Part 19

As he said these words he produced from the folds of his gown a large crystal or polished stone, set in a circle of gold, supported by a silver stand. Round the circle were engraved the names of angels. He placed this upon the table, and continued,--

"We must pray to God that He will vouchsafe us some insight into this precious stone; for it is a solemn and serious matter upon which we are, second only to that of communication with the angelical creatures themselves, which, indeed, is vouchsafed to some, but only to those of the greatest piety, to which we may not aspire. Therefore let us kneel down and humbly pray to God."

They all knelt, and the adept, commencing with the Prayer-book collect for the festival of St. Michael, recited several other prayers, all for extreme and spotless purity of life.

He then rose, the two others continuing on their knees, and struck a small bell, upon which the boy whom they had before seen entered the room by a concealed door in the wainscot. He was a pretty boy, with a fair and clean skin, and was dressed in a surplice similar to those worn by choristers. He took up a position by the crystal, and waited his master's orders.

"I have said," continued the adept, "that these visions can be seen only by the pure, and by those who, by long and intense looking into the spiritual world, have at last penetrated somewhat into its gloom. I have found these mostly to be plain and simple people, of an earnest faith,--country people, grave-diggers, and those employed to shroud the dead, and who are accustomed to think much upon objects connected with death. This boy is the child of the sexton of Lambeth Church, who is himself a godly man. Let us pray to God."

Upon this he knelt down again and remained for some time engaged in silent prayer. He then rose and directed the boy to look into the crystal, saying, "One of these gentlemen desires news of his wife."

The boy looked intently into the crystal for some moments, and then said, speaking in a measured and low voice,--

"I see a great room, in which there is a bed with rich hangings; pendant from the ceiling is a silver lamp. A tall dark man, with long hair, and a dagger in his belt, is bending over the bed with a cup in his hand."

"It is my wife's room," said Eustace in a whisper, "and it is no doubt the Italian; he is tall and dark."

The boy continued to look for some time into the crystal, but said nothing; then he turned to his master and said, "I can see nothing; some one more near to this gentleman must look; this other gentleman," he said suddenly, and turning to John Inglesant, "if he looks will be able to see."

The astrologer started. "Ah!" he said, "why do you say that, boy?"

"I can tell who will see aught in the crystal, and who will not," replied the boy; "this gentleman will see."

The astrologer seemed surprised and sceptical, but he made a sign to Inglesant to rise from his knees, and to take his place by the crystal.

He did so, and looked steadily into it for some seconds, then he shook his head.

"I can see nothing," he said.

"Nothing!" said the boy; "can you see nothing?"

"No. I see clouds and mist."

"You have been engaged," said the boy, "in something that was not good--something that was not true; and it has dimmed the crystal sight. Look steadily, and if it is as I think, that your motive was not false, you will see more."

Inglesant looked again; and in a moment or two gave a start, saying,--"The mist is breaking! I see;--I see a large room, with a chimney of carved stone, and a high window at the end; in the window and on the carved stone is the same coat many times repeated--three running greyhounds proper, on a field vert."

"I know the room," said Eustace; "it is the inn parlour at Mintern, not six miles from Oulton. It was the manor of the Vinings before the wars, but is now an inn; that was their coat."

"Do you see aught else?" said the adept.

Inglesant gave a long look; then he stepped back, and gazed at the astrologer, and from him to his brother, with a faltering and ashy look.

"I see a man's figure lie before the hearth, and the hearthstone is stained, as if with blood. Eustace, it is either you or I!"

"Look again," said the adept eagerly, "look again!"

"I will look no more!" said Inglesant, fiercely; "this is the work of a fiend, to lure men to madness or despair!"

As he spoke, a blast of wind--sudden and strong--swept through the room; the lamp burnt dim; and the fire in the brazier went out. A deathly coldness filled the apartment, and the floor and the walls seemed to heave and shake. A loud whisper, or muffled cry, seemed to fill the air; and a terrible awe struck at the hearts of the young men. Seizing the rod from the table, the adept assumed a commanding attitude, and waved it to and fro in the air; gradually the wind ceased, the dread coldness abated, and the fire burned again of its own accord. The adept gazed at Inglesant with a stern and set look.

"You are of a strange spirit, young sir," he said; "pure in heart enough to see things which many holy men have desired in vain to see; and yet so wild and rebellious as to anger the blessed spirits with your self-will and perverse thoughts. You will suffer fatal loss, both here and hereafter, if you learn not to give up your own will, and your own fancies, before the heavenly will and call."

