Komatsu Dump Truck 930E-5 (USA_A40004 Up) CEBM032204 Shop Manual_07-2020

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four o'clock in the afternoon I heard that they were drinking in a low
tavern just out of the village. If I did not keep my appointment with
'Squire Carlos, I felt convinced that they would.
Back to contents
 CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MURDER.
All day I was restless, and unable to settle to the least thing. My
mother attributed my irritation and ill-humour to the brandy I had
drunk on the preceding evening. As the night drew on, I was in a
perfect fever of excitement; yet not for one moment did I abandon
the dreadful project. I had argued myself into the belief that it was
my fate—that I was compelled by an inexorable destiny to murder
Mr. Carlos. I was to meet him at ten o'clock—just one hour earlier
than the time I had named to Adam Hows. At eight my mother went
to bed, complaining of indisposition. I was glad of this, for it left me
at perfect liberty to arrange my plans.
I dressed myself in a waggoner's frock and hat, in order to conceal
my person from my victim, and with Bill Martin's bowie knife in the
breast of my waistcoat and a large knotted bludgeon in my hand,
almost a fac-simile of one often carried by that ruffian, I sallied into
the road. My disguise was so complete, that few without a very near
inspection would have detected the counterfeit. Fortunately I met no
one on the road whom I knew, and reached the second gate in the
dark avenue which led to the one which opened into the high road,
just ten minutes before the coach drove up. I heard the bluff voice
of the coachman speaking to the horses. I heard Mr. Carlos, in his
frank, cheerful tones bid the coachman good-night. The stage rattled
on, and the 'Squire's measured step (for he had been a soldier in his
youth) sounded upon the hard gravel path that led from the avenue
to the plantation-gate, by the side of which I was concealed, behind
the trunk of a vast oak that cast its dense shadows across the road.
Above, the moon was shining in a cloudless sky.
 After the first gate which opened upon the road had swung to
after him, Mr. Carlos commenced singing a favourite hunting-song,
perhaps to give me warning of his approach, or to ascertain if I had
been true to my word.
Nervous as I had been all day, I was now calm and collected. I
had come there determined to rob him, and nothing but the
certainty of detection could have induced me to abandon my
purpose.
When he reached the gate, he called out in his clear voice, "Noah
—Noah Cotton! are you there?"
Receiving no answer, he opened the gate, and passed through. As
he turned to shut it, I sprang from my hiding-place, and with one
blow successfully, but not mortally aimed, I felled him to the ground.
Contrary to my calculations, he stood erect for a moment, and
instead of falling forward against the gate, he reeled back, and fell
face upwards to the earth. Our eyes met. He recognised me in a
moment. To save his life now was to forfeit my own, and the next
moment I plunged the bowie-knife to the hilt in his breast. He
gasped out, "This from you, Noah! Poor Elinor, you are terribly
avenged!"
He never spoke more. I hastily searched his pockets, and drew
from his bleeding breast a large pocket-book, which contained the
coveted treasure. I then flung the bloody knife with which I had
done the deed to some distance, and fled from the spot, taking a
near cut to the lodge across the fields.
I entered at a back gate, and going up to my own room, I
carefully washed my bands and face, and dressed myself in the
clothes I had worn during the day, thrusting the waggoner's frock
and hat, and the fatal pocket-book, into an old sack. I hastily
concealed them in a heap of old manure, which had served for a
hot-bed in the garden, until a better opportunity occurred of
effectually destroying them. All this was accomplished in an almost
incredibly short time; and when my arrangements were completed, I
once more had recourse to the brandy-bottle, but took good care
this time not to take too potent a dose. I then shouldered my gun,
and walked to the cottage of the second game-keeper, which lay in
my path, and briefly stating my reasons for calling him up, I asked
him to accompany me to the second avenue gate to meet my
master.
George Norton instantly complied, and we walked together to the
appointed spot, discussing in the most animated manner, as we
went along, the probable result of the cricket-match at S——.
