Tales of the Wonder Club Volume II Part 32

"Ha! ha! Master de Chevron," laughed the witch, "you are no better than old Madge after all."

"Well, this _is_ strange!" muttered De Chevron to himself, after having tried once or twice more and failed.

"Are you quite sure you have repeated the charm aright, Madge?"

"Quite sure," replied the crone; "but, beshrew me, if I don't think there is some hostile element at hand that counteracts the charm. Just look at the way Grimalkin arches his back and ruffles his fur."

I now noticed a huge black tom cat, of a size that I never remember to have seen before or since, whose luminous eyes flashed red and green by turns from an obscure corner of the hovel.

"There! there! _there_!" cried De Chevron, furiously, accompanying each word with a thrust, but missing each time.

Then, in his rage at being foiled thus, he raised the image in order to dash it to the ground; but the wax having melted somewhat in his hand, it stuck to his fingers like pitch, and he was obliged to disengage it gently and place it on the small table just underneath the window through which I was peeping.

"I'll tell you what it is, Madge," said he, "there is more witchcraft in this countercharm, whatever it is, than in all your skill. There must be, as you say, some contrary influence at work. How else should it be possible for me to fail every time, as if I were smitten with the palsy?

Let us go out and see if anyone is lurking near the hut."

So leaving the image on the table, he strode towards the opposite door, which he opened wide, followed by the beldam.

Not a moment was to be lost. The instant their backs were turned I cautiously opened the window, and introducing my arm until it touched the table beneath, I secured the image, re-closed the window noiselessly, and flew as fast as my feet could carry me through the pelting rain with the image under my shawl.

I had hardly reached home, quite out of breath, when Claribel came running to me, pale and trembling, and wringing her hands.

"Oh! Molly, dear," she cried, sobbing, "what do you think has happened to that poor young man John Archer?"

"What is it?" I asked, anxiously. "Anything in connection with Richard de Chevron?"

"I cannot exactly say that," she replied. "It seems to have been purely an accident. This is how it was. His gun suddenly burst in a most unaccountable manner whilst he was carrying it over his arm, and carried off one of his thumbs. No surgeon could be procured at the time, and the wound appears to have gangrened and to have infected the whole arm. The surgeon, who has only just arrived, says that it will be necessary to remove the arm to save his life."

"Not for worlds!" cried I, with animation. "I'll be responsible for his life. There," said I, producing the waxen image and hastily withdrawing the two pins still sticking in the arm of the figure, and which in my hurry I had omitted to extract till now. "There, now the mortification in the arm will have stopped. Send directly to the surgeon that the operation will be no longer necessary. Nay, I will go myself."

"What does all this mean?" asked Claribel, astonished beyond measure.

"No matter now," I answered. "I am off at once. If you like you may come with me; but first let me lock up this image in a place where it will not be touched."

So saying, I put on my bonnet and shawl again, and dragging Claribel after me, we ran with all our might and main to the cottage where poor John lay stretched on a pallet, the surgeon with his knife ready sharpened for the operation, standing over him, about to commence.

Another second would have been too late.

"Hold your hand, doctor!" I cried, suddenly. "The mortification has ceased, and the operation will be no longer necessary. I will be answerable for this young man's life without his losing his arm."

I spoke with an authority that completely astonished the doctor, for he looked bewilderingly first at me and then at my friend; but at length said, "I understand nothing of all this. I have been called here by this young man's family to give my professional opinion, and I say that unless he submits to lose his arm, his life will be endangered."

"But the mortification has ceased. Would you amputate a limb without necessity for so doing?"

"Certainly not."

"Well, then, look for yourself. Where is the mortification?"

Here the surgeon glanced at the arm, and looked wondrous wise.

"The mortification has ceased beyond a doubt," he said at length. "Well, I never saw such a thing in all my life. What! am I dreaming," he muttered. "I do not understand all this. How came you, Miss Molly, to--to----"

"Hush!" said I.

