Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated), page 47
CHAPTER LXX.
THE BARONET’S ROOM.
Desperately wounded, O’Connor lay between life and death for many weeks in the dim and secluded apartment whither O’Hanlon had borne him after his combat with Sir Henry Ashwoode. There, fearing lest his own encounter with Wharton, and its startling result, should mark them for pursuit and search, he placed O’Connor under the charge of trusty creatures of his own — for some time not daring to visit him except under cover of the night. This alarm, however, soon subsided; and consequently less precaution was adopted. O’Connor’s wounds were, as we have said, most dangerous, and for fully two months he lay upon the fiery couch of fever, alternately raving in delirium, and locked in the dull stupor of entire apathy and exhaustion. Through this season of pain and peril he was sustained, however, by the energies of a young and vigorous constitution. The fever, at length, abated, and the unclouded light of reason returned; still, however, in body he was weak, so weak that, sorely against his will, he was perforce obliged to continue the occupant of his narrow bed, in the dingy and secluded lodgings in which he lay. Impatient to learn something of her who entirely filled his thoughts, and of the truth of whose love for him he now felt the revival of more than hope, he chafed and fretted in the narrow limits of his dark and gloomy chamber. Spite of all the remonstrances of the old crone who attended him, backed by the more awful fulminations of his apothecary, O’Connor would not submit any longer to the confinement of his bed; and, but for the firm and effectual resistance of O’Hanlon, would have succeeded, weak as he was, in making his escape from the house, and resuming his ordinary occupations and pursuits, as though his health had not suffered, nor his strength become impaired, so as to leave him scarcely the power of walking a hundred steps, without the extremest exhaustion and lassitude. To O’Hanlon’s expostulations he was forced to yield, and even pledged his word to him not to attempt a removal from his hated lodgings, without his consent and approbation. In reply to a message to his friend Audley, he learned, much to his mortification, that that gentleman had left town, and as thus full of disquiet and anxiety, one day O’Connor was seated, pale and languid, in his usual place by the window, the door of his apartment opened, and O’Hanlon entered. He took the hand of the invalid and said, —
“I commend your patience, young man, you have been my parole prisoner for many days. When is this durance to end?”
“I’faith, I believe with my life,” rejoined O’Connor, “I never knew before what weariness and vexation in perfection are — this dusky room is hateful to me, it grows narrower and narrower every day — and those old houses opposite — every pane of glass in their windows, and every brick in their walls I have learned by rote — I am tired to death. But, seriously, I have other and very different reasons for wishing to be at liberty again — reasons so urgent as to leave me no rest by night or day. I chafe and fret here like a caged bird. I have been too long shut up — my strength will never come again unless I am allowed to breathe the fresh air — you are all literally killing me with kindness.”
“And yet,” rejoined O’Hanlon, “I have never been thought an over-careful leech, and truth to say, had I suffered you to have your own way, you would not now have been a living man. I know, as well as any of them, how to tend a wound, and this I will say, that in all my practice it never yet has been my lot to meet with so ill-conditioned and cross-grained a patient as yourself. Why, nothing short of downright force has kept you in your room — your life is saved in spite of yourself.”
“If you keep me here much longer,” replied O’Connor, “it will prove but indifferent economy as regards my bodily health, for I shall undoubtedly cut my throat before another week.”
“There shall be no need, my friend, to find such an escape,” replied O’Hanlon, “for I now absolve you of your promise, hitherto so well observed; nay, more, I advise you to leave the house to-day. I think your strength sufficient, and the occasion, moreover, demands that you should visit an acquaintance immediately.”
“Who is it?” inquired O’Connor, starting to his feet with alacrity, “thank God I am at length again my own master.”
“When I this day entered the yard of the ‘Cock and Anchor’,” answered O’Hanlon, “the inn where you and I first encountered, I found a fellow inquiring after you most earnestly; he had a letter with which he was charged. It is from Sir Henry Ashwoode, who lies now in prison, and under sentence of death. You start, and no wonder — his old associates have convicted him of forgery.”
