“I’ll take it clean out, sir,” replied the man, winking to the
company, “before you can come across the room to get it.
Gentlemen all, observe the dark stain upon this gentleman’s hat,
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no wider than a shilling, but thicker than a half-crown. Whether it
is a wine-stain, fruit-stain, beer-stain, water-stain, paint-stain,
pitch-stain, mud-stain, or blood-stain.”
The man got no further, for Sikes with a hideous imprecation
overthrew the table, and tearing the hat from him, burst out of the
house.
With the same perversity of feeling and irresolution that has
fastened upon him, despite himself, all day, the murderer, finding
that he was not followed, and that they most probably considered
him some drunken, sullen fellow, turned back up the town, and
getting out of the glare of the lamps of a stagecoach that was
standing in the street, was walking past, when he recognised the
mail from London, and saw that it was standing at the little post-
office. He almost knew what was to come; but he crossed over, and
listened.
The guard was standing at the door, waiting for the letter-bag.
A man, dressed like a gamekeeper, came up at the moment, and
he handed him a basket which lay ready on the pavement.
“That’s for your people,” said the guard. “Now, look alive in
there, will you. Damn that ’ere bag, it warn’t ready night afore last;
this won’t do, you know!”
“Anything new up in town, Ben?” asked the gamekeeper,
drawing back to the window-shutters, the better to admire the
horses.
“No, nothing that I knows on,” replied the man, pulling on his
gloves. “Corn’s up a little. I heerd talk of a murder, too, down
Spitalfields way, but I don’t reckon much upon it.”
“Oh, that’s quite true,” said a gentleman inside, who was
looking out of the window. “And a dreadful murder it was.”
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“Was it, sir?” rejoined the guard, touching his hat. “Man or
woman, pray, sir?”
“A woman,” replied the gentleman. “It is supposed—”
“Now, Ben,” replied the coachman impatiently.
“Damn that ’ere bag,” said the guard; “are you gone to sleep in
there?”
“Coming!” cried the office keeper, running out.
“Coming,” growled the guard. “Ah, and so’s the young ‘ooman
of property that’s going to take a fancy to me, but I don’t know
when. Here, give hold. All ri-right!”
The horn sounded a few cheerful notes, and the coach was
gone.
Sikes remained standing in the street, apparently unmoved by
what he had just heard, and agitated by no stronger feeling than a
doubt where to go. At length he went back again, and took the
road which leads from Hatfield to St. Albans.
He went on doggedly; but as he left the town behind him, and
plunged into the solitude and darkness of the road, he felt a dread
and awe creeping upon him which shook him to the core. Every
object before him, substance or shadow, still or moving, took the
semblance of some fearful thing; but these fears were nothing
compared to the sense that haunted him of that morning’s ghastly
figure following at his heels. He could trace its shadow in the
gloom, supply the smallest item of the outline, and note how stiff
and solemn it seemed to stalk along. He could hear its garments
rustling in the leaves, and every breath of wind came laden with
that last low cry. If he stopped it did the same. If he ran, it
followed—not running too, that would have been a relief, but like a
corpse endowed with the mere machinery of life, and borne on one
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slow melancholy wind that never rose or fell.
At times he turned, with desperate determination, resolved to
beat this phantom off, though it should look him dead; but the hair
rose on his head, and his blood stood still, for it had turned with
him and was behind him then. He had kept it before him that
morning, but it was behind now— always. He leaned his back
against a bank, and felt that it stood above him, visibly out against
the cold night-sky. He threw himself upon the road—on his back
upon the road. At his head it stood, silent, erect, and still—a living
gravestone, with its epitaph in blood.
Let no man talk of murderers escaping justice, and hint that
Providence must sleep. There were twenty score of violent deaths
in one long minute of that agony of fear.
There was a shed in a field he passed, that offered shelter for
the night. Before the door, were three tall poplar-trees, which
made it very dark within; and the wind moaned through them
with a dismal wail. He could not walk on, till daylight came again;
and here he stretched himself close to the wall—to undergo new
torture.
For now, a vision came before him, as constant and more
terrible than that from which he had escaped. Those widely-
staring eyes, so lustreless and so glassy, that he had better borne
to see them than think upon them, appeared in the midst of the
darkness—light in themselves, but giving light to nothing. There
were but two, but they were everywhere. If he shut out the sight,
there came the room with every well-known object—some, indeed,
that he would have forgotten, if he had gone over its contents from
memory—each in its accustomed place. The body was in its place,
and its eyes were as he saw them when he stole away. He got up,
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and rushed into the field without. The figure was behind him. He
re-entered the shed, and shrank down once more. The eyes were
there, before he had laid himself along.
