CHAPTER VI.

THE day had come, and almost the hour. The weary time had stolen, endless, yet flying on noiseless wings; an eternity of featureless lingering hours, yet speeding, speeding towards that one fixed end. And there was no reprieve. The important people of Poolborough had retired sullenly from their endeavours. To support a Government faithfully and yet not to have one poor favour granted--their recommendation to mercy turned back upon themselves; they were indignant, and in that grievance they forgot the original cause of it. Still there were one or two still toiling on. But the morning of the fatal day had dawned and nothing had come.

To tell how Mrs. Surtees and Agnes had lived through these days is beyond our power. They did not live; they dragged through a feverish dream from one time of seeing him to another, unconscious what passed in the meantime, except when some messenger would come to their door, and a wild blaze and frenzy of hope would light up in their miserable hearts: for it always seemed to them that it must be the reprieve which was coming, though each said to herself that it would not, could not, come. And when they saw Jim, that one actual recurring point in their lives was perhaps more miserable than the intervals. For to see him, and to know that the hour was coming ever nearer and nearer when he must die; to sit with him, never free from inspection, never out of hearing of some compulsory spectator; to see the tension of his nerves, the strain of intolerable expectation in him--was almost more than flesh and blood could bear. They had privileges which were not allowed in ordinary cases--for were not they still ranked among the best people of Poolborough, though beaten down by horrible calamity? What could they say to him? Not even the religious exhortations, the prayers which came from other lips less trembling. They were dumb. “Dear Jim,” and “God bless you,” was all they could say. Their misery was too great, there was no utterance in it; a word would have overthrown the enforced and awful calm. And neither could he speak. When he had said “Mother,” and kissed her, and smiled, that was all. Then they sat silent holding each other’s hands.

Through all this Dr. Barrère was the only human supporter of the miserable family. He had promised to stand by Jim, to the end, not to leave him till life had left him--till all was over. And now the supreme moment had nearly come. The doctor was as pale, almost paler than he who was about to die. There was an air about him of sternness, almost of desperation; yet to Jim he was tender as his mother. He had warned the authorities what he feared, that agitation and excitement might even yet rob the law of its victim. He had been allowed to be with the condemned man from earliest dawn of the fatal morning in consequence of the warning he had given, but it appeared to the attendants that Jim himself bore a less alarming air than the doctor, whose colourless face and haggard eyes looked as if he had not slept for a week. Jim, poor Jim, had summoned all his courage for this supreme moment. There was a sweetness in his look that added to its youthfulness. He looked like a boy: his long imprisonment and the enforced self-denial there was in it, had chased from his face all stains of evil. He was pale and worn with his confinement and with the interval of awful waiting, but his eyes were clear as a child’s--pathetic, tender, with a wistful smile in them, as though the arrival of the fatal hour had brought relief. The old clergyman who had baptised him had come, too, to stand by him to the last, and he could scarcely speak for tears. But Jim was calm, and smiled; if any bit of blue sky was in that cell of the condemned, with all its grim and melancholy memories, it was in Jim’s face.

The doctor moved about him not able to keep still, with that look of desperation, listening for every sound. But all was still except the broken voice of the old clergyman, who had knelt down and was praying. One of the attendants too had gone down on his knees. The other stood watching, yet distracted by a pity which even his hardened faculties could not resist. Jim sat with his hands clasped, his eyes for a moment closed, the smile still quivering about his mouth. In this stillness of intense feeling all observation save that of the ever-watchful doctor was momentarily subdued. Suddenly Jim’s head seemed to droop forward on his breast; the doctor came in front of him with one swift step, and through the sound of the praying called imperatively, sharply, for wine, wine! The warder who was standing rushed to fill it out, while Dr. Barrère bent over the fainting youth. It all passed in a moment, before the half-said sentence of the prayer was completed. The clergyman’s voice wavered, stopped--and then resumed again, finishing the phrase, notwithstanding the stir and hurried movement, the momentary breathless scuffle, which a sudden attack of illness, a fit or faint, always occasions. Then a sharp sound broke the stillness--the crash of the wine glass which the doctor let fall from his hand after forcing the contents, as it seemed, down the patient’s throat. The old clergyman on his knees still, paused and opening his eyes gazed at the strange scene, not awakening to the seriousness of it, or perceiving any new element introduced into the solemnity of the situation for some minutes, yet gazing with tragic eyes, since nothing in the first place could well be more tragic. The little stir, the scuffle of the moving feet, the two men in motion about the still figure in the chair, lasted for a little longer; then the warder uttered a stifled cry. The clergyman on his knees, his heart still in his prayer for the dying, felt it half profane to break off into words to men in the midst of those he was addressing to God--but forced by this strange break cried, “What is it?--what has happened?” in spite of himself.

There was no immediate answer. The doctor gave some brief, quick directions, and with the help of the warder lifted the helpless figure, all fallen upon itself like a ruined house, with difficulty to the bed. The limp, long, helpless limbs, the entire immobility and deadness of the form struck with a strange chill to the heart of the man who had been interceding wrapt in another atmosphere than that of earth. The clergyman got up from his knees, coming back with a keen and awful sense of his humanity. “Has he--fainted?” he asked with a gasp.

Once more a dead pause, a stillness in which the four men heard their hearts beating; then the doctor said, with a strange brevity and solemnity, “Better than that--he is dead.”

Dead! They gathered round and gazed in a consternation beyond words. The young face, scarcely paler than it had been a moment since, the eyes half shut, the lips fallen apart with that awful opening which is made by the exit of the last breath, lay back upon the wretched pillow in all that abstraction and incalculable distance which comes with the first touch of death. No one could look at that, and be in any doubt. The warders stood by dazed with horror and dismay, as if they had let their prisoner escape. Was it their fault? Would they be blamed for it? They had seen men go to the scaffold before with little feeling, but they had never seen one die of the horror of it, as Jim had died.

While they were thus standing a sound of measured steps was heard without. The door was opened with that harsh turning of the key which in other circumstances would have sounded like the trumpet of doom, but which now woke no tremor, scarcely any concern. It was the sheriff and his grim procession coming for the prisoner. They streamed in and gathered astonished about the bed. Dr. Barrère turned from where he stood at the head, with a face which was like ashes--pallid, stern, the nostrils dilating, the throat held high. He made a solemn gesture with his hand towards the bed. “You come too late,” he said.

