"There is, is there?" said Gashford. He said it with such a provoking a.s.sumption of ignorance, that Hugh, looking over his shoulder and angrily down upon him, replied: "Is there! You know there is! Who knows better than you, master, that the first great step to be taken is to make examples of these witnesses, and frighten all men from appearing against us or any of our body, any more?"
"There"s one we know of," returned Gashford, with an expressive smile, "who is at least as well informed upon that subject as you or I."
"If we mean the same gentleman, as I suppose we do," Hugh rejoined softly, "I tell you this--he"s as good and quick information about everything as--" here he paused and looked round, as if to make sure that the person in question was not within hearing, "as Old Nick himself. Have you done that, master? How slow you are!"
"It"s quite fast now," said Gashford, rising. "I say--you didn"t find that your friend disapproved of to-day"s little expedition? Ha ha ha! It is fortunate it jumps so well with the witness policy; for, once planned, it must have been carried out. And now you are going, eh?"
"Now we are going, master!" Hugh replied. "Any parting words?"
"Oh dear, no," said Gashford sweetly. "None!"
"You"re sure?" cried Hugh, nudging the grinning Dennis.
"Quite sure, eh, Muster Gashford?" chuckled the hangman.
Gashford paused a moment, struggling with his caution and his malice; then putting himself between the two men, and laying a hand upon the arm of each, said, in a cramped whisper: "Do not, my good friends--I am sure you will not--forget our talk one night--in your house, Dennis--about this person. No mercy, no quarter, no two beams of his house to be left standing where the builder placed them! Fire, the saying goes, is a good servant, but a bad master. Makes it HIS master; he deserves no better. But I am sure you will be firm, I am sure you will be very resolute, I am sure you will remember that he thirsts for your lives, and those of all your brave companions. If you ever acted like staunch fellows, you will do so to-day. Won"t you, Dennis--won"t you, Hugh?"
The two looked at him, and at each other; then bursting into a roar of laughter, brandished their staves above their heads, shook hands, and hurried out.
When they had been gone a little time, Gashford followed. They were yet in sight, and hastening to that part of the adjacent fields in which their fellows had already mustered; Hugh was looking back, and flourishing his hat to Barnaby, who, delighted with his trust, replied in the same way, and then resumed his pacing up and down before the stable-door, where his feet had worn a path already. And when Gashford himself was far distant, and looked back for the last time, he was still walking to and fro, with the same measured tread; the most devoted and the blithest champion that ever maintained a post, and felt his heart lifted up with a brave sense of duty, and determination to defend it to the last.
Smiling at the simplicity of the poor idiot, Gashford betook himself to Welbeck Street by a different path from that which he knew the rioters would take, and sitting down behind a curtain in one of the upper windows of Lord George Gordon"s house, waited impatiently for their coming. They were so long, that although he knew it had been settled they should come that way, he had a misgiving they must have changed their plans and taken some other route. But at length the roar of voices was heard in the neighbouring fields, and soon afterwards they came thronging past, in a great body.
However, they were not all, nor nearly all, in one body, but were, as he soon found, divided into four parties, each of which stopped before the house to give three cheers, and then went on; the leaders crying out in what direction they were going, and calling on the spectators to join them. The first detachment, carrying, by way of banners, some relics of the havoc they had made in Moorfields, proclaimed that they were on their way to Chelsea, whence they would return in the same order, to make of the spoil they bore, a great bonfire, near at hand. The second gave out that they were bound for Wapping, to destroy a chapel; the third, that their place of destination was East Smithfield, and their object the same. All this was done in broad, bright, summer day. Gay carriages and chairs stopped to let them pa.s.s, or turned back to avoid them; people on foot stood aside in doorways, or perhaps knocked and begged permission to stand at a window, or in the hall, until the rioters had pa.s.sed: but n.o.body interfered with them; and when they had gone by, everything went on as usual.