And here he remained, in such terror as none but he can know,
trembling in every limb, and the cold sweat starting from every
pore, when suddenly there arose upon the night-wind the noise of
distant shouting, and the roar of voices mingled in alarm and
wonder. Any sound of men in that lonely place, even though it
conveyed a real cause of alarm, was something to him. He
regained his strength and energy at the prospect of personal
danger; and, springing to his feet, rushed into the open air.
The broad sky seemed on fire. Rising into the air with showers
of sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame,
lighting the atmosphere for miles around, and driving clouds of
smoke in the direction where he stood. The shouts grew louder as
new voices swelled the roar, and he could hear the cry of Fire!
mingled with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies,
and the crackling of flames as they twined round some new
obstacle and shot aloft as though refreshed by food. The noise
increased as he looked. There were people there—men and
women—light, bustle. It was like new life to him. He darted
onward—straight, headlong—dashing through brier and brake,
and leaping gate and fence as madly as his dog, who careered with
loud and sounding bark before him.
He came upon the spot. There were half-dressed figures tearing
to and fro, some endeavouring to drag the frightened horses from
the stables, others driving the cattle from the yard and outhouses,
and others coming laden from the burning pile, amidst a shower of
falling sparks, and the tumbling down of red-hot beams. The
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apertures, where doors and windows stood an hour ago, disclosed
a mass of raging fire; walls rocked and crumbled into the burning
well; the molten lead and iron poured down, white-hot, upon the
ground. Women and children shrieked, and men encouraged each
other with noisy shouts and cheers. The clanking of the engine-
pumps, and the spurting and hissing of the water as it fell upon
the blazing wood, added to the tremendous roar. He shouted, too,
till he was hoarse; and, flying from memory and himself, plunged
into the thickest of the throng.
Hither and thither he dived that night; now working at the
pumps, and now hurrying through the smoke and flame, but never
ceasing to engage himself wherever noise and men were thickest.
Up and down the ladders, upon the roofs of buildings, over floors
that quaked and trembled with his weight, under the lee of falling
bricks and stones, in every part of that great fire was he; but he
bore a charmed life, and had neither scratch nor bruise, nor
weariness nor thought, till morning dawned again, and only smoke
and blackened ruins remained.
This mad excitement over, there returned, with tenfold force,
the dreadful consciousness of his crime. He looked suspiciously
about him, for the men were conversing in groups, and he feared
to be the subject of their talk. The dog obeyed the significant beck
of his finger, and they drew off, stealthily, together. He passed
near an engine where some men were seated, and they called to
him to share in their refreshment. He took some bread and meat;
and as he drank a draught of beer, heard the firemen, who were
from London, talking about the murder. “He has gone to
Birmingham, they say,” said one; “but they’ll have him yet, for the
scouts are out, and by tomorrow night there’ll be a cry all through
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the country.”
He hurried off, and walked till he almost dropped upon the
ground; then lay down in a lane, and had a long, but broken and
uneasy sleep. He wandered on again, irresolute and undecided,
and oppressed with the fear of another solitary night.
Suddenly, he took the desperate resolution of going back to
London.
“There’s somebody to speak to there, at all events,” he thought.
“A good hiding-place, too. They’ll never expect to nab me there,
after this country scent. Why can’t I lay by for a week or so, and,
forcing blunt from Fagin, get abroad to France? Damme, I’ll risk
it.”
He acted upon this impulse without delay, and choosing the
least frequented roads, began his journey back, resolved to lie
concealed within a short distance of the metropolis, and, entering
it at dusk, by a circuitous route, to proceed straight to that part of
it which he had fixed on for his destination.
The dog, though. If any description of him were out, it would
not be forgotten that the dog was missing, and had probably gone
with him. This might lead to his apprehension as he passed along
the streets. He resolved to drown him, and walked on, looking for
a pond, and picking up a heavy stone and tying it to his
handkerchief as he went.
The animal looked up into his master’s face while these
preparations were making; and, whether his instinct apprehended
something of their purpose, or the robber’s sidelong look at him
was sterner than ordinary, he skulked a little farther in the rear
than usual, and cowered as he came more slowly along. When his
master halted at the brink of a pool, and looked round to call him,
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he stopped outright.
“Do you hear me call? Come here!” cried Sikes.
