CHAPTER XX.

A LAST LOOK AT OLD FRIENDS.

I made my deposition minutely and circumstantially, from the time of my conversation with Adam Hows until the time when, accompanied by George Norton, we encountered him and Bill Martin in the plantations, and took the latter prisoner. My statement was so clear, so plausible, so perfectly matter-of-fact, that this hideous lie was received by wise and well-educated men as God's truth. I heard myself spoken of as a sober, excellent young man, well worthy of the confidence and affection of the 'Squire, and extremely grateful for the many favours he had bestowed upon me; while the character that Martin bore, and his previous pursuits, were enough to condemn him, independently of the startling evidence that I, and others from among his own wild companions, had given against him. A conversation that one of these men had accidentally heard between him and Adam Hows, proclaiming their intention to rob and murder Mr. Carlos, was indeed more conclusive of their guilt than my own account, though that was sufficient to have hung him twice over.

Bill kept his eye fixed on me during the examination. I met it with a degree of outward calmness; but it thrilled me to the soul, and has haunted me ever since. He made no attempt at vindication. He said that the evidence brought against him was circumstantially correct, yet, for all that, neither he nor his accomplice had actually murdered the Squire, and that God, who looked deeper than man, knew that what he said was true.

Of course no one listened to such an absurd statement. But, to cut this painful part of my story short--for it is agony to dwell upon it--he was tried, condemned, and finally executed at ----. I saw him hung.

Yes, Reader, you may well start back from the page in horror. To be sure that my victim was dead, I actually witnessed his last struggles, and returned home satisfied that the tongue I most dreaded upon earth--the only living creature who suspected my guilt--was silenced and cold for ever.

Shallow fool that I was! Conscience never sleeps! The voice of remorse sounds up from the lowest deeps, with the clang of the archangel's trump blasting the guilty ear with its judgment-peal. With him, my peace of mind, self-respect, and hopes of heaven, vanished for ever!

I have since often thought, that God gave me this last chance in order to try me--to see if any good remained in me--if I could for once resist temptation, and act towards Martin as an honest man. I have felt, amid the burning agonies of my sleepless, phantom-haunted nights, that, had I confessed my guilt and saved him from destruction, the same pity that Christ extended to the thief on the cross might have been shown to me.

These dreadful events were the beginning of sorrows. When Mr. Walter came to the Hall to attend his uncle's funeral, and the will of the deceased was opened by the man of business, and read to him after the melancholy ceremony was over, it was found that Mr. Carlos had named me in this document as _his natural son by Anne Cotton_, and had left me the house in which I now live, together with the fifty acres adjoining, and two thousand pounds in the funds. The interest of the latter to be devoted to my mother during her life, but both principal and interest to devolve to me at her death.

This handsome legacy seemed to console my mother a great deal for the loss of her wealthy lover; but it only served to debase me lower in my own eyes, and deepen the pangs of remorse. How gladly would I have quitted this part of the country! but I was so haunted by the fear of detection, that I was afraid lest it might awaken suspicions in the minds of poor neighbours. On every hand I heard that the Squire had made a gentleman of Noah Cotton, while I cursed the money in my heart, and would thankfully have exchanged my lot with the poorest emigrant that ever crossed the seas in search of a new home.

The property bequeathed me by the Squire was a mile from the village, in an opposite direction to the porter's lodge. My mother quitted our old home with reluctance; but I was glad to leave a place which was associated in my mind with such terrible recollections.

The night before we removed to the Porched House--for so my new home was called--I waited until after my mother had retired to her bed, and then carefully removed from its hiding-place the sack and its fatal contents. The waggoner's frock and hat, together with the sack, I burned in a field at the back of the Lodge, and then slunk back, like a guilty wretch, under the cover of night and darkness, to my own chamber. It was some time before I could muster sufficient courage to open the pocket-book. It felt damp and clammy in my grasp.--It had been saturated with his blood; and the roll of bank notes were dyed with the same dull red hue. I did not unroll them. A ghastly sickness stole over me whenever my eye fell upon them. I seemed distinctly to trace his dying face in those horrible stains--that last look of blank surprise and unutterable woe with which he regarded me when he recognised in me his murderer!

It was necessary to put out of sight these memorials of my guilt. I would have burnt them, but I could not bring my heart to destroy such a large sum of money; neither could I dare to make use of it. An old bureau had been purchased by my mother at a sale: she had given it to me, for a receptacle for books and papers. I possessed so few of these, that I generally kept my shooting apparatus in its many odd nooks and drawers. While stowing away these, I had discovered a secret spring, which covered a place of concealment in which some hoarder of by-gone days had treasured a few guineas of the reign of the third George. These I had appropriated to my own use, and had considered them a godsend at the time. Into this drawer I now thrust the bloodstained pocket-book and the useless wealth it contained. Never since that hour have I drawn it from its hiding-place. My earnest wish is, that when I am gone to my last account, this money may be restored to the family to whom it rightfully belongs.