As we entered the first plantation, we were accosted by Bill Martin
and Adam Hows. Both were greatly excited, and exclaimed in a
breath,—
"Mr. Carlos has been robbed and murdered! The body is lying just
within the second gate, in the middle of the path. Come with us and
see!"
"And what brings you here, you scoundrel! at this hour of night?" I
cried suddenly, throwing myself upon Bill Martin. "What business
have you trespassing in these preserves? If Mr. Carlos is murdered, it
is you and your accomplice that have done the deed. It is not
pheasants and hares that you came here to shoot, as the muzzle of
that pistol, sticking out of your pocket, can prove."
On hearing these words Adam Hows discharged a pistol at my
head, and missing his aim, threw down the weapon and fled. Bill
Martin struggled desperately in my grasp, but I held him fast. I was
a strong, powerful man, and he was enfeebled by constant
drunkenness and debauchery. I held him like fate.
Norton now came to my assistance, and we secured Martin's
hands with my silk pocket-handkerchief. I remained with my grasp
upon his collar, while Norton ran back to the village to fetch the
constables.
 It was one of the most awful moments in my life, while I stood
alone in that gloomy grove confronting my victim. He neither spoke
nor trembled. The unhappy man seemed astonished and bewildered
at what had befallen him. All was so still around us, that I distinctly
heard his heart beat.
We remained in this painful and constrained silence for some time.
At last he said in a subdued voice, "Noah Cotton, I am not guilty. I
never murdered him."
"Perhaps not. Your comrade in crime may have saved you the
trouble."
"Nor him either. The deed was done before we reached the spot."
"What brought you there?" I said, abruptly.
"The hints you threw out for our destruction," and his eye once
more flashed with its accustomed boldness. "You acted as decoy-
duck, and your superior cunning has triumphed. In order to gratify
your old hatred to me, you have killed your benefactor."
The moon was at full but the trees cast too deep a shade upon
the spot we occupied to enable him to see my face. I was, however,
taken by surprise, and gave a slight start. He felt it, and laughed
bitterly.
"We are a pair of d——d scoundrels!" he cried; "but you are the
worst, and you know it. I of course must hang for this, for you have
laid your plans too well to allow me a loop-hole to escape. Now,
Noah Cotton, for once be generous. I know I have treated you
confoundedly ill, that I am a very bad fellow, and richly deserve the
gallows. But I am very young to die—to die for a crime I did not
actually commit. I have a widowed mother, an orphan sister to
support, who love me, and will be broken-hearted at my death—for
their sakes give me a chance of making my escape. I will leave the
country directly, and never return to it again to trouble you more.
Have mercy upon me! For Christ's sake have mercy upon me!"
 My heart was moved. I was almost tempted to grant his prayer.
But I dared not trust him. I knew that my own safety entirely
depended upon his destruction.
"William Martin," I said, very calmly, "your attempt to charge me
with this crime is a miserable subterfuge. What interest had I to kill
Mr. Carlos? Did not my living depend upon him? The folly of the man
who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, would be wisdom
compared with such a deed. Mr. Carlos was of more value to me
living than dead."
"That is true," he said, thoughtfully. "I may have wronged you. It
is a strange inexplicable piece of business." Then he muttered to
himself, "'The wages of sin is death.' It is useless to ask mercy from
him. He would not save my life if he could. Oh my mother!—my
poor, poor mother!"
Hardened as I thought this ruffian had been for years, the big
bright drops coursed each other down his sunburnt cheeks; his large
chest heaved convulsively, and loud sobs awoke the lone echoes of
the wood.
I could endure his agony no longer. "Martin," I said, in a low voice,
for the agitation that shook my whole frame nearly deprived me of
the power of utterance, "behave more like a man; were you an
innocent man, you could not be affected in this strange way."
"By ——, I am not innocent! Who said I was? But I again repeat I
did not kill him."
"Then Adam did?"
"No, no—it was his first attempt at murder." He stopped short. He
had committed himself.
"Why, Bill, your own words condemn you."
