Grey! May G.o.d bless him and give him every needful happiness, and make him so good and n.o.ble that his life will blot out the stain upon our name."
Here Grey, who stood motionless, heard his father say:
"For pity"s sake tell me what you mean; the suspense is terrible."
And then came the awful response, which sounded through the silent room like the knell to all the boy"s future happiness and peace of mind.
"Thirty-one years ago to-night, in the heat of pa.s.sion I killed a man in the kitchen yonder, and buried him under this floor, under my bed, and I have slept on his grave ever since!"
No wonder Grey"s face grew white as the face of a corpse, while his heart throbbed with unutterable pain as he whispered the word his father had said aloud.
His grandfather, whom he had thought so good, and loved so much, a murderer! He had killed a man in that very room, perhaps on the spot where the boy was standing, and Grey recoiled from the place, and looked down upon the floor, which gave no sign of the tragedy enacted there thirty-one years ago, and kept hidden ever since.
Like a flash of lightning Grey saw all the past, and understood now what had been singular in his grandfather"s manner and in his Aunt Hannah"s, too; for she had been privy to the deed, and had helped to keep it from the world, and to Grey this was the bitterest thought of all, the one which made him sick, and faint and dizzy, as he groped his way to the door, which he opened and closed cautiously, and then fell heavily upon his face in the snow, with all consciousness for the moment blotted out.
The chill, however, and the damp revived him almost immediately, and struggling to his feet he started on his route back to Grey"s Park along the same road he had come, seeing nothing, bearing nothing but that one word, that name his father had given to his grandfather, and which he, too, had echoed. Over and over again the winds repeated it until the, woods seemed full of it, and he said to himself:
"Will it always be so? Shall I never hear anything but that again so long as I live, and I am so young, only fourteen, and I meant to be a great and honorable man, and a good one, too. And I can still be that.
G.o.d knows I am not to blame. Would he hear me, I wonder, if I should ask him now to take some of this pain away which fills my heart to bursting!"
And there, on the pure white snow, in the shadow of the leafless woods, the heart-broken boy knelt down, and with clasped hands, and the great tears streaming over his upturned face, asked G.o.d to forgive him for his grandfather"s sin, and take the pain away, and help him to be a good man, if he could never be great and distinguished. And G.o.d heard that prayer made to him in the wintry night, from the depths of the boyish heart, and a feeling of quiet came over Grey as he resumed his walk.
"I am not to blame," he said, "and people will not think so if they know, which they never will, for father will not tell, nor Mr. Sanford either; but I shall always know, and life will never be the same to me again."
It certainly looked forlorn and dreary enough to him by the time he reached Grey"s Park, and letting himself quietly in, he crept noiselessly up to his bed, from which he did not rise until late the next morning, when his Aunt Lucy came herself to call him, and told him his grandfather was dead.
CHAPTER XI.
AT THE OLD MAN"S BEDSIDE.
When the word "murderer!" dropped from Burton Jerrold"s lips, his father started as if a bullet had pierced his heart, and the hot blood surged up into his face, as he said:
"Oh, my son, my son, that you should be the first to call me by a name which even Hannah has never spoken, and she has known it all the time.
She saw me do the deed; she helped me bury it. Poor Hannah!"
"You!" and Burton turned fiercely upon his sister, who stood like a block of marble and almost as colorless. "You helped. Then you were an accessory to the crime, and never spoke, never told! No wonder your hair turned white before its time!"
"Brother! brother!" Hannah cried, as she threw up her hands in an anguish of entreaty. "You do not know, you cannot guess, or you would never reproach me thus."
"But I do know that you kept silence, and that I, who thought myself so honorable and high, am branded with disgrace, am the son of a--"
"Stay!" and the dying man gathered all his remaining strength for the reproof. "You shall not call me by that name again. You shall not speak thus to your sister, the n.o.blest woman and the most faithful daughter G.o.d ever gave to the world. I bound her by a solemn oath not to speak, even had she wished to, which she did not, for I was her father; your father, too, and I know that in some respects you are not worthy to touch the hem of her garment. Say, Mr. Sanford," and he turned to the rector, who had stood looking on, stupefied with what he heard, "did Hannah do wrong, not to bear witness against me?"
"Hannah never does wrong," the rector said, rousing himself, and going a step nearer to her he took her cold, clammy hand between his own, and held it there, while he continued: "Mr. Jerrold, you reproach your sister for her silence, but consider what her speaking would have done for you! If you feel it so keenly when only you and I know of it, what would you have felt had the whole world been made cognizant of the fact?
I do not know the circ.u.mstances of your father"s crime. Probably there was great provocation, and that it was done in self-defense, and if so the gallows would not have been his punishment, though a prison might, and do you think that as the son of a felon you could have stood where you do now in the world"s estimation? No; instead of reproaches, which I do not believe spring from a sense of justice, rather thank your sister who has given all the brightness of her life to shield her father from punishment and you from disgrace."
The rector spoke more severely than was his wont, for he felt a contempt for the man whose real character he now understood better than he had before; but his words had a good effect, for Burton saw the truth there was in them, and turning to his sister, who was sobbing piteously he said:
"Forgive me, Hannah, if I seemed unjust. I am so stunned and hurt that I am not myself, and do not know what I say. I am glad you kept silent; to have spoken would have been to ruin me; but why, having kept the secret so long, did you not keep it longer? Why did not father take it with him to his grave? Surely no good can come from wounding and humiliating me so cruelly."
"Perhaps not, my son," the old man answered, feebly. "For you it might have been better if I had never spoken. Possibly it is a morbid fancy, but I felt that I must confess to my minister. My conscience said so, and that I must tell you in order that you may be a comfort and help to Hannah in what she means to do."