“Gracious Heaven, is it possible?” exclaimed O’Connor.
“Nay, certain,” continued O’Hanlon, “nor has he any longer a chance of escape. He has been twice reprieved — but his friend Wharton is recalled — his reprieve expires in three days’ time, and then he will be inevitably executed.”
“Good God, is this — can it be reality?” exclaimed O’Connor, trembling with the violence of his agitation, “give me the letter.” He broke the seal, and read as follows: —
“Edmond O’Connor, — I know I have wronged you sorely. I have destroyed your peace and endangered your life. You are more than avenged. I write this in the condemned cell of the gaol. If you can bring yourself to confer with me for a few minutes, come here. I stand on no ceremony, and time presses. Do not fail. If you be living I shall expect you.
“Henry Ashwoode.”
O’Connor’s preparations were speedily made, and leaning upon the arm of his elder friend, he, with slow and feeble steps, and a head giddy with his long confinement, and the agitating anticipation of the scene in which he was just about to be engaged, traversed the streets which separated his lodging from the old city gaol — a sombre, stern, and melancholy-looking building, surrounded by crowded and dilapidated houses, with decayed plaster and patched windows, and a certain desolate and sickly aspect, as though scared and blasted by the contagious proximity of that dark receptacle of crime and desperation which loomed above them. At the gate O’Hanlon parted from him, appointing to meet him again in the “Cock and Anchor,” whither he repaired. After some questions, O’Connor was admitted. The clanging of bolts, and bars, and door-chains, smote heavily on his heart — he heard no other sounds but these and the echoing tread of their own feet, as they traversed the long, dark, stone-paved passages which led to the dungeon in which he whom he had last seen in the pride of fashion, and youth, and strength, was now a condemned felon, and within a few hours of a public and ignominious death. The turnkey paused at one of the narrow doors opening from the dusky corridor, and unclosing it, said, —
“A gentleman, sir, to see you.”
“Request him to come in,” replied a voice, which, though feebler than it used to be, O’Connor had no difficulty in recognizing. In compliance with this invitation, he with a throbbing heart entered the prison-room. It was dimly lighted by a single small window set high in the wall, and darkened by iron bars. A small deal table, with a few books carelessly laid upon it, occupied the centre of the cell, and two heavy stools were placed beside it, on one of which was seated a figure, with his back to the light, to conceal, with a desperate tenacity of pride, the ravages which the terrific mental fever of weeks had wrought in his once bold and handsome face. By the wall was stretched a wretched pallet; and upon the plaster were written and scratched, according to the various moods of the miserable and guilty tenants of the place, a hundred records, some of slang philosophy, some of desperate drunken defiance, and some again of terror, but all bearing reference to the dreadful scene to which this was but the antechamber and the passage. Many hieroglyphical emblems of unmistakable significance had also been traced upon the walls by the successive occupants of the place, such as coffins, gallows-trees, skulls and cross-bones; the most striking among which symbols was a large figure of death upon a horse, sketched with much spirit, by some moralizing convict, with a piece of burned stick, and to which some waggish successor had appropriately added, in red chalk, a gigantic pair of spurs. As soon as O’Connor entered, the turnkey closed the door, and he and Sir Henry Ashwoode were left alone. A silence of some minutes, which neither party dared to break, ensued.
CHAPTER LXXI.
THE FAREWELL.
O’Connor was the first to speak. In a low voice, which trembled with agitation, he said, —
“Sir Henry Ashwoode, I have come here in answer to a note which reached me but a few minutes since. You desired a conference with me; is there any commission with which you would wish to charge me? — if so, let me know it, and it shall be done.”
“None, none, Mr. O’Connor, thank you,” rejoined Ashwoode, recovering his characteristic self-possession, and continuing proudly, “if you add to your visit a patient audience of a few minutes, you will have conferred upon me the only favour I desire. Pray, sit down; it is rather a hard and a homely seat,” he added, with a haggard, joyless smile— “but the only one this place supplies.”