"Don't use them against us. I am mad. I don't know what I say."
 "Hush. I hear steps approaching. Be quiet for one moment, while I
untie your hands, and I will give you a last chance for your life."
"Your frozen heart has thawed too late," he cried, with a hollow
groan. "The constables are already here, and I am a dead man."
He was right; Norton with the constables and a large body of men
now burst through the trees. I gladly consigned the prisoner to their
charge, while I proceeded with the rest of the party to the spot
where the murder had been committed. I knew that it would awaken
suspicion for me to remain behind, I therefore placed myself at the
head of them; but I would have given worlds to have remained
behind. A few minutes brought us to the fatal gate.
We gathered round the body in silence. Horror was depicted on
every countenance. Some who had known the 'Squire for years shed
tears. I could not; but I gladly buried my face in my handkerchief, to
shut out the dreadful spectacle. The moon, peering down between
the branches of the trees, looked full in the dead man's face. Those
glassy upturned eyes chilled my heart to stone with their fixed icy
stare.
Oh! it is terrible to see a man so full of life and health but
yesterday, look thus.
"Is he quite dead?" said George Norton. "My poor dear master!—
my good generous master! Noah, lend a hand to raise him up."
With a deep groan I seconded his efforts, and the head of the
murdered man rested upon my knees. As I crouched beside him on
the ground, a viper was gnawing at my heart. I would have given
my chance of an eternity of bliss, which not many hours ago I had
possessed as man's only true inheritance, to have recalled the
transactions of that dreadful night.
"See, here is a wound in his breast," cried I. "He has not been
shot, but stabbed with a long sharp dirk or knife. He must have been
taken unawares, for he seems to have made no effort to defend
himself."
"Here is his hat," cried another. "The back of it is all battered and
crushed in. He has been knocked down and then stabbed. Oh, that
Martin—that infernal villain!"
Whenever I heard Martin reproached as the murderer, I fancied
that those dead eyes of my master looked into my soul with a
mournful scorn. Yet I lacked the moral courage to say, "I am the
man."
We formed a litter of boughs, and carried the body up to the Hall.
We had not proceeded many steps on our sad journey, before
Norton stumbled over something in the path. It was the bloody
knife.
"Here is something that will give a clue to the mystery. By Jove!
Bill Martin's American knife. He was showing this wicked-looking
blade and bragging about it the other night at the White Horse.
Murder will out. If evidence were wanted of his guilt, this knife
would hang him. Faugh! the blood is still wet upon the blade."
The knife passed from hand to hand, and to mine among the rest.
I did not see the blood. It appeared to me red-hot—to glow and
flicker with the flames of hell.
It was the dawn of day when we reached the Hall with our
melancholy burthen. The fatal news had travelled there before us.
Half the inhabitants of the village were collected on the lawn. The
old servants were standing on the steps to receive the body of their
master. As we drew near, cries and groans arose on every side.
"This is a bad job for you, Noah," said the old butler—"for us all;
but especially for you. He was your best friend."
"It is a loss to the whole country," I cried, mournfully, shaking my
head.
 "And Adam Hows is off with the money!" said the steward, with a
sharp eager face.
"So we suppose. Martin has been searched, but there is none in
his possession. I hope the other rascal will be taken."
"Come with us, Noah, into the kitchen," cried several of the
servants in a breath, "and tell us all about it. They say it was you
who discovered the murder, and took the villain at the risk of your
life. Come in, and take a glass of hot stuff, and give us all the
particulars."
And I had to endure a fresh species of torture in recapitulating all
the circumstances that I dared reveal of that revolting act; to listen
to, and join in all their comments, doubts and surmises, and answer
all the agonizing questions suggested by curiosity or compassion. I
was beginning to feel hardened to the painful task, and answered
their eager inquiries without changing countenance, or betraying
more than a decent emotion on the melancholy occasion.
Back to contents
 CHAPTER XIX.

MY MOTHER.
I was relieved from my embarrassing situation by a message from
my mother. She was ill, and wished to see me, begging me to return
home without a moment's delay.
