in a variety of other ways; and no one suspects them. But ours, as you say, my good friend, is a strange way; and we strangely happen, sometimes, to come into the knowledge of very strange events." He beckoned to Jonas to bring his chair nearer; and looking slightly round, as if to remind him of the presence of Nadgett, whispered in his ear. From red to white; from white to red again; from red to yellow; then to a cold, dull, awful, sweat-bedabbled blue. In that short whisper, all these changes fell upon the face of Jonas Chuzzlewit; and when at last he laid his hand upon the whisperer's mouth, appalled, lest any syllable of what he said should reach the ears of the third person present, it was as bloodless, and as heavy as the hand of Death. He drew his chair away, and sat a spectacle of terror, misery, and rage. He was afraid to speak, or look, or move, or sit still. Abject, crouching, and miserable, he was a greater degradation to the form he bore, than if he had been a loathsome wound from head to heel. His companion leisurely resumed his dressing, and completed it, glancing sometimes with a smile at the transformation he had effected, but never speaking once. "You'll not object," he said, when he was quite equipped, "to venture further with us, Chuzzlewit, my friend?” His pale lips faintly stammered out a "No." "Well said! That's like yourself. Do you know I was thinking yesterday that your father-in-law, relying on your advice as a man of great sagacity in money matters, as no doubt you are, would join us, if the thing were well presented to him. He has money?" "Yes, he has money." “Shall I leave him to you? Will you undertake for him?" "I'll try. I'll do my best." "A thousand thanks," replied the other, clapping him upon the shoulder. "Shall we walk downstairs? Mr. Nadgett! Follow us, if you please." They went down in that order. Whatever Jonas felt in reference to Montague; whatever sense of being caged, and barred, and trapped; he never for an instant thought that the slinking figure half a dozen stairs behind him was his pursuing Fate. Next night unwatched, alone in his own house, he took from his portmanteau a pair of clumsy shoes, and put them on his feet; also a pair of leather leggings, such as countrymen are used to wear, with straps to fasten them to the waistband. In these he dressed himself at leisure. Lastly, he took out a common frock of coarse dark jean, which he drew over his own underclothing; and a felt hat. He looked out; passed out; locked the street door after him. All was clear and quiet as he fled away. His object was to kill the man who held his secret. He shaped his course for the main western road, and soon reached it: riding a part of the way, then alighting and walking on again. At last he came up with a certain lumbering, slow, night-coach, which stopped wherever it could, and was stopping then at a publichouse. He bargained for a seat outside and took it. And he quitted it no more until it was within a few miles of its destination. Riding on among those silent sentinels of God, the stars, he slept. He dreamed at one time that he was lying calmly in his bed, thinking of a moonlight night and the noise of wheels, when a man put his head in at the door, and beckoned him. At this signal he arose immediately, being already dressed, and accompanied him into a strange city, where the names of the streets were written on the walls in characters quite new to him. Already, great crowds began to fill the streets, and in one direction myriads of people came rushing down an interminable perspective, strewing flowers and making way for others on white horses, when a terrible figure started from the throng, and cried out that it was the Last Day for all the world. The cry being spread, there was a wild hurrying on to Judgment; and the press became so great that he and his companion (who was constantly changing, and was never the same man two minutes together, though he never saw one man come or another go), stood aside in a porch, fearfully surveying the multitude; when all at once a struggling head rose up among the rest-livid and deadly—and denounced him as having appointed that direful day to happen. They closed together. As he strove to free the hand in which he held a club, and strike the blow he had so often thought of, he started to the knowledge of his waking purpose and the rising of the sun. He paid his fare, and got down a mile or so within the destination of the coach's journey. Wandering into a copse by the roadside he tore out from a fence a thick, hard, knotted stake; and, sitting down beneath a hay-rick, spent some time in shaping it, in peeling off the bark, and fashioning its jagged head with his knife. The day passed on. Noon, afternoon, evening. Sunset. At that serene and peaceful time two men, riding in a gig, came out of the city by a road not much frequented. It was the day on which Mr. Montague Tigg had agreed to dine with Mr. Pecksniff. He had kept his appointment, and was now going home. His host was riding with him for a short distance. Jonas knew their plans. He had hung about the inn-yard while they were at dinner and had heard their orders given. Here they stopped. "It's too soon. Much too soon," said Mr. Pecksuiff. "But this is the place, my dear sir. Keep the path, and go straight through the little wood you'll come to. The path is narrower there, but you can't miss it. When shall I see you again? Soon I hope?" "I hope