CHAPTER IX.
Master Shedlock, on fastening the lower door of the hall behindhim, in the manner set forth heretofore, resumed his progress,and passed on to the kitchen. There, as was already mademanifest, he found Abigail and Zedekiah, whom his appearancequite diverted from their design of ejecting the cut onion.
Abigail was the first to recover herself.
“What ails thee, master?” she cried.
“She’s dead!” answered Shedlock. “I have seen her spirit.”
“Mean’st thou mistress?” demanded Abigail, earnestly.
“She’s dead!” repeated Shedlock.
“Go to! she was a good mistress!” cried Abigail, bursting intotears. “I will go see her.”
Shedlock seized her by the arm. “Woman, she’s dead, I tell thee!”he cried. “Go get some neighbours to lay her out.”
Abigail made no reply, but, as he dropped his hold of her arm,stepped towards the rearward door, and proceeded on the errandhe had charged her with. He remained stationary himself, withhis eyes fixed on the open door, in evident abstraction andbewilderment, for upwards of half an hour. After that interval,Abigail returned, accompanied by two other women, tenants ofa neighbouring cottage, whom she had brought to assist her inlaying out her mistress.
“Shall we go see her now?” she asked of Shedlock.
“Ay,” replied the Puritan. “And let some one stay with her tillher burying.”
Zedekiah, who had hitherto stood perfectly still, as if he hadnot understood what was passing, here gave a slight start.
“Look you this be minded,” continued Shedlock: “so shall my heartbe at rest.”
Rest? his heart was never to be at rest again! The fearfulvisitation which he believed himself to have been subject to, inthe last farewell of his deceased wife, was impressed too vividlyon his mind, and had given too violent a shock to his long-sealedconscience, to suffer him to rest a moment. What a terribleretribution had one brief instant brought upon him! In the midstof his pride, in the height of health, with every pleasure andenjoyment that riches could purchase within his reach, and withall the pomp and allurements of the seductive world open to him,the man who believed himself to be only a creature of the time,and entirely free from all responsibility, was a prey to theliveliest pangs and terrors of remorse.
The tremendous mystery of nature was unveiled in his bosom, atlast. In vain did he strive to turn from it; in vain did hestrive to stifle, with the specious sophistries of atheism,that ever-living and irradicable conviction of responsibility,which it stamped in the very life-blood of his heart. He mightpersuade himself that he believed it to be false; he might say,as he had often said before, that it was the mere effect of earlyimpressions; but the awful inspiration rose up still, and, inspite of all he could think, say, or do, would win and fasten onhis attention.
Whoever has looked close into his own heart, in the silence ofmidnight, when its admirable machinery may be best observed,will have noted how hard it is to fix it on any one thought, andwhat a variety of ideas assail us at once. Can he see in thisdistraction no trace of supernatural influences? When, in spiteof his very utmost exertion, the thought that he would pursueis suddenly invaded by another--when the good intention he woulddwell upon becomes associated with corruption--when his virtuousresolution is overtaken by an allurement to vice, his best andmost generous sympathies, as they are on the very eve of ripeninginto effect, stifled by an egregious vanity--does he not, in thissituation, feel that he is of himself like a mariner without acompass, and that his heart needs a higher and greater Power atits helm? If he be a reasonable being, such must, beyond alldispute, be his natural conclusion; and he will feel no lessassured, that that Power is at his hand, and only awaits hisinvocation to lend him effectual succour.
Even Shedlock was not abandoned. Nature, bursting the trammels hehad imposed upon her, unfolded herself to his eye in her nativeperfectness; conscience sought to arouse him to the truth; butnow, when a last hope was extended to him, he wished to believeit false; and what should have prostrated him in adoration,overwhelmed him with horror.
The awful adventure of the morning had unnerved him, and, in thesuperstitious spirit already ascribed to him, he thought that theapparition of his wife, which he believed it to have revealed,was a warning that his own end was approaching. How could hedie?--he, whose whole life, as far as his memory could carry himback, had been one course of guilt? Yet why could he not die,if to die, as he persuaded himself he believed, were to end--todissolve into the elements, and be no more? There was a doubt--acraven doubt,--and that withheld him.
When Abigail and her two helpmates proceeded to his deceasedwife’s chamber, and he was thus, as he believed, protected from arepetition of his recent ghostly adventure, he ventured to returnto his dormitory. A bible was lying on his toilet-table, and,on his entry, was the first object that, in his survey of thechamber, seemed to interest him. It was open, and, after musing amoment, something whispered him, in pursuance of the thoughts hehad been following, that it was a book of lies, and he determinedto shut it up. He approached it with that view; but, as he caughtup the cover, his eye involuntarily turned on the open page, andthere read these words--“Thou fool! this night thy soul shall berequired of thee!”
Shedlock drew back appalled. In the mood he was in, the passageappeared to him like “the handwriting on the wall;” and yet, by asingular and unaccountable infatuation, he rejected the authorityof the volume by which it was furnished. He tried to ponder onother things, but, the more he sought to divert his thoughts,the more did the one terrible fear of death, which had takenpossession of his heart, grow and twine round them, and tainteach individual reflection with its harrowing horror.
He became even more unnerved on the approach of night. Afraid toremain alone, he directed Zedekiah, in a tone that admitted ofno question, to make up another bed in his chamber, and therewatch him during the night. His injunction was fulfilled, but theprecaution suggested by his fears, and from which he had hoped tohave derived a degree of assurance, had no effect on his mind,and, however he might strive to compose it, it still would offerno thought but the one racking anticipation of approaching death.
He was quite without hope: even life itself, if it should beextended to him, had lost its charm--it could no more present tohim the image of reality. As this reflection occurred to him, hisheart burned again, and he asked himself why, if it were to bearon him like a burden, he should continue to endure life. Only thefear of what might succeed it could make it any way tolerable.Did he believe, then, that it was but the prelude to anotherexistence? No! certainly not! For what reason, then, should hecling to it?
Such were the speculations that, almost in spite of his ownwill, shot through his fevered mind, over and over again, as hetossed restlessly on his pillow. He tried to shake them off, butthey held to him, notwithstanding, with the grasp of giants.Thus, sweating with horror, he continued till near midnight: theburden then surpassed all endurance; and, muttering a blasphemousexecration, he sprang from the bed, and staggered out on thefloor.
As he came to a stand, he fell back against the toilet-table. Hewas about to raise himself, when his hand, in moving round thetable, knocked against some extraneous substance, and he caughtit up. It was a razor.
“’Twere a good thing, now, to end all,” he said.
Thus speaking, he drew the razor open, and raised it to histhroat. He paused a moment, and then, with a perfectly steadyhand, dashed the deadly blade into his flesh, and cut his throatright across. A loud yell rang in his ear, and he fell back acorpse.