Inglesant stared at the man in silence. His words seemed to him to mean far more than perhaps he himself knew. They seemed to come into his mind, softened with anxiety for his brother, and shaken by these terrible events, with the light of a revelation. Surely this was the true secret of his wasted life, however strange might be the place and action which revealed it to him. Whatever he might think afterwards of this night, it might easily stand to him as an allegory of his own spirit, set down before him in a figure. Doubtless he was perverse and headstrong under the pressure of the Divine Hand; doubtless he had followed his own notions rather than the voice of the inward monitor he professed to hear: henceforth, surely, he would give himself up more entirely to the heavenly voice.

Eustace appeared to have seen enough of the future, and to be anxious to go. He left a purse of gold upon the wizard's table; and hurried his brother to take his leave.

Outside the air was perfectly still; a thick motionless fog hung over the marsh and the river; not a breath of wind stirred.

"That was a strange wind that swept by as you refused to look," said Eustace to his brother; "do you really think the spirits were near, and were incensed?"

Inglesant did not reply; he was thinking of another spirit than that the wizard had evoked.

They made their way through the fog to Lambeth, and took boat again to the Temple stairs.

*CHAPTER XVI.*

The next morning, when the brothers awoke and spoke to each other of the events of the night, Eustace did not seem to have been much impressed by them; he ridiculed the astrologer, and made light of the visions in the crystal; he, however, acknowledged to his brother that it might be better to avoid the inn parlour at Mintern, and said they might reach Oulton by another route.

"There is a road," he said, "after you leave Cern Abbas, which turns off five or six miles before you come to Mintern; it is not much farther, but it is not so good a road, and not much frequented. It will be quite good enough for us, however, and will not delay us above an hour. But I own I feel ashamed of taking it."

John Inglesant, however, encouraged him to do so; and towards middle day they left London on the Windsor Road. Inglesant noticed, as they started, that his brother's favourite servant was absent, and asked his brother where he was. He replied that he had sent him forward early in the morning to inform his wife of their coming.

"I would not have let them know of your intention," said Johnny.

Eustace shrugged his shoulders with a peculiar gesture, saying in French,--

"It is not convenient for me to come into my family unannounced. I do not know what I might find going forward."

Johnny thought that his brother had bought his fortune rather dear; but he said nothing more upon the subject.

They slept that night at Windsor, and hoped to have reached Andover the next day; but their servants' horses, and those with the mails, were not equal to so long a distance, and they slept at Basingstoke, not being able to get farther. The weather was pleasant for the season and, to Inglesant especially--so long confined within stone walls--the journey was very agreeable. It reminded him of his ride up to London with the Jesuit long ago when a boy, when everything was new and delightful to him, and the future open and promising. The way had then been enlivened and every interest doubled by the conversation of his friend, who had known how to extract interest and amusement from the most trivial incidents; but it was not less made pleasant now by the society of his brother. A great change seemed to be coming over Eustace. He was affectionate and serious. He spoke much of past years, of their grandfather, and of the old life at Westacre; of his early Court life, before Johnny came to London, and of the day when he came down to Westacre with his father and the Jesuit, and saw his brother again. He asked Johnny much about his own life, and listened attentively to all Inglesant thought proper to tell him of his religious inquiries. He asked about the Ferrars, and told Inglesant some of the things that had been said at Court about him and them. A sense of danger--even though it made little impression upon him--seemed to have called forth kindly feelings which had been latent before; or perhaps some foreboding sense hung over him, and--by a gracious Providence--fitted and tuned his mind for an approaching fate. Inglesant felt his heart drawn towards him with an intensity which he had never felt before. The whole world seemed for the time to be centred in this brother; and he looked forward to life associated with him.