The men had come in almost silently, in the excitement of the moment swelling the sombre circle to a little crowd. They thronged upon each other and looked at him, lying there on the miserable prison bed, in the light of the horrible grated windows, all awe-stricken in a kind of grey consternation not knowing how to believe it; for it was a thing unparalleled that one who was condemned should thus give his executioner the slip. The whisper of the sheriff’s low voice inquiring into the catastrophe broke the impression a little. “How did it happen--how was it? Dead! But it seems impossible. Are you sure, doctor, it is not a faint?”

The doctor waved his hand almost scornfully towards the still and rigid form. “I foresaw it always; it is--as I thought it would be,” he said.

“His poor mother!” said the clergyman with a sort of habitual, conventional lamentation, as if it could matter to that poor mother! Dr. Barrère turned upon him quickly. “Go to them--tell them--it will save them something,” he said with sudden eagerness. “You can do no more here.”

“It seems impossible,” the sheriff repeated, turning again to the bed. “Is there a glass to be had?--anything--hold it to his lips! Do something, doctor. Have you tried all means? are you sure?” He had no doubt; but astonishment, and the novelty of the situation, suggested questions which really required no answer. He touched the dead hand and shuddered. “It is extraordinary, most extraordinary,” he said.

“I warned you of the possibility from the beginning,” said Dr. Barrère; “his heart was very weak. It is astonishing rather that he bore the strain so long.” Then he added with that stern look, “It is better that it should be so.”

The words were scarcely out of his lips when a sudden commotion was heard as of some one hurrying along the stony passages, a sound of voices and hasty steps. The door which, in view of the fatal ceremonial about to take place, had been left open, was pushed quickly, loudly to the wall, and an important personage, the Mayor of Poolborough, flushed and full of excitement, hurried in. “Thank God,” he cried, wiping his forehead, “thank God, it’s come in time! I knew they could not refuse us. Here is the reprieve come at last.”

A cry, a murmur rose into the air from all the watchers. Who could help it? The reprieve--at such a moment! This solemn mockery was more than human nerves could bear. The warder who had been poor Jim’s chief guardian broke forth into a sudden loud outburst, like a child’s, of crying. The sheriff could not speak. He pointed silently to the bed.

But of all the bystanders none was moved like Dr. Barrère. He fell backward as if he had received a blow, and gazed at the mayor speechless, his under lip dropping, his face livid, heavy drops coming out upon his brow. It was not till he was appealed to in the sudden explanations that followed that the doctor came to himself. When he was addressed he seemed to wake as from a dream, and answered with difficulty; his lips parched, his throat dry, making convulsive efforts to moisten his tongue, and enunciate the necessary words. “Heart disease--feared all the time--” he said, as if he had partly lost that faculty of speech. The mayor looked sharply at him, as if suspecting something. What was it? intoxication? So early, and at such a time? But Dr. Barrère seemed to have lost all interest in what was proceeding. He cared nothing for their looks. He cared for nothing in the world. “I’m of no further use here,” he said huskily, and went toward the door as if he were blind, pushing against one and another. When he had reached the door, however, he turned back. “The poor fellow,” he said, “the poor--victim was to be given to his family after--. It was a favour granted them. The removal was to be seen to--to-night; there is no reason for departing from that arrangement, I suppose?”

The officials looked at each other, not knowing what to say, feeling that in the unexpected catastrophe there was something which demanded a change, yet unable on the spur of the moment to think what it was. Then the mayor replied faltering, “I suppose so. It need not make any change, do you think? The poor family--have enough to bear without, vexing them with alterations. Since there can be--no doubt--” He paused and looked, and shuddered. No doubt, oh, no doubt! The execution would have been conducted with far less sensation. It was strange that such a shivering of horror should overwhelm them to see him lying so still upon that bed.

“Now I must go--to my rounds,” the doctor said. He went out, buttoning up his coat to his throat, as if he were shivering too, though it was a genial September morning, soft and warm. He went out from the dark prison walls into the sunshine like a man dazed, passing the horrible preparations on his way, the coffin! from which he shrank as if it had been a monster. Dr. Barrère’s countenance was like that of a dead man. He walked straight before him as if he were going somewhere; but he went upon no rounds; his patients waited for him vainly. He walked and walked till fatigue of the body produced a general stupor, aiding and completing the strange collapse of the mind, and then mechanically, but not till it was evening, he went home. His housekeeper, full of anxious questions, was silenced by the look of his face, and had his dinner placed hastily and silently upon the table, thinking the agitation of the day had been too much for him. Dr. Barrère neither ate nor drank, but he fell into a heavy and troubled sleep at the table, where he had seated himself mechanically. It was late when he woke, and dark, and for a moment there was a pause of bewilderment and confusion in his mind. Then he rose, went to his desk and took some money out of it, and his cheque-book. He took up an overcoat as he went through the hall. He did not so much as hear the servant’s timid question as to when he should return. When he should return!

After the body of poor Jim had been brought back to his mother’s house and all was silent there, in that profound hush after an expected calamity which is almost a relief, Agnes, not able to rest, wondering in her misery why all that day her lover had not come near them, had not sent any communication, but for the first time had abandoned them in their sorrow, stood for a moment by the window in the hall to look if, by any possibility, he might still be coming. He might have been detained by some pressing call. He had neglected everything for Jim; he might now be compelled to make up for it--who could tell? Some reason there must be for his desertion. As she went to the window, which was on a level with the street, it gave her a shock beyond expression to see a pallid face close to it looking in--a miserable face, haggard, with eyes that were bloodshot and red, while everything else was the colour of clay--the colour of death. It was with difficulty she restrained a scream. She opened the window softly and said:

“Arnold! you have come at last!” The figure outside shrank and withdrew, then said, “Do not touch me--don’t look at me. I did it: to save him the shame--”

“Arnold, come in, for God’s sake! Don’t speak so--Arnold--”

“Never, never more! I thought the reprieve would not come. I did it. Oh, never, never more!”

“Arnold!” she cried, stretching out her hands. But he was gone. Opening the door as quickly as her trembling would let her, the poor girl looked out into the dark street, into the night: but there was no one there.