There still remained the fourth body, and for that the secretary looked with a most intense eagerness. At last it came up. It was numerous, and composed of picked men; for as he gazed down among them, he recognised many upturned faces which he knew well--those of Simon Tappert.i.t, Hugh, and Dennis in the front, of course. They halted and cheered, as the others had done; but when they moved again, they did not, like them, proclaim what design they had. Hugh merely raised his hat upon the bludgeon he carried, and glancing at a spectator on the opposite side of the way, was gone.
Gashford followed the direction of his glance instinctively, and saw, standing on the pavement, and wearing the blue c.o.c.kade, Sir John Chester. He held his hat an inch or two above his head, to propitiate the mob; and, resting gracefully on his cane, smiling pleasantly, and displaying his dress and person to the very best advantage, looked on in the most tranquil state imaginable. For all that, and quick and dexterous as he was, Gashford had seen him recognise Hugh with the air of a patron. He had no longer any eyes for the crowd, but fixed his keen regards upon Sir John.
He stood in the same place and posture until the last man in the concourse had turned the corner of the street; then very deliberately took the blue c.o.c.kade out of his hat; put it carefully in his pocket, ready for the next emergency; refreshed himself with a pinch of snuff; put up his box; and was walking slowly off, when a pa.s.sing carriage stopped, and a lady"s hand let down the gla.s.s. Sir John"s hat was off again immediately. After a minute"s conversation at the carriage-window, in which it was apparent that he was vastly entertaining on the subject of the mob, he stepped lightly in, and was driven away.
The secretary smiled, but he had other thoughts to dwell upon, and soon dismissed the topic. Dinner was brought him, but he sent it down untasted; and, in restless pacings up and down the room, and constant glances at the clock, and many futile efforts to sit down and read, or go to sleep, or look out of the window, consumed four weary hours. When the dial told him thus much time had crept away, he stole upstairs to the top of the house, and coming out upon the roof sat down, with his face towards the east.
Heedless of the fresh air that blew upon his heated brow, of the pleasant meadows from which he turned, of the piles of roofs and chimneys upon which he looked, of the smoke and rising mist he vainly sought to pierce, of the shrill cries of children at their evening sports, the distant hum and turmoil of the town, the cheerful country breath that rustled past to meet it, and to droop, and die; he watched, and watched, till it was dark save for the specks of light that twinkled in the streets below and far away-- and, as the darkness deepened, strained his gaze and grew more eager yet.
"Nothing but gloom in that direction, still!" he muttered restlessly. "Dog! where is the redness in the sky, you promised me!"
Chapter 54.
Rumours of the prevailing disturbances had, by this time, begun to be pretty generally circulated through the towns and villages round London, and the tidings were everywhere received with that appet.i.te for the marvellous and love of the terrible which have probably been among the natural characteristics of mankind since the creation of the world. These accounts, however, appeared, to many persons at that day--as they would to us at the present, but that we know them to be matter of history--so monstrous and improbable, that a great number of those who were resident at a distance, and who were credulous enough on other points, were really unable to bring their minds to believe that such things could be; and rejected the intelligence they received on all hands, as wholly fabulous and absurd.
Mr Willet--not so much, perhaps, on account of his having argued and settled the matter with himself, as by reason of his const.i.tutional obstinacy--was one of those who positively refused to entertain the current topic for a moment. On this very evening, and perhaps at the very time when Gashford kept his solitary watch, old John was so red in the face with perpetually shaking his head in contradiction of his three ancient cronies and pot companions, that he was quite a phenomenon to behold, and lighted up the Maypole Porch wherein they sat together, like a monstrous carbuncle in a fairy tale.
"Do you think, sir," said Mr Willet, looking hard at Solomon Daisy--for it was his custom in cases of personal altercation to fasten upon the smallest man in the party--"do you think, sir, that I"m a born fool?"
"No, no, Johnny," returned Solomon, looking round upon the little circle of which he formed a part: "We all know better than that. You"re no fool, Johnny. No, no!"
