with sudden illness at the wayside public-house, and the clergyman's presence was required immediately. He lingered to tell Faith not to wait up for him, then rose without a murmur, and prepared for his long dreary walk. A moment after he was crossing the neatly-kept garden, where the hydrangeas showed like piles of skulls in the pale moonshine, and the chestnut leaves were falling thick and fast. Then out into the deep-rutted road, through miry lanes, across stark scraps of common, and paths covered with fern and marsh-mallow, till at last the glimmering candle in the hostelry window came in sight, and he stood under the creaking signboard of the White Horse. The inn was of the humblest description, and the room into which he was shown very wretched indeed. The plaster had peeled off the walls in great odd shapes, like the countries on a map; the shutters had as many cracks as an ill-fitting dissecting puzzle; the flooring was damp and broken, there was a tracery of spiders' webs about the bed-furniture, and the only sounds were the groans of the occupant of the bed, and the drowsy ticking of the death-watch. Thinking he was asleep, the curate prepared to sit down and wait for him to wake of himself, but the noise of a drinking-song, shouted by some laborers in the bar, startled him from his uneasy slumber, and when Mr. F. next looked up, the ghastly face of the sick man confronted his own—an eery nightmare face, such as meets one in the outlines of Retzsch, or peering out of the goblin scenes and witches' caves of Peter Breughel. But if the face was terrible, the voice that asked him "Why he came!" and bade him take away the light that glared and hurt his eyes, was more unearthly still. But when he recognized him as the clergyman, his manner altered. In a comparatively tranquil state he listened to the minister's earnest warnings and blessed consolations; then suddenly the pain seized him; he screamed and groaned awhile in wild delirium; a deep calm followed. Raising himself in the bed, he drew a roll of torn and discolored papers from under the pillow, and put it into the curate's hand. His senses never returned. A few more throbbings and struggles—a wandering of the eyes about the room, first to the ceiling, where the death-watch ticked on drearily, then to the Arcadian scene on the tattered patchwork counterpane—a clutching at the bed-clothes—a shuddering—a film—and then—death!
The curate did not sleep that night until he had read the stranger's diary to an end. It began thus:
"August 3d.—Brian Marcliffe came to me again; the same odd, mysterious air that I have noticed so long. What can it mean? He can not have found—But no, it's worse than useless having dark forebodings. I shall soon be able to put the sea between me and this cursed golden inferno, Brazil, and with my darling Bertha forget all these fears in the paradise of full purses—England.
"August 4th.—I met him by chance again, coming from the overseer's. Confound it, how demon-like he looked! I will speak to him myself, rather than be in suspense much longer. I should then know the worst, at least.
"August 5th.—Ruin! The worst has come. He does know all about my being behindhand in my accounts, and hints—I can't write down what. Bertha will never marry him but as the only chance of saving me from exposure. Can he be devil enough to propose it?
"August 20th.—Am I the same man I was a month ago! Farewell forever, land of diamonds, slaves, and late summers. Farewell lust of gold and dread of disgrace. It is over, I hope, forever. My Bertha—my own now—is sleeping like a lily near me, and the only sound is the splashing of the sea that is bearing me every moment further from my fear. But stay; what have I left behind me! What is there in that glen of mimosas? A rotting corpse. What in men's mouths? The name of murderer. Pray God it be not. Let me think.
"On the Monday when I was leaving the office, Brian came again, and asked me to go as far as old Olivenza's coffee plantation. I said I would come, and we set out an hour past sunset. It was a beautiful evening; the skies as pure as the robe of seraphim; the clouds like curls of incense, now hiding, now revealing the dazzling glory of the rising moon—all, save one black streak right across her face, like a spread eagle. Well, we had nearly got to the plantation before Brian spoke; but I saw he was preparing something by the villainous look of his eyes. He began:
"'So, Reuben Darke, you have considered my proposition, and agree, of course?'
"I believe I professed ignorance of it; for, indeed, he had never said any thing definite.
"'The consequences of opposition are as terrible as they are inevitable,' said he, threateningly.