Was it a dream, a vision, an illusion of exhausted nature, unable to discern reality from imagination? No one ever knew; but from that night Dr. Barrère was never seen more in Poolborough, nor did any of those who had known him hear of him again. He disappeared as if he had never been. And if that was the terrible explanation of it, or if the sudden shock had maddened him, or if it was really he that Agnes saw, no one can tell. But it was the last that was ever heard or seen of Dr. Barrère.

MARGARET OLIPHANT.

X

A WILL AND A WAY.

IT WAS in that pleasant season of the year when there is a ladder at every apple-tree, and every man met on the road is driving with his left hand and eating a red apple from his right. At this season, as regularly as the year rolled round, old Carshena Hubblestone nearly died of cramps, caused by gorging himself with apples that fell almost into his mouth from the spreading boughs of fruit trees that fairly roofed his low-built house. This was, as it were, Carshena’s one dissipation. The apples cost him nothing, and his medical attention after his bouts cost him nothing either, for he was the son of a physician, and though his father was long since dead, the village doctor would not render a bill.

“Crow don’t eat crow,” Dr. Michel answered, roughly, when Carshena weakly asked him what he owed. The chance of thus roistering so cheaply is not presented to every man, and reluctance to let such a bargain pass was perhaps what helped to lend periodicity to the old man’s attacks. Dr. Michel always held that this was his chief incentive, and, be this as it might, it was very certain that apples and bargains were the only two things on earth for which Carshena was ever known to show a weakness, creditable or discreditable. Most small communities have their rich men and their mean men, but in the village of Leonard the two were one.

As the years passed on and Carshena’s head whitened, it naturally grew to be a less and less easy task for Dr. Michel to bring his patient back to the place where he had been before apples ripened. If the situation had not tickled a spice of humor that lay under the physician’s grim exterior he would have refused these autumnal attentions. As it was he confined himself to futile warnings and threats of non-attendance, but he always did obey the summons when it came. The townsfolk of Leonard would all have taken the same humorous view of this weakness of Carshena’s but for the trouble which it gave his too-good sister Adelia--liked and pitied by every one. Adelia nursed her brother in each attack with a tenderness and anxiety that aggravated all the community. Nobody but his sister Adelia was ever anxious over Carshena. It was, therefore, like a bolt from a clear sky when, in this chronicled autumn, the following conversation took place at the Hubblestones’ gate. Dr. Michel’s buggy was wheeling out to the main road as Mr. Gowan, the town butcher, was about to drive through the gateway.

“Well, doctor,” called the genial man of blood, a broad grin on his round face, “how’s the patient?”

“He’s gone, sir,” said Dr. Michel, drawing rein. The butcher drew up his horse sharply, his ruddy face changing so suddenly that the doctor laughed outright.

“Gone!” echoed Mr. Gowan. “Not gone?”

“Yes, sir, as I warned him time and again he would go.”

The butcher shook his head and pursed his lips, the news slowly penetrating his mind. “Well, I certainly would hate to die of eatin’ apples,” he said at last.

“I guess you’ll find you hate to die of anything, when the time comes,” said the more experienced physician. “Carshena,” he added, “got nothing he didn’t bring on himself, if that’s any comfort to him.”

“Don’t speak hard of the dead, doctor,” he urged. “We’ve all got to follow him some day. He wasn’t a nice man in some ways, Carshena wasn’t, but--”

“He was a nasty old man in most ways,” snapped the doctor.

“Don’t say such things now, doctor, don’t,” urged his companion. “Ain’t he paid in his full price, whatever his sins was? Poor soul! he can’t be worse’n dead.”

“Oh, yes, he can, and for one I believe he is,” interrupted the doctor. His crisp white hair seemed to Mr. Gowan to curl tighter over his head as he frowned with some thought he was nursing. “You haven’t seen the will I had to witness this morning!” he burst out. “Just you wait a little! Upon my soul! the more I think of it the madder I get! It’s out of my bailiwick, but if I were a lawyer I’d walk right up now under those old apple-trees yonder, and before that man was cold on his bed I’d have his sister’s promise to break his old will into a thousand splinters! Wait till you hear it. Good-morning.”

When the will was read and its contents announced, the town of Leonard, including its butcher, took the doctor’s view to a man.

“A brute,” said Dr. Michel, hotly, “who has let his old sister work her hands to the bone for him, and then turned her off like some old worn-out horse, has, in my opinion, no right to a will at all. How about setting this will aside in his sister’s interests, judge?”

A little convocation of the leading spirits of Leonard were met together in Dr. Michel’s office to discuss the matter of Carshena’s will, and what should be done with Adelia, cast on the charity of the village. Judge Bowles, when appealed to, raised his mild blue eyes and looked around the company.

“Adelia,” he said, “is the best sister I ever knew. Had the man no shame?”

“Shame!” said the town’s barber, with a reminiscent chuckle; “why, he came into my parlors one day and asked me if I’d cut the back of his hair for twelve cents, and let him cut the front himself; and I did it, for the joke of the thing! He saved thirteen cents that way.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” demurred the judge; but amid the general laughter the tax-gatherer’s voice rose:

“There isn’t a tax he didn’t fight. This town got nothing out of Carshena Hubblestone that he could help paying; and now he leaves us his relatives to support.”

Judge Bowles rose to his feet.

“Gentlemen,” he said, in mild but earnest rebuke, “the man is dead. We all know what his character was without these distressing particulars. It is entirely true that we owe him nothing, but a dead man is defenceless, and his will is his will, and law is law. Did you ever think what a solemn title a man’s last will is? It means just what it says, gentlemen--his last will, his last wish and power of disposition writ down on paper, concerning his own property. It’s a solemn thing to break that.”

“A man’s no business having such a will and a disposition to write it down on paper,” said the doctor. “What were the exact terms of the will, judge?”

“Very simple,” said Judge Bowles, dryly. “The whole estate is to be sold, and the entire proceeds, every cent realized, except what is kept back for repairs and care, is to be applied to the purchase of a suitable lot and the raising of a great monument over the mortal remains of Carshena Hubblestone.”

“While his sister starves!” added Dr. Michel.

“Gee!” exclaimed the kindly butcher. He had heard all this before, but thus repeated it seemed to strike him anew, as somehow it did all the rest of the company. They sat looking at each other in silence, with indrawings of the breath and compression of lips.