Another silence followed, during which Sir Henry Ashwoode restlessly shifted his attitude every moment, in evident and uncontrollable nervous excitement. At length he arose, and walked twice or thrice up and down the narrow chamber, exhibiting without any longer care for concealment his pale, wasted face in the full light which streamed in through the grated window, his sunken eyes and unshorn chin, and worn and attenuated figure.
“You hear that sound,” said he, abruptly stopping short, and looking with the same strange smile upon O’Connor; “the clank upon the flags as I walk up and down — the jingle of the fetters — isn’t it strange — isn’t it odd — like a dream — eh?”
Another silence followed, which Ashwoode again abruptly interrupted.
“You know all this story? — of course you do — everybody does — how the wretches have trapped me — isn’t it terrible — isn’t it dreadful? Oh! you cannot know what it is to mope about this place alone, when it is growing dark, as I do every evening, and in the night time. If I had been another man, I’d have been raving mad by this time. I said alone — did I?” he continued, with increasing excitement; “oh! that it were! — oh! that it were! He comes there — there,” he screamed, pointing to the foot of the bed, “with all those infernal cloths and fringes about his face, morning and evening. Ah, God! such a thing — half idiot, half fiend; and still the same, though I curse him till I’m hoarse, he won’t leave it. Can’t they wait — can’t they wait? forever is a long day. As I’m a living man, he’s with me every night — there — there is the body, gaping and nodding — there — there — there!”
As he shouted this with frantic and despairing horror, shaking his clenched hands toward the place of his dreaded nightly visitant, O’Connor felt a thrill of horror such as he had never known before, and hardly recovered from this painful feeling, when Sir Henry Ashwoode turned to the little table on which, among many things, a vessel of water was placed, and filling some out into a cracked cup, he added to it drops from a phial, and hastily swallowed the mixture.
“Laudanum is all the philosophy or religion I can boast; it’s well to have even so much,” said he, returning the bottle to his pocket. “It’s a dead secret, though, that I have got any; this is a present from the doctor they allow me to see, and I’m on honour not — to poison myself — isn’t it comical? — for fear he should get into a scrape; but I’ve another game to play — no fear of that — no, no.”
Another silence followed, and Sir Henry Ashwoode said quickly, —
“What do the people say about it? Do they think I forged that accursed bond? Do they think me guilty?”
O’Connor declared his entire ignorance of public rumour, alleging his own illness, and consequent close confinement, as the cause of it.
“They sha’n’t believe me guilty, no, they sha’n’t. Look ye, sir, I have one good feeling left,” he resumed, vehemently; “I will not let my name suffer. If the most resolute firmness to the very last, and the most solemn renunciation of the charges preferred against me, reiterated at the foot of the gallows, with the halter about my neck — if these can beget a belief of my innocence, my name shall be clear — my name shall not suffer; this last outrage I will avert; but oh, my God! is there no chance yet — must I — must I perish? Will no one save me — will no one help me? Oh, God! oh, God! is there no pity — no succour; must it come?”
Thus crying, he threw himself forward upon the table, while every joint and muscle quivered and heaved with fierce hysterical sobs which, more like a succession of short convulsive shrieks than actual weeping, betrayed his agony, while O’Connor looked on with a mixture of horror and pity, which all that was past could not suppress.
At length the paroxysm subsided. The wretched man filled out some more water, and mingling some drops of laudanum in it, he drank it off, and became comparatively composed.
“Not a word of this to any living being, I charge you,” said he, clutching O’Connor’s arm in his attenuated hand, and fixing his sunken fiery eyes upon his; “I would not have my folly known; I’m not always so weak as you have seen me. It must be, that’s all — no help for it. It’s rather a novel thing, though, to hang a baronet — ha! ha! You look scared — you think my wits are unsettled; but you’re wrong. I don’t sleep; I hav’n’t for some time; and want of rest, you know, makes a man’s manner odd; makes him excitable — nervous. I’m more myself now.”