They slept at Andover; and the next day made a shorter journey to Salisbury, where they slept again. The stately cathedral was closed and melancholy-looking, and knowing no one in the town, they passed the long evening alone in the inn. The next morning early they set out. They halted at Cern Abbas about one o'clock, and dined. Eustace made some inquiries about the road he had mentioned to his brother, but seemed more and more unwilling to take it, and it required all Inglesant's persuasion to keep him to his promise. The people at the inn seemed surprised that anyone should think of taking it, and made out that the delay would be very great, and the chance of missing the way altogether not a little. At this, however, Eustace laughed, saying that he knew the country very well. Indeed, his desire to show the truth of this assertion rather assisted his brother's purpose, and they left Cern Abbas with the full intention of taking the unusual route. The country was thickly wooded, many parts of the ancient forest remaining, and here and there rather hilly. In descending one of these hills John Inglesant's horse cast a shoe, just as they reached the point where the two roads diverged, the right hand one of which they were to take. As it was impossible for them to proceed with the horse as it was, Johnny proposed sending it back with one of the servants to Cern Abbas, and taking the man's horse instead, who could easily follow them. As they were about to put in practice this scheme, however, one of the men said there was a forge about a mile beyond, on the road before them, where it would be easy to get the shoe put on. Eustace immediately approved of this plan, and Johnny was obliged at last reluctantly to yield. It seemed to him as though the impending fate came nearer and nearer at every step. The man proved himself to be an uncertain guide as to distance, and it was fully two miles before they reached the forge. When they reached it they found that a gentleman's coach, large and unwieldy, had broken some portion of its complicated machinery, and was taxing all the efforts of the smith and his assistants to repair it. The gentlemen dismounted and accosted the two ladies who had alighted from the coach, and whom Eustace remembered to have met before at Dorchester. The coach was soon mended, and the ladies drove off; but by this time Eustace had grown impatient, and, saying carelessly to his brother, "You will follow immediately," he mounted, and turned his horse's head still along the main road, his men mounting also.

"You are not going on that way," said Johnny; "you said we should turn back to the other road."

"Oh, we cannot turn back now," said his brother; "we have come farther than I expected. We will not stop at Mintern," he added significantly.

And so saying, he rode away after the carriage, followed by his men.

Inglesant looked after him anxiously, a heavy foreboding filling his mind. He saw his brother mount the little hill before the forge, between the bare branches of the trees on either side of the road; then a slight turn of the way concealed him, but, for a moment or two more, he could see glimpses of the figures as the leafless boughs permitted, then, when he could see even these no longer, he went back into the forge. It was some ten minutes before the horse was ready, and then Inglesant himself mounted, and rode off quickly after his brother. He had felt all the day, and during the one preceding it, a weariness and dulness of sense, the result, no doubt, of fatigue acting upon his only partially recovered health, and on a frame shattered by what he had gone through. As he rode on, his brain became more and more confused, so that for some moments together he was almost unconscious, and only by an effort regained his sense of passing events. The woods seemed to pass by him as in a dream, the thick winter air to hang about him like the heavy drapery of a pall; whether he was sleeping or waking he could scarcely tell. What added to his distress was an abiding sense of crisis and danger to his brother, which required him at that moment, above all others, to exert a strength and a prescience of which he felt himself becoming more and more incapable. He was continually making violent efforts to retain his recollection of what was passing, and of what it behoved him to do,--efforts which each time became more and more painful, and of the futility of which he became more and more despairingly conscious. Words cannot describe the torture of such a condition as this.

At last he overtook some of his brother's servants with the led horses, whom he scarcely recognized, so far were his senses obscured. Their master had ridden on before with two servants, they told him; he would have to ride hard to overtake them. He seemed eager, they said, to be at home. Inglesant could scarcely sit his horse, much less expect to overtake his brother--who was well mounted and an impetuous rider--nevertheless he gave his horse the spur, and the animal, also a good roadster, soon left the servants far behind. The confusion of mind which he suffered increased more and more as he rode along, and the events of his past life came up before his eyes as clearly and palpably as the objects through which he was riding, so that he could not distinguish the real from the imaginary, the present from the past, which added extremely to his distress. He stood again amid the confusion and carnage of Naseby field; once more he saw the throng of heads, and heard that terrible cry that had welcomed him to the scaffold; again he looked into the fatal crystal, and strange visions and ghostly shapes of death and corruption came out from it, and walked to and fro along the hedgerows and across the road before him, making terrible the familiar English fields; a tolling of the passing bell rang continually in his ear, and his horse's footfalls sounded strange and funereal to his diseased sense. He knew nothing of the road, nor of what happened as he rode along, nor what people he passed; but he missed the direct turning, and reached Mintern at last by another lane which led him some distance round. The servants with the led horses were there before him, standing before the inn door, and other strange servants in his brother's liveries, and several horses stood about.

The old manor that was now an inn stood close to the Church, at the opening of the village, with a little green before it and a wall, in the centre of which was a pair of gates flanked with pillars. The iron gates were closed, but the wall had been thrown down for some yards on either side, thus giving ample access to the house within. It was a handsome house with a large high window over the porch, in the upper panes of which Inglesant could see coats of arms. Amid the tracery of the iron gates running greyhounds were interlaced.

