Tales of the Wonder Club Volume III Part 35

"Tell you what it is, Molly," began Jack, at length, "D----d if I don't think this house is haunted."

"Why so, Jack?" enquired the dame, wearily.

"Have you not noticed since Mr. Oldstone's death--nay, before--ever since our dear Helen left her home, that a curse seems to have fallen upon this house?" demanded Jack.

"True, I feel an unaccountable depression of spirits, but still I thought it nothing but the weather," rejoined his spouse.

"It's not that only," persisted her husband. "Fair or foul weather, it is just the same to me. See how our custom has fallen off."

"Naturally; now that the members of the club have all departed," replied Molly. "It's lonely like, not seeing a human face all day long."

"It's worse than that," continued Jack. "Haven't you felt--well, I don't know how to say it--as if--as if--some danger were hanging over our heads?"

"Lor, Jack!" cried our hostess, "Who'ld ever have thought to hear _you_ talk like that? Well, Jack, to tell you the truth--though I never liked to mention the matter before, for fear you should laugh at me--I confess I never _have_ felt quite myself since the night of that tragedy."

"That's it. Depend upon it," said her husband. "The spot has become accursed. I lose my appet.i.te and sleep; feel weak and nervous; start at the merest sound, while ever and anon I have the sensation as if someone were looking over my shoulder. If perchance I shut my eyes, I see before me all that took place upon that fearful night. I hear the stairs creak, and see that ruffian clasping our dear Helen in his arms.

I hear her screams for help, whilst I seem to see myself lying drugged and helpless, incapable of running to her a.s.sistance."

"Oh, Jack! and so have I," replied his spouse. "I too have dreamed that dream. It will not go from me. Each time I close my eyes---- Hark! What was that? A footstep, I'll be sworn."

"Ay, ay," a.s.sented Jack; "I hear them oft, myself."

It was now growing late, and our host went to fetch a jug of his own nut brown ale, and filled himself up a gla.s.s, which he drained at a draught, then filled himself up another.

"You drink more than you used to, Jack," remarked the wife of his bosom.

"I've seen you look very muddled of late. Don't let it grow upon you.

Don't, now, there's a dear."

But to his wife's tender injunctions he turned a deaf ear, and continued to fill up again and again, and yet again, until he was perfectly mellow.

"Oh! Jack, Jack," cried Dame Hearty, despairingly, "I knew how it would be. Don't, don't; you'll break my heart."

"What the ---- does it matter to you?" demanded her husband, "'s long 's I leave you alone (hic)."

Here some altercation took place between the two which we will not record; as, in such moods, our landlord was rarely very choice in his language. It was with considerable difficulty that Dame Hearty succeeded at length in getting her worse half upstairs and to bed.

We grieve to be obliged to record that on the following night there was a repet.i.tion of this painful scene, and the night after that, too. In spite of his poor wife's prayers and entreaties, he grew from bad to worse. Jack Hearty had become a confirmed drunkard. When in his cups his nature appeared completely changed. He who, up to the present, had enjoyed the reputation of being the kindest and most loving of husbands, the most genial of men, had now become morose, coa.r.s.e, blasphemous, cantankerous, and cruel. His poor wife was in despair, and could do nothing but cry or go into hysterics.

It was one stormy night, when our host of the "Headless Lady" had dragged himself upstairs more intoxicated than ever, that he let fall the candle, which immediately set fire to the bed curtains, and in an instant the room was in flames. Our host was so dazed as to be incapable of saving himself, and if it had not been for Dame Hearty's presence of mind, who managed to drag her husband downstairs in time, both might have perished in the flames.

The position of the inn, as we know, was isolated. Before help could be procured the fine old hostel, that had stood for centuries, and whose walls had resounded so long with the mirth and laughter of our jovial members, was now a charred and shapeless ruin.

"Well, Jack, I hope you're satisfied now," said his better-half, as the loving couple tucked themselves into a spare bed at the house of a neighbour, who had taken them in out of charity.

Our host was now quite sober, having had to walk a mile at least through the bleak wind and driving snow, so he turned, in a humbled and penitent manner, towards his wife, crying, "Oh, Molly, Molly, how can you ever forgive me? Oh! what a fool I have been! If I had only listened to you at first. But, there--it's the drink--the cursed drink--that makes a beast of a man. I vow I will never touch a drop of drink again as long as I live."

"Dear Jack, I believe you," replied his spouse. "Be your old self again," and with one loving kiss all past troubles were forgotten.

"Ah! Molly, Molly, you're something like a wife. Never will I for the future give you any cause for complaint."

And he kept his word. Jack Hearty was a reformed man.