Mr Cobb and Mr Parkes shook their heads in unison, muttering, "No, no, Johnny, not you!" But as such compliments had usually the effect of making Mr Willet rather more dogged than before, he surveyed them with a look of deep disdain, and returned for answer: "Then what do you mean by coming here, and telling me that this evening you"re a-going to walk up to London together--you three-- you--and have the evidence of your own senses? An"t," said Mr Willet, putting his pipe in his mouth with an air of solemn disgust, "an"t the evidence of MY senses enough for you?"
"But we haven"t got it, Johnny," pleaded Parkes, humbly.
"You haven"t got it, sir?" repeated Mr Willet, eyeing him from top to toe. "You haven"t got it, sir? You HAVE got it, sir. Don"t I tell you that His blessed Majesty King George the Third would no more stand a rioting and rollicking in his streets, than he"d stand being crowed over by his own Parliament?"
"Yes, Johnny, but that"s your sense--not your senses," said the adventurous Mr Parkes.
"How do you know? "retorted John with great dignity. "You"re a contradicting pretty free, you are, sir. How do YOU know which it is? I"m not aware I ever told you, sir."
Mr Parkes, finding himself in the position of having got into metaphysics without exactly seeing his way out of them, stammered forth an apology and retreated from the argument. There then ensued a silence of some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, at the expiration of which period Mr Willet was observed to rumble and shake with laughter, and presently remarked, in reference to his late adversary, "that he hoped he had tackled him enough." Thereupon Messrs Cobb and Daisy laughed, and nodded, and Parkes was looked upon as thoroughly and effectually put down.
"Do you suppose if all this was true, that Mr Haredale would be constantly away from home, as he is?" said John, after another silence. "Do you think he wouldn"t be afraid to leave his house with them two young women in it, and only a couple of men, or so?"
"Ay, but then you know," returned Solomon Daisy, "his house is a goodish way out of London, and they do say that the rioters won"t go more than two miles, or three at the farthest, off the stones. Besides, you know, some of the Catholic gentlefolks have actually sent trinkets and suchlike down here for safety--at least, so the story goes."
"The story goes!" said Mr Willet testily. "Yes, sir. The story goes that you saw a ghost last March. But n.o.body believes it."
"Well!" said Solomon, rising, to divert the attention of his two friends, who t.i.ttered at this retort: "believed or disbelieved, it"s true; and true or not, if we mean to go to London, we must be going at once. So shake hands, Johnny, and good night."
"I shall shake hands," returned the landlord, putting his into his pockets, "with no man as goes to London on such nonsensical errands."
The three cronies were therefore reduced to the necessity of shaking his elbows; having performed that ceremony, and brought from the house their hats, and sticks, and greatcoats, they bade him good night and departed; promising to bring him on the morrow full and true accounts of the real state of the city, and if it were quiet, to give him the full merit of his victory.
John Willet looked after them, as they plodded along the road in the rich glow of a summer evening; and knocking the ashes out of his pipe, laughed inwardly at their folly, until his sides were sore. When he had quite exhausted himself--which took some time, for he laughed as slowly as he thought and spoke--he sat himself comfortably with his back to the house, put his legs upon the bench, then his ap.r.o.n over his face, and fell sound asleep.
How long he slept, matters not; but it was for no brief s.p.a.ce, for when he awoke, the rich light had faded, the sombre hues of night were falling fast upon the landscape, and a few bright stars were already twinkling overhead. The birds were all at roost, the daisies on the green had closed their fairy hoods, the honeysuckle twining round the porch exhaled its perfume in a twofold degree, as though it lost its coyness at that silent time and loved to shed its fragrance on the night; the ivy scarcely stirred its deep green leaves. How tranquil, and how beautiful it was!
Was there no sound in the air, besides the gentle rustling of the trees and the gra.s.shopper"s merry chirp? Hark! Something very faint and distant, not unlike the murmuring in a sea-sh.e.l.l. Now it grew louder, fainter now, and now it altogether died away. Presently, it came again, subsided, came once more, grew louder, fainter--swelled into a roar. It was on the road, and varied with its windings. All at once it burst into a distinct sound--the voices, and the tramping feet of many men.