When I settled upon the farm, it afforded me a good pretext to give up my situation as gamekeeper. Mr. Walter, now Sir Walter Carlos, had just come to reside at the Hall, and, being a great sportsman, he was very unwilling to dispense with my services.

"Wait at least, Noah," he said, "until after the shooting-season is over. I expect my sister Ella and her husband and a large party down next week. No one can point out the best haunts of the game like you. This will give me time to procure some one in your place."

I named George Norton as a fitting person to fill the vacant situation. He promised to appoint him in my place, but insisted on my staying with him until the end of October.

Reluctantly I complied. The words he had carelessly spoken respecting his sister, had sent a fresh arrow through my heart. She, for whose sake I had committed that fearful deed, in the hope of acquiring wealth, was now the bride of another. How had I dared to form a hope that one so far removed from me by birth and education would ever condescend to cast one thought on me? Blind fool that I had been! I was conscious of my madness now, when I had forfeited my own soul to obtain the smiles of one who could never be mine.

The gay party arrived in due time at the Hall, and Sir Walter forgot its old possessor, the friend of his boyhood, the gay, roystering, reckless man who slept so quietly in the old churchyard, while pursuing his favourite sport.

Captain Manners, the husband of my beautiful Ella, was a fine, dashing-looking officer, and I felt bitterly jealous of him whenever I saw him and his young bride together. In spite of her sables, she was all smiles and sunshine--the life and soul of the party at the Hall.

One fine afternoon--I shall never forget it!--I was following the gentlemen with the dogs, when we came to the fatal spot where Mr. Carlos had been murdered.

I had never trod that path since the night of his death, though in my dreams I constantly revisited the spot, and enacted the revolting scene in all its terrible details. But there was no avoiding it now. I felt as if every eye was upon me, and I stooped to caress the dogs, in order to conceal the agitation that trembled through my frame.

Just as we drew near the gate, Sir Walter fired at a partridge, which fell among the long fern just at my side.

"Hullo, Noah! pick up that bird. 'Tis a splendid cock," cried Sir Walter.

I parted the fern with trembling hands to do his bidding. The bird lay dead on the very stone over which my unhappy father's life-blood had gushed! I saw the fresh, warm drops that had flowed from the breast of the bird, but, beneath was a darker stain. I tried in vain to lift the creature from the ground. Before me lay the bleeding, prostrate form of Mr. Carlos, with the tender reproach gleaming in his eyes through the deepening mists of death. My senses reeled--I saw no more--I sank down in a fit,--the first of those dreadful epileptic fits which have since been of such constant recurrence.

When I recovered, Sir Walter was supporting me; and Mrs. Manners, who had followed her husband to the field, was fanning me with a small branch of sycamore leaves.

"He's coming to," she said, in a gentle voice. "Why, Noah,"--addressing herself to me--"what ails you?--Were you ever in this way before?"

I answered very faintly, "No; but that I had not been well for some time past. When I stooped to lift the bird, every object seemed to turn round with me, and looked first red and then black: and I remembered nothing more."

"You must be bled, Noah," said Sir Walter, kindly; "this is a clear case of blood to the head. Go home, and I will send Dr. Pinnock to see you as I return to the Hall."

"I am better now," I replied, glancing towards Mrs. Manners, who was regarding me with looks of interest and compassion. "To tell you the truth, Sir Walter, I have not felt like myself since Mr. Carlos was killed. It gave me a dreadful shock. It was on this very spot that he was murdered. That stone is stained with his blood. When I saw it just now, it brought the whole scene so vividly before me, that it made me ill."

"No wonder," said Ella, thoughtfully. "My poor dear uncle! He was the best-hearted man in the world; and was so fond of you, Noah."

"He had a good right to be," returned Sir Walter. "You are not perhaps aware, Ella," he added, in a low voice, "that our friend Noah is his son."

"Indeed!" she cried, in surprise; "that accounts for the affection we both felt for him when a boy,--the interest we feel for him still."

"I wish I was more deserving of your good opinion," I said. "But believe me, Mrs. Manners, I shall retain, during my life, a grateful remembrance of your kindness."

I lifted my hat with profound respect, and looked long and sadly upon her. It was for the last time; for she followed her husband to India, and I never saw her again. Then whistling to my dogs, I pursued my solitary way.