Part 26

And a strange night it was to her. Fatigue brought sleep upon her it is true, but there was no refreshment in it, for it was full of wild visions, and she started from time to time, and awaked to have her mind brought back to the full conviction of her distressing situation by the maniac laughter or howlings that broke at intervals upon the stillness around her. The only support she had in circumstances so trying was derived from religious meditations and aspirations, together with the hope which never forsook her, that her affectionate uncle might next day visit and relieve her.

FRESH LIGHT UPON THE SUBJECT.

Grant.--Stop for one moment, Clifford, till we ring for fresh candles, or we shall be in darkness before you have uttered five sentences more.

Dominie.--Stay, sir, I'll run to the kitchen for them myself. Preserve me! the less time we keep Mr. Clifford's poor lassie in such misery the better.

Mr. Macpherson soon returned with the new lights, set them down on the table, and drawing in his chair, put his elbows upon his knees, placed his cheeks firmly in the palms of his hands, and sat with his eyes eagerly fixed upon Clifford's countenance, with the most ludicrous expression of earnestness. Clifford resumed as follows.

LEGEND OF CHIRSTY ROSS--Continued.

The morning's dawn brought back the returning footstep of Sarah. She brought with her Chirsty's travelling-box with most of the things it contained.

"See," said she, as she set down the box, "I have kept my word. So long as you behave, you shall find me disposed to treat you well. I know that you have been quiet all night, and, therefore, we shall try you for to-day with your hands unmuffled. But mind!" added the old woman with a fearful expression of eye, "if you should change for the worse, there are worse punishments for you than this leathern glove."

"I thank you," said Chirsty meekly; "I think you will have no occasion to resort to any such. I hope my uncle will be here to-day, and that a few moments of conversation with him will satisfy him that you may be released from any further trouble with me."

"Your uncle!" cried Sarah, with an uncouth laugh. "But we shall see. Meanwhile, here comes water for you, and, by and by, you shall have breakfast."

A little black-looking sharp-eyed girl now entered with a pitcher, basins, and towels. Sarah stood by to watch how her charge conducted herself, and, when the toilet was completed, the bed was made up, and the things removed, and soon afterwards breakfast was brought her, together with a common fir chair and a small table, and when she had finished her meal, she was again left to her own solitary meditations.

No sooner was all quiet, than Chirsty arose for the purpose of looking out of the window, that she might try at least to gain some knowledge of her position. She discovered that the walls of the building were extremely thick, that the window was powerfully barred with iron, and that a wooden shade projected over it from above, so as entirely to shut out any direct view outwards. By placing the chair near the window, however, and standing upon it, she commanded a limited view downwards between the sole and the lower edge of the wooden projection, and from this she was enabled to satisfy herself that her chamber was on one side of a narrow square court, for she saw the lower part of the buildings that inclosed the three other sides of it. Guessing from the windows that came within her view below, the court was surrounded with cells similar to her own. The startling fact now arose in her mind, that she had thus in one minute made herself as much acquainted with all the objects on which she could bring her eyes to bear from this her place of confinement, as she could do were she to occupy it for half a century. There was something chilling in the reflection, and her soul naturally began to pant in a tenfold degree for liberty. But that day passed away, and the next, and the next, and no kind uncle came to relieve her.

"Is there no message from my uncle?" said she at last, as Sarah came to her one morning.

"None!" said the old woman, somewhat more gruffly than usual.

"I would fain write a letter to him," said Chirsty.

"I see no use in that," said Sarah quitting the cell hastily, as if to avoid further question.

She did not see the old woman again for several days. Nancy, the little girl already mentioned, attended on her at the usual hours. In vain she tried to prevail on her to procure her writing materials. Her answer was, that she had no means of doing so. She asked for books or work, but the girl's answer was the same. At length old Sarah appeared again.

"Any intelligence from my uncle, good Sarah?" said Chirsty.

"None!" replied her keeper, in the same tone she had used before.

"Then, I beseech you, give me the means of communicating with him by letter," said she earnestly.

"Tush, I tell you it would be of no use," replied Sarah.

"Nay, give me but pen, ink, and paper, and let me try," said Chirsty. "I am sure he would never allow me to be one moment here, if he could only see and converse with me. Oh! if I could but see him for five minutes, this harassing captivity would be at an end."

"Well, then!" said Sarah, after a silence of some moments, during which she appeared to be weighing circumstances in her mind. "Well, then, you shall see un. But see how you behave! Follow me, then, and I shall bring you to your uncle."

"Oh, thank you, thank you! a thousand and a thousand times!" cried Chirsty, almost embracing the old woman in the height of her joy. "Depend upon it, I shall satisfy you as to my behaviour."