Then lowering my mouth to his ear, I whispered a few words, and put my finger to my lip, to enjoin silence. The doctor arched his eyebrows till they nearly touched the roots of his hair, screwed up his mouth to the size of a b.u.t.tonhole, and gave vent to a prolonged "wh-e-w!"

He soon after left the house, and we were left alone for a while to comfort the sufferer. During the few moments that we were left alone together I recounted briefly the whole of my adventure.

Both John and Claribel were completely thunder-struck at my recital, and Claribel muttered half to herself and half to me, "And to think that it should be Richard de Chevron, after all. I knew he was a villain."

John speedily recovered. He had received no further injury than the loss of his thumb. He often called at our house afterwards, and upon seeing the waxen image immediately recognised it as a likeness of himself. It being now beyond a doubt that Richard de Chevron, out of jealousy, had conspired against the life of John Archer and being equally certain in my own mind, from a knowledge of De Chevron's character, that he would not let his victim slip so easily through his fingers, but, foiled in his first attempt, would lose no time in employing some other means of removing his rival from his path, I began to rack my brains in search of some scheme to thwart the machinations of this villain.

"What if he should make another waxed image, and shutting himself up in his own house, carry out his infernal spells without interruption?" I said to myself. If so, what could I do?

John Archer should have our constant prayers; beyond this there was no impediment to De Chevron's evil designs. The law would give us no redress. I was very sure of that. Witchcraft had ceased to be believed in, and the case would be dismissed. One thought, indeed, crossed my mind for a moment, which I mentioned to Claribel, and this was to pay back De Chevron in his own coin by converting the image of John Archer into a likeness of De Chevron and experimenting upon the villain from afar in the same manner as he had designed to practise against John Archer.

It was but a momentary thought and a sinful, and the proposal was rejected by Claribel instantly and with horror.

"Should we," said she, "put ourselves on a level with a murderous villain, using against him the same unhallowed means that he himself had not hesitated to use against his victim?"

But besides the light in which my friend had put my proposition, there was another argument against the scheme that perhaps had more weight with me. In order to change the image from the likeness of John Archer into a likeness of De Chevron it would be necessary to destroy the image altogether first, and this, for what I knew, might put John Archer's life in peril. This last argument decided me, and I resolved to guard the image as jealously as possible, and to proceed against De Chevron by natural means solely. An idea flashed across me that there might be some countercharm against evil spells if we could only find it out. Indeed, I remembered to have heard that there was, and musing thus within myself, I suddenly recollected to have heard a couplet in my childhood that ran thus:

"Vervain and Dill Keep witches from their will."

These two herbs, then, were countercharms. I was resolved to try the experiment, so procuring some of each without more delay, I gave them into the possession of John Archer, who promised me to wear them always about him; and whether or no De Chevron ever made any further attempt against the life of his rival by means of magic I know not, but if he did he must signally have failed, as for ever so long afterwards Archer enjoyed the most perfect health and remained free from any further accident.

Whether De Chevron suspected that John Archer possessed some countercharm against which his evil spells were vain, or if he again essayed his magic after his first defeat, we know not, but certain it was that he still cherished hatred against his rival, upon whom he was determined to bring trouble, if not by necromancy, at least by natural means.

For some time past he had not been near us. This was evidently to ward off suspicion from himself and check the village gossip. However, soon after the disappearance of the image--whether or no he suspected it was I who purloined it and wished to brave the matter out--he called and informed us that he was going to London on important business, and had come to take leave of us for a time. There was nothing in his manner that appeared the least constrained or abashed. On the contrary, he seemed more lively and witty than usual, asked kindly after all our family, and even John Archer, whom he said he had not seen for a long time, although he had heard of his misfortune, for which he professed great sympathy, and hoped the poor fellow would not take his loss too much to heart; adding that it was lucky that they had managed to save his life without amputating his arm.

