Chapter IX

Master Shedlock, on fastening the lower door of the hall behind him, in the manner set forth heretofore, resumed his progress, and passed on to the kitchen. There, as was already made manifest, he found Abigail and Zedekiah, whom his appearance quite diverted from their design of ejecting the cut onion.

Abigail was the first to recover herself.

“What ails thee, master?” she cried.

“She’s dead!” answered Shedlock. “I have seen her spirit.”

“Mean’st thou mistress?” demanded Abigail, earnestly.

“She’s dead!” repeated Shedlock.

“Go to! she was a good mistress!” cried Abigail, bursting into tears. “I will go see her.”

Shedlock seized her by the arm. “Woman, she’s dead, I tell thee!” he cried. “Go get some neighbours to lay her out.”

Abigail made no reply, but, as he dropped his hold of her arm, stepped towards the rearward door, and proceeded on the errand he had charged her with. He remained stationary himself, with his eyes fixed on the open door, in evident abstraction and bewilderment, for upwards of half an hour. After that interval, Abigail returned, accompanied by two other women, tenants of a neighbouring cottage, whom she had brought to assist her in laying out her mistress.

“Shall we go see her now?” she asked of Shedlock.

“Ay,” replied the Puritan. “And let some one stay with her till her burying.”

Zedekiah, who had hitherto stood perfectly still, as if he had not understood what was passing, here gave a slight start.

“Look you this be minded,” continued Shedlock: “so shall my heart be at rest.”

Rest? his heart was never to be at rest again! The fearful visitation which he believed himself to have been subject to, in the last farewell of his deceased wife, was impressed too vividly on his mind, and had given too violent a shock to his long-sealed conscience, to suffer him to rest a moment. What a terrible retribution had one brief instant brought upon him! In the midst of his pride, in the height of health, with every pleasure and enjoyment that riches could purchase within his reach, and with all the pomp and allurements of the seductive world open to him, the man who believed himself to be only a creature of the time, and entirely free from all responsibility, was a prey to the liveliest pangs and terrors of remorse.

The tremendous mystery of nature was unveiled in his bosom, at last. In vain did he strive to turn from it; in vain did he strive to stifle, with the specious sophistries of atheism, that ever-living and irradicable conviction of responsibility, which it stamped in the very life-blood of his heart. He might persuade himself that he believed it to be false; he might say, as he had often said before, that it was the mere effect of early impressions; but the awful inspiration rose up still, and, in spite of all he could think, say, or do, would win and fasten on his attention.

Whoever has looked close into his own heart, in the silence of midnight, when its admirable machinery may be best observed, will have noted how hard it is to fix it on any one thought, and what a variety of ideas assail us at once. Can he see in this distraction no trace of supernatural influences? When, in spite of his very utmost exertion, the thought that he would pursue is suddenly invaded by another--when the good intention he would dwell upon becomes associated with corruption--when his virtuous resolution is overtaken by an allurement to vice, his best and most generous sympathies, as they are on the very eve of ripening into effect, stifled by an egregious vanity--does he not, in this situation, feel that he is of himself like a mariner without a compass, and that his heart needs a higher and greater Power at its helm? If he be a reasonable being, such must, beyond all dispute, be his natural conclusion; and he will feel no less assured, that that Power is at his hand, and only awaits his invocation to lend him effectual succour.

Even Shedlock was not abandoned. Nature, bursting the trammels he had imposed upon her, unfolded herself to his eye in her native perfectness; conscience sought to arouse him to the truth; but now, when a last hope was extended to him, he wished to believe it false; and what should have prostrated him in adoration, overwhelmed him with horror.

The awful adventure of the morning had unnerved him, and, in the superstitious spirit already ascribed to him, he thought that the apparition of his wife, which he believed it to have revealed, was a warning that his own end was approaching. How could he die?--he, whose whole life, as far as his memory could carry him back, had been one course of guilt? Yet why could he not die, if to die, as he persuaded himself he believed, were to end--to dissolve into the elements, and be no more? There was a doubt--a craven doubt,--and that withheld him.

When Abigail and her two helpmates proceeded to his deceased wife’s chamber, and he was thus, as he believed, protected from a repetition of his recent ghostly adventure, he ventured to return to his dormitory. A bible was lying on his toilet-table, and, on his entry, was the first object that, in his survey of the chamber, seemed to interest him. It was open, and, after musing a moment, something whispered him, in pursuance of the thoughts he had been following, that it was a book of lies, and he determined to shut it up. He approached it with that view; but, as he caught up the cover, his eye involuntarily turned on the open page, and there read these words--“Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee!”

Shedlock drew back appalled. In the mood he was in, the passage appeared to him like “the handwriting on the wall;” and yet, by a singular and unaccountable infatuation, he rejected the authority of the volume by which it was furnished. He tried to ponder on other things, but, the more he sought to divert his thoughts, the more did the one terrible fear of death, which had taken possession of his heart, grow and twine round them, and taint each individual reflection with its harrowing horror.

He became even more unnerved on the approach of night. Afraid to remain alone, he directed Zedekiah, in a tone that admitted of no question, to make up another bed in his chamber, and there watch him during the night. His injunction was fulfilled, but the precaution suggested by his fears, and from which he had hoped to have derived a degree of assurance, had no effect on his mind, and, however he might strive to compose it, it still would offer no thought but the one racking anticipation of approaching death.

He was quite without hope: even life itself, if it should be extended to him, had lost its charm--it could no more present to him the image of reality. As this reflection occurred to him, his heart burned again, and he asked himself why, if it were to bear on him like a burden, he should continue to endure life. Only the fear of what might succeed it could make it any way tolerable. Did he believe, then, that it was but the prelude to another existence? No! certainly not! For what reason, then, should he cling to it?

Such were the speculations that, almost in spite of his own will, shot through his fevered mind, over and over again, as he tossed restlessly on his pillow. He tried to shake them off, but they held to him, notwithstanding, with the grasp of giants. Thus, sweating with horror, he continued till near midnight: the burden then surpassed all endurance; and, muttering a blasphemous execration, he sprang from the bed, and staggered out on the floor.

As he came to a stand, he fell back against the toilet-table. He was about to raise himself, when his hand, in moving round the table, knocked against some extraneous substance, and he caught it up. It was a razor.

“’Twere a good thing, now, to end all,” he said.

Thus speaking, he drew the razor open, and raised it to his throat. He paused a moment, and then, with a perfectly steady hand, dashed the deadly blade into his flesh, and cut his throat right across. A loud yell rang in his ear, and he fell back a corpse.