We now approach the end of our story. Our hero and heroine, after a prolonged honeymoon in the sunny south, which to Helen was like a dream of Paradise, found themselves reluctantly compelled to return to England in order to superintend certain matters of business connected with their country house and estate. Soon after their return, our married couple, wishing to give the old people an agreeable surprise, proposed paying them a visit in their carriage and pair, at their old home, the "Headless Lady." What was their surprise and dismay, on their arrival, to find, in lieu of the time honoured hostel, _a blackened ruin_!

"Good Heavens!" cried husband and wife, simultaneously, "what can have become of the old people?" Tears started to the eyes of Helen at the thought of the scenes of her childhood and of the many happy hours she had spent within those old walls; but anxiety for the fate of her parents filled her soul. Enquiries having been made, Jack Hearty and his wife were tracked to the house of a neighbour in the village.

"Father! Mother!" cried the grand lady, stepping out of her carriage; and, throwing all ceremony to the winds, she embraced them both with the fondest affection, while the liveried coachman and footman exchanged glances together.

"Tell us how all this has happened," said our artist; "but first step into the carriage, and we will drive home. You must come and stay with us."

Neither his father nor his mother-in-law possessed anything but what they stood upright in, and were not long in making up their minds, so stepping into the carriage, and waving an adieu to their hospitable neighbours, were soon borne out of sight.

"Well, Jack," said our artist to his father-in-law, after he had listened to a detailed account of the latter's misadventure, as they were sitting together that evening in the cosy parlour of our hero's country house, the two ladies having retired to the drawing-room to enjoy their own private gossip, "of course I am sorry for your loss, and for the old inn itself, which I had calculated making a picture of some day; but really, under the circ.u.mstances, I look upon it as providential."

"Providential!" exclaimed the _ci-devant_ landlord, in astonishment.

"What! the destruction of the home of my fathers by fire, through my idiotic folly and besotted drunkenness, providential!"

"Jack, my boy, you were but the instrument, and no responsible agent,"

continued his son-in-law. "From what you tell me, the house was most undoubtedly haunted--the air vitiated and poisoned as by a pestilence, from having been the seat of deep crime. I know something of these phenomena, and I have always heard and read that there is no thorough or lasting purification in such cases save by _fire_. Take, for example, the Fire of London. That broke out, providentially, after the Plague, in order to purify the City. The burning of your inn was a necessity, as it had been rendered uninhabitable through being haunted, and you were chosen as the instrument."

"Why! Good Heavens!" cried Jack Hearty, drawing his chair suddenly back, and looking straight into the face of his son-in-law, while a fat hand rested on each stout knee. "To think that that should never have occurred to me before! Why, of course, it must have been so. I see it all as plain as a pike-staff."

"You were not yourself, Jack, on that occasion," pursued our artist.

"You were _beside_ yourself, which means that your will, already unfeebled, was subjugated by some outside power--viz., the will of some disembodied spirit stronger than your own, who made use of you as his instrument."

"It is quite true, sir," replied Jack, "I was _not_ myself at the time.

Well, well--it is some consolation to think it _had_ to be done, and that there was no way out of it."

Here the ladies re-entered the room, and the conversation took another turn.

"Now, Jack," proposed McGuilp, before all present, "since matters have turned out thus, what do you say to becoming steward of my estate--my man of business--caretaker of my house when I am away, and live here with the missus to the end of your days?"

"Oh, sir!" exclaimed Jack Hearty and his wife together, "you overwhelm us with kindness. How can we ever repay you our debt of grat.i.tude?" and tears started to the eyes of the old couple.

"Then so be it," said the now rich landowner.

"Dear, _dear_, Van!" exclaimed his young wife, as she threw herself upon his neck and covered him with kisses. "You have made me _so_ happy."

And so it was that the little family party jogged on from day to day as united as birds in a nest.

Jack Hearty was a good man of business, and an honest, and the post suited him to a T. Dame Hearty's delight was naturally to cook and to wash, or in undertaking any of those rough duties that she had been accustomed to in her former life, but as these were not necessary--others having been engaged for that purpose, she was entrusted with the keys of the house, and became an excellent housekeeper, loved and respected by those under her.

Had our artist entirely abandoned art now that he had succeeded to his uncle's fortune and estate? Far from it. First and foremost among the improvements that he made was the building of a s.p.a.cious studio, which he fitted up in a manner worthy of his taste and his means. In this he executed his great picture, which created such a _furore_ on the following year at the Royal Academy, ent.i.tled, "Captured by the Brigands." The English captive in the composition was a faithful likeness of our artist himself, whilst the bronzed features of his captors, which were deeply impressed upon his memory were as like to the originals, our artist a.s.sures us, as if they had sat for them. The time is represented as towards evening. The light and shade powerful. The whole effect of the picture weird and unearthly. An offer had been made for it, but the would-be buyer was informed that it was not for sale. So it was hung up in the parlour of the artist's own country house, according to the wish of his loving wife, who liked constantly to be reminded of this weird episode in the life of the man she loved.