“There is this extenuating circumstance,” said the doctor, with dangerous smoothness; “our lamented brother was aware that unless he erected a monument to himself he might never enjoy one. We--the judge, Mr. Gowan, and myself--are made sole executors under the will--without pay. In Carshena’s life Adelia was his white slave. In his death, doubtless, he felt he could trust her to make no protest. I wish you could have seen her with him as I have, gentlemen. I shall call it a shame upon us if we let her eat the bitter bread of our charity. She’s been put upon and trodden down, but she’s still a proud woman in her way, and we’ve got to save her from a bitter old age. We’ve got to do it.”

“It’s the kind of thing that discourages one’s belief in humanity,” said the judge, in a lowered tone. “This affair might be only absurd if it weren’t for the sister’s share in it. As it is, it’s a revelation of human selfishness that makes one heart-sick.”

Dr. Michel’s laugh rang out irreverently.

“It’s perfectly absurd, sister or no sister,” he said. “Nobody, not one of us, loved Carshena in life--though I think now we didn’t hate him half enough--and here in death he’s fixed it so the town’s got to pay for his responsibilities while his money builds him a grand monument! I call that about as absurd as you’ll get anywhere. I’ll grant you it makes me downright sick at my stomach, judge, but it don’t touch my heart. No, sir. Keep your organs separate, as I do, gentlemen. There’s one thing certain”--he drew the eyes of his audience with uplifted finger--”if we can’t outwit this will somehow, we’ll be the laughing-stock of this whole county. I don’t care a snap of my finger if Carshena has a monument as high as Haman’s gallows, if only his sister is protected at the same time.”

“Well, short of breaking the will, what would you suggest, doctor?” asked Judge Bowles, with a little stiffness. He had not liked the familiar discourse on his organs, but the doctor did not care. The judge was ruffled at last, which was exactly what he desired.

“Suggest?” he cried, laughing. “I don’t know; but I know there never was a will written that couldn’t be driven through with a coach and six if the right man sits on the box. You’re the lawyer, judge.”

The judge was a lawyer, as he then and there proceeded to prove. He rose to his feet and spoke in his old-fashioned style:

“Gentlemen, I think I speak for this company when I say that we strongly object to the breaking of this will as a bad precedent in the community. We wish it carried out to the very letter. Our fellow-townsman knew his sister’s needs better than we, and he chose to leave her needy. There are many, many things this town sorely wants, as he also knew, but he chose to use his money otherwise. What a monument to him it would have been had he built us the new school-house our town requires! The wet south lot down by the old mill is an eyesore to the village. Had he used that land and drained it and set up a school-house there, or indeed any public building, what a different meeting this would have been! He was our only man of wealth, and he leaves not so much as a town clock to thank him for. No; a monument to _himself_ is what his will calls for, and a monument he shall have. If we failed him here, which of us would feel sure that our own wills would be carried out? In the confidence of these four walls we can say that the difficulties of the inscription and the style of monument seem insuperable. I know but one man to whom I would intrust this delicate commission. I feel confident that he would not render us too absurd by too conspicuous a monument or too florid an inscription. Need I name Dr. Michel?”

“Out of my bailiwick,” cried the doctor--”’way out of my bailiwick.” But his voice was drowned in the confusion of the popular acclaim that was forming him into a committee of one. The kindly butcher made his way to the doctor’s side under cover of the noise.

“Take it, doctor; now do take it,” he whispered in his ear. “There ain’t a man in the town that can shave this pig if you can’t. I was sayin’ just yesterday you’re lost in this little place of ourn. You’ve got more sense than’s often called for here. Here’s the chance for you to show ‘em what you can do. Do take it.”

The physician looked at the wheedling little butcher with a glance from his blue eye that was half kindly, half irritated. “Well, I’ll take it,” he cried; “I’ll take it; and I thank you for your confidence, gentlemen.”

It was a full month before the little company met again in the doctor’s office, but during that period they knew Dr. Michel had not been idle in the matter intrusted to his care. He was seen in close conversation with the town’s first masons, the best carpenters, the local architect, and these worthies, under close and eager examination, gave answers that dashed the unspoken hopes of those who questioned. Here were _bona fide_ bids asked for on so much masonry, so much carpentering, and the architect had been ordered to send in designs of monuments, how high he deemed it unprofessional to state; but arguing inversely, they judged by the length of his countenance that the measurements were not short--he had particularly hated Carshena. It was, for all these reasons, a rather anxious-looking company that met in Dr. Michel’s office at his summons, and the doctor’s own face was not reassuring as he opened the meeting.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, slowly, “it’s a thankless task you’ve given me, but such as it is, I hope you will find I have performed it to your satisfaction. Here are various plans for the monument to be erected to our late fellow-citizen, and here is a plan of the ground that it has seemed to me most suitable to purchase. It has been a task peculiarly uncongenial to me, because I, I suppose, know more than any of you here how this money is needed where it ought to have gone. I saw Adelia yesterday, and lonely and ghost-ridden as that old house would be to any of us, it’s a home to her that’s to be sold over her head to build this.” He laid his hand on the papers he had thrown down on the table before him. The little company looked silently at each other, with faces as downcast as if they were to blame. It was Judge Bowles who spoke first.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “we must not let ourselves feel too responsible in this matter. We are only following our plain duty. Show us the monument which you consider best, doctor.”

The doctor was silently turning over the papers. “Family feeling is a queer thing,” he said, meditatively. “I saw Adelia the other day, and I asked her if she wanted a neighbor to sleep in the house at night.

“’There’s nothing here for robbers to take, Dr. Michel,’ she said; ‘and if it’s ghosts you think I’m afraid of, I only wish from my heart ghosts would come back to visit me. Everybody of my blood is dead.’”

“It’s very pitiful,” said Judge Bowles, slowly.

The doctor turned on him instantly. “Do you seem to feel now that you could countenance breaking the will, judge?”

“No,” said the judge, shortly, as one who whistles to keep his courage up.

The doctor’s fingers drummed on the table as he paused thoughtfully.