"Ah, poor woman! This is a sad judgment—a heavy blow to her.
She must feel this bad enough," said one of the old servants. "Yes,
yes, Noah, lose no time in going home to comfort your mother."
I gazed from one to the other in blank astonishment. They shook
their heads significantly. I hurried away without asking or
comprehending what they meant.
As I walked rapidly home, I pondered over their strange conduct.
Beyond my losing my situation of gamekeeper and porter to the
lodge, I could not see in what way the death of Mr. Carlos should so
terribly affect my mother, without she suspected that I was his
murderer. Guilt is naturally timid; but my plans had been laid with
such caution and secrecy, and carried out so well, that it was almost
next to an impossibility for her to suspect a thing in itself so
monstrously improbable.
The murder had been an impulsive, not a premeditated act. Four-
and-twenty hours ago I would have shot the man who could have
thought me capable of perpetrating such a deed.
The clocks in the village were striking eight when I entered the
lodge. My mother was sitting in her easy chair, supported by pillows.
Her face was deathly pale, and she had been crying violently. Two
women, our nearest neighbours, were standing by her side, bathing
her wrists and temples with hartshorn.
 "Oh, Noe," exclaimed Mrs. Jones, "I'm glad thee be come to thy
mother. She hath been in fits ever since she heard the dreadful
news."
"We could not persuade her that you were safe," said Mrs. Smith.
"She will be content when she sees you herself."
"Mother,"—and I went up to her and kissed her rigid brow—"are
you better now?"
She took my hand and clasped it tightly between her own, but
made no reply. Her face became convulsed, the tears flowed over
her cheeks like rain, and she fainted in my arms.
"She is dying!" screamed both women.
"She will be better presently," I said. "Open the window—give me
a glass of water! There—there, she is coming to! Speak to me, dear
Mother!"
"Is it true, Noah?" she gasped out, but broke down several times
before she could make her meaning plain. "Is he—is the Squire
dead?—murdered?"
"Too true, Mother! I have just helped to carry the body up to the
Hall."
"Oh, oh!" she groaned, rocking herself to and fro in a strange
agony; "I hoped it had been false."
"It is a shocking piece of business—but why should it affect you in
this terrible way?"
"That's what I say," cried Mrs. Jones. "It do seem so strange to us
that she should take on in this here way for a mere stranger."
"Don't ask me any questions, Noah," said my mother, in a low,
firm voice. "I am better now. The sight of you has revived me; and
these kind neighbours may return home."
 "At ten o'clock the magistrates meet at the Market Hall to examine
the prisoners," I said, "and I must be there, to make a deposition of
what I know. I can stay with you till then."
"Oh, Noe! thee must tell us all about it!" said Mrs. Smith, who was
dying with curiosity. "How did it come about?"
I was not prepared for this fresh agony; but I saw that there was
no getting rid of our troublesome visitors without endeavouring to
satisfy their insatiable greed for news; and I went through the
dreadful task with more nerve than I expected. My mother listened
to the recital with breathless interest, and the women clung to me
with open eyes and mouth, as if their very life depended upon my
words, often interrupting me with uncouth exclamations of surprise
and horror. At length all was told that I could tell. My mother again
broke into passionate tears.
"Poor Mrs. Martin!" she sobbed, "how dreadful it must be to her. I
pity her from my very soul!"
I had never given Martin's unfortunate mother a single thought. I
was not naturally cruel, and this planted a fresh arrow in my heart.
"It is about eight years ago that she lost her husband," said
neighbour Smith. "He died from the bite of a mad dog. He was the
'Squire's gamekeeper then. Little Sally was not born until five
months after her father's death. I don't know how the widow has
contrived to scratch along, and keep out of the workhouse. But she
was always a hard-working woman. She had no friend like the
Squire, to take her by the hand and give her son a genteel
education. She did get along, however, and sent that Bill to Mr.