Sarah now opened the door of the cell, and Chirsty followed her. Even the small additional motion of her limbs which she now enjoyed, was luxury to her after the narrow bounds to which she had been confined. The old woman led her along the passage for a considerable way, down one flight of steps, along another passage, to the very end of it, and there she stopped opposite a door, secured by little more than the ordinary fastenings used to any private chamber. Sarah opened it and desired Chirsty to enter. The light of heaven was permitted to pass fully in at the window, and she rushed forward to meet her uncle's embrace. But ere she had gone two steps into the room, her eyes caught a spectacle that effectually arrested her.

"Merciful Providence, my poor uncle!" she faintly cried; and, tottering towards a pallet-bed that was near to her, she sank down on the side of it, and gazed with grief and with horror on the miserable object before her.

Seated in a wooden elbow chair, she did indeed behold her uncle; but he was there as a mere piece of animated clay. His hair, which always used to be so nicely trimmed and powdered, now hung in long white untamed locks over a countenance so yellow and emaciated as to be absolutely fearful to look upon. Part of it fell over the eyes, which were seen within it like two bits of yellow glass, motionless and void of all speculation. The under jaw hung forward, and the tongue lolled out, as if all muscular power was lost. An old Indian dressing-gown, which Chirsty remembered to have been his pride, as having been presented to him by a great rajah, and as being made of the most valuable stuff that Cashmere could produce, but now begrimed by every species of filth, covered his person. A broad band of girth was passed around his breast under his arms, and attached to the back of his chair, to prevent his weakness or his involuntary motions from precipitating him on the floor. His feet were both occupied in drumming upon the ground, and his hands were extended before him, with the fingers continually crawling like reptiles on his knees, whilst he was ceaselessly emitting a low muttering whine, that never moulded itself into words. The very first glance she had of him convinced Chirsty that her poor uncle was in the last stage of confirmed and hopeless idiocy.

"What would a letter have done, think ye, to such a clod as that 'ere?" demanded the unfeeling wretch Sarah, "or what will you make of un, now you have seen un?"

"My poor unhappy uncle!" said Chirsty, starting from her seat and going fondly towards him, and weeping over him; "how sadly indeed hast thou been changed! When, alas! did this awful affliction fall upon him? But why has he been removed from his own comfortable home to such a place as this?"

"Such a place as this, quotha!" cried Sarah. "Why, what sort of a place would ye have un in? There is not a more comfortabler room in the whole house. And see, if I didn't bring down that 'ere old wardrobe, that we might have summat to hold un's things in; though I must say," added she in an undertone, "that he hasn't much left now that's worth the caring for."

"But why has he been removed to such an establishment as this?" said Chirsty. "Surely, surely, his malady, helpless and unoffending as it has rendered him, could have given no disturbance in his own house, why then has he been torn from it? and how could his wife have agreed to treatment so cruel and so unnecessary?"

"His wife!" exclaimed Sarah with a laugh. "It was his wife who sent un here; and surely his wife has the most natral right to judge what's best for un."

"Horrible!" exclaimed Chirsty, "his wife! There must be some horrible villainy under all this."

"What!" exclaimed Sarah. "What is there horrible in a gay woman like her ridding her house of such a filthy slavering mummy as this? He would be a pretty ornament, truly, to grace some of the rich Mrs. Ross's splendid routes, as I now and then see the papers call them. Besides, she pays well for his board here, and it is our interest not to let un die."

"Rich!" exclaimed Chirsty indignantly. "Her riches are my uncle's riches; and if one spark of Christian feeling yet remained in her bosom, she ought to have employed them in relieving, so far as they could relieve, this most heavy affliction of a just and wise Providence."

"It's not for me to stand argufying with you here, Miss," said Sarah, in a tone of displeasure that led Chirsty to fear a coming storm. "Come, you see you have gotten all the good out of un you can; so you may as well leave un, and go quietly back to your cell."

"For the love of your Redeemer, and as you hope for mercy!" cried Chirsty, throwing herself on her knees before her keeper, "force me not to quit my uncle! To him I owe more than the duty of a child to a parent. Yield but to me the charitable boon of allowing me to watch by him, and to attend to him day and night, and you will render me so happy that I shall cheerfully and voluntarily submit to my present cruel confinement, without once inquiring by whose order it comes, or ever seeking to establish how unnecessarily it has been inflicted upon me. Oh! grant me but this, and may blessings be showered down upon you."

"I must think about it," gruffly replied Sarah. "In the meantime, you must back to your cell for this day at least. So bid un good-by for this bout. We shall see how you behave, and we shall talk more of the matter to-morrow."

Chirsty rose from her knees; and seeing that it was only through submissive obedience that she could hope to obtain what she so ardently wished, she went to her uncle, and taking up his unconscious hand, she kissed it, watered it with her tears, and then slowly left the apartment, and returned to her cell, where she was locked up as before.

