At Last Part 12

"But he ought to have a fire, and something hot and nourishing to drink!" exclaimed Mrs. b.u.t.ton, upon hearing the story. "He will freeze in that barn of a place--poor wretch!"

"I imagine he has no need of additional stimulants," said Mrs. Aylett, dryly, again resorting to her smelling-bottle. "From what the gentlemen say, I judge that he had laid in a supply of caloric sufficient to last through the night. And the first use he would make of fire would be to burn the house over our heads. His lodgings are certainly more comfortable than those selected by himself. There is little danger of his finding fault with them. What manner of looking creature is he?"

"An unkempt vagabond!" rejoined Randolph Harrison, rubbing his blue fingers before the fire. "His clothes are ragged, and frozen stiff. I suppose he has been out in the storm ever since it set in. There were icicles upon his beard and hair, his hat having fallen off. It is a miracle he did not freeze to death long ago. It is a bitter night."

"Did you say he was an old man?" inquired the hostess languidly, from the depths of her easy chair.

"He is not a young one, for his hair is grizzled. But we will form ourselves into a court of inquiry in the morning, with Mr. Aylett as presiding officer--have in the nocturnal wanderer, and hear what account he can give of himself. Who knows what romantic history we may hear--one that may become a Christmas legend in after years?"

"You will get nothing more sensational than the confessions of a hen-roost robber, I suspect," said Mrs. Aylett, more wearily than was consistent with her role of attentive hostess.

Her husband noticed the tokens of exhaustion, and interposed to spare her further exertion.

"Our friends will excuse you if you retire without delay, Clara. You still feel the effects of your agitation and faintness."

This was the signal for a general dispersion of the ladies--the gentlemen, or most of them, adjourning to the smoking-room.

Since the late extraordinary influx of visitors, Mabel had shared her aunt's chamber, but, instead of seeking this now, she went straight from the parlor to the supper-room, where she found, as she had expected, Mrs. Sutton in the height of business, directing the setting of the breakfast-table, clearing away the debris of the evening feast, and counting the silver with unusual care, lest a stray fork or spoon had, by some hocus-pocus known to the cla.s.s, been slipped into the pocket of the supposit.i.tious burglar.

"Aunt," began Mabel, drawing her aside, "that poor wretch up-stairs must be cared for. It is the height of cruelty to lock him up in a fireless room, without provisions or dry clothing. If he should die, would we be guiltless?"

Mrs. Sutton's benevolent physiognomy was perplexed.

"Didn't I say as much in the other room, before everybody, my dear? And didn't SHE put me down with one of her magisterial sentences? She is mistress here--not you or I. Besides, Winston has the key of that east garret in his pocket, and I would not be the one to ask him for it, since he has had his wife's opinion upon the subject of humanity to prisoners."

"I shall not trouble him with my pet.i.tion. I discovered by accident, when I was a child, that the key of the north room would open that door.

If I order, upon my own responsibility, that a cup of hot coffee, and some bread and meat be taken up to him, you will not deny them to me, I suppose?"

"Certainly not, my child! but I dare not send a servant with them.

Winston's orders were positive--they all tell me--that not a soul should attempt to hold communication with him. And what he says he means."

"Then," replied Winston's sister, with a spark of his spirit, "I will take the waiter up myself. I cannot sleep with this horror hanging over me--the fear lest, through my neglect or cowardice, a fellow-being--whose only offence against society, so far as we knows is his dropping down in a faint or stupor under a hedge on the Ridgeley plantation--should lose his life."

"Your feelings are only what I should expect from you, my love; but think twice before you go up-stairs yourself! It would be considered an outrageous impropriety, were it found out."

"Less outrageous than to let a stranger perish for want of such attention as one would vouchsafe to a stray dog?" questioned Mabel, with a queer smile. "Roger! pour me out a bowl of coffee at once. Put it on a waiter with a plate of bread and b.u.t.ter--or stay! oysters will be more warming and nourishing. I am very sure that Daphne is keeping a saucepanful hot for her supper and yours. Hurry!"

The waiter, whose wife was the cook, ducked his head with a grin confirmatory of his young mistress' shrewd suspicion, and vanished to obey her orders, never dreaming but she wanted the edibles for her private consumption. He enjoyed late and hot suppers, and why not she?

Thanks to this persuasion, the coffee was strong, clear, and boiling, the oysters done to a turn, and smoking from the saucepan.

Taking the tray from him, with a gracious "Thank you! This is just as it should be," Mabel negatived his offer to carry it to her room, and started up-stairs.

Mrs. Sutton followed with a lighted candle.

"Winston or no Winston, you shall not face that desperado alone," she said, obstinately. "There is no telling what he may do--murder you, perhaps, or at least knock you down in order to escape. Winston talks as if he were the captain of the forty thieves."'

"He is pretty well hors de combat now, at any rate," smiled Mabel, but allowing her aunt to precede her with the light to the upper floor. "And should he offer violence--scalding coffee may defend me as effectually as Morgiana's boiling oil routed the gang. MY captain had to be carried up-stairs by four servants, who left him upon a pile of old mattresses in one corner of the room. Here we are!"

They were in a wide hall at the top of the house, the unceiled rafters above their heads, carpetless boards beneath their feet. Mabel set her waiter upon a worm-eaten, iron-bound chest, and went further down the pa.s.sage to get the key of the north room. Her light footstep stirred dismal echoes in the dark corners; the wind screamed through every crack and keyhole, like a legion of piping devils; rumbled lugubriously over the steep roof. The one candle flickering in the draught showed Mabel's white bust and arms, like those of a phantom, beaming through a cloud of blackness, when she stooped to try the key in the lock of the prison-chamber.