Bullen's school; but she half starved herself to do it—and what
good? He has been a world of trouble to her, and almost broke her
heart before he run off to 'Meriky. This fresh misfortune will go nigh
to kill her outright."
"And was it to add to this poor devoted creature's sorrows," I
asked myself, "that I was prepared to give false evidence against her
son?" For well I knew, that his life depended upon that evidence.
For Martin I felt no pity. His death never filled me with remorse
like the murder of the 'Squire. He was born for the gallows. I had
only forestalled him in the deed that would send him to the grave.
He had sought the spot with the intention to rob and kill. I had no
doubts on that head; and I persuaded myself that he had richly
merited the fate that awaited him. But the grief of his unhappy
mother awakened a pang in my breast that was not so easily
assuaged.
The women at length took their leave, and I was alone with my
mother.
For some minutes she remained silent, her hands pressed tightly
over her breast, and her tear-swollen eyes fixed mournfully on the
ground.
"Noah," she said, at length, slowly raising her head, and looking
me earnestly in the face, "do you think that the family would allow
me to look at the corpse?"
I actually started with horror. I felt the blood recede from my
cheeks, and a cold chill creep from my hair downwards.
"Good God! Mother, what should make you wish to see him? He is
a frightful spectacle!—so frightful that I would not look at him again
for worlds!"
"Oh," groaned my mother, "it is hard to part from him for ever,
without one last look!"
"Mother, Mother!" I cried—while a horrid suspicion darted through,
my brain—"what is the meaning of this strange conduct, and still
stranger words? In the name of Heaven! what was Squire Carlos to
you?"
"Noah, he was your father!" returned my mother, slowly and
solemnly. "I need not tell you what he was to me."
 Had she stabbed me with a red-hot knife, the effect would have
been less painful.
"My father!" I cried, with a yell of agony, as I sank down, stunned
with horror, at her feet. "Mother!—Mother! for my sake—for your
own sake, recal those dreadful words!"
Some minutes elapsed before I again awoke to the consciousness
of my terrible guilt. My crime appeared to me in a new aspect—an
aspect that froze my soul, and iced the warm stream of my young
blood with despair. I had been excited—agitated—almost maddened,
with the certainty of being a murderer; but there was something of
human passion in those tumultuous feelings. But the certainty that I
was not only a murderer, but a parricide,—had killed my own father
for the sake of a few hundred pounds, which I now knew that I
could never enjoy, chilled me into a stupid, hardened apathy. There
could be no forgiveness for a crime like mine, neither in this world—
nor in the world to come.
I could have cursed my wretched mother for having so long
concealed from me an important fact, which, if known, had saved
the life of her worthless paramour. Her silence might have been the
effect of shame. But no—when I recalled the frequency of Mr.
Carlos's visits, his uniform kindness to me, the very last conversation
I held with him, and the dark hints that from time to time Bill Martin
had so insultingly thrown out, I felt convinced that she had all along
been living with him on terms of abandoned intimacy, and that her
crime had been the parent of my own. Yet, in spite of these bitter
recriminations, when I raised my eyes to her, and met her sad,
pleading, tearful glance, all my love for her returned, and, clasping
her knees, as I still sat upon the ground at her feet, I said, "Mother,
why did you keep this guilty secret from me for so many years? I
should have felt and acted very differently towards that unhappy
man, if I had known that he was my father."
"Noah, it is hard to acknowledge one's sin to one's own child. It is
a sin, however, that I have been bitterly punished for committing."
 "But you still continued to live on those terms with him?"
"Alas! Noah, I loved him!"
She threw her apron over her head, and sobbed as if her heart
would burst.
"I will show you, Mother, how one crime produces another," I was
about to say, when a loud rap at the door recalled my self-
possession; and I was summoned to attend the sitting of the
magistrates, and tell all I knew about the murder.
Back to contents
 CHAPTER XX.

A LAST LOOK AT OLD FRIENDS.