The animal came up from the very force of habit; but as Sikes
stooped to attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low
growl and started back.
“Come back!” said the robber.
The dog wagged his tail, but moved not. Sikes made a running-
noose and called him again.
The dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, turned, and
scoured away at his hardest speed.
The man whistled again and again, and sat down and waited in
the expectation that he would return. But no dog appeared, and at
length he resumed his journey.
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Chapter 49
Monks And Mr. Brownlow At Length Meet—Their
Conversation, And The Intelligence That Interrupts
It.
The twilight was beginning to close in, when Mr. Brownlow
alighted from a hackney-coach at his own door and
knocked softly. The door being opened, a sturdy man got
out of the coach and stationed himself on one side of the steps,
while another man, who had been seated on the box, dismounted
too, and stood upon the other side. At a sign from Mr. Brownlow,
they helped out a third man, and taking him between them,
hurried him into the house. This man was Monks.
They walked in the same manner up the stairs without
speaking, and Mr. Brownlow, preceding them, led the way into a
back room. At the door of this apartment, Monks, who had
ascended with evident reluctance, stopped. The two men looked to
the old gentleman as if for instructions.
“He knows the alternative,” said Mr. Brownlow. “If he hesitates
or moves a finger but as you bid him, drag him into the street, call
for the aid of the police, and impeach him as a felon in my name.”
“How dare you say this of me?” asked Monks.
“How dare you urge me to it, young man?” replied Mr.
Brownlow, confronting him with a steady look. “Are you mad
enough to leave this house? Unhand him. There, sir. You are free
to go, and we to follow. But I warn you, by all I hold most solemn
and most sacred, that the instant you set foot in the street, that
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instant will I have you apprehended on a charge of fraud and
robbery. I am resolute and immovable. If you are determined to be
the same, your blood be upon your own head!”
“By what authority am I kidnapped in the street, and brought
here by these dogs?” asked Monks, looking from one to the other
of the men who stood beside him.
“By mine,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “Those persons are
indemnified by me. If you complain of being deprived of your
liberty—you had power and opportunity to retrieve t as you came
along, but you deemed it advisable to remain quiet—I say again,
throw yourself for protection on the law. I will appeal to the law
too; but when you have gone too far to recede, do not sue to me for
leniency, when the power will have passed into other hands; and
do not say I plunged you down the gulf into which you rushed
yourself.”
Monks was plainly disconcerted, and alarmed besides. He
hesitated.
“You will decide quickly,” said Mr. Brownlow, with perfect
firmness and composure. “If you wish me to prefer my charges
publicly, and consign you to a punishment the extent of which,
although I can, with a shudder, foresee, I cannot control, once
more, I say, you know the way. If not, and you appeal to my
forbearance, and the mercy of those you have deeply injured, seat
yourself, without a word, in that chair. It has waited for you two
whole days.”
Monks muttered some unintelligible words, but wavered still.
“You will be prompt,” said Mr. Brownlow. “A word from me,
and the alternative has gone for ever.”
Still the man hesitated.
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“I have not the inclination to parley,” said Mr. Brownlow, “and,
as I advocate the dearest interests of others, I have not the right.”
“Is there,” demanded Monks, with a faltering tongue—“is
there—no middle course?”
“None.”
Monks looked at the old gentleman with an anxious eye; but,
reading in his countenance nothing but severity and
determination, walked into the room, and, shrugging his
shoulders, sat down.
“Lock the door on the outside,” said Mr Brownlow to the
attendants, “and come when I ring.”
The men obeyed, and the two were left alone together.
“This is pretty treatment, sir,” said Monks, throwing down his
hat and cloak, “from my father’s oldest friend.”
“It is because I was your father’s oldest friend, young man,”
returned Mr. Brownlow; “it is because the hopes and wishes of
young and happy years were bound up with him, and that fair
creature of his blood and kindred who rejoined her God in youth,
and left me here a solitary, lonely man; it is because he knelt with
me beside his only sister’s deathbed when he was yet a boy, on the
morning that would—but Heaven willed otherwise—have made
her my young wife; it is because my seared heart clung to him,
from that time forth, through all his trials and errors, till he died; it
is because old recollections and associations filled my heart, and
even the sight of you brings with it old thoughts of him; it is
because of all these things that I am moved to treat you gently
now—yes, Edward Leeford, even now—and blush for your
unworthiness who bear the name.”
“What has the name to do with it?” asked the other, after
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contemplating, half in silence, and half in dogged wonder, the
agitation of his companion. “What is the name to me?”