She was no sooner left to herself, than so many circumstances and reflections occurred to her mind, that it had enough of occupation. She now remembered that after having had regular letters from her uncle for a considerable time, they had all at once ceased. But as the irregularity of Indian correspondence was even more common in those days than it is now, she had regretted this as arising from unfortunate accident, without being very much surprised at it. But much as she had had reason to believe that her aunt was a heartless selfish woman, she never could have imagined that she could have been guilty of conduct so unfeeling towards the unhappy man from whose affection she now derived all that wealth which it appeared she was spending so gaily. As to herself, a moment's thought was enough to convince her that she owed her present confinement more to the malice than to the care of her aunt. She remembered that the only communication from India that contained the intimation that she was about to return to Britain, as well as the name of the ship in which she was to sail, also conveyed the full assurance of the perfect restoration of her mind from its temporary malady. The person who knew to what ship to send for her on her arrival, therefore, must necessarily have known that she required no such treatment as that to which she had been so wickedly subjected. Villainy of the darkest dye, therefore, had been at work against her; and where or how it might end she trembled to think. But the thought of her poor uncle's melancholy situation banished every other consideration from her mind; and all her thoughts and wishes were now concentrated in the desire she felt to stay by him, and to watch over him to the last--the very idea of such a self-devotion being balm to her lacerated heart, as affording her the luxury of indulging that deep gratitude with which his unvarying kindness towards her had always filled her, and which she never hoped to have had any opportunity of repaying. She failed not, therefore, to employ all her meekness and all her eloquence to persuade Sarah to grant her request; and as the gentle drop by frequent repetition will at last wear through the hardest flint, so by repeated appeals to the best of the few feelings which that callous-hearted creature possessed, she at last succeeded in obtaining a limited permission to visit her uncle, which was extended by degrees so far, that she ultimately came to be allowed to go to his chamber in the morning, and to remain with him till he was laid to rest at night, when she was removed for the purpose of being locked up in her own cell. In this employment Chirsty forgot her confinement altogether, and weeks, months, nay even years rolled away with no other occupation but that and her devotions. There were times when she even flattered herself that the unremitting attention which she paid to him was not without some material advantage to his general state. She even thought she saw some amendment in a seeming approach to a certain degree of consciousness. Words, though altogether incoherent and unconnected, would now and then break from him, as if he was following out and giving utterance to some musing dream; and on such occasions she would hang over him with anxious fondness and intense interest, with the hope of catching their meaning. Then she could distinctly perceive that at such times his glassy eyes, which were usually directed upon vacancy, would fix themselves upon her, assume a strange and unwonted animation, as if the dormant spirit had arisen for a moment and come to the windows of its earthly house, to look out upon her,--but alas! when she turned slowly away to try its powers, there was no corresponding motion of the head to maintain the proper direction and level of the eyes towards their object, and she would weep at the cruel failure of her hopes that followed.

It did happen, however, that one day whilst she was sitting by her uncle, earnestly engaged in trying such experiments as these, with the sunshine strong upon her face, his lack-lustre eyes being fixed in her direction, they seemed slowly to gather a spark of the fire of intelligence, which went on gradually increasing like the light of dawn, till suddenly they received such an animating illumination as this earth does when the blessed orb of day bursts from behind a cloud; and as all nature then rejoices under the warm influence of his rays, so was the fond heart of his niece gladdened when, as she moved her face slowly from its position, and to this side and to that, the eyes of the nabob followed all her motions with a growing expression, that speedily began to spread itself with a faint glow over his hitherto frozen features. The lolling tongue retreated within the orifice of the mouth, the under jaw was drawn up, and the teeth were pressed together as if with the increasing earnestness of the gaze. His niece, with more than that degree of intensity of absorption of attention with which an alchemist might be supposed to have watched for the projection of the golden harvest of his hopes, seized a hand of her uncle in each of hers, and sat poring into his eyes, and over every feature of his face in breathless expectation.

"Chirsty Ross," said he at length, slowly and distinctly, and in a manner that left no doubt that the words were not accidental.

"My dear, dear uncle, you know me then at last!" cried the happy girl, warmly embracing him, and sobbing upon his bosom. "Thank God! thank God that you know me!"

"Chirsty," said the nabob again, "why did you not write to me sooner? Why was you silent for a whole winter? I have been rash, perhaps. But what is done cannot be undone, and we must e'en make the best of it now. Yet, if you had only but written to me, Chirsty, my love, things might have been different."

"Oh, this is too heart-rending!" cried his niece, yielding to an ungovernable paroxysm of grief.

"How could you forget to write to me, Chirsty?" continued her uncle. "The woman, to be sure, is not so bad a woman after all; but you and I were so happy here alone together. But I have been a fool, Chirsty; yet she is your aunt, and my wife, so we must e'en submit, and make the best of it."