I mademy deposition minutely and circumstantially, from the time
of my conversation with Adam Hows until the time when,
accompanied by George Norton, we encountered him and Bill Martin
in the plantations, and took the latter prisoner. My statement was so
clear, so plausible, so perfectly matter-of-fact, that this hideous lie
was received by wise and well-educated men as God's truth. I heard
myself spoken of as a sober, excellent young man, well worthy of the
confidence and affection of the 'Squire, and extremely grateful for
the many favours he had bestowed upon me; while the character
that Martin bore, and his previous pursuits, were enough to
condemn him, independently of the startling evidence that I, and
others from among his own wild companions, had given against him.
A conversation that one of these men had accidentally heard
between him and Adam Hows, proclaiming their intention to rob and
murder Mr. Carlos, was indeed more conclusive of their guilt than my
own account, though that was sufficient to have hung him twice
over.
Bill kept his eye fixed on me during the examination. I met it with
a degree of outward calmness; but it thrilled me to the soul, and has
haunted me ever since. He made no attempt at vindication. He said
that the evidence brought against him was circumstantially correct,
yet, for all that, neither he nor his accomplice had actually murdered
the Squire, and that God, who looked deeper than man, knew that
what he said was true.
Of course no one listened to such an absurd statement. But, to cut
this painful part of my story short—for it is agony to dwell upon it—
he was tried, condemned, and finally executed at ——. I saw him
hung.
Yes, Reader, you may well start back from the page in horror. To
be sure that my victim was dead, I actually witnessed his last
struggles, and returned home satisfied that the tongue I most
dreaded upon earth—the only living creature who suspected my guilt
—was silenced and cold for ever.
Shallow fool that I was! Conscience never sleeps! The voice of
remorse sounds up from the lowest deeps, with the clang of the
archangel's trump blasting the guilty ear with its judgment-peal.
With him, my peace of mind, self-respect, and hopes of heaven,
vanished for ever!
I have since often thought, that God gave me this last chance in
order to try me—to see if any good remained in me—if I could for
once resist temptation, and act towards Martin as an honest man. I
have felt, amid the burning agonies of my sleepless, phantom-
haunted nights, that, had I confessed my guilt and saved him from
destruction, the same pity that Christ extended to the thief on the
cross might have been shown to me.
These dreadful events were the beginning of sorrows. When Mr.
Walter came to the Hall to attend his uncle's funeral, and the will of
the deceased was opened by the man of business, and read to him
after the melancholy ceremony was over, it was found that Mr. Carlos
had named me in this document as his natural son by Anne Cotton,
and had left me the house in which I now live, together with the fifty
acres adjoining, and two thousand pounds in the funds. The interest
of the latter to be devoted to my mother during her life, but both
principal and interest to devolve to me at her death.
This handsome legacy seemed to console my mother a great deal
for the loss of her wealthy lover; but it only served to debase me
lower in my own eyes, and deepen the pangs of remorse. How
gladly would I have quitted this part of the country! but I was so
haunted by the fear of detection, that I was afraid lest it might
awaken suspicions in the minds of poor neighbours. On every hand I
heard that the Squire had made a gentleman of Noah Cotton, while I
cursed the money in my heart, and would thankfully have exchanged
my lot with the poorest emigrant that ever crossed the seas in
search of a new home.
The property bequeathed me by the Squire was a mile from the
village, in an opposite direction to the porter's lodge. My mother
quitted our old home with reluctance; but I was glad to leave a place
which was associated in my mind with such terrible recollections.
The night before we removed to the Porched House—for so my
new home was called—I waited until after my mother had retired to
her bed, and then carefully removed from its hiding-place the sack
and its fatal contents. The waggoner's frock and hat, together with
the sack, I burned in a field at the back of the Lodge, and then slunk
back, like a guilty wretch, under the cover of night and darkness, to
my own chamber. It was some time before I could muster sufficient
courage to open the pocket-book. It felt damp and clammy in my
grasp.—It had been saturated with his blood; and the roll of bank
notes were dyed with the same dull red hue. I did not unroll them. A
ghastly sickness stole over me whenever my eye fell upon them. I
seemed distinctly to trace his dying face in those horrible stains—
that last look of blank surprise and unutterable woe with which he
regarded me when he recognised in me his murderer!