It is questionable whether old John Willet, even then, would have thought of the rioters but for the cries of his cook and housemaid, who ran screaming upstairs and locked themselves into one of the old garrets,--shrieking dismally when they had done so, by way of rendering their place of refuge perfectly secret and secure. These two females did afterwards depone that Mr Willet in his consternation uttered but one word, and called that up the stairs in a stentorian voice, six distinct times. But as this word was a monosyllable, which, however inoffensive when applied to the quadruped it denotes, is highly reprehensible when used in connection with females of unimpeachable character, many persons were inclined to believe that the young women laboured under some hallucination caused by excessive fear; and that their ears deceived them.
Be this as it may, John Willet, in whom the very uttermost extent of dull-headed perplexity supplied the place of courage, stationed himself in the porch, and waited for their coming up. Once, it dimly occurred to him that there was a kind of door to the house, which had a lock and bolts; and at the same time some shadowy ideas of shutters to the lower windows, flitted through his brain. But he stood stock still, looking down the road in the direction in which the noise was rapidly advancing, and did not so much as take his hands out of his pockets.
He had not to wait long. A dark ma.s.s, looming through a cloud of dust, soon became visible; the mob quickened their pace; shouting and whooping like savages, they came rushing on pell mell; and in a few seconds he was bandied from hand to hand, in the heart of a crowd of men.
"Halloa!" cried a voice he knew, as the man who spoke came cleaving through the throng. "Where is he? Give him to me. Don"t hurt him. How now, old Jack! Ha ha ha!"
Mr Willet looked at him, and saw it was Hugh; but he said nothing, and thought nothing.
"These lads are thirsty and must drink!" cried Hugh, thrusting him back towards the house. "Bustle, Jack, bustle. Show us the best-- the very best--the over-proof that you keep for your own drinking, Jack!"
John faintly articulated the words, "Who"s to pay?"
"He says "Who"s to pay?"" cried Hugh, with a roar of laughter which was loudly echoed by the crowd. Then turning to John, he added, "Pay! Why, n.o.body."
John stared round at the ma.s.s of faces--some grinning, some fierce, some lighted up by torches, some indistinct, some dusky and shadowy: some looking at him, some at his house, some at each other--and while he was, as he thought, in the very act of doing so, found himself, without any consciousness of having moved, in the bar; sitting down in an arm-chair, and watching the destruction of his property, as if it were some queer play or entertainment, of an astonishing and stupefying nature, but having no reference to himself--that he could make out--at all.
Yes. Here was the bar--the bar that the boldest never entered without special invitation--the sanctuary, the mystery, the hallowed ground: here it was, crammed with men, clubs, sticks, torches, pistols; filled with a deafening noise, oaths, shouts, screams, hootings; changed all at once into a bear-garden, a madhouse, an infernal temple: men darting in and out, by door and window, smashing the gla.s.s, turning the taps, drinking liquor out of China punchbowls, sitting astride of casks, smoking private and personal pipes, cutting down the sacred grove of lemons, hacking and hewing at the celebrated cheese, breaking open inviolable drawers, putting things in their pockets which didn"t belong to them, dividing his own money before his own eyes, wantonly wasting, breaking, pulling down and tearing up: nothing quiet, nothing private: men everywhere--above, below, overhead, in the bedrooms, in the kitchen, in the yard, in the stables--clambering in at windows when there were doors wide open; dropping out of windows when the stairs were handy; leaping over the bannisters into chasms of pa.s.sages: new faces and figures presenting themselves every instant--some yelling, some singing, some fighting, some breaking gla.s.s and crockery, some laying the dust with the liquor they couldn"t drink, some ringing the bells till they pulled them down, others beating them with pokers till they beat them into fragments: more men still--more, more, more--swarming on like insects: noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans, plunder, fear, and ruin!