After a short pause, Sir Henry Ashwoode resumed, —
“When we had that affray together, in which would to God you had run me through the heart, you put a question to me about my sister — poor Mary; I will answer that now, and more than answer it. That girl loves you with her whole heart; loves you alone; never loved another. It matters not to tell how I and my father — the great and accursed first cause of all our misfortunes and miseries — effected your estrangement. The Italian miscreant told you truth. The girl is gone I know not whither, to seek an asylum from me — ay, from me. To save my life and honour. I would have constrained her to marry the wretch who has destroyed me. It was he — he who urged it, who cajoled me. I joined him, to save my life and honour! and now — oh! God, where are they?”
O’Connor rose, and said somewhat sternly, —
“May God pardon you, Sir Henry Ashwoode, for all you have done against the peace of that most noble and generous being, your sister. What I have suffered at your hands I heartily forgive.”
“I ask forgiveness nowhere,” rejoined Ashwoode, stoically; “what’s done is done. It has been a wild and fitful life, and is now over. What forgiveness can you give me or she that’s worth a thought? — folly, folly!”
“One word of earnest hope before I leave you; one word of solemn warning,” said O’Connor; “the vanities of this world are fading fast and for ever from your view; you are going where the applause of men can reach you no more! I conjure you, then, for the sake of your eternal peace, if your sentence be a just one, do not insult your Creator by denying your guilt, and pass into His awful presence with a lie upon your lips.”
Ashwoode paused for a moment, and then walked suddenly up to O’Connor, and almost in a whisper said, —
“Not a word of that, my course is chosen; not one word more. Observe, what has passed between us is private; now leave me.” So saying, Ashwoode turned from him, and walked toward the narrow window of his cell.
“Farewell, Sir Henry Ashwoode, farewell for ever; and may God have mercy upon you,” said O’Connor, passing out upon the dark and narrow corridor.
The turnkey closed the door with a heavy crash upon his prisoner, and locked it once more, and thus the two young men, who had so often and so variously encountered in the unequal path of life, were parted never again to meet in the wayward scenes of this chequered and changeful existence. Tired and agitated, O’Connor threw himself into the first coach he met, and was deposited safely in the “Cock and Anchor.” It were vain to attempt to describe the ecstasies and transports of honest Larry Toole at the unexpected recovery of his long-lost master; we shall not attempt to do so. It is enough for our purpose to state that at the “Cock and Anchor” O’Connor received two letters from his old friend, Mr. Audley, and one conveying a pressing invitation from Oliver French of Ardgillagh, in compliance with which, early on the next morning, he mounted his horse, and set forth, followed by his trusty squire, upon the high road to Naas, resolved to task his strength to the uttermost, although he knew that even thus he must necessarily divide his journey into many more stages than his impatience would have allowed, had more rapid travelling in his weak condition been possible.
CHAPTER LXXII.
THE ROPE AND THE RIOT IN GALLOWS GREEN — AND THE WOODS OF ARDGILLAGH BY MOONLIGHT.
At length came that day, that dreadful day, whose evening Sir Henry Ashwoode was never to see. Noon was the time fixed for the fatal ceremonial; and long before that hour, the mob, in one dense mass of thousands, had thronged and choked the streets leading to the old gaol. Upon this awful day the wretched man acquired, by a strange revulsion, a kind of stoical composure, which sustained him throughout the dreadful preparations. With hands cold as clay, and a face white as ashes, and from which every vestige of animation had vanished, he proceeded, nevertheless, with a calm and collected demeanour to make all his predetermined arrangements for the fearful scene. With a minute elaborateness he finished his toilet, and dressed himself in a grave, but particularly handsome suit. Could this shrunken, torpid, ghastly spectre, in reality be the same creature who, a few months since, was the admiration and envy of half the beaux of Dublin?