“Carshena,” he said, “if you can believe me, measured out the kerosene oil he allowed for each week on Monday; and when it gave out they went to bed at dusk, if it gave out on Friday night. But one thing Adelia did manage to do. So long as a drop of oil was in the measure a light stood in a window that lit up the ugly turn in the county road round the corner of their house. I know her light saved me from a bad collision once; some of you also, perhaps. She’s kept that little lamp so clean it always shone like a jewel up there. The window-pane it shone through had never a speck on it either. That’s what I call public spirit. And it’s public spirit, too, that makes her keep sweet-smelling flowers growing on the top of the old road wall. In summer I always drive past there slowly to enjoy them. When she comes on the charity of the town she may console herself by remembering these things. She did what she could (in spite of Carshena), and nobody can do more. Here are the plans for his monument, gentlemen. I would like to have your vote on them.”

The little company, as if glad to move, drew about the table as the doctor opened out the plans in a row. The butcher, whose ruddy face looked dim in his disappointment, and whose despondent chin hung down on his white shirt bosom, picked up one of the designs gingerly and examined it.

“Are they all alike, doctor?” he asked.

Judge Bowles looked over Mr. Gowan’s shoulder.

“Each design seems to be a hollow shaft of some kind, with a round opening at the top,” he said, and looked inquiringly over his glasses at the doctor, who nodded assent.

“They are all hollow. You seem to get more for your money so. The round opening at the top of the shaft can be filled with anything we choose later. I might suggest a crystal with the virtues of the deceased inscribed on it. Then, if we keep a light burning behind the glass at night, those virtues will shine before us by night and by day.”

Judge Bowles lifted his eyes quickly. The doctor’s face was unpleasantly satiric, and his blue eyes looked out angrily from under his curling white hair. Judge Bowles sat down, leaning back heavily in his chair, his perplexed eyes still on Dr. Michel’s frowning brow. Mr. Gowan, with a look as near anger as he could achieve, moved to a seat behind the stove. His idol was failing him utterly. He felt he himself could have done better than this. Dr. Michel’s roving eyes glanced round the circle of dissatisfied and dismayed faces, and then for the first time he seemed to break from his indifference:

“This is all very well, gentlemen--very well indeed. The facts are, you gave me a commission, and bound me to fulfill it strictly and to the letter, and now you are dissatisfied because I have followed your wishes. What did you expect? If you had left the matter to me without restrictions, I should certainly have tried to break the will, as I told you. Briefly, here is my report. We shall have about twenty thousand dollars all told to invest in a monument over our lamented brother. Any one of these hollow masonry structures here will cost about ten thousand dollars. As to the purchase of a suitable lot, which the will directs, I think even Carshena would declare it a good bargain to pay nothing whatever for the land, and that I can arrange, I believe. I have good reason to suppose”--he began to speak very slowly--”that the town would, without price, allow us to erect this monument on that unsightly bit of wet land to the south, near the old mill, if we in turn will agree to drain the grounds, keep them in good order, plant flowers and shrubbery, and further promise to keep a light burning all night in an opening at the top of the monument. I spoke of a crystal set in that opening, with the virtues of the deceased inscribed upon it, but we can, if we choose, carve those same virtues in the more imperishable stone below, and print something else--a clock face perhaps--on the crystal above. That’s a mere minor detail.”

Judge Bowles, whose gaze had been growing more and more bewildered, now started in his chair and sat suddenly upright. He stared at the doctor uncertainly. The doctor cast a quick look at him, and went on rapidly:

“If you will allow me, I’ll make my report quickly, and leave it with you. I have a great deal to do this morning in other directions. It has occurred to me that as the base of the monument is to be square and hollow, it would be easy to fit it into a comfortable living-room, with one, or perhaps two, small rooms built about it. I have not mentioned this to the architect, but I know it can be done. The will especially directs that repairs and care be allowed for.” The doctor was talking rapidly now. “The monument will not cost more than ten thousand, the clock about two. Twelve thousand from twenty thousand leaves eight thousand. The yearly interest on eight thousand and the fact that we could offer free residence in the monument should let us engage a reliable resident keeper, who would give the time and attention that such a monument and such a park would need.”

The doctor paused, and again looked about him.

The whole circle of faces looked back at him curiously--some with a puzzled gaze, but several, including Judge Bowles, with a half-fascinated, half-dismayed air. Mr. Gowan alone preserved his look of utter hopelessness.

“Who’d take a job like that?” he said, gloomily. “I wouldn’t, for one, live in a vault with Carshena, dead or alive.”

“Oh, the grave could be outside, and the monument as a kind of monster head-stone,” said the doctor pleasantly. “My idea was to have the grave well outside. Four or five hundred and a home isn’t much to offer a man, gentlemen, but I happen to know a very respectable elderly woman who would, it seems to me, suit us exactly as well as a man. In fact, I think it would considerably add to the picturesque features of our little town park to have a resident female keeper. I think I see her now, sitting in the summer sunshine at the door of this unique head-stone monument, or in winter independently luxuriating in its warm and hospitable shelter. I see her winding the clock, affectionately keeping the grave like a gorgeous flower-bed, caring for the shrubbery, burnishing the clock lamp till it shines like a jewel, as she well knows how to do, and best of all in her case, gentlemen, I happen to know from her own lips that she has no fear of ghosts. Why, gentlemen, what’s the matter? I protest, gentlemen.”

At that moment Mr. Gowan might be said to be the doctor’s only audience. The rest of the company were engaged in whispering to each other, or speechlessly giving themselves over to suppressed and unholy glee. Judge Bowles was openly wiping his eyes and shaking in his chair. Dr. Michel looked around the circle with resentful surprise.

“You seem amused, gentlemen!” he said, with dignity; and then addressing himself to Mr. Gowan exclusively, as if that gentleman alone were worthy to be his listener, “Would you object to a woman as keeper, Mr. Gowan?”

“What’s her name?” asked the butcher.

A roar of laughter, not to be long suppressed, drowned his words. Mr. Gowan looked about the shaken circle, stared for a moment, then suddenly, as comprehension, like a breaking dawn, spread over his round face, he brought his hand down hard on his fat knee.

“Well, doctor,” he roared, in admiration too deep for laughter, “if you ain’t the dawgornest!”

The doctor’s wiry hair seemed to rise and spread as wings, his eyes snapped and twinkled, his mouth puckered. “Will some one embody this in the form of a motion?” he asked, gravely. The judge dried his eyes, and, with difficulty, rose to his feet.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I move that we build this monument with a base large enough for a suite of rooms inside; that we set this structure on the lot which our good doctor has chosen; that we ornament it with an illuminated clock at the top; and further, that--that this female keeper be appointed.”