"What does she mean to do?" Burton asked, in alarm, and his father replied:
"Make rest.i.tution in some way to the friends of the man I killed, if she can find them."
"Oh!" and Burton set his teeth firmly together as he thought what danger there might be in rest.i.tution, for that would involve confession, and that meant disgrace to the Jerrold name. "I shall prevent that if I can; it is well, after all, that I should know," he thought; then to his father he said; "Who was the man? Where are his friends? Tell me all now."
"Yes, I will; but, Hannah, look--I thought I heard some one moving in the next room, a few minutes ago," the old man said, and going to the door, Hannah glanced around the empty kitchen which bore no trace of the white-faced boy who not long before, had left it with an aching heart, and who at that moment was kneeling in the snow and asking G.o.d to forgive him for his grandfather"s sin.
"There is no one there, and Sam is sleeping soundly in the room beyond,"
she said, as she returned to her father"s side, and taking her place by him pa.s.sed her arm around him and supported and rea.s.sured him, while he told the story of that awful night, a story which the author will tell in her own words rather than in those of the dying man, who introduced a great deal of matter irrelevant to the case.
CHAPTER XII.
THE STORY.
Forty years or more before the night of which we write, there had come to Allington a peddler, whose home was across the sea, in Carnarvon, Wales. He was a little, cross eyed, red-haired, wiry man, with a blunt, sharp way of speaking, but was very popular with the citizens of Allington, to whom he sold such small articles as he could conveniently carry in a bundle upon his back; needles, pins, thread, pencils, matches, thimbles, cough lozengers, Brandreth"s pills, handkerchiefs, ribbons, combs, and sometimes Irish laces and Balbriggans formed a part of his heterogeneous stock, which was varied from time to time to suit the season, or the wants of his customers.
Very close at a bargain, and very saving of his money, he seldom stopped at the hotel, but pa.s.sed the night at the houses of his acquaintances, who frequently made no charge for his meals or his lodgings. Especially was this the case at the farm-house where the peddler, whose name was Joel Rogers, was always welcome, and where he usually staid when in Allington. Between Peter Jerrold and the peddler there was a strong friendship, and the two often sat into the small hours of the night, while the latter told marvelous tales of his wild Welsh country, which he held above all other lands, and to which, the last time he was seen in Allington, he said he was about to return.
For three days he remained in the town, selling off the most of his stock, and then bidding his friends good-by, started late on the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day for the adjoining town, where a few debts were owing him, and where he hoped to dispose of the rest of his merchandise.
As he left the village the snow began to fall heavily and this, perhaps, was why he decided to stop at the farm-house, which was not upon the highway, but nearly half a mile from it, upon a cross-road which led through Peter Jerrold"s farm to the town line, and which was seldom traveled by any one except by Peter Jerrold himself and those who came to visit him. Thus the house stood in a most lonely, secluded spot, with only the chimney and the top of the roof visible to the people of the neighborhood.
Here Peter Jerrold lived with his daughter Hannah, who was now nearly fifteen, and who had kept his house since her mother"s death, which occurred when she was twelve years old.
Bright, unselfish, and very pretty, Hannah was a general favorite with the people of Allington and many were the merry-makings and frolics held at the old farm-house by her young friends. But these were suddenly brought to an end by a fearful sickness which came upon Hannah, and, which transformed her from the light-hearted, joyous girl of fifteen, into a quiet, reserved, white-faced woman, who might have pa.s.sed for twenty-five, and whose hair at eighteen was beginning to turn gray. It was the fever, the people said, and Hannah permitted them to think so, though she knew that the cause lay behind the fever, and dated from the awful night when Joel Rogers came into their kitchen, and asked for shelter from the storm, which was readily granted him.
It was probably his last visit, he said, as it was doubtful if he ever returned to America, for he meant to settle down and die in Carnarvon, his old home, where his only sister, Elizabeth, was living. Then he talked of his money, which, he said, was considerable, and was mostly invested in some slate quarries in the vicinity of Carnarvon.
For a long time the two men sat before the wood fire, talking of England and Wales, eating the apples which Hannah brought them from the cellar, and drinking freely of some wine which Peter had made himself, and which he brought out in honor of his friend"s last visit.
This at last began to take effect, making them loud and noisy, and inclined to contradict each other, and quarrel generally, and then, as the peddler was counting out his gold, of which he had several hundred dollars he turned suddenly to Mr. Jerrold, and said:
"By the way, you have never paid me the five dollars I loaned you when I was here last winter."
The latter affirmed that he had paid it in the spring, and that Hannah saw him do it, which was the fact. But the peddler persisted in his demand, and grew louder and more vociferous in his language, calling both Peter Jerrold and Hannah liars, and saying he would have his money if he went to law to get it.
A violent quarrel then ensued, and such epithets as liar, cheat, and swindler were freely interchanged, and then there was a simultaneous spring at each other, the chairs were overturned and they were rolling upon the floor, dealing each other fierce blows and tearing each other"s hair like wild beasts. It was the peddler who struck first, but Peter, being the stronger of the two, got his antagonist under him, and with a stick of wood which was lying upon the hearth struck him upon the head, inflicting a fearful wound from which the blood flowed in torrents, staining Peter"s hands and face as he pushed back his hair, and sobered him at once. But it was too late, for when Hannah, who, during the fight, had cowered in the corner with her hands over her eyes, withdrew them as the struggle ceased, and looked at the white, blood-stained face over which her father was bending, she knew the man was dead, and with a cry of horror, ran from the room out into the darkness, where shriek after shriek of "_Murder! Murder!_" rang out upon the air and was drowned by the louder scream of the terrible storm which was sweeping over the hills that Thanksgiving night.