After fitting it, she knocked before she turned it in the rusty wards--again, and more loudly--then spoke, putting her lips close to the key-hole:

"We are friends, and have brought you supper. Can we come in?"

There was no answer, and with a beating heart she unlocked the door, pushed it ajar, and motioned to Aunt Rachel to hold her candle up, that she might gain a view of the interior.

The wan, uncertain rays revealed the heap of mattresses, and upon them what looked like a ma.s.s of rough, wet clothing, without sound or motion.

"He is pretending to be asleep! Take care!" whispered Mrs. Sutton, trying to restrain Mabel as she pressed by her into the room.

"He is dead, I fear!" was the low answer.

Forgetful of her nephew's prohibition and her recent fears, the good widow entered, and leaned anxiously over the stranger's form. A tall, gaunt man, clad in threadbare garments, which hung loosely upon the shrunken breast and arms, black hair and beard, mottled with white, ragged, and unshorn, and dank from exposure to the snow and sleet; a chalky-white face, with closed and sunken eyes, sharpened nose, and prominent cheek-bones--this was what they beheld as the candle flamed up steadily in the comparatively still air of the ceiled apartment. The miserable coat was b.u.t.toned up to his chin, and the shreds of a coa.r.s.e woollen comforter, torn from his throat at his capture, still hung about his shoulders. His clothes were sodden with wet, as Harrison had said, and the solitary pretence at rendering him comfortable for the night, had been the act of a negro, who contemptuously flung an old blanket across his nether limbs before leaving him to his lethargic slumbers.

He had not moved since they tossed him, like a worthless sack, upon this sorry resting-place, but lay an unsightly huddle of arms, legs, and head, such as was never achieved, much less continued, by any one save a drunken man or a corpse. Mabel ended the awed silence.

"This is torpor--not sleep, nor yet death," she said, without recoiling from the pitiful wreck.

Indeed, as she spoke, she bent to feel his pulse; held the emaciated wrist in her warm fingers until she could determine whether the feeble stroke were a reality, or a trick of the imagination.

"Dr. Ritchie should see him immediately. He is in the smoking-room. If you call him out, it will excite less remark than if I were to do it.

Don't let Winston guess why you want him," were her directions to her aunt, uttered quickly, but distinctly.

"You will not stay here! At least, go into the hall! What will the doctor think?"

"I shall remain where I am. The poor creature is too far gone to presume upon my condescension," with a faint sarcastic emphasis.

At Mrs. Sutton's return with the physician, she perceived that her niece had not awaited her coming in sentimental idleness. A thick woollen coverlet was wrapped about the prostrate figure, and Mabel, upon her knees on the dusty hearth, was applying the candle to a heap of waste paper and bits of board she had ferreted out in closets and cuddy-holes.

It caught and blazed up hurriedly in season to facilitate the doctor's examination of the patient, thrown so oddly upon his care. Mrs. Sutton had not neglected, in her haste, to procure a warm shawl from her room, and she folded it about the girl's shoulders, whispering an entreaty that she would go to bed, and leave the man to her management and Dr.

Ritchie.

Mabel waved her off impatiently.

"Presently! when I hear how he is!" moving toward the comfortless couch.

The physician looked around at the rustle of her dress, his pleasant face perturbed, and perhaps remorseful.

"This is a bad business! I wish I had examined him when he was brought in. There would have been more hope of doing something for him then.

But, to tell the truth, I was one of the five or six prudent fellows who stayed upon the piazza, and witnessed the capture from a distance. I had no idea of the man's real situation. Mrs. Sutton! can I have brandy, hot water, and mustard at once! Miss Mabel! may I trouble you to call your brother? He ought to be advised of this unforeseen turn of affairs."

His emissaries were prompt. In less than ten minutes, all the appliances the household could furnish for the restoration of the failing life were at his command. An immense fire roared in the long-disused chimney; warm blankets, bottles of hot water and mustard-poultices were prepared by a corps of officious servants; the master of the mansion, with three or four friends at his heels, and a half-smoked cigar in his hand, had looked in for a moment, to hope that Dr. Ritchie would not hesitate to order whatever was needed, and to predict a favorable result as the meed of his skill.

Half an hour after her brother's visit, Mabel tapped at the door to inquire how the patient was, and whether she could be of use in any way.

She still wore her evening dress, and the fire of excitement had not gone out in her eyes and complexion.

"Don't sit up longer," said the doctor, with the authority of an old friend. "It will not benefit your protege for you to have a headache, pale cheeks, and heavy eyes to-morrow, while it will render others, whose claims upon you are stronger, very miserable."

She thanked him laconically for his thoughtfulness, and bade him "good-night," without a responsive gleam of playfulness. Her heart was weighed down with sick horror. The almost certainty of which he spoke with professional coolness, was to her, who had never within her recollection stood beside a death-bed, a thing too frightful to be antic.i.p.ated without dread, however its terrors might be alleviated by affection and wealth. As the finale of their Christmas frolic--perhaps the consequence of wilful neglect in those who should have known better than to abandon the wanderer to the ravages of hunger, cold, and intoxication--the idea was ghastly beyond description.

She was about to diverge from the main hall on the second floor into the lateral pa.s.sage leading to Mrs. Sutton's room in the wing, when her name was called in a gentle, guarded key by her sister-in-law.