“Seconded, by Harry!” roared Mr. Gowan.

The doctor, with his hands on his hips, his body thrown far back, looked with the eye of a conqueror over the assembly. “Those in favor of the motion will please say Aye; those opposed No. It seems to be carried! it is carried,” he recited in one rapid breath.

“Amen!” endorsed Mr. Gowan, fervently.

And this warm approval of their butcher was in the end echoed as cordially by the most pious citizens of Leonard. After the first shock of their surprise was over, natural misgivings were lost in enjoyment of the grim humor of this very practical jest of their good doctor’s, that visitors now actually stop over a train to see. Many a village has its park, and many a one its illuminated clock; it was left for Leonard to have in its park a grave kept like a gorgeous flower-bed, and at the grave’s head a towering monument that is at once a tombstone, an illuminated clock and a residence.

Who the next keeper may be it is one of the amusements of Leonard to imagine. The present keeper is a happy old woman, whose fellow-citizens like nothing better than to see her winding the clock, caring for the flowers, burnishing the town lamp; in summer sitting in the sunshine at the door of the head-stone monument, in winter luxuriating in that warm and independent shelter.

“I feel as if Carshena knew just what was best for me, after all, doctor,” she said to her physician, in his first call upon her in her new home; and that worthy, with a nod of his white head, assented in the readiest manner.

“Doubtless, madam, doubtless,” he said, “Carshena had all this in mind when he made me his executor. Didn’t you, Carshena?” He winked his eye genially at the grave as he passed out, and with no shade of uncertainty or repentance in his mind, climbed into his buggy and went on his satisfied way.

MARGARET SUTTON BRISCOE.

XI

DOCTOR ARMSTRONG.

I.

COLVIN ARMSTRONG tried to take up his pen with an air of happiness and relief, for it was the last chapter of his great work which he was about to commence. But the effort failed, and he leaned back in his chair, thoroughly tired out--too jaded to be brisk or energetic.

It was not his professional work that tired him. A London surgeon, with a magnificent reputation, he had more than enough to do; but he was only forty, and his constitution was of iron. Work agreed with him: it was Thought that utterly prostrated him at times. No sooner was his last engagement fulfilled, or his last patient despatched, than he retired to his library and gave himself up to the great psychological problem that racked his brains. Night brought a short relief: he slept from twelve till six; but morning renewed his wrestlings, and it was only the necessity of attending to his surgery that freed him from the incessant train of thought. Would that his head were as cool as his strong, firm hands!

It was the Mystery of Human Pain that was haunting him. Until two years back he had never given such questions a thought, but then the problem began to force itself upon him. How was it that so many suffered a living martyrdom, whilst he himself never knew a moment’s pain? How was it that, having no personal knowledge of pain, he nevertheless felt such an overpowering sympathy with those who suffered, and had such an instinctive inborn gift of giving relief? And then the larger, less personal questions: Was there any guiding hand allotting pain to innocent mortals? Were they really innocent? If there was design in it all, from whom came the design, and what was its purpose? Was it for good, or evil, or both? If no Providence guided humanity, what was the origin of pain? Why was it allowed to be? And so on, in an endless train of thought, one problem suggesting ten others, till the subject broadened out to the doors of Eternity itself, and the mind reeled before its own imaginings.

Armstrong flew to his books for assistance, and primed himself with the ideas of the metaphysicians; but he was not satisfied, and a strong impulse led him to try his own hand at solving the mystery. Gradually, after much hard reading and thinking, he evolved a theory which, though far from satisfactory, seemed ampler and better than the ideas of the old philosophers; and then, slowly and laboriously, he committed it to paper. As the work grew, he became more convinced of the truth which seemed to lurk in his views, the foundation of real discovery on which his theses were based. Something of his marvellous insight into disease and distortion seemed to have entered into the book, and he was eager to give it to the world.

So this was the last chapter! By Jove! how hot and close the room was! It was annoying to feel so dull and listless, but there was some excuse: nine o’clock at night is not a time when a man is at his freshest, and there was nothing so wearing as this closely woven intellectual work, where every thread had to be followed to its end, every detail thought out, every possible ramification explored, and the mind kept at its highest tension throughout, straining to cover the whole ground and to order in logical sequence its myriad elusive thoughts. Difficult? Why, there was nothing to compare to it! But what was the good of magnifying troubles? Here was the final chapter, the conclusion which was to be so masterly, already mapped out in his mind, only waiting to be transferred to paper. Armstrong wiped his damp forehead, and seized the pen. The room was lit as he liked it, with only a lamp casting a subdued light on his desk; the rest in deepest gloom. Now was the time to begin. But he was terribly tired.

* * * * *

Kr-rk!

Armstrong leaned back in his chair, and pressed his hand to his head. Something inside seemed to have broken with a snap, or a tiny shutter had fallen away, as in a camera, revealing a hidden lens in his brain. His head was clearer and freer, as if some clogging veil had suddenly been removed, and before his eyes there burned a new light, steady and cold, but brilliant. A cooler, purer air filled the room. The present melted away from his vision. * * * * *

Far away--so far that everything was dwarfed, but yet as distinct in every detail as though it had been close at hand--Armstrong saw a vision.

A dark underground dungeon, with damp standing in beads on its bare stone walls; a man, bound, gagged, and helpless; another, black-masked and sullen of movement; a third, seated on a small platform, with his face in shadow. A feeble hanging lamp, swaying to and fro in the draughts of the cell, was the only illumination.

The vision came nearer and nearer, and grew larger as it came, until it reached Armstrong and filled his room, and he felt the dank breath of the dungeon stir his hair. He looked again: the masked man was at his elbow, the man on the dais was above him--unrecognisable in the shadow, but smiling gently; that much he could see. Then he looked at the third man, the prisoner; and a thrill of dread went through him, for he recognised himself,--in old-world, long-forgotten garb, but still himself. And then the whole grew real, with a deadly reality; he was no more a mere spectator, but a part of the vision, and the vision was a part of his own existence. The chill of the room fell on his spirit, filling him with vague, horrible forebodings: the present mingled with the past, and his spirit passed into the limp, helpless figure on the rack. He--he himself, and none other--was the victim in the torture chamber, and the world was black around him.