Throughout all his discourse his manner had so much of frankness and sincerity that I could hardly bring myself to believe that he was the same villain whose infernal plot against the innocent John Archer, I had accidentally unravelled. I began to think that somehow or other I must have been under a delusion, until chancing to glance towards a glazed cupboard in which the wax figure stood upright and was easily discernable from where I stood, the whole of my recent adventure came back to me forcibly. Yet there sat the author of this unhallowed deed, this would-be murderer, smiling and chatting and paying compliments with the easy grace of a courtier, with a countenance frank and open as a spring morning. How could a girl of my age, ignorant of the world and its wickedness, possibly imagine that a heart so black could be concealed underneath so smooth an exterior? Had I not had positive proof of his villainy within reach, I should certainly never have believed him capable of such a deed. Even as it was I was obliged to gaze frequently at the cupboard in order to rea.s.sure myself that I was not dreaming and to prevent myself from being won over by his tongue.

De Chevron was a quick observer, and noticed our furtive glances towards the cupboard. Then fixing his spy-gla.s.s in his eye, he looked in the same direction; but either saw or affected to see nothing. Afterwards he got up and walked about the room, conversing the while, and in so doing pa.s.sed several times in front of the cupboard, looking in casually as he pa.s.sed.

I felt sure that he must have seen the image, though there was nothing in his manner that I could discover at all confused or unusual. I believe he would have braved the matter out if I had told him to his face that it was I myself who had stolen the image after I had overheard with my own ears this villainous plot against poor John. He was just the sort of man who would have looked me full in the face and denied ever in his life having been in Madge Mandrake's cottage.

He would have tried to make me believe that I had been the victim of some fearful delusion from my over-excited fears or what not, that the image was not of his making; would have denied ever having set eyes on it before. Nor would, in all probability, have seen any likeness whatever to John Archer, and would have treated as nothing more than a coincidence the fact of John's gun and the loss of his thumb occurring at the same time that the gun and thumb of the waxen figure were damaged by old Madge's pin thrust.

He would have asked me if I thought him capable of believing in such trumpery, and would have tried to laugh me out of my superst.i.tion. All this I should have expected from him, such was his amount of a.s.surance.

Once I had it on the tip of my tongue to ask him what he thought of the image, and if he knew anyone it resembled; and would have done it, too, as I was anxious to observe what effect a sudden allusion to the image would have had upon him, but at that moment my father, who knew nothing of the affair of the waxen image, entered the room, and the conversation took another direction.

Shortly afterwards he left the house, promising to call again after his return from London. As he had been so particular in telling us of his intended visit to London, of course, I believed him. What reason could I have had for not doing so? Nevertheless, it proved to be all a falsehood. He never had any intention of going to London at all; and never left the village.

But why this deceit? you will naturally ask. Listen, and tell me if you could have imagined a scheme so diabolical as the following ever entering into human brain. To carry out his base designs he hired a certain pedlar, one Michael Rag, well known to be a shady character, and envious of John Archer's comparatively easy circ.u.mstances, so having talked him over, if not by bribery, at least by instigating him in a manner suggested by his own natural cunning as calculated to excite the covetous disposition of the tool he intended to use for his own purposes, to purloin John Archer's silver watch, a present he had received from his master for his faithful services.

This watch De Chevron represented to the pedlar as being one of superior workmanship, and far too good for a man of John Archer's position to wear. He blamed his uncle for lavishing handsome presents upon undeserving hangers-on. Who, after all, was John Archer? He (De Chevron) could remember him in worse circ.u.mstances even than the pedlar himself.

Whence his good fortune? From his merit? Pooh! It was easy enough for any man to keep a good place when he had once got it, if he wasn't quite a fool. Then as to his getting it in the first place, mere luck. Why, as if there were not many a better man than John Archer for such a post.

Was he more honest than any other? Bah! every man is honest until he is found out to be the contrary.