Nearly all the time while John looked on at this bewildering scene, Hugh kept near him; and though he was the loudest, wildest, most destructive villain there, he saved his old master"s bones a score of times. Nay, even when Mr Tappert.i.t, excited by liquor, came up, and in a.s.sertion of his prerogative politely kicked John Willet on the shins, Hugh bade him return the compliment; and if old John had had sufficient presence of mind to understand this whispered direction, and to profit by it, he might no doubt, under Hugh"s protection, have done so with impunity.
At length the band began to rea.s.semble outside the house, and to call to those within, to join them, for they were losing time. These murmurs increasing, and attaining a high pitch, Hugh, and some of those who yet lingered in the bar, and who plainly were the leaders of the troop, took counsel together, apart, as to what was to be done with John, to keep him quiet until their Chigwell work was over. Some proposed to set the house on fire and leave him in it; others, that he should be reduced to a state of temporary insensibility, by knocking on the head; others, that he should be sworn to sit where he was until to-morrow at the same hour; others again, that he should be gagged and taken off with them, under a sufficient guard. All these propositions being overruled, it was concluded, at last, to bind him in his chair, and the word was pa.s.sed for Dennis.
"Look"ee here, Jack!" said Hugh, striding up to him: "We are going to tie you, hand and foot, but otherwise you won"t be hurt. D"ye hear?"
John Willet looked at another man, as if he didn"t know which was the speaker, and muttered something about an ordinary every Sunday at two o"clock.
"You won"t be hurt I tell you, Jack--do you hear me?" roared Hugh, impressing the a.s.surance upon him by means of a heavy blow on the back. "He"s so dead scared, he"s woolgathering, I think. Give him a drop of something to drink here. Hand over, one of you."
A gla.s.s of liquor being pa.s.sed forward, Hugh poured the contents down old John"s throat. Mr Willet feebly smacked his lips, thrust his hand into his pocket, and inquired what was to pay; adding, as he looked vacantly round, that he believed there was a trifle of broken gla.s.s-- "He"s out of his senses for the time, it"s my belief," said Hugh, after shaking him, without any visible effect upon his system, until his keys rattled in his pocket. "Where"s that Dennis?"
The word was again pa.s.sed, and presently Mr Dennis, with a long cord bound about his middle, something after the manner of a friar, came hurrying in, attended by a body-guard of half-a-dozen of his men.
"Come! Be alive here!" cried Hugh, stamping his foot upon the ground. "Make haste!"
Dennis, with a wink and a nod, unwound the cord from about his person, and raising his eyes to the ceiling, looked all over it, and round the walls and cornice, with a curious eye; then shook his head.
"Move, man, can"t you!" cried Hugh, with another impatient stamp of his foot. "Are we to wait here, till the cry has gone for ten miles round, and our work"s interrupted?"
"It"s all very fine talking, brother," answered Dennis, stepping towards him; "but unless--" and here he whispered in his ear-- "unless we do it over the door, it can"t be done at all in this here room."
"What can"t?" Hugh demanded.
"What can"t!" retorted Dennis. "Why, the old man can"t."
"Why, you weren"t going to hang him!" cried Hugh.
"No, brother?" returned the hangman with a stare. "What else?"
Hugh made no answer, but s.n.a.t.c.hing the rope from his companion"s hand, proceeded to bind old John himself; but his very first move was so bungling and unskilful, that Mr Dennis entreated, almost with tears in his eyes, that he might be permitted to perform the duty. Hugh consenting, be achieved it in a twinkling.
"There," he said, looking mournfully at John Willet, who displayed no more emotion in his bonds than he had shown out of them. "That"s what I call pretty and workmanlike. He"s quite a picter now. But, brother, just a word with you--now that he"s ready trussed, as one may say, wouldn"t it be better for all parties if we was to work him off? It would read uncommon well in the newspapers, it would indeed. The public would think a great deal more on us!"