There was a clank of steel on the floor, as though little instruments had been dropped, and then a sudden sharp pang struck him from an unseen source. Another, another, and yet another,--a very multitude of keen stabbing pangs. In uncontrollable agony he raised his voice to shout with pain, but the gag stopped him, choked him, throttled his curses. And the dark figure smiled from above.

Then came hot, burning, throbbing pains that shot through him, turning the blood in his veins to fire, and gnawing his vitals till they consumed away. He tried to turn, to roll, to ease himself in any way; but he was bound and rigid and helpless, and his efforts only increased the torture. And still the figure sat motionless above him. He turned his streaming eyes upwards in mute appeal, and his answer was a smile.

Then the sharp pains and the burning misery ceased for a while, and his aching limbs rested, and all seemed over. But the presiding fiend waved a silent signal, and worse came--stretching, straining torture, that nearly pulled the wretched frame asunder (well if it had!), and dull grinding agonies, worse than the sharper pains, more cruel and relentless than the stabs or blows or thrusts.

And then the worst of all--the whole in combination. Crushing, grinding, distorting, straining, breaking, bending, blinding, burning, flaying, racking, stabbing--more than the mind can picture or words describe--in turn and together, and all the more horrible, coming unseen and sudden and unawares. Crush and rack and burn and grind, till the brain was on fire and the body groaning under its burdens; till the face was furrowed with tears of agony, the whole frame shapeless and broken, limbs useless, muscles tortured, twisted and crushed, nerves shattered, and the spirit within flaming with miserable, hopeless hate. Madness? No; that had come in the first silent moments of fear and pain, but the cruel hand had driven it away, and now there was only PAIN--deep, unfathomable Pain.

Then came a low whisper, the cool breath of Death waiting softly outside the chamber, and the wounded soul fluttered for a moment in joyous answer. But the human fiend above knew it, and the torture stopped. Sore, blistered, broken, and useless, he was flung aside to endure still longer in his misery, and Death turned sighing away.

* * * * *

Armstrong sprang from his chair with curses on his tongue and fury in his heart, and grasped convulsively at the retreating vision. But it was far, far off, and melting slowly into air.

Then a great calm fell upon him, and he knew what he had seen. It was a scene from a former life--his last existence--and it was vouchsafed to him as a lesson, a glimpse of the everlasting order of life. The inspiration of a great Message glowed on his brow and in his soul. And this was the Message which he read, clear as the words of a seer:--

“For inasmuch as thou hast suffered pain and bitterness of spirit in the past, so shalt thou now know freedom from such; and to thee it shall be given, by thy past sufferings, to discern and make lighter the grievous burdens of thy fellow-men. And the pain that thou hast felt in thy veins shall give thee understanding above all others, that thou mayest cure man’s infirmities and heal the sick of his house.”

II.

The light of a great revelation dazzled Armstrong for a while, but he rose from it with renewed strength and hope and courage, resolved to devote himself more than ever to the healing art. And first he destroyed his manuscript, for his theories were shattered and forgotten. The mystery of human pain was still unsolved; but was it for him to solve it? Providence had given him another mission,--to heal and cure. And Providence had given him the clue to one mystery, at all events--his own great sympathy with sufferers and insight into suffering. Sometimes he wondered whether another revelation would follow; but none came, and he pursued his usual career, doing good and working hard. The idle speculations, the restless quest of secret things, which had haunted him and wearied him before, were now of the past, and he lived for work alone.

But more was to come--unexpectedly and without warning.

It was an ordinary case he was treating: brain surgery. The man, a wretched creature, suffered severely, and was in a broken state of health; Armstrong had traced it to brain pressure, and saw his way easily to put things right by a cerebral operation. He was just concluding an examination, and the patient lay quietly in the great chair, soothed by a slight injection of morphia. Armstrong turned away to get a light--it was five o’clock on an autumn day, just beginning to grow dark--when suddenly there came that strange grating “Kr-rk” in his head, and he felt the room whirl around him. He clutched hard at a table near him, but it receded from his grasp and he felt himself falling down, down, down in giddy helplessness. Then the movement stopped, and he felt, as before, that some weight had been lifted from his brain, and a new, unused sense developed in him. But this time there was no clear light, no pure air, no vision.

What was coming? Something, he felt, was in store--some strange, new revelation--and he waited eagerly. As the prophets of old were inspired, so light had come to him, and now perhaps he would learn one more secret of the troubled world.

But nothing came; all was blank darkness around him, and an uneasy sense of foreboding stole slowly over him, till his hand shook and his face grew damp with cold sweat.

What was that? A far-off mocking laugh? And * * * O God in heaven! Not _that_ again! Not _that_!

He tried to call again, for pangs worse than of death were racking him; but something cold was thrust into his mouth and choked him. And then his eyes, shut tight in the clenched agony of pain, opened again, and he saw the streaming dungeon walls, the swaying lamp, the masked torturer, and the grim shadow-figure seated motionless on the dais above him; and his heart sank within him, and he turned sick and faint.

For one brief moment the masked man turned away--to heat his irons, perhaps, or rest his arms, weary of their heavy work--and all Armstrong’s spirit went up in one short, agonised, burning prayer, in one deep, strenuous remonstrance.

“I have felt it before,” he cried. “I have endured it before, and I know its meaning. Must I go through all again? Have I failed in my duty? Save me from pain and madness before it is too late! O God of cruelty, Pain-giver, merciless, wicked, infernal, save me, save me, preserve me!”

His words, stifled by the gag, reached no human ear; but in the cell a new presence was lurking, and on his face fell a hot, quick breath.

A voice spoke in his ear, very soft and gentle and low.

“You blaspheme in vain,” it said; “God has not sent you this vision, but _I_.”

III.

The torture was over, and Armstrong waited quietly for the moment of restoration to the world; but it did not come, and a new fear seized him. What if he never recovered from this state? As the Powers of Good had vouchsafed him the first vision, so the Powers of Evil had mocked him with the second--the same as the first, but infinitely more terrible, for through the former a subtle strength of will had sustained him, and he had emerged from it wiser, happier, and stronger, whilst now he felt himself deserted and unaided, and * * * Heavens above! What would come next? The physical torture was over, but now his mind was on the rack, and it was worse, far worse!