so," replied Montague. "Good-night!" "Good-night. And a pleasant ride!" He was flushed with wine, but not gay. His scheme had succeeded, but he showed no triumph. A shadowy veil was dropping round him, closing out all thoughts but the presentiment and vague foreknowledge of impending doom. Cold, although the air was warm: dull, though the sky was bright: he rose up shivering and resumed his walk. He checked himself, undecided whether to pursue the footpath or to go back by the road. He took the footpath. The glory of the departing sun was on his face. The music of the birds was in his ears. Sweet wild-flowers bloomed about him. Thatched roofs of poor men's homes were in the distance. He had never read the lesson which these things conveyed; he had ever mocked and turned away from it; but, before going down into a hollow place, he looked round, once, upon the evening prospect, sorrowfully. Then he went down, down, down, into the dell. Then, he was seen or heard no more. Never more beheld by mortal eye or heard by mortal ear: one man excepted. That man, parting the leaves and branches on the other side, near where the path emerged again, came leaping out soon afterwards. What had he left within the wood, that he sprang out of it, as if it were a hell? The body of a murdered man. In the London streets again. Hush! It was but five o'clock. Jonas had time enough to reach his own house unobserved, and before there were many people in the streets. The passage-way was empty when his murderer's face looked into it. He stole on, to the door, on tiptoe, as if he dreaded to disturb his own imaginary rest. He went in, locked the door. He took off his disguise, then he undressed, and went to bed. The raging thirst, the fire that burnt within him as he lay beneath the clothes; the agony of listening for that knocking which should bring the news; the starts with which he left his couch, and looking in the glass, imagined that his deed was broadly written in his face, and lying down and burying himself once more beneath the blankets, beard his own heart beating Murder, Murder, Murder, in the bed. What words can paint tremendous truths like these! The morning advanced. There were footsteps in the house. Then a stealthy tread outside his own door. He looked, and his gaze was nailed to the door. Fatal, ill-omened, blighted threshold, cursed by his father's footsteps in his dying hour, cursed by his young wife's sorrowing tread, cursed by the crossing of his murderer's feet-what men were standing in the doorway? Nadgett foremost. Hark! It came on, roaring like a sea! [MURDER.] Hawkers burst into the street, crying it up and down; windows were thrown open that the inhabitants might hear it; people stopped to listen in the road and on the pavement. “That is the man,” said Nadgett. "By the window!" Three others came in, laid hands upon him, and secured him. "Murder," said Nadgett, looking round on the astonished group. "Let no one interfere." The game was up. The race was at an end; the rope was woven for his neck. He sank down in a heap against the wall, and never hoped again from that moment. "I accuse him yonder of the murder of Mr. Montague, who was found last night, killed, in a wood. From that garret-window opposite," said Nadgett, pointing across the narrow street, "I have watched this house and him for days and nights. From that garretwindow opposite I saw him return home, alone, from a journey on which he had set out with Mr. Montague. That was my token that Mr. Montague's end was gained; and I might rest easy on my watch, though I was not to leave it until he dismissed me. But, standing at the door opposite, after dark that same night, I saw a countryman steal out of this house, by a side-door in the court, who had never entered it. I knew his walk, and that it was himself, disguised. I arrest him for the Murder." He whined, and cried, and cursed, and entreated them, and struggled, and submitted, in the same breath, and had no power to stand. They got him away and into the coach, where they put him on a seat; but he soon fell moaning down among the straw at the bottom, and lay there. Happening to pass a fruiterer's on their way, one of the men remarked how faint the peaches smelt. The other assented at the moment, but presently stooped down in quick alarm, and looked at the prisoner. "Stop the coach! He has poisoned himself! The smell comes from this bottle in his hand!" They dragged him out, into the dark street; but jury, judge, and hangman could have done no more, and could do nothing now. Dead, dead, dead. (185.) "OUT OF THE DEPTHS." Abram J. Ryan (Father Ryan), author of Poems, Patriotic, Religious, and Miscellaneous (Baltimore, 1880), was born about the year 1834, and is resident in Mobile, Alabama, U.S. "His poems have moved multitudes, soothing the soul wounds of the suffering, and raising to adoration the hearts of men." Lost! Lost! Lost! The cry went up from a sea The waves were wild with an awful wrath, Lost! Lost! Lost! Rose wild from the hearts of the tempest-tossed. Lost! Lost! Lost! The cry floated over the waves Far over the pitiless waves; It smote on the dark and it rended the clouds; And the wind-voices chanted a dirge: Wailed wilder the lips of the tempest-tossed. Lost! Lost! Lost! Not the sign of a hope was nigh, In the sea, in the air or the sky; And the lifted faces were wan and white, There was nothing without them but storm and night, But far to a Father's ear, (181) K |