Hugh, inferring what his companion meant, rather from his gestures than his technical mode of expressing himself (to which, as he was ignorant of his calling, he wanted the clue), rejected this proposition for the second time, and gave the word "Forward!" which was echoed by a hundred voices from without.
"To the Warren!" shouted Dennis as he ran out, followed by the rest. "A witness"s house, my lads!"
A loud yell followed, and the whole throng hurried off, mad for pillage and destruction. Hugh lingered behind for a few moments to stimulate himself with more drink, and to set all the taps running, a few of which had accidentally been spared; then, glancing round the despoiled and plundered room, through whose shattered window the rioters had thrust the Maypole itself,--for even that had been sawn down,--lighted a torch, clapped the mute and motionless John Willet on the back, and waving his light above his head, and uttering a fierce shout, hastened after his companions.
Chapter 55.
John Willet, left alone in his dismantled bar, continued to sit staring about him; awake as to his eyes, certainly, but with all his powers of reason and reflection in a sound and dreamless sleep. He looked round upon the room which had been for years, and was within an hour ago, the pride of his heart; and not a muscle of his face was moved. The night, without, looked black and cold through the dreary gaps in the cas.e.m.e.nt; the precious liquids, now nearly leaked away, dripped with a hollow sound upon the floor; the Maypole peered ruefully in through the broken window, like the bowsprit of a wrecked ship; the ground might have been the bottom of the sea, it was so strewn with precious fragments. Currents of air rushed in, as the old doors jarred and creaked upon their hinges; the candles flickered and guttered down, and made long winding-sheets; the cheery deep-red curtains flapped and fluttered idly in the wind; even the stout Dutch kegs, overthrown and lying empty in dark corners, seemed the mere husks of good fellows whose jollity had departed, and who could kindle with a friendly glow no more. John saw this desolation, and yet saw it not. He was perfectly contented to sit there, staring at it, and felt no more indignation or discomfort in his bonds than if they had been robes of honour. So far as he was personally concerned, old Time lay snoring, and the world stood still.
Save for the dripping from the barrels, the rustling of such light fragments of destruction as the wind affected, and the dull creaking of the open doors, all was profoundly quiet: indeed, these sounds, like the ticking of the death-watch in the night, only made the silence they invaded deeper and more apparent. But quiet or noisy, it was all one to John. If a train of heavy artillery could have come up and commenced ball practice outside the window, it would have been all the same to him. He was a long way beyond surprise. A ghost couldn"t have overtaken him.
By and by he heard a footstep--a hurried, and yet cautious footstep--coming on towards the house. It stopped, advanced again, then seemed to go quite round it. Having done that, it came beneath the window, and a head looked in.
It was strongly relieved against the darkness outside by the glare of the guttering candles. A pale, worn, withered face; the eyes-- but that was owing to its gaunt condition--unnaturally large and bright; the hair, a grizzled black. It gave a searching glance all round the room, and a deep voice said: "Are you alone in this house?"
John made no sign, though the question was repeated twice, and he heard it distinctly. After a moment"s pause, the man got in at the window. John was not at all surprised at this, either. There had been so much getting in and out of window in the course of the last hour or so, that he had quite forgotten the door, and seemed to have lived among such exercises from infancy.
The man wore a large, dark, faded cloak, and a slouched hat; he walked up close to John, and looked at him. John returned the compliment with interest.
"How long have you been sitting thus?" said the man.
John considered, but nothing came of it.
"Which way have the party gone?"
Some wandering speculations relative to the fashion of the stranger"s boots, got into Mr Willet"s mind by some accident or other, but they got out again in a hurry, and left him in his former state.
"You would do well to speak," said the man; "you may keep a whole skin, though you have nothing else left that can be hurt. Which way have the party gone?"
"That!" said John, finding his voice all at once, and nodding with perfect good faith--he couldn"t point; he was so tightly bound--in exactly the opposite direction to the right one.
"You lie!" said the man angrily, and with a threatening gesture. "I came that way. You would betray me."