The two grim figures remained in the cell, motionless as statues. A strange detachment of mind, a mystic duality of self, was torturing Armstrong. Here he felt the pangs and achings of the most terrible pain; yet at the same time he knew that it was all unreal, and his thoughts turned to the world above--his work, his house, his friends, the very patient in his chair, waiting and wondering. Somewhere between the two lay madness, and his spirit cried for peace--a world all vision, or a world all reality--anything but this perplexing, torturing union of the two.

Quick as thought came the answer. “Look around before you go.”

It was the soft voice he had heard before--gentle, but insistent. But he had seen too much of that hateful cell, and he closed his eyes in tight resistance.

“Look around,” said the voice, even more gently than before.

A shuddering fear seized Armstrong.

The spirit read his thoughts. “You are afraid: you dare not look at _me_. But you shall not see me. Look!”

He put his hand to his head and covered his eyes with a convulsive movement.

“Listen!” said the voice. “You have not even seen your enemy. Would you not know him?”

A cold sickness fell on Armstrong’s spirit, and he shuddered. Why see the monster who had tortured him, the human fiend who could be nothing other than repulsive?

Then the voice spoke again, more gently than before.

“Listen! I am the God of Evil, but I befriend you. I pass my hand along your frame, and the pain leaves you. I touch your eyes with my fingers, and they open. Look around!”

Armstrong rose, sound and strong. The dungeon was dark, but in its recesses he could see two cowering figures, striving to hide themselves from his eyes. One was the masked man; one was the director, the inquisitor, the author of all his misery.

“See how he hides from you,” whispered the voice. “But you shall not be denied. TURN!”

The sudden thunder of that last word echoed through the vault, and then there came a short, sharp, double flash of blinding light. The first flash showed a crouching, cowering figure in the background, with pale, set face, and cruel eyes; the second struck Armstrong full in the face and felled him to the ground.

* * * * *

Dazed and frightened, as after a hideous nightmare, he pulled himself together. The match he had taken up was still in his hand, and he turned back, mastering himself with a great effort, to his patient.

He lighted the big burner and turned it full on the chair. The man, roused from the lethargy of morphia, slowly opened his eyes.

Armstrong staggered back, stifling the cry of horror that rose to his lips; for in that one glance he saw, clear and unmistakable, the face of his torturer--reincarnated, but still the same.

IV.

Armstrong turned aside to hide his excitement. After all, then, the vision had not been in vain: it was the complement of the first; and now all was clear. The Mystery of Human Pain! His own great book on the subject! He laughed aloud. All that thought and time and labour had been wasted, and here was the truth, shown to him in a dream--the truth that all the world should know. A strange exaltation filled his spirit.

“_I_ suffered pain, and now I reap my reward--strong, happy, a healer of wounds, myself knowing no suffering. _He_ inflicted pain and torture, and now he suffers for it.”

The patient in the chair moved uneasily and groaned. Armstrong went on: “A righteous Judge rewards me for what I have undergone, and scourges him for the evil he has wrought.”

“The Lord have Mercy on his Soul!”

It was a deep voice that spoke, the words booming and reverberating like the notes of heavy bells. It touched a new chord in Armstrong’s mind, and sent the blood throbbing and pulsing through his head. “The Lord have mercy on his soul!” Why? What mercy had _he_ had for others? And with that the fury of hate returned to him and surged through his veins, till he felt himself more demon than man. Every pang, every pain, every racking agony that he had suffered in those two terrible visions, returned to him threefold, burned into his soul, branded on every limb and sinew. Curse him with the curse of the martyr, and blast him with the breath of his iniquities!

And then a cold, unnatural calm fell upon Armstrong, and his quivering hands grew steady and cunning as before.

* * * * *

It was all so easy! The man lay there, half conscious--with enough sensation left to feel every torture inflicted on him, but yet unable to speak or groan. It was a carefully managed anæsthetic, administered just sufficiently to glaze the eyes and paralyze the tongue, but no more. And the brain lay so near at hand!

The mad fury of revenge had left Armstrong, and he was cold, scientific and deliberate--no movement hurried, no torment left untried, and all done with the mechanical, even touch of the skilled workman. A pang for a pang, a stab for a stab, a scald for a scald; Armstrong remembered each pain he had endured, and paid it back threefold. On the subtle mechanism of the head he played as on a keyed instrument, sending hot, shooting pains, and dull, numbing clutches, to the remotest parts of the wretched frame.

All the poor worn nerves centered within his grasp, and to his eyes they were visible throughout their hidden course, coming to one common end, where he grasped them as with a handle, and turned and ground and twisted and crushed, till they stretched, strained, groaned and quivered under his racking touch. He hissed taunting words in his ears--words that he knew could not be answered; he mocked at the helpless agony. And all the while he watched the blue lips, striving to curse and moan, but bound by the hellish drug as with a gag; and the bloodshot, straining eyes, too fixed even to appeal; and the dumb agony of the whole wretched form. And a grim, silent laughter shook him.

But it could not last forever: his hand wearied, and his head reeled. He fell to the ground in a swoon. * * *

Bells were ringing--light, airy, joyous bells; and he roused himself. The bells grew slower, fainter--died out altogether--and in their place a voice was in his ears, very soft and low. What was it saying? It was so faint, so indistinct * * *

“On _your_ soul may the Lord have mercy!”

Armstrong rose as from a dream. In the chair lay a shape, not mangled, indeed, but pale-faced, shrunken, distorted, horrible. He bent his head down and listened to the heart; there were two feeble beats, a faint flicker, and then it stopped.

There was a strange catch in the surgeon’s breath. The room was hot and close; he pushed the curtains back, and looked out. It was night now--a deep blue sky, studded with a myriad stars. And one star shot upwards in a blaze of silver light.

Armstrong turned away, breathing heavily. There was the body still, and there were the little instruments he had used.

The present did not stir him, gave him no thought; but the knowledge of the future was upon him, and he groaned aloud in the new-born agony of his soul. For he knew what he had done: it was his chance, and he had missed it; it was his trial, his ordeal, and he had failed * * * And in the next life on earth his torture would be longer and harder to bear. The Lord would have no mercy on his soul.

D. L. B. S.

XII

DR. WYGRAM’S SON.