"Gracious Providence, support me in this trying hour!" cried Chirsty fervently.

"What!" cried the nabob, in a voice louder than she could have supposed his exhausted state could have admitted of. "What! is the ship to sail for Calcutta so soon? May the God of all goodness be with you then, Chirsty, my love! Keep up your spirits, my sweet girl, you will come home to me soon with a husband and pagodas in plenty. But forget not to write often to me. Your failing in that has already worked evil enough to us both."

"Oh, my dear, dear uncle!" cried Chirsty, quite overpowered by her feelings, and sobbing audibly.

"Nay, cry not so bitterly, my dear child," said the nabob. "Trust me, we shall, meet again. And if we should not meet again here--if it should please God to remove me from this world ere you return, our sound Christian hope assures us, that we shall meet in another and a better. But, hold!" cried he with a more than natural energy, that seemed to be produced by some sudden and great organic change in his system. "The anchor is up--quick, aboard, aboard! God for ever bless and guard you, my love! my Chirsty!--farewell! Ha! the gallant ship, see how her sails swell with the breeze!--she goes merrily. But--but--how comes this sudden darkness over me? She is gone!--all is gone!--gone!--go--o--oh!" and his words terminated in a long deep groan.

Chirsty hastily dried up her tears, and anxiously scanned her uncle's face. His spirit had once more retreated from his glassy eyes--his face had again become deadly pale--his hands were cold, and their pulses had ceased. She shrieked aloud until help came, but it was too late--her uncle was dead.

Chirsty was no sooner made certain that all was over with her poor uncle than her nervous feelings, which had been screwed up to the racking pitch by this trying scene, gave way, and she fell in a swoon, that terminated in a repetition of that feverish attack which she had had in India, upon which delirium supervened; and when, after a period of nearly three weeks, she was again sensible of the return of reason, she found herself lying in bed with her hands muffled, as they had been the first night she had slept in the asylum. She awaked from a long, tranquil, and refreshing sleep; and little Nancy, who was seated by her bedside, immediately ran off for Sarah, who came directly.

"Aye," said that hideous creature, after surveying her countenance attentively, "she seems quiet enough now. The fit has gone off for this bout."

"I have been very ill," said Chirsty faintly, "but now, thank God, I am better."

"You have given me trouble enough i'facks," said Sarah. "But here is something that the doctor ordered you to drink; take this, and try to sleep again."

Chirsty readily swallowed what was given to her, fell asleep, and was soon well enough to quit her bed, and to be restored to that degree of freedom of person within her cell that she had enjoyed before the discovery that her uncle was under the same roof with herself. She was even allowed to go down once a day, for an hour, attended by Sarah, to breathe the open air, and to walk backwards and forwards in the narrow well of a court that was formed by that wing of the building which contained her cell. But this indulgence did little to relieve the insufferable tedium that seized upon her, now that the only object capable of interesting her had been removed. Her mind now recurred with augmented force to all the horrors of her iniquitous confinement. She resolved to try whether she could not move the compassion of her female Cerberus.

"Now that my uncle is gone," said she one day calmly to Sarah, "my confinement becomes so much more cruel and unnecessary, that I am sure you must feel for me. You have now known enough of me during the long period I have been under your care to be sufficiently aware that there never were any grounds for placing me in an asylum of this kind. If, then, I am shut up here for no other cause than that I may not give offence to Mrs. Ross by crossing her path, I am quite willing to give any security that may be asked of me that I will go down directly to live with my friends in Ross-shire, and that she shall never see or be troubled with me more."

"What!" exclaimed the wretch who listened to her; "what! and lose the good board which that worthy woman, your aunt, pays for you? No, no! Enough that we have already lost that which she paid for that mummy of a husband of hers. Yet, after all, he lived longer than one might have thought un like to have done. But you--an we but take care of you--you may long be a sure annual rent to us!"

"Can nothing move you?" said Chirsty, with a despairing look.

"No," said the wretch, with an iron grin. "I am not to be flattered from my trust. But what said you? No grounds for placing you here, quotha! Was it not but the other day that, strong as I am, it took all my power to hold ye down. Ha! ha! ha! The surest sign of madness is the belief that you are not mad."

"Then must my hope be in the Lord alone," said Chirsty, in a desponding tone. "But oh! if you would have me live, let me have books or work, or writing or drawing materials, or this painfully irksome confinement must soon kill me."

"No, no," said Sarah, shaking her head, "no, no. Writing or drawing materials might be used to send tales out beyond these walls, and books might be used as paper--aye, and work might answer the same end. Therefore content yourself, content yourself, child. I'll do all for you that such a feeling heart as mine can do for a poor fellow-creetur robbed of reason, as you have been. But I must fulfil the duty I am paid for."