It was necessary to put out of sight these memorials of my guilt. I
would have burnt them, but I could not bring my heart to destroy
such a large sum of money; neither could I dare to make use of it.
An old bureau had been purchased by my mother at a sale: she had
given it to me, for a receptacle for books and papers. I possessed so
few of these, that I generally kept my shooting apparatus in its
many odd nooks and drawers. While stowing away these, I had
discovered a secret spring, which covered a place of concealment in
which some hoarder of by-gone days had treasured a few guineas of
the reign of the third George. These I had appropriated to my own
use, and had considered them a godsend at the time. Into this
drawer I now thrust the bloodstained pocket-book and the useless
wealth it contained. Never since that hour have I drawn it from its
hiding-place. My earnest wish is, that when I am gone to my last
account, this money may be restored to the family to whom it
rightfully belongs.
When I settled upon the farm, it afforded me a good pretext to
give up my situation as gamekeeper. Mr. Walter, now Sir Walter
Carlos, had just come to reside at the Hall, and, being a great
sportsman, he was very unwilling to dispense with my services.
"Wait at least, Noah," he said, "until after the shooting-season is
over. I expect my sister Ella and her husband and a large party down
next week. No one can point out the best haunts of the game like
you. This will give me time to procure some one in your place."
I named George Norton as a fitting person to fill the vacant
situation. He promised to appoint him in my place, but insisted on
my staying with him until the end of October.
Reluctantly I complied. The words he had carelessly spoken
respecting his sister, had sent a fresh arrow through my heart. She,
for whose sake I had committed that fearful deed, in the hope of
acquiring wealth, was now the bride of another. How had I dared to
form a hope that one so far removed from me by birth and
education would ever condescend to cast one thought on me? Blind
fool that I had been! I was conscious of my madness now, when I
had forfeited my own soul to obtain the smiles of one who could
never be mine.
The gay party arrived in due time at the Hall, and Sir Walter forgot
its old possessor, the friend of his boyhood, the gay, roystering,
reckless man who slept so quietly in the old churchyard, while
pursuing his favourite sport.
Captain Manners, the husband of my beautiful Ella, was a fine,
dashing-looking officer, and I felt bitterly jealous of him whenever I
saw him and his young bride together. In spite of her sables, she
was all smiles and sunshine—the life and soul of the party at the
Hall.
One fine afternoon—I shall never forget it!—I was following the
gentlemen with the dogs, when we came to the fatal spot where Mr.
Carlos had been murdered.
I had never trod that path since the night of his death, though in
my dreams I constantly revisited the spot, and enacted the revolting
scene in all its terrible details. But there was no avoiding it now. I
felt as if every eye was upon me, and I stooped to caress the dogs,
in order to conceal the agitation that trembled through my frame.
Just as we drew near the gate, Sir Walter fired at a partridge,
which fell among the long fern just at my side.
"Hullo, Noah! pick up that bird. 'Tis a splendid cock," cried Sir
Walter.
I parted the fern with trembling hands to do his bidding. The bird
lay dead on the very stone over which my unhappy father's life-
blood had gushed! I saw the fresh, warm drops that had flowed
from the breast of the bird, but, beneath was a darker stain. I tried
in vain to lift the creature from the ground. Before me lay the
bleeding, prostrate form of Mr. Carlos, with the tender reproach
gleaming in his eyes through the deepening mists of death. My
senses reeled—I saw no more—I sank down in a fit,—the first of
those dreadful epileptic fits which have since been of such constant
recurrence.
When I recovered, Sir Walter was supporting me; and Mrs.
Manners, who had followed her husband to the field, was fanning
me with a small branch of sycamore leaves.
"He's coming to," she said, in a gentle voice. "Why, Noah,"—
addressing herself to me—"what ails you?—Were you ever in this
way before?"