It was so evident that John"s imperturbability was not a.s.sumed, but was the result of the late proceedings under his roof, that the man stayed his hand in the very act of striking him, and turned away.
John looked after him without so much as a twitch in a single nerve of his face. He seized a gla.s.s, and holding it under one of the little casks until a few drops were collected, drank them greedily off; then throwing it down upon the floor impatiently, he took the vessel in his hands and drained it into his throat. Some sc.r.a.ps of bread and meat were scattered about, and on these he fell next; eating them with voracity, and pausing every now and then to listen for some fancied noise outside. When he had refreshed himself in this manner with violent haste, and raised another barrel to his lips, he pulled his hat upon his brow as though he were about to leave the house, and turned to John.
"Where are your servants?"
Mr Willet indistinctly remembered to have heard the rioters calling to them to throw the key of the room in which they were, out of window, for their keeping. He therefore replied, "Locked up."
"Well for them if they remain quiet, and well for you if you do the like," said the man. "Now show me the way the party went."
This time Mr Willet indicated it correctly. The man was hurrying to the door, when suddenly there came towards them on the wind, the loud and rapid tolling of an alarm-bell, and then a bright and vivid glare streamed up, which illumined, not only the whole chamber, but all the country.
It was not the sudden change from darkness to this dreadful light, it was not the sound of distant shrieks and shouts of triumph, it was not this dread invasion of the serenity and peace of night, that drove the man back as though a thunderbolt had struck him. It was the Bell. If the ghastliest shape the human mind has ever pictured in its wildest dreams had risen up before him, he could not have staggered backward from its touch, as he did from the first sound of that loud iron voice. With eyes that started from his head, his limbs convulsed, his face most horrible to see, he raised one arm high up into the air, and holding something visionary back and down, with his other hand, drove at it as though he held a knife and stabbed it to the heart. He clutched his hair, and stopped his ears, and travelled madly round and round; then gave a frightful cry, and with it rushed away: still, still, the Bell tolled on and seemed to follow him--louder and louder, hotter and hotter yet. The glare grew brighter, the roar of voices deeper; the crash of heavy bodies falling, shook the air; bright streams of sparks rose up into the sky; but louder than them all-- rising faster far, to Heaven--a million times more fierce and furious--pouring forth dreadful secrets after its long silence-- speaking the language of the dead--the Bell--the Bell!
What hunt of spectres could surpa.s.s that dread pursuit and flight! Had there been a legion of them on his track, he could have better borne it. They would have had a beginning and an end, but here all s.p.a.ce was full. The one pursuing voice was everywhere: it sounded in the earth, the air; shook the long gra.s.s, and howled among the trembling trees. The echoes caught it up, the owls hooted as it flew upon the breeze, the nightingale was silent and hid herself among the thickest boughs: it seemed to goad and urge the angry fire, and lash it into madness; everything was steeped in one prevailing red; the glow was everywhere; nature was drenched in blood: still the remorseless crying of that awful voice--the Bell, the Bell!
It ceased; but not in his ears. The knell was at his heart. No work of man had ever voice like that which sounded there, and warned him that it cried unceasingly to Heaven. Who could hear that h.e.l.l, and not know what it said! There was murder in its every note--cruel, relentless, savage murder--the murder of a confiding man, by one who held his every trust. Its ringing summoned phantoms from their graves. What face was that, in which a friendly smile changed to a look of half incredulous horror, which stiffened for a moment into one of pain, then changed again into an imploring glance at Heaven, and so fell idly down with upturned eyes, like the dead stags" he had often peeped at when a little child: shrinking and shuddering--there was a dreadful thing to think of now!--and clinging to an ap.r.o.n as he looked! He sank upon the ground, and grovelling down as if he would dig himself a place to hide in, covered his face and ears: but no, no, no,--a hundred walls and roofs of bra.s.s would not shut out that bell, for in it spoke the wrathful voice of G.o.d, and from that voice, the whole wide universe could not afford a refuge!