John Inglesant saw all this as in a dream, and he saw besides creatures that were not real walking among the living men; haggard figures in long robes, and others beneath the grave shrouds, ghostly phantoms of his disordered brain. He made a desperate effort for the hundredth time to clear his sense of these terrible distracting sights, of this death of the brain that disabled all his faculties, and for the hundredth time in vain. It appeared to him--whether it was a vision or a reality, he did not know--that one of his brother's servants came to his horse's side, and told him something of a gentleman of his lady's, a foreign physician, having met his master purposely, and that they were within together. Inglesant dismounted mechanically and entered the hotel, telling the servant to come with him. He had some dim feeling of dragging his brother away from a great danger, and a desire of gathering about him, if he could but distinguish them, such as would assist him and were of human flesh and blood. Inside the porch, and in the narrow hall beyond, the place swarmed with these distracting visions walking to and fro; the staircase at the farther end was crowded with them going up and down. He saw, as he thought, his brother, attended by a dark, handsome man, in the gown of a physician, come down the stairs to meet him, but when they came nearer they dissolved themselves and vanished into air.

The host came to meet him, saying that his brother and the foreign gentleman were upstairs in the parlour; he had thought they were having some words a while ago, but they were quiet now. The whole house, Inglesant thought, was deadly quiet, though seemingly to him so full of life. To what terrible deed were all these strange witnesses and assistants summoned? He told the host to follow him, as he had told the man before; and he did so, supposing he meant to order something. They went up the two flights of the oak stairs, and entered the room over the hall and porch. It was a large and narrow room, and was seemingly empty. Opposite them, in the high window, and on the great carved chimney to the right, running greyhounds coursed each other, as it seemed to Inglesant, round the room. A long table hid the hearth as they came in. With a fatal certainty, as if mechanically, Inglesant walked round it towards the fire, the others with him; there they stopped--sudden and still. On the white hearthstone--his hair and clothes steeped in blood--lay Eustace Inglesant, the Italian's stiletto in his heart.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

The sight of his brother's corpse seemed to steady Inglesant's nerves, and clear his brain. He turned to the host, and said, "What way can the murderer have escaped?"

The host shook his head; he was incapable of speech, or even thought. The three men stood looking at each other without a word. Then Inglesant knelt down by the body, and raised the head; there was no doubt that life was extinct--indeed, the body must have been nearly drained of blood; the fine line of steel had done its work fully, and with no loss of time. Inglesant rose from the ground; his sight, his recollection, his senses were speedily failing him; nothing kept him conscious but the terrible shock acting with galvanic effect upon his frame. The back of the premises was searched, and mounted messengers were sent to the neighbouring towns and to the cross roads, and notice sent to the nearest Justice of the Peace. The country rose in great numbers, and came pouring in to Mintern before the early evening set in. The body was deposited on the long table in the parlour where the deed was committed; and more than one Justice examined the room that afternoon. Inglesant saw that the guard was set, and proper care taken; and then he mounted to ride to Oulton. He was not fit to ride; but to stay in the house all night was impossible--to lie down equally so. In the night air he rode to Oulton, through the long wild chase, by the pools of water--from which the flocks of birds rose startled as he passed, and by the herds of deer. The ride settled his nerves, and when he reached the house he was still master of himself. The news had preceded him; Lady Cardiff was said to be in a paroxysm of grief; but, as no one had seen her for days except her immediate servants, Inglesant did not attempt to obtain an interview with her. He was received by Dr. More and the superior servants, and sat down to supper. Not a word was spoken during that sombre meal except by the doctor, who pressed Inglesant to eat and drink, and offered to introduce him to Van Helmont, who was not present. The doctor said grace after supper; but when he had done, one of the female servants, a Quakeress, stood up, and spoke some words recommending patience and a feeling after God, if perchance He might be found to be present, and a help in such a terrible need. The singularity of this proceeding roused Inglesant from the lethargy in which he was, and the words seemed to strike upon his heart with a familiar and not uncongenial sense. The mystical doctrine which he had studied was not unlike much that he would hear from Quaker lips. He went to his room after supper, intending to rise early next morning; but before daybreak he was delirious and in a high fever, and Van Helmont was sent for to his room, and bled him freely, and administered cordials and narcotic draughts. The skilful treatment caused him to sleep quietly for many hours; and when he awoke, though prostrate with weakness, he was free from fever, and his brain was calm and clear.

From inquiries which he made, it appeared that the Italian had been making preparations for leaving for several days, probably doubting the success of his attempt to win over Eustace to tolerate his continued stay at Oulton. Inglesant was told that it was supposed that he had not intended to murder his brother; but that Eustace had probably threatened him, and that in the heat of contention the blow was struck. The Italian had destroyed all his papers, and everything that could give any clue to his conduct or history; but he had left a very bad reputation behind him, independently of his last murderous act; and his influence with Lady Cardiff was attributed to witchcraft.