"_Murdered!_" echoed Mrs. Winterose, in an awe-deepened tone.
"Another Hallow Eve murder!" groaned Miss Tabby, wringing her hands.
"It is doom!" muttered Miss Libby solemnly.
Gem vailed her eyes and said nothing.
"Lay him down here on the floor, men, and let us take a look of him to see if we know him," said Joe, as he took a candle from the table.
The bearers laid their burden gently down.
Joe held the candle to the face of the murdered man.
Old Mrs. Winterose cautiously approached to view it.
"Good angels in Heaven!" she exclaimed.
"Who is it, mother?" inquired her daughters, in terrified tones.
"MR. HORACE BLONDELLE!" she whispered.
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
THE LAST FATAL HALLOW EVE.
So do the dark in soul expire, Or live like scorpion girt with fire; So writhes the mind remorse hath riven-- Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath, Around it flame, within it death.--BYRON.
The awe-stricken women drew nearer to gaze upon the murdered man.
"Grandma, he is not dead! He breathes," exclaimed Gem, whose young eyes had detected the slight, very slight motion of the man"s chest.
The old woman knelt down beside the body, and began to examine it more closely. The shirt-bosom, vest, and coat front were soaked with blood, that still seemed to ooze from some hidden wound.
She hastily unb.u.t.toned his clothing, and found a small round blackened bullet hole over the region of the left lung.
"Turn him over on his left side, men," she said, half rising from her knee.
As they followed her directions, the blood flowed freely both from the wound and from the mouth of the man.
"Joe, mount Fleetfoot and gallop to Blackville as fast as you can go, and bring Dr. Hart, though I don"t believe it will be a bit of use; but still it is our duty. And, Tabby, and Libby, stop wringing of your hands and rolling of your eyes, and go up stairs and fetch down the cot bedstead to lay him on, for it stands to reason we can"t carry him up-stairs without hastening of his end," said the old woman, as she busied herself with stanching the wound in the chest.
All her orders were immediately obeyed.
The cot bed was made up in the corner of the room, and the wounded man was tenderly raised by the two laborers, and laid upon it.
"Now stand out of my way, all of you, and don"t ask any questions, but be ready to fly, the minute I tell you to do anything," said the dame, as she stood over the injured man and still pressed a little wad of lint over the bullet hole to stanch the blood.
The other women and the men withdrew to the fireplace and waited.
"He is very nasty and uncomfortable-looking, lying here in all these stained clothes, but I am afraid to undress him for fear of starting the wound to bleeding again, and that"s the sacred truth," said Mrs.
Winterose.
"No; don"t move me," spoke a very faint voice, which, as she afterwards said, sounded so much as if it might have come from the dead, that the old lady withdrew her hand and recoiled from it.
"Brandy! brandy!" breathed the same voice.
"Tabby, get the brandy bottle and pour some into a gla.s.s and bring it here. Quick!" she exclaimed.
Miss Tabby, too much awed to whimper, brought the required stimulant, which Mrs. Winterose immediately administered to the patient.
The effect was good. He breathed more freely and looked around him.
"Now, be of good cheer! I have sent a man on a fast horse for the doctor. He will be here in an hour," said Mrs. Winterose encouragingly.
The wounded man laughed faintly, as he replied:
"Why, what can the doctor do for me? I"m shot to death. I"d like to see a magistrate, or a lawyer, though."
"Would you? Then you shall. Hey! one of you men, run out to the stable as fast as you can, and see if Joe"s gone. If he isn"t, tell him to fetch lawyer Closeby, as well as the doctor," said Mrs. Winterose.
Both of the laborers started on the errand.
Mrs. Winterose turned to her patient.
"What place is this; and who are you?" he inquired.
"Why, don"t you know? This is Black Hall, and I am the caretaker."
"Black Hall!" echoed the man, starting up and gazing around him with an excitement that caused his wound to break out bleeding again. "Black Hall! Is it here that I must die? Here, and--great Heaven!--in the very room where the crime was committed! In the very room haunted by her memory!"
And covering his face with his hands, he fell back upon the pillow.
"Tabby, more brandy!" hastily exclaimed the old lady, as she nervously pressed a fresh piece of lint into the gushing wound.
"Yes, more brandy," he faintly whispered; "keep me alive, if possible, till the lawyer comes."
Miss Tabby brought the stimulant, and Mrs. Winterose put it to his lips.
"But, oh, this room! this fatal room! this haunted room!" he murmured, with a shudder.
"Be quiet, good man; this an"t the room where the lady was murdered,"
said Miss Tabby.
"And which is haunted by her ghost to this day," put in Miss Libby, who had come up to the side of the bed.